Each of our kids has a unique, specific, beautiful particularity, and our job as moms is to help that grow. Haley Stewart, mom of four, wife of a whiskey distiller, and editor of Word on Fire Spark, a children’s imprint, is a mom who celebrates and invests in the unique beauty of her children, and she shares how we can embrace that journey with joy, patience, and an awareness of the eternal nature of the work we do, as moms. 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HaleyCarrots

Substack: https://haleystewart.substack.com/

Word on Fire SPARK: https://books.wordonfire.org/sparkwaitlist

This episode is supported by National Council of Catholic Women, www.nccw.org

An OSV Podcasts original. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

Motherhood is a lifetime lesson in detachment, a constant recognition that we only have so much control. Moms tend gardens where the Lord grows something remarkable, and religious sisters tend those gardens in beautiful, humble, and often unseen ways. Sister Josephine Garrett, a religious sister, mental health counselor, and author shares how she has learned how to hold her spiritual motherhood and spiritual children lightly, rather than grasp and clench with a spirit of control. Those lessons in holding lightly can benefit us all. 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SJOSEPHINE_CSFN
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sr_josephine/

This episode is supported by National Council of Catholic Women, www.nccw.org

An OSV Podcasts original. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

When loss seems to be the theme of your life, and when grief sits heavy in your heart, how do you pick up the pieces and not only carry on, but continue to create beautiful things? After years of infertility, a miscarriage, and then the death of her newborn twins, Laura K. Fanucci sought companionship with the Lord and began to create beautiful things as a result. This is her story. 

Check out Laura and her husband's book: Grieving Together: A Couple’s Journey through Miscarriage

This episode is supported by National Council of Catholic Women, www.nccw.org

An OSV Podcasts original. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

There’s a temptation to “declare absolutes” in motherhood. “I’ll never do that” or “I’ll always do this.” But those absolute statements don’t take the realities and nuance of life, and Elizabeth Nava’s experiences in discerning and making big decisions help shed light on how motherhood is all about adaptability, pivoting, and being willing to change.  

An OSV Podcasts original. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

Marriage is not a walk in the park, NFP does not mean nonstop sex (or no sex), and the Cross we carry as moms can be heavy. But all of that, even in its heaviness, can bring us to some sort of new life in Christ. Emily Frase, founder of FamBase, wanted to create space to have these hard conversations, and to be able to give herself space to feel big feelings about motherhood surprises and struggles, and she’s here to talk about all of it.

Our ad partner for this week's episode is Seven Clues: A Catholic Treasure Hunt by Scott Hahn and Maura Roan McKeegan.

An OSV Podcasts original. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

What happens when you look around your Church and realize something is missing? That representation is not there? You do something about it. At least, that’s what Sarah Ku did. She sought to build, rather than simply criticize. To create a ministry, and work on creating resources, to represent her Asian Catholic heritage, for herself, and her kids, and in the process, discovered something about herself, the way she parents, and what the Church needs most. 

An OSV Podcasts original. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

Motherhood is full - full hands, full diapers, full fridges that hopefully lead to full tummies. In that fullness, a certain amount of juggling has to occur, and how the plates spin and the balls stay up in the air will look different for everyone. But, perhaps there are some ways to manage those full moments, and centralize the crazy so as to be fully joyful. Emily Stimpson Chapman joins us to share about her quick entry into motherhood after many years of waiting, and how she manages those full moments by embracing the fullness with trust, humility, and patience. 

An OSV Podcasts original. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

Moms begin and end each day pondering what they will do and what they perhaps didn’t get done, and weigh the expectations against reality moment by moment. Elizabeth Foss, author, speaker, wife, and mom, shares how the years of raising many kids have helped her to both manage her expectations, navigate her giftedness, and come to a deeper understanding of her own sense of self through the lens of her motherhood.

An OSV Podcasts original. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

The words “this is my body, given up for you” are said at every Mass, and are spoken by every mother, day in and day out, as we wipe and wean and walk with our children through the mess and grime and joy and delight of daily life. How a mother comes to understand this call to sacrifice and gift of self is perhaps the greatest spiritual journey she’ll ever undertake. 

An OSV Podcasts original. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

Mom of 6, Rachel Bulman, reflects on the heavy weight of motherhood, in that we are planting seeds for eternity with the hearts and minds of our children, and how even in the midst of that weighty responsibility, we are called to be intimate with the Lord who loves us, so that we can better love others. 

An OSV Podcasts original. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.