So, it looks like my book officially comes out NEXT WEEK! It might not be shipping from Amazon until the week after but it's finally here!! It's still surreal but I think for the first time the other day, I actually felt the tiniest bit moved by the emotion of it all. I wrote a book and several hundred pages of my words are actually going to be in people's hands, words that I hope will be a help to babies, mothers, and families and that ultimately will glorify Him.

You know, it's funny because when I was trying to forecast things months and months ago it just seemed obvious to me that I wanted to steer clear of Lent and Holy Week for book release stuff. But I didn't and still don't have much control over the release and kept handing it back (over and over) into God's hands. If this was what He wanted from me, then He would pick the perfect timing for everything.

And you know what?! HE DID. He totally did. My book is coming out Easter Week. Is there a better time to celebrate new life and a book all about new life coming into the world than Easter Week?!

But it gets even better. In the book I talk about the paschal mystery of birth. In our very bodies, we as women replicate the Paschal Mystery of Christ. There really is no other bodily act we participate in on earth that so symbolically reflects the reality of Christ's Passion, Death, and Resurrection than childbirth. Want to know what my dear Saint John Paul the Great said?

He calls childbirth and "paschal sign" and then goes on to say, "The birth of a new child fully reflects the victory of life over death brought about by the Lord's Resurrection. This comparison can provide us material for reflection." (Letter to Families, 11)
Fully reflects. Childbirth is so important and meaningful that it fully reflects Christ's victory over death on Easter Sunday. In birth - no matter what kind - her body literally becomes the passageway for new life to enter into the world. It is a new Easter. But that entrance involves sacrifice to the point of her own blood being spilled for the sake of life. She in her body lives out her own little paschal mystery, her own participation in His work on Calvary. And of course, Christ Himself compares the hour of His death to the "hour" of a woman in labor (John 16:21). I hope and pray that this little book of mine can be a small answer to that invitation of that great and holy man to reflect more upon this paschal mystery of childbirth.

And now it becomes staggeringly obvious to me why this book is coming out now, why Lent has involved a new intensity within our family and my own heart, why the last pangs and pushes will happen during Holy Week, why a book about entering into the mystery of birth and inviting God into our experience of it would come out during Easter. And also why there is no need for me to feel "guilty" about sharing book release news now during Holy Week. Duh, Mary. He always knows better than you.


The calvary of motherhood, the sacrifice of self, the offering of her very body, all of it so intrinsically united to the Paschal Mystery of Christ that we honor this Holy Week.

And it's not done there. This year something strange happens. This year, the Solemnity of the Annunciation needed to be moved in deference to Palm Sunday. And so this year we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation nine days after Easter. This feast day that I secretly hoped would be the release day and which celebrates the very beginning of Christ's entrance into the world is now somewhat incorporated into and will in a way "close" our Eastertide celebration. Nine days, nine months. New Life to New Life. He's giving me the best of everything - the celebration of both new life in Christ's Resurrection and in the physical womb of Mary will be the time when this book that (I hope!) honors both is birthed. It's enough to move me to tears. This project from day one has been completely and totally His and it's in these ways that He shows me it still is.

And now...onto some book news that I wanted to share here:

I was recently on the Fountains of Carrots podcast sharing about the book and embracing birth as Catholic women. It was SO FUN talking with Haley and Christy and I probably could've talked all afternoon!









And finally, I hope you have an abundantly blessed and holy Holy Week. May your heart be drawn by Love into the mystery of Christ's Passion and Death and in that way more fully experience the joy and life and redemption that is Easter.