In this episode, Lorissa discusses navigating the storms of life and how to find acceptance and peace even when it feels like our lives are out of control. She shares a small insight from a talk recorded by Monsignor Shea, author of “From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for an Apostolic Age” that helped her accept the storms she faced in her life this past week and brought about peace and clarity, helping her find God’s presence even in the midst of difficult times. Join us as we explore the beauty of seeking God in all moments in our imperfect world.
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Hello my beautiful sisters in Christ. This is Lorissa Horn and I hope you are doing well. The topic that I want to dive into today on this episode is lightly inspired by a powerful talk by Monsignor Shea who is the president of University of Mary. He gave it at our Idaho Catholic Men’s Conference earlier this year. In January. And although I was at the Men’s Conference, my husband helped to put it on and he shared the recording of the talk with me a couple weeks later and it was incredible. It was a deeply intellectual and very powerful talk and I’m not even going to be able to do it justice. But really what I want to share with you today is a pretty profound takeaway that I’ve taken from it and I’ve applied it to my life, which in particular has helped me a lot this week.
And so this is kind of the very basic takeaway that I took from it. His concept was that if you look throughout the last 2000 years of our church history and in the early church it was the apostolic times where all of the world was like pagan and obviously not Christian. And then Jesus came into the world and his apostles went out. And in those first several hundred years it was this apostolic time where the apostles were going out and disciples and baptizing and the world was really then beginning to be set on fire for Christ. And then over hundreds of years, the western world anyways kind of shifted into more of a Christian world perspective where values and beliefs were all kind of centered amongst Christianity and people live their lives like that in so much of people’s beliefs and communities and countries were shaped by Christianity. And then he started talking about how in the last few hundred years with the changes in so much with the postmodern era and technology and the massive changes in society and cultures and viewpoints and philosophies and all of this come with this more modern way of living. It’s almost as if we’re back into a more of an apostolic time frame where we live in a world where Christian views aren’t necessarily the common belief. And so how does the Church respond to this and what is the Church doing? And he had just this extraordinary talk that was all around this and he even has this amazing small little book that dives more into this.
It’s called From Christendom to Apostolic Mission pastoral Strategies for an Apostolic Age. And so if this type of stuff is fascinating to you and compelling, then I invite you to go buy it on Amazon. It’s an amazing book as well. But one of the things that he talked about in this talk was this concept, this realization that we do not live in a utopian society and we never will. And even in the last few hundred years with the rise of technology and all of these changes, these massive changes have happened so quickly. A lot of it is like this desire of how do we create a utopian society? And this reality is that we just won’t that at the heart of our humanity is this result that we are broken, that we live in a broken world that has been broken because of original sin and that all of us have this result of sin in our lives and that is who we are. It’s our fallen nature. And yet God is the answer.
This is what he was talking about. That God is the answer to all of this and not that in this life will we ever experience a perfect world. That’s heaven that’s to come in the next life. But in this life we are not in a utopia. And this quest to somehow attain that or to attain some sort of perfect life where there is no suffering or pain or sin is just not realistic. And so I just remember kind of hearing him talk through that and again so much more eloquently than I am giving it justice for. But it hit me so hard and it reminded me so much of what we teach in Masters that life is 50-50 and yet so often we wish it weren’t right. Like we wish that there wasn’t pain or suffering or sin or problems or struggles or pain.
Like we just wish life could be easier and better and more perfect and that it wouldn’t be hard and yet we know that it’s not. Life is 50-50. We have of course these beautiful moments of joy and happiness and everything is good and in the very next minute we could have something break or we have an accident or somebody gets angry at someone. Like life is 50-50. And so listening to Monsignor Shay, my husband and I, after listening to that talk, we kind of came up with this phrase or we didn’t come up with it, he came up with it. But we use it now in our lives, not every day, but oftentimes we’ll find ourselves saying oh yes, we don’t live in a utopia. Like we’re not living in utopia. And it is a really powerful phrase.
I’ve found it to be incredibly powerful in my own life. Which leads me to just kind of entering into sharing with you the eye this week. I’ve had one of those weeks, I’m sure you can relate, where it just has been a hard week and it is, it’s the 50 50 of life. And for me this week was more difficult than most. There’s been a big tragedy in my local community. There has been just some pain and suffering, some personal challenges, some personal struggles. There’s been big changes in my life. There’s just been a number of things and isn’t it always that way where it just seems like, gosh, everything kind of feels like it’s out of whack or it’s all happening at once, like one little thing after another.
And I found myself a number of times this week getting frustrated, like finding myself saying, why is this happening? And how could this tragedy have happened? And trying to grapple with that. And of course for all of us that know of this tragedy, it’s like trying to wrap our minds around it and make sense of it. But then there’s also in my own personal life, just these things where I found myself this week thinking, why is this happening? Why do I have to deal with this? I wish it wasn’t this way. I wish there was a difference, I wish this circumstance was different. I wish I didn’t have to deal with it. All of these things are questioning it. And it’s normal for our brain to do that. When our brain is trying to make sense of suffering or struggles or crosses or hardships, when it’s trying to make sense of maybe sin or broken relationships, whenever those types of things happen, it’s only natural that our brain is going to question and it’s going to want to try to figure it out.
But it’s also important. And the thing that has helped me the most is even in the midst of finding myself questioning and wishing things were different and wanting it to be different, I was able to just see my brain working. And that is what is so incredibly fascinating. And I could feel it. I could feel it in my heart, really. Like I was in what we call resistance. I was in resistance many times this week to reality. These certain circumstances had happened and I simply wished that they hadn’t.
And I wished that it could be different. And yet this is the thing. It doesn’t matter how much we wish things were different when we’re in resistance to it. It’s almost like we’re in denial of it. That we think that if we somehow wish that it could be different enough, that it’ll somehow magically change or somehow be different than it is, and it just doesn’t change things. And this is the point that I want to make, is that when we’re faced with the 50-50, like the 50% that’s difficult and painful and heartbreaking and scary and all of those emotions, and when we those are legitimate pain that causes oftentimes legitimate suffering. Like they just are when there’s a loss in the family or when somebody gets hurt or when there is a broken relationship. It just is legitimate pain or hurt.
I don’t want to try to say that it’s not. However, when we find ourselves wishing for it to be different or resisting it or being in denial of it or trying to fight it, what we find is that we add so much more emotional pain to the legitimate pain. And that’s what I was doing this week. And I would like the thing that was crazy and fascinating to me is that I recognized it. I was like, oh, look, I am in some of the circumstances, I was like, I don’t want to be dealing with this. I don’t want this. And in a way, it was like I was kind of having this pity party or this little tantrum, almost like, no, I don’t want this. And yet the phrase that brought me out of that resistance, out of that denial, out of that unnecessary extra suffering, was that we do not live in a utopia.
I said to my husband Johnny, probably five times this week at very different moments when I found myself almost in a place of, like, total frustration. I just had these moments where I was like, well, here we are. We don’t live in a utopia. And the moment that those words rolled off my mouth, I noticed something profound happen in my body. Instantly, the resistance gave away. Instead of trying to wish that the circumstance was different or wanting it to be better or not, like, wanting it to go away by simply saying those words, this is not a utopia. This life is not a utopia, it helped me to realize, yeah, that’s exactly right. We live in a broken world.
We live in a world where sin is like we have sin, we have accidents, we have miscommunications, we have misunderstandings, we have insecurities. We have all these things. This isn’t a perfect world, and it never will be this side of heaven. And when I say that, especially when I say it out loud, and I just enter into that thought, my body just relaxes and I enter into acceptance. So I move from resistance and denial and frustration into just acceptance of what is like, yeah, of course, this is how it is. We live in a fallen world. It is not a utopia. And the moment that I sense myself doing that, I find a sense of peace.
Now, that phrase, that thought, that feeling of acceptance, it doesn’t change the circumstance. Nothing changes the circumstance. But I noticed that I was changing in the midst of it. And when I move from resistance into acceptance and I start to feel the peace enter in, I can sense myself opening up and having a little bit more clarity and a little bit more openness to the reality that God is dwelling in the midst of the circumstance. See, when I’m in resistance and in denial and when I am in a state of emotional childhood trying to wish things away or wish things to be different, I really struggle to see God in that place. Why? Because my brain doesn’t want to look at it. It wants to look at a different circumstance or scenario and wish it were that. But the moment I enter into acceptance, it’s like I open myself up to being able to see God in the midst of the suffering, in the midst of the pain, and to know that he is there.
And I think that this is also part of Mont Senior’s message, is that in the midst of this broken world, technological advancement like anything that we as humans think that we could come up with artificial intelligence, whatever. It happens that we think we can create a perfect world, it will never be that, because none of those things will be the answer. The answer to the suffering, the answer to the brokenness, is God and God alone. And when we find ourselves entering into that place of acceptance, and when we’re in those moments, in the present moment, not wishing for something to be different, but accepting what is, then we see God’s hand at work and we get to become observers of the miracles and of what God is doing. And it’s also in that place that we can relinquish control to try to fix things, to try to somehow make it better. Because all of a sudden we realize that God is the only one that really can. And when we see Him in the midst of it, we trust in Him and we let Him guide us. And this, my sisters, in Christ, this is where we find peace, even in the midst of the storm so often.
And what I’ve experienced this week is what I would classify as like, yeah, I kind of felt like I was in some storms, some pretty big storms this week. And so when we’re in the storm, we can either get caught up in the storm and we feel like our lives are out of control and there’s a lot of darkness, and everything seems like it’s turned upside down, and we question and we’re scared, and we’re trying to cling to something because the storm kind of takes us over. But when we enter into acceptance, we find ourselves still in the midst of a storm, but we almost stand in it as though we are a lighthouse. Like we’re standing strong in the midst of this storm that’s happening around us. And Christ and his light is the light in us in this storm, shining light and being a sense of refuge. Like Christ’s light is the light in the darkness, but we are standing strong with Him. And for me, that’s what I felt like this week. And it happened in these moments that started with one simple phrase: this is not a utopia.
And as long as I somehow expect life to be perfect, I’m never really going to find the peace that I know that God wants to give. To me, life is 50-50. There’s a lot of very great and beautiful and wonderful moments, but our life is also sprinkled. In all of it is the struggles and the crosses and the pain and the result of a fallen world and our fallen nature and our brokenness and all of it. And yet God is with us. He’s holding us. He is never absent. He is there in it all.
And I believe that these are the moments in which if we’re paying attention to Him, if we enter into acceptance and we just open ourselves to Him, I think these are some of the times that we get front row seats to watch His greatest miracles. This is how I believe the saints lived their lives. Our Lord never promised that life would be perfect. He never did. In fact, he said, in this world, you will have trouble, but do not be afraid. I have come to be with you in it. Like, he has assured us that he didn’t come to take away all of our suffering, but he came to redeem it and to give us an example in the flesh of what redemption looks like and what his light and truth and goodness looks like, even in the midst of pain and hardship. And so my sister in Christ I don’t know if this phrase will help you, but I would like to invite you to create a phrase like this in your own life, one that helps you move out of resistance.
Emotional childhood, that place of denial. At times when you find yourself just frustrated and angry and wishing things were different. Wishing at times the church or people or your family members or any like all of these circumstances that plague us and cause us heavy burden at times. Like, what is a phrase that could help you? Maybe it’s something like, oh, yeah, life. Life is 50-50, or yes, that’s right. We live in a broken world. Christ has promised us paradise in heaven. But this world is not like something that will help snap you back into reality, where you can just look at the circumstances and situations, situations at times even the most difficult ones, and say, oh, yeah, that’s right.
This is the world that we live in, and it’s not going to be perfect. And I can accept what is in front of me at this moment, and I can trust that God is in it with me. That is my hope for us. It’s not easy, and our brain is not naturally going to go there, but the more we practice it, the easier it becomes and the quicker we can get to that place of peace, even in the storm. And I want to say this. Even after a very difficult and challenging week, I found a little bit of refuge in my day to day. I’ve actually had a very good day today, a day of rest and a day of spending time with my family. And it’s been a great gift to kind of have a day like today where the sun was shining and it was just beautiful and enjoyable.
And I had a great walk this morning with a dear friend, and that was very life-giving. And I spent time with my husband this afternoon and my kids. And so today I got to experience the other side of the 50-50, right where it was just a really beautiful day. And this afternoon I was outside with my kids. They were playing in the backyard and I was sitting there. We had a little swing and I was sitting there and it was just an absolutely glorious, beautiful day. I mean, perfect weather, 75 degrees, and the sun was shining. And I looked out at our yard and we have a trampoline.
And the kids were playing in a different part of the yard. And I don’t know why, but I just decided to just go and climb up on the trampoline. And I just laid on it. I just laid there and just let the sun soak into my body. I just felt like I was getting this extraordinary dose of vitamin D just pouring in. And it felt so good, like the warmth of the sun. I was laying there and this breeze, this gentle breeze was passing by me. And I laid there and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is almost perfect.
Except that it wasn’t. It wasn’t perfect. And this is why. Because right next door, our trampoline is really close to our fence. And right on the other side of the fence was my neighbor who was weed eating his yard. And it was like the loudest weed eater you could imagine. It was just so loud. And I was laying there cracking up, thinking, of course, I wish I could lay here in the sun with this breeze and just peaceful and hear the birds chirping.
I wish it could just be perfect. But this loud buzzing sound of the weed eater reminded me we do not live in a utopia. And it made me laugh. And instead of wishing that my neighbor would stop so I could have a moment of quiet peacefulness, in this moment, I simply said a prayer for him. And I thanked God for this moment. And you know what happened? I felt so much peace and so much joy, even with that weed whacker going so loud. And I closed my eyes and I drifted off to sleep for about ten minutes. And it was glorious, even though it wasn’t perfect.
My sisters in Christ our Lord said that I have come to give you life and life to the full. He wanted to give us everything and he wanted to walk with us and be in it. He holds us in existence and his love for us is unimaginable. May we continue to seek Him out in all the moments, in the moments of the 50-50 and the good and the bad, the easy and the hard, the painful and the joyful, all of it, this is life to the full. And then someday, when we pass into eternity and are welcomed into heaven, we will experience perfect love and perfect joy and eternal life where there is no more suffering or pain and it will be unimaginable. And until then, God is with us in every moment. And it is he who is the answer to everything. And when we cling to Him, we will receive peace in the midst of it all.
My sisters in Christ, I hope you have a blessed week and I hope you remember that you are Made for Greatness.
![Anxiety never comes from the Lord. So the second I feel that tightness show up in my chest, I already know something true about myself. I am thinking about my life in a way that God does not want me to think about it. Period. Because if I were thinking about it the way He wants me to, I would be at peace. This episode is one question I want you to start asking faster than you are asking it right now. Not "Lord, take this away," but "Lord, what do you want me to know about this?" About this toddler. About my husband. About my body. About this house. I asked Him something this morning and He said, "You already know. You just doubt what I have already told you." Ooh, burn, Lord. We talk about why we are not reaching for Him sooner (we do not actually believe we could be at peace all the time), the grace you have to ask for before He hands it to you, what Fulton Sheen was doing in basically every talk he ever gave, and why Daniel in the lions' den and Mary at the foot of the cross were both at peace. WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE: The micro moment prayer: the second you notice tightness, throw your hands up and say "Lord, I invite you into this. Come be with me right now." Why anxiety is information and not a verdict. It tells you your thinking is off, not that your life is off The real reason we do not run to Him faster: we have never met a person who is at peace all the time, so we quietly decided it is not available to us Eight out of ten minutes. You will lose it. The win is how fast you come back Feeling powerless is the worst feeling there is, and being able to stay calm in any situation is one of the most powerful You are not done when you hear the sentence. Your job is to practice it, or your brain will spiral right back in two hours The gifts of the Holy Spirit were designed to be asked for. Wisdom, counsel, knowledge, understanding, fortitude, fear of the Lord. Ask Being at peace does not mean being peaceful. It means receiving. It means "this is okay right now and I can handle it" The surprise pregnancy test, the teenager going through it, the adult child who left the Church. You can be at peace today, in that EPISODE TIMELINE: (estimated at 5-minute marks, no timestamps in the transcript, confirm against audio) [00:00] – Hope when you feel anxious, trapped, stuck or frozen, and inviting the Lord into the micro moment [05:00] – "Lord, what do you want me to know about this?" Why anxiety never comes from Him, and what Mary has to do with our unbelief [10:00] – Eight out of ten minutes, and why staying calm is the most powerful you will ever feel [15:00] – Cheeky Jesus, the sentences He actually gives me, and writing them down so I can practice them [20:00] – My real morning (I do not pray first thing), redirecting my brain, and asking for grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit [25:00] – Fulton Sheen, the beatification, and why all his talks end the same way. At peace is not peaceful. Daniel, Mary, Joseph and the donkey [30:00] – Who I belong to, true freedom, and an invitation to the Catholic Mom Reset LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED: Join the Catholic Mom Reset: www.catholicmomcalm.com/reset Fulton Sheen beatification, plus the conference with Arthur Brooks the day before (Sterling will have a table, come say hi): www.fultonsheenconference.com/ CONNECT WITH STERLING JAQUITH: Website: https://catholicmomcalm.com Connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catholicmomcalm](https://catholicmomcalm.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/CMC_Podcast_Ep_271_13-300x300.png)
![I am team planning. I am team house systems. We teach it in the membership and it is the very first thing we tackle in the Catholic Mom Reset, because looking at your next 90 days and making a plan is genuinely a gift to your future self. But if you took all of it away tomorrow, dropped me in a different house in a different town with no idea what the next 90 days held, I would be okay. I could walk around and have peace. That is the part I want for you. A lot of women tell me they are type A planners. There is a healthy version of that. There is also a version that gets built in a childhood full of chaos you could not control, or in a home where performing well was how you got love and attention. Both of those grow up into a woman who plans beautifully, and one of them is holding on with an iron grip. This episode is how to tell which one you are running on, the five minute healing work that sets the grip down, and the sentence I said to a mom on a coaching call that changed her whole face. WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE: Why the plan is not what makes you feel calm (you make a plan, then you think "I have a plan," and the thought is what creates safety in your body) The two childhoods that produce a hyper-planner: chaos you had no control over, and love you had to earn by performing The difference between planning that feels light and playful and planning you believe you cannot survive without Abraham walking up the mountain and the Israelites who never got the itinerary, and what peace looked like for both Tolerating uncertainty is a capacity you can grow, the same way a kid grows from 37 seconds to a minute and a half underwater The five minute memory work I use, sitting in the theater with the Lord while He tells you the truth about what really happened What I told the mom who was afraid that moving every two years would rob her kids of roots and stability EPISODE TIMELINE: [00:00] – Why I wanted to do this episode, and why I am solidly team planning and team systems [05:00] – All brains hate uncertainty, the AI conversation nobody can predict, and the skill we can actually grow [10:00] – Your body feels your thinking, not your plan. The Israelites, and Abraham on the mountain [15:00] – The car breaks down. The husband's job might move you. How to answer your own brain [20:00] – Chaos versus performance, the grounded healthy version of you, and asking the Lord what we are doing today [25:00] – Bob Schuchts, inner child work, and revisiting a memory with Jesus in five minutes [30:00] – "You are their mom. You bring roots and stability everywhere you go." Protocols, and week one of the Reset LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED: The Catholic Mom Reset (starts Sunday, September 6th, first live call Thursday, September 10th) Bob Schuchts books Brya Hannan book on inner child healing (do one chapter a month, it is deep work) Restore the Glory podcast with Bob Schuchts and Jake Khym Calm Catholic Kids: https://calmcatholickids.com CONNECT WITH STERLING JAQUITH: Website: https://catholicmomcalm.com Connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catholicmomcalm](https://catholicmomcalm.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/CMC_Podcast_Ep_271_12-300x300.png)
!["People love change. They just hate transition." I heard Matthew Kelly teach that years ago and I think about it every single August. Because right now I'm getting a hundred emails from the school, two of my boys walked out today in socks with giant holes in the heels, and there's a lunchbox in this house that will not zip. If your body is fritzing out over start dates and supply lists and shoe sizes, nothing has gone wrong. You're not in the change yet. You're in the transition, and I want to give you the exact words to say to your own brain while you're standing in the middle of it. Plus a summer update: our little red golden retriever, the sickness that took my husband down, walking in 87 degrees on purpose, 200 Fulton Sheen rosaries, and the press-on nails I just ordered off an internet ad. WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE: Why change and transition are two different things, and why the yucky feeling belongs to the transition and not to your decision What to tell your brain when it starts second-guessing (the feeling is bad, so the choice must be wrong) and why that's backwards Who you are in a transition is not who you're going to be, whether that's back-to-school or pregnancy or a move you didn't choose The two weeks plus two weeks rhythm I use: get ready, live it, evaluate at the end of the day, tweak, then settle into the change Giving equal air time, because your brain will spend all day on what could go wrong and about nine seconds on what you're excited about The folder-and-calendar hack that keeps the school email avalanche from hanging over you every hour of the day Looking for what was good in a hard season, even when the good thing is just the timing of it EPISODE TIMELINE: [00:00] – Mid-August, the nesting itch, and going from wild open summer to ordered fall [05:00] – Annie Avonlea, a sickness that hit everyone one at a time, and what was actually good about it [10:00] – Walking in the heat on purpose, France prep, and giving equal air time to the excitement [15:00] – Making Fulton Sheen rosaries, why moms need work that gets finished, and yes, the press-on nails [20:00] – "People love change. They just hate transition." The emails, the socks, the lunchbox that won't zip [25:00] – Talking to your brain in the transition, and the four weeks it actually takes to settle [30:00] – The email folder hack, and having peace today in the middle of all of it LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED: Join the Catholic Mom Reset: www.catholicmomcalm.com/reset Calm Catholic Kids: https://calmcatholickids.com Fulton Sheen beatification conference: https://fultonsheenconference.com/ CONNECT WITH STERLING JAQUITH ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/catholicmomcalm](https://catholicmomcalm.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/CMC_Podcast_Ep_271_11-1-300x300.png)