My Car Radio Conversion Story

Some people have a religion conversion story, for me I've always been Catholic. I do however have a car radio conversion story. While not quite as serious, I thought it was an interesting journey that I was on. I only saw the journey after I went through these phases and now look back. I might still be journeying but that is for the future to decide.

I grew up on country music. It's what my family listened to in the car while we were driving anywhere. It didn't matter if we were going on a short drive into town or a long drive to see relatives, the radio was always on and country was playing. As a young teenager I got a CD player and most of Martina McBride's CDs; she became my favorite artist to listen to. I listened to CDs instead of the radio in the family vehicle on longer trips. Car radio is where I have always heard most of my music, but in high school I got an iPod to take on long walks. Country was on my iPod too, at first. My parents gave me a new CD, an artist similar to Martina McBride's style but Natalie Grant is a Christian singer. I liked her music and hadn't realized there was a Christian music genre until that point. From there my iPod gained some new music from WOW Worship CDs and others I got at a youth church conference.

I can't remember how I found the local Christian radio station, so it must have been channel surfing, but I was delighted when I realized some of my new music was on a local station. From then on I changed the station of every vehicle I drove from the old familiar country music to the new Christian music I was quickly falling in love with. Since I didn't have my own vehicle yet I got to drive a variety of my family's vehicles and change all their stations. I got to drive my siblings to school and even though they complained about my station I decide the driver gets to pick. Eventually I converted them to loving my local Christian station as well.

When I went to college in the town the station is based in, I got a window sticker from the station for my car so that other people would know about the great station I had found. Because of my window sticker, I started paying more attention to other window stickers on vehicles around me. After about five years I was driving like it was any other day. I saw another vehicle with the window sticker for the local affiliate to the Catholic radio station. I had been seeing these stickers from the beginning as many people at church have them but I never thought to go listen to the station. That day was different, and I began my latest radio station conversion.

I turned to the local Catholic station and heard EWTN, a global Catholic radio network

I still really love country music, it sounds like home to me. I also really love Christian music with all the great lyrics and wonderful praise and worship moments. But I was a new mother working away from home and feeling like I had not enough time with my family, which lead to not enough time to personally learn and grow in my Catholic faith. Listening to EWTN, from the very first day, is pouring a water of knowledge on my parched desert brain that was thirsting for more knowledge to grow a fruitful faith life. I liked the Christian station better than country music because it brought me up and focused my thoughts on the joy of knowing a loving God. I love EWTN because it answers questions I didn't know to ask, and answers questions that people in my life later ask me. I love EWTN because it brings my thoughts daily to what I can do to be a better Catholic and in doing so grow closer to God. I love to listen to heart warming stories and bits of people's lives as they seek the help of the station that is such a great theological resource to so many people. I love the opportunity to pray for those who call in who are hurting, I'm connected to a larger network of God's family and can lift my thoughts above myself to others.

I used to have a hard time at my job with office chatter distracting me or causing headaches as I tried to focus on my work. I tried listening to my Christian radio station but the music caused headaches as well. White noise did no good and I was miserable. When I listen to EWTN I'm not distracted from my work and the voices mask the office chatter not by volume but because they're both voices. It might seem a small thing, and an unusual solution, but it has been wonderful for my head and my soul.

On my radio station journey I've realized that time spent driving can be a marvelous time to do more than listen to feel good songs. It can be a time to learn and grow personally. Since I personally set aside the song stations I realized that God gave me the time I spend driving as a personal prayer time as well. In this busy time in my life I found my perfect radio station for driving, which is none. In the silent journeys to and from work I can disconnect from the noise that used to mask the time and listen to hear God speaking to me. And when I need a radio station at work, EWTN is there to help me as I stumble toward sainthood. Some people really connect with music, and can use it as a tool to connect themselves with God. For me and possibly many others it can be a distraction from what is truly important.

Putting Life into Perspective: The Good Guy Always Wins

As a 'cradle Catholic', I've always kinda figured that someday I'll die and go to heaven. Life after death is a heavy topic for a child but I knew that heaven is for the good guys and hell for the bad guys and I was obviously a good guy. So that was all I really thought about for the most part. I had to worry about growing up and making the right choices and doing the right things. I had to worry about all the terrible things in the world on the news and worry that some terrible thing would reach my family too. But what I forgot was Jesus is THE good guy, and the good guy always wins. When watching movies it's easy to enjoy the show and not worry about any difficulties that happen or worry that tragic things will happen, because I always know there will be a happy ending. Somehow I failed to bring that assurance into real life. Jesus has already conquered sin and death. Because I didn't think about heaven or the end of my story much at all I wasn't able to put all my worries in the trust that my good guy Jesus would make sure there is a happy ending.

Soon I was grown, engaged, and meeting with the awesome priest who agreed to witness our marriage. He asked us what the goal of life is; I didn't know the answer. My mind started down the path of thinking it had something to do with obeying God but the priest didn't leave us hanging for too long. He said the goal of life is to get to heaven. And the goal of marriage is to get your spouse to heaven. That's one of those answers that makes me realize of course, I knew that, it's really very obvious! I probably knew it all along, but that was seriously the first time in my life that I really thought about it.

My fantastic mother-in-law sometimes says things along the lines of, "Will it get you to heaven?" when there is an argument, which I think is a great sentiment for putting things into perspective. Every time she says it I am reminded again that I should be putting aside worries and arguments about things that really don't matter if I can just step back a pace and see the bigger picture. The first time I heard her say that I felt stunned by what a fantastic question it is. I also felt sad that whatever argument I had been a part of that felt so important to me was really not important on a grand scale, I had to let go. Sometimes when I hear that question I still feel the sadness of my sinful nature cling to me, I really want my small worries to matter, since they feel like they matter so much to me. Letting go is a part of my journey now.

I feel like I've just noticed a set of goggles that have been sitting on a side table my whole life. I might have put the goggles on a few times as a child but don't remember the experience. Now I have examined the goggles and see that if I wear them they make the world look as it should. The problem is I have to hold up the goggles, they don't stay over my eyes by themselves. And I'm so busy and distracted moving about through life that I often set the goggles down again absentmindedly and forget about them for a while. These goggles are the perspective on life that God wants me to have, like seeing things through His eyes. Reminders in life that get me putting life into perspective once more are like a glint of sunlight on the goggles reminding me to look through them. I pray that I might find the straps that belong with the goggles to keep them always over my eyes and correcting my vision, keeping me focused on the big picture and the end of the story, where I must stand before judgement. At the end of my story I will know and truly understand all that Jesus did as the good guy of my story in saving me. A motto from one of my favorite radio shows, Catholic Answers Live, is "Be a saint, what else is there?". These very true questions will be a start in my journey to put my life into perspective.

Understanding Suffering

I've been such a fool. I don't understand suffering. I'm not sure anyone really understands suffering completely, but people like Saint John Paul II had a pretty good handle on it when he wrote his encyclical on suffering. I read that. I prayed. I talked to my dear sister and a few other people. I read Saint Giana's story when hearing her name on the radio made me cry. I prayed that Saint Giana would tell me why she made her decision to not take pain medication near the end of her life. I've been a Catholic since before the age of reason and seen countless reenactments of the passion of our Lord Jesus. I lost a child to miscarriage, and gave birth to our second without any pain medication. But through this all, I'm still all muddled up and confused about suffering.

I've had a haunting feeling the past 11 months that I didn't give birth right. Yes I declined the medication and yes our daughter was born healthy and everything was fine. Yet I had so much pain and I didn't do anything with it. I'm not happy at all to say I tried to give up near the end. Somehow it made sense that if I were to just lay there and take the pain, someone else could pull the baby out for me. Somehow I thought if I cried mercy they would shoot some pain killers into my system and take away all that pain. Instead I had to suffer through it. I had to be the one to keep moving forward even when it hurt.

There are a few things I do know about suffering. Suffering can be an effect of a poor choice made, as in a hangover after a night of drinking. It can be less well explained too, as any person quickly learns the first time they fall ill as a child, or lose someone close to them. I know of the great virtue that can come of these sufferings, personal gain. The leap of understanding that I'm still struggling with is how my suffering can be of any use to another person, as with redemptive suffering. I understand that deciding to offer the suffering up for something or someone can make the suffering sweet. In some contexts, suffering has a direct positive that can be seen, such as when a mother does not eat so that her children can have food, or does not get life saving cancer treatment to save the life of the baby in her womb instead. These sufferings are the easiest for me to understand, and I think many people would say the same. But even as I understand that, I've missed out on so much opportunity in my lifetime already because of two things I missed.

I thought that none of my suffering has been a situation of direct positive. If I have a sore neck, or stub my toe, or am exhausted from staying up too late the night before, that's my problem, or so I used to think. Being tired I didn't complain about because I figured I brought it on myself. Stubbing my toe usually is a quick pain that one loud complaint of 'ooowwwwweee' will fix, and then I can move on. A lasting sore neck just put me out of sorts, making me easily angered at other people around me and prone to complaining about my pain. But I realize now that I was wrong. My suffering isn't a personal problem, by complaining or growing angry I made it a problem for those around me as well. I can offer my action of not complaining in order to make life more pleasant for those around me. Though it will be hard to break old habits I'm willing to try.

My pride is a tricky beast. Just when I think that I'm on the heaven path again I realize with shame what an utter fool I really am. For some reason I have had myself convinced that I can't keep my suffering completely a secret; someone has to know about it. Why does someone have to know? So that they can write it in my book someday, when I become a saint. It hurts to write those words. The thought makes less sense when spoken plainly, like a dream after waking up. Somehow I got it in my head, hearing about the saints and their struggles, that if no one knows about my suffering then it will not be recorded in my life history. I also had a notion that if I complain to people maybe they'll help take away the suffering. Asking humbly for what I need would have been the right answer there, but now that I have seen this fatal and ever so foolish thought I can remove it from me and return it to the devil who sent it. I have now written this foolish thought so I can no longer pretend I don't realize the error of my ways.

So, do I understand suffering? Not most of it. Some suffering comes from sin, mine or others'. Some comes for unexplained reasons, and instead of asking why I need to trust God in His infinite wisdom. In either case, I know I have choices in how I handle my suffering. I can take it like a sandy beach takes a wave, and let it wash me away bit by bit. I can sit and take the suffering like a rock takes a wave, standing strong and silent but nevertheless becoming weathered with time. Or I can take that wave with a water wheel and turn the energy into something more. Right now I feel like the sand has washed away to reveal a rock, and on that rock I am making a little water wheel, made by hand with sticks from the beach. It's crumbly and a huge wave might knock it over and take it out to sea. It doesn't do much yet, but it's there. I pray that I can keep that wheel spinning, and build it up stronger and better, to do more purposeful things. As my figurative wheel spins with no knowledge of how to use it's energy, I will keep my prayers spinning up to God to ask Him what I'm to do now.

God's Reply

I closed this post saying that I would ask God what I'm to do now. Then one night I couldn't sleep, which is unusual for me. Thoughts kept chasing round and round and my neck ached a bunch until a thought was given to me. I am selfish about my pain. I might not like to suffer, but when I am it consumes my thoughts. I want to let it ruin my whole day and fill my relationships. The thought of offering it Up not only confused me, it sounded like something I didn't really want to do at all. I wanted to keep hold of the suffering so that I could complain about it. 

 Redemptive suffering works because God knows we want to be selfish with our pain, and when we choose to rise above that and give it to Him as an offering for someone else He knows that it was a difficult and selfless gift of our suffering and answers our prayers. He knows, in His infinite wisdom, that it is good for us to be selfless in all things, even suffering, in order to grow in virtue and come closer to Himself. That's why He gives us the power of redemptive suffering. God is good.

A Story of Dog Hair (and How It Disappeared)

Do you ever look back at some of your past purchases and feel very satisfied with your decision to buy? Maybe I'm the only one with that feeling, or maybe you're on the same page as me. Whichever it is, I decided I should share some of my favorite purchases over the past year or so that helped me out in a huge way. No one asked me to write about their products but the links are part of my amazon associates account.


My little family moved in to our first real house a little over a year ago. That would be one husband, one big fat pregnant lady, one baby still baking in that lady's belly, one cat, and one very hairy black lab. The last on that list is where the trouble came in. We don't have a huge amount of carpet in our house, but what we do have is a nice light creamy color, a perfect backdrop for the piles of black hair to lay upon. We moved in with a second hand old hoover vacuum and a standard dog brush.

 I shortly discovered that those tools would not allow us to survive with a giant black house dog. Even though our dog Vader loves to go outside in his beautiful fenced backyard, the house was sure to be filled to the brim with hair within a limited time span. Since I felt this problem had to be solved before our baby was born so the baby could have a clean house to live in, and since moving Vader outside was not an acceptable option for my husband, I did some internet searching for my solution. We were on a budget that did not allow me to buy a new vacuum cleaner, especially not one that would suck up that much hair and not die. Then on Amazon I found my answer:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a $10 rubber broom. That piece of rubber on a stick saved our sanity and budget for about a year. It is a lot more work than just vacuuming, but it gets the job done. 

I will have to say that when we first got it I tried to use the bristle part and was unimpressed. The product pictures on Amazon seem to indicate the bristles should be used. But when we turned it over and used the squeegee side, scrapping it across the carpet, we got clean carpet and a pile of hair to pick up, as shown in the above photo. That photo I actually took a few months after we got the broom, after we cut down the amount of hair with a FURminator. 

Before the FURminator we had about twice the amount of hair on the carpet, and if we didn't brush the carpet twice it still looked pretty black. So back to the internet I went for more solutions and I finally caved and got the much advertised FURminator. This brush is much more expensive than the rubber broom, and more than I thought was worth paying for any brush. But desperate times call for buying gadgets that are cheaper than a new vacuum.

What do you know, the fabulous FURminator works! It is worth that ugly price tag with the huge shedding problem that we had/have. Also, Vader loves it. He lays very flat and still when getting brushed because he thinks if he moves we will stop brushing him.

About the same time as the FURminator my mother was kind enough to gift us a Swiffer Sweep and Trap Floor Cleaner Starter Kit for the hardwood floor. So I found a solution to fit our budget and keep floors clean for the little baby girl who was soon to be crawling upon them. Armed with this solution I began to save money for a nice fancy vacuum that could do the same job and use much less effort. Just recently I finally got my prize, and it was love at first use. This vacuum has been everything it was advertised to be, and more since I didn't see all the bonus features it has on the product page.

I love that I can use this vacuum on the hardwood floors as well, and it works a lot better in that respect than the sweep and trap did.  We still have to vacuum every day because Vader has incredible powers of shedding hair. But now it can be cleaned in much less time and effort. So I have learned there is great value in both the rubber broom and the fancy vacuum. One costs little money and much effort, while the other costs more money and less effort. 

Four doodles

I don't think my art is anything special, or even really passable as an adult's handiwork. But I'm OK with that. When I get the time and inspiration, I doodle regardless of how grown up it looks when I'm finished. These I drew on an iPad mini using a stylus and the app Penultimate. I think many people don't doodle because they have 'no artistic ability' by their own judgement. It doesn't take artistic ability to make a fun doodle. The doodle doesn't have to be shared with anyone, the benefit is in the relaxation and fun of doodling it. So here are my doodles, and my wish is that you might be encouraged to doodle too.

My posture has been slowly declining, and I have found the reason. I drew a little doodle while thinking about how this happened. In high school I had no lap top and was thus required to sit correctly (for the most part) in a desk chair by a desk. In college I got my laptop and was no longer confined to a desk. Instead I could lounge about on couches and chairs, but still for the most part sitting is the easier way to operate such a device. Now I have a smart phone at long last (have had one for a few years but not until I graduated college) and I am no longer even required to sit in order to operate such a device comfortably, which results in long hours of laying in bed or lounging in whatever poor postured position I desire. Good or bad? A very hard question to answer. I'm comfortable in the moment, and love the advances in technology. 

The customer at work has a team of people who decide on the requirements for the app we are writing for them. They named themselves the Tiger Team, so I drew a word art to fit the title during one of our meetings.

An image and message that popped into my head. The bible asks a similar question but I thought it was fun to put it to a doodle.

My coworker had a 42nd birthday party, themed Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy of course. Drew a doodle of the book cover alien. 

My Personal Belief Statement

I am Catholic, which means I believe in the words of the Bible and guidance of the Catechism and Pope. A summary of these beliefs can be found in the Apostle's Creed. Topmost of these is that Jesus died to forgive all of our sins.

In addition to this summary, I would like to highlight some of my Catholic beliefs that seem to not be common knowledge.

• I do not hate lgbt people.
  • I love them as children of God same as everyone, and I respect that while everyone has struggles in life theirs have been made harder by the media and general feeling of today's society. I pray for them.
• I do not worship Mary.
  • She is however one of my favorite people in heaven to talk to, because she is one of the coolest women to ever have lived and is the mother of the Lord who died for my sins. I like having her for a friend, especially now after losing a child I can truly see her strength when she watched Jesus suffer and die on the cross.
• I am also a sinner.
  • One of the beautiful things about being Catholic is I get to have the sacrament of reconciliation (confession of sins) and be forgiven. Over and over again, no matter how far I've fallen. I don't believe that any one person is better or worse for what they've done, just some people need to be shown the way to Jesus so He can forgive them too. Jesus is the best friend a sinner can have.
• I do not exclusively focus on the end of the world.
  • Everyone will die some day. I pray that everyone gets to go to heaven but they get to make that choice for themselves. Jesus will come again some day and we must be prepared, but whether it is the end of the world or just the end of my life in the world makes little difference to me.
• Catholic communion is the real thing.
  • Every other Christian church I know of views communion or the Eucharist or the bread and wine as just bread and wine, a symbol of Jesus's body and blood. We Catholics have the real thing, in an awesome process called transubstantiation the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus. Isn't that awesome?
• I'm not against sex.
  • And I wasn't before I became a married pregnant lady either. Neither is the church. An awesome book that explains my feelings on sex very well is called Holy Sex. (affiliate link below will have more detail)
• • In short, sex is sacred and must take place between a man and woman joined in marriage as God intended. But it is an awesome celebration and should never be seen as a bad or taboo thing. I'm bad at summaries, read a book review instead. A handy one is in the pervious link under the product description.

This is a short summary of what I believe.
Please ask any questions that come to mind, I will do my best to answer clearly. And let me know about other things that non Catholics are not familiar with about the church so I can add them to the list.

Married and Complete

I wrote this at the beginning of June but life is busy when buying a house so I have only had a chance to share it now.


One year now I have been married. It's been forever and only just begun. I'm complete, I've been made whole and yet I've always been whole. I can not believe it has been a year already and yet it seems we have been married forever. Our wedding day was at once a huge change and no change at all, the completion of me and making of my life into the whole piece it was supposed to be. Of course it meant that he didn't have to go home to his family every night, and we had to start planning how to share everything we own, and the list could go on. But it still seemed there was not much of a change. I've never once looked back or regretted the choice to marry my amazing husband. It was not even a choice at all really, more of a certainty that we would have our happily ever after.

My husband cares for me, entertains me, loves me, and gives me a smile when I have none left of my own. He is someone to tease, care for, pray for, and love with my whole heart. He has patience for my annoying ways and makes sure that I have fun instead of working too hard. He even argues with me now, which is a good thing. I have a check and balance and know that he will offer his opinion or an extra bit of logic before I do something foolish or against his wishes. When I think of this past year I am pleased that in the highs and lows he never left my side and was always right where I needed him, supporting me. I'm blessed with this wonderful husband, this feeling of completeness, and this knowledge that I will never even consider leaving him, that we are bonded in a way that we could never break, and that he feels the same. We might make mistakes and become angry with one another but our bond always draws us back to forgiveness and repentance for any wrong doings. No matter how against an idea my husband is he will always hear me out and let me know if my side makes sense as well.

He takes care of me, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Every morning at home he makes me breakfast and on work days packs my lunch. Such a simple service that I could do but it brings me such joy and shows so much of his caring love when he does it. He is always ready with a comforting hand at the slightest sign of a tear or sadness from me and is my favourite shoulder to cry on. Always gentle, he does not judge my reasons for tears and tries to help me see the sunshine again. I once thought that I had clean language but my husband catches any slips that squeak their way out and is a gentle reminder to keep my speech pure. He always reminds me to pray before meals if I were to forget and lets me know special facts about the church that I did not know before. What a gift and blessing this man is to me.

I can't wait for our children to have him as their dad. He will without a doubt be a great father. He will be a great guardian of their safety I know, just in the way he tries to keep me safe and worries for the safety of other children we see if their parents turn their backs for a moment. I know he will guard their  hearts and minds fiercely as he often grows worried about things kids learn in school or from other people. He will be able to teach them things that I never could, like sports, singing, a love of history, and his own way of knowing and loving God. I know we will be a great team in this as we have different but complemeting sets of knowledge and interests. Besides we already work as a great team in preparing our home for the coming of baby.

I pray that many others in the world might experience the same joy, completeness, and certainty in their marriage vocation.