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During these remaining months before we enter the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, Our Lord is very much helping me to transition into this new vocation. I’m very clearly being led from the life of a single, professional young woman into that of a wife and mother (Please God 
!) It has been a most blessed and peaceful time of surrendering, of laying aside the tools of my professional life, including my pink briefcase and planner, to take up new ones.
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And, this morning, in the midst of my journey into this new vocation, Our Lord gave me a precious moment of reminiscence. Where? Well, at the glamorous locale of Whole Foods Grocery. You see, after a rousing walk around Lake Austin, my new friend, Julie, and I were thirsty and stopped in at the local Whole Foods for smoothies. And, as we walked among the rows of organic fruits (we wondered what are lychees) and meats, I was powerfully reminded of another time.
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Once upon a time, during the year following my graduation from ND, I took a job teaching Theology at St. Pius X high school in Albuquerque, NM. It was wonderful! I was a college-grad, had my first apartment, bought my little Volvo, received my first salaried pay-check, and shopped at a Whole Foods grocery. I recall feeling exhilirated, as if I had the world at my feet! I was young and vibrantly alive, and, with my salary, could afford to buy all the organic milk I could drink. Do you know the milk with the happy cow on it? Umm, yeah, I drank gallons of the stuff.
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There’s something a little glamorous about buying groceries at Whole Foods and, just for a moment this morning, sitting at the smoothie counter, I felt sweetly reminiscent and a little saddened. Truly, I’m entering the “New World”, as I prepare to become a wife. I’ll no longer live in my own apartment and buy just the groceries I like. I’ll no longer make a salary that I can fritter away on organic smoothies. In a way I’ve never before known, my life will be spent at the service of others, my beloved husband and precious children, please God. I’m leaving behind the exciting, often-lonely, sometime-selfish life of a twenty-something professional to begin the exciting, abundant, hidden, crucifying, love-filled life of marriage. I can imagine nothing more glorious or terrifying!
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Buying my groceries at Whole Foods was a gift for the season to which it belonged. But, Our Lord can top that! He’s giving me the biggest gift of my life, Devin Rose, and inviting me to receive treasures beyond the scope of my little imagination. Lord, I thank You for all that You’ve given me in these past years, professional experience and networking and grad school and independence and maturation, and I thank You for all that You’ll give in the years to come, “Honey, I’m home” kisses from my sweetheart and a lovely home and sweet baby flutterings in my womb and joy, joy immeasurable. Blessed be God forever. YKC!
Hi Katie and Devin! I’m really enjoying your blog and what a beautiful post today that describes my world as a SAHM of 2 little girls! Saddened a bit that I can only get Jamba Juice smoothies once a year, but pleased to thrill my daughters with Pop-Ice popsicles whenever we want!
I’m friends with the Garcia crew and I was just thinking how God in His Providence has graced me with hearing your story and knowing that I played a small part in it as I was the sponsor of Devin’s sponsor Veronica in RCIA!
Anyway, I hope we can meet someday, Katie. You guys are going to make such a beautiful Holy Family for Our Lord! Enjoy your last days of singlehood as you prepare for the adventure of your life!!!
Your Kingdom Come!
Blair in Aggieland
Wow, I am blessed beyond measure!
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Katie, thank you for this wonderful post, and Blair, thank you for your comment! I just deciphered SAHM to mean Stay At Home Mom–it took me about 40 seconds as I thought that HM meant Homeschooling Mom at first.
Guess I can claim “mommy brain” in realizing while talking to V that she was not your sponsor Devin, but her bro-in-laws! Oops! I think I just remember her going to your confirmation mass. Well, we are still all connected in the Body of Christ and the blessings of St Mary’s! (I’m having a hard time with apostrophes, they won’t work!) [Devin edited--I added them in--sometimes WordPress gets funky.]
On an exciting note that you may have heard, please keep in your prayers this new Order of Diocesan Sisters that is starting at St Mary’s. I am SO excited that hopefully in the future there will be vibrant Sisters in habits nearby for our children to get to know! We had one of the ladies who is discerning for dinner last night and I thought you guys would be as excited as me!
Yes, SAHM is Stay At Home Mom, although I will probably be a Homeschooling Mom too!
Blessings,
Blair
Hi Katie
I really enjoyed this post! May I ask you a question?
When you are married, are you planning on working? Will you be a
stay at home Mom? Will you and Devin homeschool?
I’m just curious. Someday if it’s God’s will for me to marry and
have children, I really hope to be a stay at home Mom too! I have been
a teacher at a daycare for eighteen years in the toddler room and I
really love children! Many of them want hugs and reassurance that Mom
and Dad will be coming back for them soon and some of them call me
Mommy. I tell them “Honey, I’m Ria and not Mommy. You already have a
special Mommy.” There is no way I will ever take that title away from
their Mommies! Do you know what I mean?
May God Bless you.
Maria
Blair, don’t think twice about the sponsor thing–when I read your comment I thought “wow how cool that she was Veronica’s sponsor” and forgot that Veronica was not my sponsor!
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Veronica played a special part in me becoming Catholic which not many people know. It was the summer before I graduated college and most of our friends were away from school at different places, but Veronica and I were taking summer classes.
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I was still an Evangelical Protestant at the time, and Veronica somewhat out of the blue asked if I wanted to go to Chili’s for dinner–she was engaged to Enrique I think or at least they were dating, so we knew each other a bit. I said yes, and we went to Chili’s, and that night Veronica started talking about our Blessed Mother, which would always get me up in arms when I heard mention of her, but at that moment I just felt a deep peace settle over me and I didn’t feel like arguing or debating or disagreeing or anything except listening.
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So we kept talking and that night she gave me Scott Hahn’s conversion story tape from the Mary foundation, which I secretly listened to weeks later and which helped me see that incredibly faithful and intelligent Protestants had converted to Catholicism and had rock-solid reasons for doing so. I entered RCIA that Fall and entered the Church the following Easter (of 2001). Blessed be God forever.
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So Blair, you did have a big part in my conversion!
Well, thanks Devin. V really is a beautiful soul who I’m blessed to know. Blessings and prayers to you guys in your final preparations! So exciting!
To answer Maria’s questions briefly, Devin and I are blessed in that I will be able to serve as a full-time mom and educate our children at home, please God! We’re already designating one of the rooms in our new home (yippee!) as a library and home-schooling room.