I’m Christina — a Catholic wife, mother to six earthly children and two in Heaven, with a seventh on the way this September. Faith isn’t just something I practice; it’s the soil everything else grows from. God has a sense of humor about how He deploys me — I’ve served as a dance instructor, a Confirmation teacher, and a funeral planner, customer care coordinator for Trinitas (working for my mom), each role arriving without warning and carrying the same quiet whisper from The Lord: “Trust Me.” Joyful Heart is what happens when you stop keeping your callings in separate boxes.

Tales

Last year, through prayer, a book arrived. The Littlest Server was born from a moment of pure joy — watching my small-for-his-age son and my friend Stephanie’s boy triumph as altar servers after an early, tearful setback with vestments that swallowed them whole. Jackie, our deacon’s wife, said there should be a book about them. Two days later the story was on the page, the illustrator arrived by way of a Sunday afternoon visit, and God handled the rest. It was meant only for friends. It became something more. More Joyful Tales are coming — that much I know.

Knots

My grandmother taught me to crochet as a little girl. I set it down for years, then picked it back up on a restless road trip when my hands needed something to hold. What started as dishcloths became stuffed animals, stuffed animals became saints, and saints became something I couldn’t stop making — dolls of Jesus and Mary, figures of the Church’s holy men and women, pieces made by hand with prayer woven into every stitch. Joyful Knots is where fiber art meets faith, and where making things slowly has become one of the great joys of my life.

Movement

I’ve been dancing since I was ten years old and teaching since I was eighteen. Over twenty five years in, I still believe what I believed then: dance is a language, and everyone should learn to speak it. The lead and follow, the shared interpretation of music, the wordless conversation between two people — it does something that ordinary conversation simply can’t. I’ve seen it open something new in couples just finding their rhythm, and rekindle something deep in empty nesters who finally have the floor to themselves again. The dance floor meets you where you are.

And now — there’s something else stirring.

The next yes.

I feel God putting a new nudge on my heart: a podcast. Real conversations with Catholic women about what it actually looks like to live a joyful life in your vocation to love. Not a highlight reel — the beautiful, messy, grace-filled reality of saying yes. Because that vocation looks so different for each of us. The stay-at-home homeschool mom pouring herself into her children. The mother building a business — or three — in the margins of family life. The spiritual mother who has welcomed children into her heart and home. The woman still waiting, still trusting, still becoming. Every one of those lives is a story worth telling.

Joyful Heart is three branches, one heartbeat, and a conversation just beginning — stories, stitches, steps, and hopefully soon, a blog and podcast. I’m so glad you’re here.