Notes for This Episode

Background

• I would like this episode to be an opportunity for reflection, and if you are able to, do your best to exhale, relax and get quiet.

Some Clarifying, Reflective Questions

• What kind of woman do you want to be?
  • Name the virtues – kind, patient, faith-fill, empathetic, growth-oriented, honest
• What kind of wife do you want to be?
• What kind of mother do you want to be?
  • Go to the positive and do not dwell on the mother you are not, the one you wish you were.
  • What kind of friend do you want to be and what does your family life look like in 5, 10, maybe even 20 years?

A Good Place to Start

• “Don’t let your life be barren.  Be useful…Shine forth with the torch of your faith and your love.” – St. Josemaria Escriva
• Sometimes we think we have to go do something bigger in the world than be right where we are right now, but I want you to consider and understand the profound importance of your role in the world and how your role in your family can actually change the world.
• “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” – William Ross Wallace
• Do we really understand the simple yet profound power we have in our roles as wives and mothers?
  • We feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, give shelter to the travelers, care for the sick, we visit the imprisoned, and sometimes we bury the dead and sometimes the dead are our own children.

The Power of Motherhood

• Day in and day out we do all of these things for years on end, and yet so many women are blind to how important their daily tasks of caring for and tending to and nurturing a family really are.
• This is serious business and your children depend on you.
• Society depends on your understanding the importance of your role and embracing it with strength and perseverance.
• Pope John Paul II said, “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.”
  • Who is the heart of the family?  We are.  We are the nurturer, spiritual heart of the family, we are the rock.
  • We are the teacher in physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual things.
  • We encourage and are their cheerleader.

Our Weakness as Women

• Our weakness is we can do it all ourselves, and when we fail, we label it “overwhelmed”, “stressed”, and “anxious”.
• In order to fully reach our potential, we have to let go, we have to let go of control of being a victim to our feelings and of trying to put our head down and get it all done by ourselves.
• We have to let go of being the martyr and doing it all.

Prayer – An Absolute Must

• Do not think you don’t have time for prayer – you do, you just have to make it a priority.
• In order to do this big massive job of being a wife and mother and blaze a trail and make your life mean something beautiful and illuminating, you have to humble yourself before your God and ask Him to help you.
  • In order to take His help, you have to give Him your will.
  • The only thing we can give to God that He doesn’t already have is our will, and He will not take it from us.  He wants it to be freely given.

How Does God Want You to Live Your Life?

• Do not let the world tell you how you should live your life or who you should be.  Let the Creator of the Universe, Who loves you more than humanly possible to understand, tell you how to live your life and who you can be.
• Be open and available to all He has to offer you to live a joy-filled life and create that bright and cheerful home.

Make a Plan

• Prayer is about relationship.  It is about connection with God and about getting to know Him.
• The first thing you must do is make a plan and write it down the night before.
  • If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
• As soon as you think that prayer is not going to help you become a better wife and mother, it will not.
• Start with 15 minutes and just with God.
  • Take out the New Testament and reflect on different passages.
  • If you go to www.janetquinlan.com/spiritualbooks, you will get a list of 50 excellent spiritual reading books.
    • Spend a minute or two reading a passage and then ask God, “What do You want me to know about this?  How can I apply this to my life?”

Final Thoughts

• What if by praying, you could be the woman who can keep her house clean? You could be the woman who shows up loving and affectionate with her husband?
• What if prayer actually keeps you calm enough so that you don’t yell and scream at the children, but you discipline them with virtue?
• Life is exhausting, but prayer soothes and eases the burden of exhaustion and allows us to see the joy in this job, this calling of motherhood.
• “And what is the secret of perseverance?  Love.  Fall in Love, and you will not leave him.” – St. Josemaria Escriva