Hello again, everyone.
Around the beginning of the Lenten season, I saw a post here that convicted me to stay away from social media for Lent. Not just Facebook and insta, but reddit as well. I felt like I just needed to turn the outside world off and focus more on my faith journey and my family. This is the first time I've actually observed Lent. Our youngest child ended up really sick with Flu A (despite vaccination) and we ended up in the ER a week after diagnosis due to returned fever, lethargy, and concern about secondary pneumonia. She ended up fine. But the very following week, on Feb 28, the US-Iran War kicked off. My spouse was in Bahrain at that time and it was -- without a doubt-- the scariest "deployment" we've ever endured. He wasn't even deployed at the time, just on temporary duty, so it was totally unexpected that he was involved in combat at all. Without boring everyone with all the details, my two children (8 and 3) and I spent all of March living with my brother and his family because I was a mess over the war. I read the Bible almost every day. I used the BCP and prayed for protection for my husband and for reconciliation for our enemies regularly. The season of Lent was such a challenge for me this year....but then Lent ended April 2. My husband returned home on April 6. It's almost if my very first observance of Lent was, for lack of a better word, designed? What better way to remind me of my own mortality than a sick child and a spouse in a war zone?
I leaned on God a lot in March. More than I ever thought I would, if I'm being honest. It sort of solidified things for me and my children and I got baptized this past Sunday, 5/3. My spouse was raised Catholic and will be received into TEC next month when the bishop visits. Just...what a wild, strange ride this has been since last year when I started earnestly seeking God.