This Life That Is Ours: Motherhood as Spiritual Practice

"Motherhood is a profound threshold, one that scoops you up, swirls you around in its vortex, and then deposits you into an unknown country." With these words Lauren Burdette centers us in the world of mothering: where our children and our selves are in constant flux, and the ways we knew to connect to God are often inaccessible. Yet God surely desires to meet us, right where we are. In This Life That Is Ours, Burdette invites the reader to wonder with her about how to encounter God within this new land. Drawing from her experience as a spiritual director and mother, she speaks to both the challenge and the possibility of life being spiritual practice when our days are more chaotic than calm. This book is divided into three sections."Becoming a Mother" explores the dynamics of being a new mother and the whirlwind experience of those early months and years. "Becoming Yourself" considers what it means to return home to yourself--to begin to find your identity again, both within the realm of motherhood and outside of it. "Becoming Holy," names the holy paradoxes of motherhood--the ways it can be both extraordinary and mundane, both gift and sacrifice--deepening one's experience of the holiness of motherhood. This Life That Is Ours can be used individually or with groups, and would make a great gift for new mothers and mothers-to-be.