Three Girls In White – Our Season of Grace

This is the year of our White Spring.  All three of our daughters are receiving sacraments.  All three will be wearing white gowns.  All three.

It’s still a little strange to me that we have three daughters.  Even with the youngest one always in my arms, I still catch myself suddenly realizing the happiness of having our three and the smile is uncontainable. 

Our Sweet #7 will be Baptized next month.  We waited longer than usual so that we could take her back to Oklahoma for her first Sacrament.  We wanted her to be surrounded by people who love her, and to introduce her to her earthly family at the same time she joins God’s family. 

Lovely #4 has her First Confession next weekend and her First Communion in May.  She has spent hours looking for the “just perfect” dress and the veil to go with it.  There were a few tears last month when the dream dress was discontinued and she had to begin looking all over again.  I explained that the focus of this day was not the dress, but her love for and relationship with God.  It is about the first time she receives Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity.  It is the first time she will be asked publicly if she accepts Him and the first time she gets to answer ‘Yes.’ She solemnly nodded.  I know she gets it.  I also know it’s still a little bit about the dress. 

#1 is getting Confirmed on Cinco de Mayo.  She proved that she is a natural blond when she asked what date that was exactly.  Her lapse of Spanish aside, this is the Sacrament I’m most anxious to see.  This is the one which she makes wholly on her own.  This one is her decision alone.  She publicly declares her dedication to Christ and His Church, not because we say so but because she does.  She has been ready for this for at least a year now, but God has prepared her heart even more.  It has been a rough season on loneliness in her life.  She went from a tight group of friends to not even one nearby.  For a long time it was the pain in her life, but it was in that pain that she found strengths she didn’t know existed.  It was in her loneliness that she turned ever more to God.

This has been a year which brought #7 life, #4 confidence and brought #1 a calm maturity.  It is with these gifts that they will go before their Heavenly Father this Spring arrayed all in white and clothed in Grace.  What a season this will be in our household as our girls enter into new ever deeper relationships with Our Lord.   The past year has been a hard one, but at last we are here.  We’ve arrived at our Season of Grace.