I’m used to the long days. I’m used to waking up, the place beside me empty, sheets pulled back long before the sun rises. And as it sets, I’m used to sitting at table, surrounded by six children, all of us hoping traffic parts like the Red Sea, allowing him to return to this home where meals are shared.

He works long and hard and that’s not to mention the driving. Not just the hours in the office, but the hours in the car. Two to three hours a day traveling, just to get there. When a papa works hard, a mama does too. And our family, we’re used to the days being long.

But when you’re eight months pregnant and they send him far from home, that’s when you learn how long days can really be.

It was only a few weeks ago that we lived those days. I thought I was used to long days until I lived those. You see, I’m not the kind of mama who’s always looking for ways to get away. I don’t go searching for time for myself, time alone. I’m the one who’s most content when everyone’s settled safe in this nest, because I’m not the kind who finds refreshment in retreating. Here together, that’s when I’m filled.

But that week, when he traveled far across land and sea and I was left with my thoughts, all the worrying, there was only one thing to do. Find a way to make every moment a prayer whispered for him. So I took up a set of wooden needles, a few skeins of yarn. I began working with my hands, creating prayer with my heart.

This Sunday, one week before the Great Fast begins, is Judgment Sunday. And I’ve been thinking about the Gospel reading for this particular day – the clothing of the naked, the feeding of the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, caring for the sick – the mystery of encountering Christ in the person before me. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

As a mama, the person before me, Christ in my midst, is usually a little one.

Reminds me of this piece from way back. How in the exhaustion of it all, mothers tend to forget that Christ is in our midst – even in the midst of the seemingly ordinary, utterly profound, every day happenings in our very homes.

It’s what weighs on a mother’s heart, nurturing the spiritual lives of her children. And times like these, when a fast is approaching, the burden of care grows heavy. It’s the longing that our children will embrace this life of repentance fully. I always find myself praying for the simple things – not so much that they’ll do it right, just the hope that they’ll come to understand the purpose of it all.

Like the conversation I had during this week of no fasting, when a young child of mine asked, “Why do we fast?”

My children live in an Orthodox family, but they live in the world. They see the way we eat, how it makes us different from others. And this little one of mine wanted to understand why.

It was the best question she could have asked.

I knew it was bound to happen. Guess that’s why I don’t get out much these days. It’s this swollen belly of mine, that and all the children casting shadows on my steps. It’s a sight that draws attention and people, they have a way of talking freely.

Most of the time I’m just not up for the conversation. I’m shy that way.

Like that conversation a few weeks ago, when I sat on the couch in the yarn shop, watched my little ones take turns cranking the handle of a swift. It was the hum of the winding that drowned out the sound of a conversation coming from a table nearby. A chatty group of women crafting with hands, loose with their tongues.

I let the sound of their voices fade because I’m always searching for the quiet. Mamas have a way of doing that. And that search for silence makes it easy to avoid listening when it’s no concern of mine.

Losing myself in the stillness, I didn’t notice her approach.

“Did you hear what I said?”

That’s what she said to me. I didn’t know who she was, much less what she’d said.

I heard my little girl squeal with delight as she finished winding another hank into a skein. I watched a son load the crank, start the yarn spinning in a whirl of greens and blues. I smiled at them, turned to her.

“No. Forgive me. I didn’t hear you.”

“Well, I was just telling everyone about a story I heard on the news. That man overseas with the thirteen children and how they live in a two room house. Not a two-bedroom house…a TWO ROOM house. Can you imagine?”

I’m trying to remember how long it’s been. Six months perhaps? Not so very long ago that I clicked away from Facebook. It was a personal account that I closed, a personal account grown too large to manage and, with its increase, growing concerns about the privacy of my family – my children – connected to it. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with all those privacy settings changing overnight, so I walked away. I figured that unwieldy newsfeed was claiming too much of my time anyway. And as the first trimester fatigue set it, it seemed a good way to simplify.

It was the right decision. But there’s a lot that I miss – the people.

Since closing the curtain on Facebook, a week hasn’t gone by that I haven’t found a kind note in my inbox telling me how I’m missed there. It’s a hub and many people have simplified their time online, focusing it there. It’s how people keep in touch with family and friends, far and near. It’s the way they keep up with their favorite websites and organize their online reading. That’s the lament I hear the most…how nice it was to have a post from evlogia pop up in their newsfeed, not having to go looking for it.

Forty days had come to a close. I remember them as one, how the weight of sleep had a habit of overtaking the light of day, how the light of a candle overcame the dark of night. A mother always remembers those forty days as if they were but one. And the evening and the morning were one day. Those forty days, they’re a muddled scrawl upon the pages of my memory.

Having come to the end of them, I ventured out with a small babe swaddled tight and carried him for the first time beyond the entrance of our home. That was the day I walked a boy-child across the threshold of the narthex, placed him in the arms of a priest. That’s when the print upon my memory begins to read clear, because I can still remember how I caught my breath, seeing him carried through the Royal Doors and into the Holy Place. I offered my child to God and the priest returned him to me, laid him on the solea where I scooped him into arms already aching for his return.

In a house full of children, a mother has to wake up early to hear the silence. An hour before sunrise, an alarm set quiet wakes me from sleep. That’s when I open my eyes and I listen. I make sure no one’s stirring, make certain this house lies covered in a blanket of hush. And knowing the smallest sound, the slightest stir, will raise it from sleep, I pull a book of prayer off my nightstand, bury myself under blankets and feign sleep.

In the silence of that morning hour I whisper words to Him in the dark. From my bed, I listen.

Whilst I remembered Thee in my bed, in the mornings I have meditated upon Thee.

This is a mother’s rule of prayer – pretending sleep and stealing quiet. And I’m quite certain, God gives mothers the gift of creativity to find ways to find Him. Trading sleep for the quiet of morning, I search.

“This one’s for you.” She hands me an envelope trimmed festive with dozens of stamps. I read the postage. 30 Bani, Romania.

Anca. She told me it would come soon, the magazine and my words translated in a tongue foreign to me. I skim its pages twice over before I find my name hidden in the text.

Have you heard the news? The launch of OCN’s new and improved blog, The Sounding? There’s a new design, a new team of writers.

I’m blessed to be a part of it, as a regular contributor.

Fr. Chris Metropulos released a promo video this evening announcing the February 1 launch.

Can’t wait to meet you there.

(You may want to turn off the music before watching the promo video. Just scroll up to the top, right sidebar and click pause on the music player.)