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the best of (the worst that was) 2016

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I’ll admit it – I love year-end top 10 lists. Books, movies, you name it, I read it.

So each year I enjoy seeing what were the most-read posts here on Mothering Spirit. And since it’s a quiet week in the blogosphere, I thought you might enjoy catching up on any you might have missed…

a miracle months later

10. You Can Imagine. Let Me Help You. – This remains what I think is the most important post I wrote this year. It got me thinking about all the language we use around grief, suffering, and sympathy. And it made me even more careful to watch my words and use them wisely when speaking to those with hurting hearts.

9. A Eulogy for Maggie and Abby – The fact that so many of you would take a deep breath and read a eulogy for babies you never met gives me overwhelming hope for the human race. Seriously, you folks are the finest on the Internet. And the way you showed up for our family in spades this year – and in home-cooked meals, cards, surprise packages, phone calls, texts, and messages – is burned on my soul.

8. What To Do When A Friend Loses A Baby – I was both heartened and saddened to see how many people shared this post in 2016. It’s now a permanent part of resources I’ve gathered to help After Loss (including ideas of what to do for kids when their sibling dies).

7. The Dark Side of Light – Getting to know so many bereaved parents this year, in person and online, has taught me the power of each person’s story and the staggering resilience of the human spirit. But this dad’s story will haunt me forever in the best way. He reminded me to always remember the flip side of every tale I tell.

6. Stay Close to the Stories – I could not be more grateful for this refrain that got me through the year. If I ever needed to make the case to steep my life in Scripture, this remains the proof.

5. The Bravest Baptism – This story sums up nearly everything I adore about my husband. So I loved when my friend Emily found encouragement in this post for the young women she works with, to hold out hope for a man this strong.

4. The Other Side of Fear – This post is secretly my favorite. (Well, maybe after #1.) I still think about it every morning. All I have to do is get myself one step past fear, and then I can face whatever comes next.

3. I Want Them To Be Mine – Oh my heart. I still do.

2. The Yes that Breaks Your Heart – This post on the strange coincidence of the Annunciation of Jesus’ birth falling on Good Friday was one that resonated (much to my surprise) with many readers.

1. This is the Story I Have to Tell You – I love that the year’s #1 post remains Maggie and Abby’s story. As it should be. It went viral. It crashed my website 7 times in one day. Ann Voskamp featured it on her blog, and Aleteia re-ran it in English and Spanish. More people have now read these words than anything else I’ve written.

And every day since, I have stopped and wondered what happened to us in that hospital room. Why we got such a strange miracle, such overwhelming joy, and such lasting proof of God. I can only hope to spend the rest of my days sharing what it might mean.

. . .

WHEW.

After a top 10 list that heavy, I should have a funny cat photo or a round of spiked eggnog for all of you. (Maybe a round-up of the best 2016 memes?)

2016 memes

But I’ll simply end by thanking each of you for helping to bear this hard year with me. We’re days away from calling 2016 history, and I’m grateful to have made it here. Cheers to what comes next!

One last thank-you: every month on the 27th, I give away something beautiful on Instagram in honor of Abby and Maggie’s birthday. If you haven’t joined us already, come see what I’m giving away this month – a gorgeous gift from a mother after my own heart. (And a way to remember the good – because there was light and love here, too! – from 2016.)

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About Laura

I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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thismessygrace

Mother, writer, wonderer.
Seeker of God in chaos & life with kids.
Author of Everyday Sacrament & Grieving Together.
Glimpses of grace & gratitude.

thismessygrace
The baby is learning how to move in a new way. Wai The baby is learning how to move in a new way. Wait—don’t scroll past. He has truth to teach at the end of his small hands.

Watch him rock back and forth, cusp of crawling, practicing and testing, a seeker and a skeptic—wondering is this safe? Am I strong enough?

If he does not stretch to move and learn and change, he will stay safer. I have watched 5 babies now, and I know what comes next: bumps, bruises, wails, the first piercing cut into smooth skin.

But nature drives him forward. He must both trust his instinct (the desire to move, reach, explore) and overcome it (the fear of unknown, the unpredictable fall). Watch him lean and learn, stretching further each day.

We are cusping on change, too. You can feel the tense stretch, the uncertain lean, the frantic push back to what was safer (for a few, far from all). We are testing and probing, flailing and falling, pushing back up and trying to figure out: how did we get here? Where do we go next?

At least once a day, don’t you want to sit back and holler at the top of your lungs, frustrated and fearful, yet driven to keep going?

And we have to go, have to grow and move and change. It is the only way forward, with lunging arms and knobby knees and bruised foreheads from where we’ll meet sharp edges. This is the sweaty work of change: uncertain, costly, but demanded. Deep-down right, but hard and humbling all the way.

Watch him as he goes. It will take a long time—a lifetime of trying and falling. But he is determined. He is pushing me, too.
True confession: I never noticed Epiphany. We thr True confession: I never noticed Epiphany.

We three kings, endless rounds at church. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh; got it. Magi made it to the manger; let’s clean up now.

I mistook it for a child’s story, a charming end to Christmas. I missed all the angles of light it waited to shine.

Scripture offers a thousand doors by which to enter any story. If you think you’ve got it All Figured Out, turn around and try another. The Word holds infinite mysteries we have not yet uncovered.

You might discover truth you never expected—an epiphany waiting for you.

(And if you want to dig deeper, I’d love for you to join us on retreat this week!)
Spent the second day of the year staring at these Spent the second day of the year staring at these two hard, glorious truths. Winter makes the most beauty from the coldest nights, and what looks like death is often the beginning.

I stared up into frozen trees for five full minutes, looking like a fool, and I stared into tiny roots of the dying seed for even longer.

Here was God whispering the same truth, with wind blown ice crystals and wheat stalk seeds. You can only glimpse a sliver of the creation you are becoming. Just wait till the wild full bloom is born.

#newyearprayer #catechesisofthegoodshepherd
A viral poem. A premature baby. Birth and death, m A viral poem. A premature baby. Birth and death, masks and murder, a jarring jumble—like nearly every day in 2020.

But still the joy of new life at the center, even with the hard world edging all around.

I expected none of it, all the news that turned the year upside down.

But neither did I expect the truth and hope I found from so many here.

I tagged a few of the friends and voices I have been grateful to listen and learn from this year, changing from what they are teaching me.

Let their words & work & witness encourage you.

Drop your favorite accounts in the comments below, so we can follow them, too?

Here’s to hope, brimming on the horizon. The new year won’t change everything, but it will change us—and we can change each other.
Reminding myself today, to bear light & hope into Reminding myself today, to bear light & hope into a weary world. 🕯
It took all of Advent for me to notice us behind t It took all of Advent for me to notice us behind them.

Beholding in our own exhausted joy.

We never could have prepared for the suffering surrounding that birth. We had no idea how much harder everything was about to turn, on the cusp of the world about to change.

It took all year for me to see that they were showing us that way, too.

Through the impossible.
Through the dark.
Trusting together.
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