Laura Michael, our Woman of the Week was nominated for the way she narrates ways to navigate contemporary life through her online blog, Coptic Dad and Mom. The blog is about growing in faith, caring for each other, and the tough task of juggling multiple cultures--and about being a priest's wife (in Coptic, tasoni). We asked her to tell you about herself:
"I've been a student of stories since I was very small. I loved to collect them—to read them and hear them and watch them and demand that we do it all again. One of my earliest memories is of my grandmother Teta Alice telling me the story of Cinderella and her three dresses. When I moved to the United States from Egypt in first grade, I was blessed with two amazing teachers who saw in me a storyteller. In our end-of-year poem, they mentioned writing as one of the things I especially loved. "Her stories have a voice / Her imagination blossoms," they wrote.
"My life has been shaped in many ways by those words and those teachers and others who drew me in with fantastic stories of comedy and tragedy. I majored in English, got my Masters in Teaching, and wanted to share that same joy with my students.
"In blogging, I have been able to start telling my own stories and to use my love of stories to share my perspectives. It's been over a decade since I started my blog Coptic Dad and Mom. I've gotten to know so many amazing people through it. My work on Coptic Dad and Mom gave me the practice and courage to start self-publishing books to help children learn about their faith.
"It makes me a little weak in the knees when someone I don't know recognizes me, tells me they like my book club Tea with Tasoni or that they read my blog. Being a person who works from home typing silently or chatting to herself on a webcam, it's a wonderful feeling to realize there are such kind and big-hearted people on the other side reading and watching.
"The people I connect with through my work on the blog may all live in different states and countries but are all striving members of the Body of Christ. My audience is full of people who are down-to-earth and trying their best in everything—in their faith, service, and family life—and unafraid to fall and try again in humility. I feel like we all encourage each other in that way, and that kind of community is not something I could have imagined when I first started out. I am really so grateful for them and to God for allowing me to serve in this way."
Axia!
Our Woman of the Week, Laura Michael, was nominated for her online ministry as the chief blogger of Coptic Dad and Mom. We asked her to tell you how she got started:
"I began to write out of a need for advice and connection with other young parents like me. New motherhood is terribly lonely. For me, it was especially isolating because I was the first to get married and have children in my circle by several years. I was blessed to be able to confer with my mother and my grandmother Teta Nabila regularly, but I was also looking for advice from women my age.
"When I was pregnant with my first child, I looked around and couldn't find many blogs written by Orthodox moms. I wanted to do a good job at this motherhood thing, and I wanted to raise faithful Orthodox Christian kids, but there weren't many places to turn to.
"So, I began to write and publish posts myself, as a way to record my own journey. In the early years, the blog was shared with just a small circle of people, and I wrote anonymously. Then I moved the blog to copticdadandmom.com and went "public."
"My main mission with Coptic Dad and Mom is to find a way to work out my own salvation. It's astonishing how God has used blogging again and again to hold up a mirror to my weakness and my unwavering need of Him above all. As the years pass and my interior work gets more complex, His grace and mercy become ever more central to what I do day-to-day.
"I have slowed the rate of blogging in past years, and my hope is that I pick up the pace again. Writing for me is the best and most effective form of personal spiritual therapy. When life spins out of control, writing re-orients me firmly to God and His promises."
We asked Laura Michael, our Woman of the Week, to tell us about her morning routine:
"These days I wake up with a start, like I'm running out of time. There's a Coptic Orthodox monk named Fr. Yostos El Antony (d. 1976) known as the Silent Monk who, as you can surmise, rarely spoke. And when he did, he would ask those around him, "What time is it?" to remind them of the fleeting nature of life. That is how I start my day, as though a distant church bell rings, marking another passing from life to eternity.
"I wish I could say that I'm productive then, that I immediately begin on important work. Alas, I am human. On the good days, I read and meditate on the liturgical readings for the day. When grief and worry consume me, I just breathe out the names of those I love for their safety, healing, and salvation. On days when the world and its tasks get the better of me, I make a short list on my phone of things that have to get done, so that instead of being plagued by them, they exist outside me. When we've packed the kids off to school, I get dressed and jump right into whatever tasks lay before me: reading, writing, arranging, planning, organizing."
Thank you, Laura!