I believe that everyone is at different stages and traveling at different paces in their life.  This is (partly) why I decided to blog.  

We all stop traveling when we halt our willingness to learn.  But if we continue to educate ourself, constantly trying to become the “best version of myself” as Matthew Kelly says it, how can anyone ever fault us?  They can’t.  

In our journey through life, we will be criticized, mocked, laughed at and insulted simply for showing that we are trying to grow.

I take it in stride. I am not ashamed to learn.  I am not afraid to be wrong.  I want to know the difference between right and wrong.  There IS a wrong, and there IS a right.  The weak belief that everything is relative only opens the doors to apathy and ignorance. Apathy and ignorance don’t fare well in the face of education and self betterment.  

I believe in reading.

I believe that if one has the immense privilege of knowing how to read, one should never take it for granted.  
Reading teaches us tact, politeness, consideration for others… reading teaches us about love.  Love is an inexhaustible source of education.  True love. God’s love.
Love and life go hand in hand to me.  

Without love, life is worthless; life is death.  And life is never worthless.  Because of love, we live. Every living person is an image of God’s love.  Every living human being deserves the right to life.  Because we cannot see the future, or the potential of a human being’s life does not mean that we have a right to destroy it.  That life is from love.  God thought to bring that life into existence, so there must be a reason for being, even though we cannot see it.

I have always been pro-life.  
I became pregnant one month before I turned 24 years old.  The man I was dating is now my husband.  We tried to avoid premarital relations, but without true understanding of its real purpose, and that caused our failing.

We refused to utilize barriers or artificial birth control, knowing the health risks involved, and understanding fully how artificial contraceptives have the very real possibility to terminate a newly created human life in the earliest of vulnerable stages.  
We chose life.  We chose love.

We were blessed with our first son. We have been blessed with a second son.  And we are blessed yet again with a third son who is due to be born in September of this year.  
In understanding and continually educating ourselves about authentic love, God’s love, we are open to new life.  This doesn’t mean we recklessly procreate with no sight.  We use NFP.  But because we understand the design of Love, we welcome any life that is created between the two of us, and God.    
I am proud and filled with joy to be able to say that my husband and I will know every single child we bring into this world.  

A contraceptive pill or device negates that ability. 

This is why I write.  Because I did not know these things.  Because until the past few years I was traveling at a slower pace in a different place in my journey; not fully educating myself, not fully open to being corrected.  I was angry, I was unfulfilled, I was unwilling to admit that I was confused.  I wanted to be right.  I was cold and bitter.  I was sarcastic and uncharitable.  I looked at others and assumed wrong, unjust things about them.

In my blog, I hope to give glimpses into my plunge through the threshold of these unloving character traits I had harbored, my submergence into a life of love.  

It is a work always in progress; one of striving for peace and love and life.  

I can now look at people- even the ones who insult me with the crudest of language -and smile (inside), knowing they’re just traveling at a different pace in a different place, like I am.  If I can give them a chance, they too, want to know more about love, just as I have and continue to do.

I am blessed with love, words, and a beautiful family.  
But I do not have everything.  
We don’t own a cute little puppy and I don’t live the assumed “soccer mom” life, driving around a minivan.

In fact, I haven’t had a car for nearly 3 years.  We have one car and my husband uses it to drive to work.  To work very hard for us, so that we CAN buy a car.

At the moment, our oven works, but is on its death bed.  
But I have a crock pot!
And some very wonderful friends gave us a grill a few months ago.
 

The most recent photo of my familia on our son’s 3rd birthday <3 My prego belly is hiding behind Baby E.