…I mean, even for me, I read all of this, a very condensed summary of why it is Easter deserves a 50 day celebration, and it puts my moments of ‘I don’t understand why this is happening, I don’t know how much God thinks I can handle, I just don’t know what to do, I’d be better off in heaven’ moments to shame…of which I had a major one of just yesterday. It was the kind of day where I was seemingly inconsolable, completely paralyzed at some point where all I could do was just tearfully stare out the window.

….Which brings me back to why I am starting to not run away from suffering, but say thank you. For someone like me who is sensitive to the ills of our world and wants to help change the world in at least 10 different ways each day (it’s true, ask my husband!), it’s honestly a relief that I actually can…not by trying to create a new nonprofit each month, but by offering up my sufferings, trusting that they are perfected in Christ to help those I know in my life. I can help in ways I am not able to and even help those who I know are caught up in Satan’s games and chains that I once were in….

….Family is where it all starts. And if you take just a second to think about your own family, family situations that you know about…would you classify any of them as ‘broken’? It’s been this week that I’ve really reflected on how our societal issues and sufferings, the whole gender ideology and transhumanism stuff, violences against each other and children…to me, it’s all a reflection of the brokenness of the nuclear family, what us Catholics call, the Domestic Church. With all the things my husband and I go through together in any given week, I realize just how much our family is the grounds of which we train and learn how to be good human beings.

…Because of that Lent, the cycles of my life that I was captive to for decades BROKE. I was free! And I fell in love with my saviour, Our Lord…so much so, that I was pretty certain that I was going to happily accept the vocation of living single and for God. I couldn’t see myself joining a religious congregation, but I could see myself living the consecrated life. I was so certain of this, that when I met my husband, I told him that’s what I was planning. And funny enough, he thought he was going to be a priest hehe. That being said, with every Lent since, this season has truly been lifechanging. And every year I realize, that you have to ‘put the work in’ in order for that change to happen.

This reflection comes to you fresh, really, as I’d like my reflections to. I just feel this one is EXTRA fresh as I’ve spent the past couple of weeks crying over this, primarily with feelings that I’m just not doing enough… So this would be a good reflection for anyone who may have trouble embracing the statement below. As my husband so clearly summarized in a talk with me yesterday… The sum of your worth is not the sum of your works…

I can’t tell you the number of times my husband and I have tried to pick back up our video blog, the number of iterations we’ve been through trying to come up with some new novel way to share our journey now that we have daughter. This is what we have decided – for me to keep up a journal, since I love to write while my husband copyedits.

It has been way too long since our last recording! In that time, we have faced quite a storm of spiritual battles and we realized there was quite a lot we learned about facing such season - as a team. It’s one thing to go through tough times alone, but having someone else to accompany you on that journey, especially a loved one, definitely takes patience, perseverance, and A LOT of prayer. This episode we go over briefly our take on the source of our spiritual trials, then dive into a reflection of the practical steps each of us takes to help the other in our tough times. Paul also shares a little about what his trial was about (relating to the Eucharist). May we continue praying for each other as we walk this earthly journey, especially for the courage to seek the Lord and Our Blessed Mother to provide us with the strength and patience we sometimes don’t have in our trials, so we can continuously grow stronger in our faith and ever more resemble who God created us to be.

Happy New Year!! In our holiday season, we admittedly watched quite a bit about dog training (even though we don’t even have a dog!) and one reoccurring theme we noticed was the impacts of buried past traumas on the emotional energy dog owners gave off to their dogs. And it really had us reflect on how much we, as a society, are never really encouraged to speak out loud about our sufferings. The result - ripple effects that impact relationships, to the point of breaking down families. In the months prior to getting married, we spend that time laying out on the table each of our sufferings and traumas (e.g. sexual assaults, pornography addiction) and we’d like to share that with you in this episode. Us being vulnerable to each other was truly the vehicle through which God was able to heal our deep wounds and in turn, we were able to experience how to love and be loved more fully and purely. We pray this could be a year of healing for you as well and that you experience God’s love for you in new ways!

Wishing you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas Season and a Happy New Year!!

Yet again, we found it a bit difficult to record and edit an episode for this week. So we’d like to alternatively share with you a reflection sparked by pure appreciate and gratitude of how God has moved in our lives, and now has moved us to by beyond excited to start our family. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that Sandra was not ready to have children.

Whether there is an impromptu run to the grocery store (where this lesson started for us), inconveniently-timed mishaps, or heart-dropping life events, how we respond to these unexpected events can be the difference between increased suffering and heartache or opening up to (the usually hidden) opportunities for personal growth. And that’s an ongoing lesson for us - we can choose to fight or (try to) run away from our unexpected struggles OR surrender and open up to God’s divine help that can give us exactly what we need to make it through the hills and valleys of life. There’s also power in offering up our sufferings, giving our tears and scars meaning and purpose.

Paul came home one day and told me a story about how he went from avoiding to eat a donut from the teacher’s lounge to eating a whole one. I told him - that’s our next episode! The parallelism to how we get sucked into doing things we had no intention of doing at all is uncanny! We hope you enjoy this lesson as much as we did. It was a great reminder in being able to identify when and how we enter moments and situations that end up not so good. It also filled us with such gratitude in being able to identify the playbooks used against us on a day to day basis, to do things that don’t seem so bad in the out-front. One we didn’t mention in the video is gossiping.

We admittedly were not able to get an episode recorded for you this week - we do apologize. The First Trimester rollercoaster is in full effect! We did, however, wanted to share this special note from one of our past guests, our sister, Sister Isabelle! She is currently in the Franciscan Sisters, TOR mission house in Austria and she just returned from a special trip with their Franciscan University study-abroad students. And guess what? She had the honor of conducting the students in a private audience for Pope Francis! Her quick email to us is below with the beautiful pictures her students took of her :)

Last week, I (Sandra) had a bit of an emotional overpour that was triggered by a sink full of dishes. What got me here? Bottling up emotions, a practice that we try to avoid. Through the choppy waters, however, we were given a beautiful reminder on the beautiful fruits of active listening.

Last week, I (Sandra) had a bit of an emotional overpour that was triggered by a sink full of dishes. What got me here? Bottling up emotions, a practice that we try to avoid. Through the choppy waters, however, we were given a beautiful reminder on the beautiful fruits of active listening.

But, but, but - we really need this! Last week, we went through a journey of deciding whether we should buy a second car and a bigger house (for our to-be family - yes, we’re pregnant!). In the end, we decided not to do any of the two! Join us to hear on how we came to that decision and the lessons we learned about how our longing hearts for better and for more can misguide us in our discernments of needs vs. wants.

Pride - the cause of our first fall as humanity. It continues to be one of the sneakiest ways we fall. We discovered this week just how tricky it is to even identify pride and also how big of a gateway it is to falling in many other ways. In this episode, you’ll hear each of us speak on how we got ourself caught in its traps. Pride surely is a dangerous and heavy package, but its antidote of humility frees us from its traps.

We’re back! We’re a little rusty, but it made for lots of giggles in this episode! We’re taking a new spin to our podcast, and now using it to reflect on what we learned the previous week. Last week’s lesson for us - we all need to rest!

We’ll just tell you…it’s the Holy Spirit! We’d like to share with you our basic understanding of who the Holy Spirit is, tell you how the Spirit plays such an integral role in our lives, and we hope by the end, you’ll be inspired to invoke the Holy Spirit more. You’ll be blown away with what you are able to do when you take a step back, tap into God’s divine intelligence, and let the Holy Spirit step into the spotlight!

We all have longings in our hearts that often lead us away from the fulfillment we truly seek. In this episode, we talk about why we always sell ourselves short of the real joy we yearn for and the practical ways we were able to encounter real joy and keep it flowing in our lives!