Dear Readers,
This is my first blog post! Okay, so I've posted on my husband's blog and on our family's farm/CSA business blog (see the links below if you're curious), but this is the first for my very own blog. I call this "my very own blog", but in reality, even though I'm the one writing, I pray that whatever is written here will touch your lives enough for you to call this your own.
I hope, I dearly, dearly desire that I can touch the hearts of other people, especially other women like me who have longed to follow Christ Jesus more closely each day. I pray that I may support you in your walk as Catholic wives, mothers, and women - or, if you are a man reading this, that I will inspire you to support the women in your lives to grow closer to Christ in all they do.
A little about who I am: I was born in the mid-80s and grew up in a suburban, post-modernist society that said material things and the fulfillment of our fleshly desires was happiness...and don't worry, Hell doesn't exist. By God's grace, I was raised by a devout Catholic family, and the seeds my parents planted in my heart came to fruition in early adulthood. I went to Catholic schools during the whole course of my education, from grade school to college, where I met my husband. After graduating from Benedictine College in Atchison, KS (go Ravens!) in 2007, Kevin and I married the same year and had our first child, Rose, in 2008. Before Rose was born, I taught middle-school English at a Catholic school, and my husband taught theology at a Catholic high school. Although I stayed home after Rose was born, Kevin continued to teach for two more years. Kevin quit his teaching job after the 2009-2010 school year, and we moved in with my parents (in order to stay debt free) so that we could start a small farming business, growing and selling organic vegetables and fruit locally through a vegetable subscription (called Community Supported Agriculture, or a CSA) and at Farmer's Markets. This was a huge leap of faith for us, as farming is a risky business, relying heavily on good weather and few mistakes for success. In the late fall of 2010, our second daugther, Anastasia (or Ana, as we call her), was born. We are now getting ready to move to our own farm, and we will continue our business in a very rural area of Kansas.
There is much in the above that is incomplete, but I hope to fill in all the blanks as time goes on. Meanwhile, I want to end this first post with the following: "Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." - Proverbs 31:30
In Christ,
Mary Ford
