Written on January 29, 2017

My favorite picture from the drive to the Carmel.

We took our time getting there listening to our favorite music, praying, enjoying the beautiful countryside, all trying to be somewhat strong yet knowing everything would be different.

Grace was quite young when she declared, “Everyone thinks Emily has a vocation but what if it’s me!” Emily is our practically perfect oldest child (nickname from her grandpa) and Grace is our second. I already mentioned her fiesty personality and that’s how she sounded when she said it. I could say a lot more about that, but moms, don’t discount what God has planned for your fiesty ones!

It would be several years later and exactly two years before her entrance that our priests pulled us aside. The short story is that at that moment we understood the seriousness of it all. She was 16. Later, I’ll share about some funny things that happened in between. It was not a dull two years!

Driving her to the Carmel…we thought we were prepared. We had been through *a lot* with Rose’s adoption and Peter’s near drowning. We thought God used those things to ready our hearts and of course they did, partially anyway. We thought we were prepared to leave our girl at the cloister. We were wrong.