Hey, y’all! Welcome to Untold Joy.
The idea of this little blog started with my desire to delete my social media, but still have a place online to create a little scrapbook of sorts. To get rid of the parts of social media that frustrate me, and to lean in to the parts I love. The memories, the creativity and the community. These moments are so precious with my little boys and my good, good husband and I don’t want them to just pass by as I scroll endlessly. I have a desire to be more present, buy less, have my own thoughts, and share and create if I want to.
First, a little bit about us if you don’t know us. My name is Hanna and I am married to the most amazing husband, Evan. He’s an Aggie Engineer (Whoop!) and I’m a Frannie (Go, Barons!) We got married back in July of 2017 after falling in love working at a Catholic summer camp. We shortly got pregnant with our first, Joshua, who was born back in April 2018. I left my job as a Campus Minister at a Catholic High School to stay home with him and I absolutely love it. That baby is now a big three year old and our youngest, Noah (who we call the angel baby), just turned the big one. We live ‘in the loop’ down in Houston, Texas and spend our days finding all of the toddler spots in town and eating way too much good food. We love to do lots of home projects, go on little adventures around town, and most of all live a seemingly boring life of consistency and routines, lol (did I mention I am married to an engineer?).
Now, a little about the name. I cannot even begin to express the change in my heart when I entered into my Vocation of marriage, and even deeper when I became a mom. We were the first among our friends to get married and have babies (literally became parents on our honeymoon) and the way our entire being was changed seemed so unexplainable to any of our friends. From the outside, we were just able to do less ‘fun things’, travel less, buy less, sleep less. Oh, but from the inside, we felt like we had never known more- more love, more joy, more freedom. I found myself when I had our first baby. Yes, my hair was falling out, I was way less trendy, fit, or ‘fun’, but boy was I happy. I hated being pregnant and thought that my life was over when I got pregnant at 21, but the day I gave birth I swear something in my heart just clicked. For the first time in my life, I felt alive. Evan and I’s love grew deeper, and grows deeper still as our family continues to grow. The choice to have children young is something I am and know I will forever be eternally grateful for.
I found this quote from Mother Teresa that I fell in love with. Here it is:
“The more repugnant the work, the greater should be our faith and cheerful devotion. That we feel repugnance is but natural, but when we overcome it for love of Jesus we may become heroic. Very often it has happened in the lives of the saints that a heroic overcoming of repugnance has been what has lifted them to sanctity. This was the case with St. Francis of Assisi, who, when meeting a completely disfigured leper, drew back. But then, overcoming himself; he kissed the terrible, disfigured face. The result was that Francis was filled with an untold joy.“
Mother Teresa
Yeah, you can read that again. My husband says the word “repugnant” is a little intense for a cute and cheery blog title, but honestly I think it is right on the money. The work of family life, of our vocation, of our road to sanctity, is repugnant. It is hard! It is also legitimately smelly, sticky and all types of uncomfortable. Being a mom is not always cute, but it is always good. And without the repugnance, we would not know this untold joy. When I read this quote, I had never felt more known. When I resist the demands of motherhood and family life, when I choose my own comfort over making myself a gift to my husband and my children, it honestly just feels repugnant. Oh, but when I lean in to all of it, when I choose to dive head first in and embrace all that comes along with it, there is something that happens in my heart that I cannot explain. I meet Jesus there. I meet Him face to face in my children. When I kiss the lepers face head on, I am filled with this deep, deep untold joy.
So, this is what this blog is all about. This joy I will never be able to get across, but one that I want to remember. A place where I want to share both the memories and moments of discovering this joy in my family life and a place where I can share some practical resources that make you discovering this joy a little easier, too. Now, what will become of this blog? I’m not totally sure yet. I’d love to share frequent updates on our family for us to look back on and for any of you to checkout if you’d like to have a way to check in on us. Ideally, I will have an email subscription list to update all of you when we give a little family update. I’d love to share our adventures of our frequent DIY home projects, some recommendations on stuff for babies and kids that people often ask me about but take me forever to remember, ideas of things we do in our home throughout the liturgical seasons to give you ideas…we will see!
Thanks for joining along, it’s great to have you here!
All photos by Julie Philp Photography. You can check her out on Instagram @Juliephilpphotography
