From a Word from Becky, my monthly newsletter to my readers
Dear friends,
It’s birthday week in our house! Today is our youngest daughter, Mary’s 11th birthday. Sunday, we celebrated Brady’s 18th birthday. My heart wells with love for them and with gratitude for the gifts they are in my life. And of course, our middle daughter, Abby, too will be 16 in June.
Brady’s birthday marks my motherhood birthday also. I find as his birthday approaches, I begin pondering this “big V” Vocational call in my life…marriage and motherhood. Two stories surfaced these past weeks that I continue to savor.
One moment was the day I was walking around Target shopping for a gift for my friend. Chris and I had hoped for a family for some time, but we had not yet gotten pregnant. As I walked the store looking for the right gift, I walked by the baby section and this overwhelming feeling of love grabbed hold of me. Along with this feeling of love, I felt a strong desire to be a mother. It was a moment as Ignatius calls in Rule 2 of the Second Set of Rules of Discernment “consolation without preceding cause”. It was unexpected, sudden, and absorbed me with such love and peace in a way that I can still remember it and feel it as I type this. In that moment, I knew that God was letting me know my call to be a mother. Thankfully, about 12 months after this moment, our beautiful son was born. This moment’s grace carries me through every day God gives me to live my call to be a mom. The bone-deep knowing God gave me in Target that day has helped me continuing to choose this Vocation to motherhood for 18 years and widening my heart to love not only Brady, but Abby when she was born two years after him, and Mary who was born five years after Abby.
The second moment that God brought to my memory to savor these last weeks happened 8 weeks after Brady was born. I was helping facilitate the first Charis Ministries retreat in the Diocese of Baton Rouge. Just prior to his birth, I worked at the Diocese of Baton Rouge, and we received a grant to bring Charis Retreats, Ignatian retreats for those in their 20s and 30s, to our diocese. We had set the date in April 2007 long before I knew I was pregnant. Chris and I talked many times about how in the world we were going to make a retreat work while nursing an 8-week-old. Chris was on the retreat team as well. The weekend of the retreat, with the help of my grandparents, God showed us the way. Chris would bring me Brady to nurse. We would hang out with him for a bit, and then Chris would bring him to my grandparents to take care of until the next feeding. Brady stayed with us in the retreat house that night.
All the while the first Charis Retreat unfolded beautifully in our diocese. At the closing mass in the St. Joseph Chapel, I had another overwhelming, unexpected moment as I knelt during mass. Out of the blue, I heard the words, “It’s a both/and, Becky.” I remember pausing and opening my eyes because the words felt so clear in me. I closed my eyes again, and I heard again, “it’s a both/and, Becky. I will show you the way.” I asked God what do you mean? In that moment, I got this felt deep sense of call…to marriage and motherhood and ministry. I did not even know I needed God to affirm these calls in me that day, but God did. And I told God, “Yes! I’m in!”
I hold the graces of this moment very close to my heart still to this day. I stand on the promise God made me 18 years ago that if I say yes to these calls of my life, God will show me the way. And you know what? God has done that! Motherhood has changed many times over in 18 years. So has our marriage. And goodness knows ministry has!
Both moments illustrate those amazing gifts that God surprises us with sometimes. Again, Ignatius calls them “consolation without preceding cause”. They saturate our hearts, anchor us into promises, and affirm our Vocational calls. This is the wisdom of the Second Set of Rules of Discernment that helps us find out way with God as we deepen in our faith lives. Ignatius helps us know through these 8 rules in the second set of how to find our “good and holy thing” that God is asking of us from all the many “good and holy things” we could do. I am thankful God showed me mine and keeps helping me sort out what this both/and looks like in my life.
What about you? Do you have moments like this in your life? Where you just knew without a doubt what God was asking of you? What are they? I would love to hear them! Even if you do not share them, savor them this next month as we prepare to head into Lent.
Know I am praying for you always!
Peace,
Becky
Photo by Dmitry Rodionov on Unsplash
Becky Eldredge
February 27, 2025