Author: Carrie Sue Barnes

Carrie Sue Barnes is a fiction author and blogger who fell in love with creative writing as a grade schooler in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She resides now in Wisconsin with her family, often pulling her love for the Midwest into her writing. Carrie Sue's debut novel, The Hidden Legacy, was released in 2018 by Bold Vision Books to strong reviews. Since then, she has published several short stories and continues to write short fiction and faith-inspired reflections on this site. Carrie Sue loves reading, kayaking, hugging her children and friends, rewatching The Office, and connecting with readers in person and on social media.
Family, Gratitude

Oodles of Blessings

Carrie Sue Barnes

You know that sunshine I was craving yesterday? It’s here! Bright and golden, albeit not too warm yet. I love the sight of it.

My sister, Julie and her family are moving to Wisconsin from Connecticut next month. I never expected for all five of the Ebsch sisters to live in the same area. We haven’t even been in the same state since I was three years old, much less within a 90 minute radius of each other. It’ll be a great thing to have her, her husband and their two girls nearby. I am hoping it will end up being a great blessing for their little family too. I know the move is a significant change for them, in more ways than one.

This morning I was blessed with laughter because of this:

There are some long running, highly entertaining llama jokes between my roomies and I (which I am unable to effectively explain here or anywhere) but this pic might just top them all. Take a moment and enjoy… don’t miss the llamas packed into the back seat… or the question of whether or not the hole in the windshield was put there by a hoof…

Another morning activity was finding material for our handouts at this month’s Adult Faith Night. The evening is focused on spiritual warfare. (Yes, that’s my morning: llamas and spiritual warfare.) I found and read through a great address by Fr. John Hardon on one of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises. It was not only ideal for the handouts I need to put together for Thursday but was a faith-bolstering and challenging read for myself as well. I think I need to add the Spiritual Exercises to my ever growing list of spirtuality books to read.

I suppose you could sum up my mood today as glad. I am gladdened by my wonderful family and the promise of true spring outside these office windows. I am gladdened by the time I have this week to develop the first chapters of my new novel. I am gladdened by the knowledge of and faith in God’s overwhelming victory over evil and my part in His triumph should I remain faithful and vigilant. All is not perfect. All is not solved or decided. The enemy would have me dwell in what does not gladden me – sources of distress and unrest, conflicts and disappointments. I will not dwell there. While not pretending that everything is right and good, I will also not ignore the abundance of right and good blessings poured over me.

“In the world you will have trouble, but take courage;
I have overcome the world.”
(Jesus, John 16:33)
Photography

Cravings

Carrie Sue Barnes

I just ate two pieces of chocolate delivered directly from Switzerland by my boss. Did you know hazelnut chocolate is called Gianduja? I don’t care what it’s called. It’s delicious in any language. I am attempting to resist sneaking a third sample; not sure how long that will last.

Even more than another taste of Swiss chocolate, I am craving sunshine – warm, decadent, golden sunshine. After a weekend of gray rain and temperatures 30 degrees cooler than that summer-tease day we had on Friday, I’m ready for the sun. As is the landscape outside! Thanks to the rain, the trees are laden with buds and the grass is bright green. Everything looks to be on the verge, packaged for opening but still unopened.

Uncategorized

Rainy Saturday

Carrie Sue Barnes

At my kitchen table sits my grandmother with her crossword puzzle book and me with my manuscript and laptop. Every so often we both glance up from our respective work to watch the cardinals and mourning doves fluttering about in the rain outside. The bird feeder by our deck is nearly empty and I really should venture out and refill it. She’s on her third mug of coffee and still her head bobs as she slips into a doze between crossword clues. I can’t say I am wishing to be anywhere but here at the moment.

Tonight I’m seeing Matt Maher in concert. He and his band are fantastic and fun, and the other band in the lineup sounds exceptional too. Honestly though, my excitement for tonight isn’t so much tied to who is performing but to the chance to worship. I am impatient to sing along, to lift my voice and my hands and close my eyes and praise my God. I miss the Festivals of Praise at FUS and the Masses there with not only beautiful music but a congregation that sang with full voices and hearts. Tonight I will worship in that franciscan fashion that used to characterize my spirituality and which I long to recapture.

Faith, Friendship, Intentionality

Tiring of Well-Worn Ways

Carrie Sue Barnes

“When we tire of well-worn ways, we seek for new. This restless craving in the souls of men spurs them to climb, and to seek the mountain view.” (Ella Wheeler Wilcox)

There is a restless uncertainty stirred up in me that I cannot leave unexamined. Six years ago, I graduated from college and moved here to Appleton with my sister, Jessica and one of our closest friends, Amy. The three of us excitely began this new stage of life. I had finished my Theology degree and was determined to start my career; Jess just returned from a year of missionary work in Jamaica and had a nursing job lined up at a hospital here; Amy was moving away from her family and hometown for the first time, with plans to enter college. Everything was new. The potential of the unknown surrounded us on all sides. I am happy to say that in all the ups and downs, the plans that succeeded and the plans that failed, we savored the experience together.

Truth be told, none of my original after-college plans withstood the test of time. I do not work at a Catholic parish or at a retreat center or for a diocese. I am not married. I don’t even live on my own. When I graduated and set out to find work as a director of religious education or youth minister, I had no intention of writing a novel within the next few years, and I had no intention of being an adminstrative assistant for the forseeable future. My intentions were specific, and they were wrong. The Lord closed every door I tried to open. He reminded me again and again how even during my studies, I knew in my heart that I was not called to be a DRE or youth minister. I pursued the logical choice because that was far less frightening than not having something specific to pursue. As He closed those doors and I wrestled with discouragement, the ideas began to come. I began to write. I praise Him now for preventing my stubborn, unenlightened plans.

Recalling God’s display in these years of His wisdom’s superiority over mine, I am left wondering when God will turn me in a new direction again. I question myself, “Where is He leading me now? Does He desire for me to settle in here or am I settling for less than what He has for me?”

Last night, Jess, Amy and I completed an ongoing tradition that began when we moved to Appleton together. It wasn’t anything deep or significant to the outsider, but it was a tradition very closely tied to the stage of life we began together six years ago. The emotional effect that its end had on me was a surprise. I thought about those six years, about what has and has not happened, and how all that is now looks so very different from all that was then. Amy has moved back to our home area but is living on her own and establishing a life there. Jess is happier in her job and with herself than she has been since leaving Jamaica. And I… well, I am still writing. My relationship with my family has altered and deepened in ways I didn’t expect, and the Lord has stretched and molded me via my life at my parish. The close of our tradition last night has me asking if I shouldn’t be so settled here. I certainly long for more, for new. I wait for publication and further writing opportunities. I wait for falling in love and marriage. I wait for adventures and friendships that have not crossed my path yet. But waiting and trusting in God’s plans doesn’t automatically imply inaction. While my heart will only find true rest in Him, I cannot believe that there are not other aspects to the restlessness. For it is in pursuing the desires of the heart, in taking chances and moving at the behest of the Holy Spirit, that I may draw nearer to my Lord. I don’t want to merely wait! I want to engage and pursue and try! I do wish I better understood how.

Gratitude

Granted

Carrie Sue Barnes
Well this day’s been crazy
But everything’s happened on schedule
from the rain and the cold
To the drink that I spilled on my shirt
‘Cause You knew how You’d save me
before I fell dead in the garden
And You knew this day
long before You made me out of dirt
~Caedmon’s Call, “Table for Two”

Things I’ve taken for granted since waking up this morning:
-waking up this morning
-the 7 hours of sleep I had
-indoor plumbing
-breakfast to eat
-more than enough clothing to choose from
-a functioning, comfortable vehicle
-employment
-a safe drive to work
-my roommates
-the clean drinking water I’ve been enjoying since 8 a.m.
-lunch
-high speed internet
-shoes on my feet
-SALVATION

My thoughts upon rising more easily roll toward the expectations of the day. What do I want out of the day? What will be expected of me? What responsibilities should I fulfill? Will I like the weather today? Will I have time to relax this evening? Can I sleep ten more minutes? Even when they are not negative, my thoughts hang back from the realm of joy. If my mind catches on to a specific good thing, it lifts with gladness. Maybe that gladness is enough to shape my mood for the day, maybe it isn’t. Falls pretty far short of joy, wouldn’t you say? Isn’t it in the character of joy to be enduring? Joy, true joy, is unaltered by the passing bad things, and certainly not weakened by the abundance of what I treat as neutral things. It is not an emotion, though it can influence our emotions at every turn.

It isn’t that I expect myself to become someone who is always consciously thankful for these and all the other things I simply assume will exist in my life. Nonetheless, I do expect myself to be consciously thankful for them on occasion, and to always be subconsciously thankful. That is, to live in a state of gratitude. Even when not pondering the particular blessings, the thankfulness can be present – a resident of my soul. Gratitude gives rise to joy, to graciousness and to the desire to worship. Joy is indeed enduring, but it is contingent on an enduring effort to choose joy.

Perhaps it is precisely in the overlooked that I could find strength for the effort. For it is all granted by God, is it not? It is in His hands, in His will, whether I wake today or I do not. When I come around to these moments of recognition, I must round the corner from gratitude for what has been given to joy in knowing the Giver.

And this is the happy life, to rejoice to Thee, of Thee, for Thee; this it is, and there is no other. ~St. Augustine