Will Dig Life

My last post about our journey in Catholicism is now nearly two years old ( The Circle Completed: How I became Catholic, kind of again ) and much has happened. After a few recent milestones, it feels like it's time for an update, along with some more thoughts on the whole process. N(8)'s First Holy Communion - with our Priest, Father Colin. In the other post, I talked about why I returned to the Church - at that time, the children had been baptised and Mr. was in RCIA (the year of preparation for becoming Catholic).  We had already done our research, of course, so RCIA wasn't so much about learning new information as it was to get to know the parish and the priest, making connections. Another man in our group turned out to be a convert from a very similar background as us - a small evangelical church close to us, where I had taken the kids for toddler groups in the past. I already knew his wife and daughter from those groups. His wife, like me, had also been a poorly catech...

He was counting down the sleeps, just like at Christmas. When will I be seven?? It's such a sweet, exciting age. So let me tell you a bit about this boy in our family. At Legoland, where we went for his birthday I didn't grow up with boys - I have a sister and four female cousins. So to some extent, boys were a bit of a foreign territory to me... and I never realised just how full of my own ideas I was, until he came along and smashed many of them. Tender Fire That, I think, is the best way I can describe him - his tenderness of heart makes me feel incredibly protective, he takes everything to heart and is easily hurt - he's not learned to harden his heart in protective defense as I did early on. And I marvel at how straightforwardly, fiercely and openly he just loves. Me, in particular. I know I have his heart, completely and trustingly given to me; and the responsibility of that is both terrifying and beautiful. He always wants me in his life. Given a choice, he will alw...