Ordinary Holiness

Years ago, we were sitting under the grandstands at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway eating fried chicken during practice for the Indy 500 when an older man stopped to say hello to Lily.

Lily was sitting a few feet away from us in her wheelchair. She was playing on her iPad with one hand pressed against her ear, her shoulders hunched, avoiding eye contact and ignoring everyone. Because she's often like this in public, it's rare for people to interact with her.  

Moving over to them, I prompted Lily to say hi. She looked up at the man, who looked a little like her Grumpa, and softly said, "Hi," and then held out her hand for the man to hold. 

He first grasped her hand lightly and then offered up a fist bump. Lily decided she'd do a high five instead, and this made the man smile.

He leaned over to me and said with a strong catch in his voice, "Our daughter was just like her." Then he turned and headed over to the elevator, up to his suite to watch some race cars.

As the years pass, I find myself reflecting more and more on moments like that one—moments that make me wonder where holiness actually happens. 

If we're called to be saints, where does sainthood take place? Why does holiness seem so much bigger than the lives most of us live doing ordinary things? Am I becoming the saint God created me to be? When most people picture saints, they picture visionaries, miracle workers, martyrs, or people with dramatic conversion stories. But what if holiness is also found in people who quietly show up, sacrifice, persevere, forgive and serve over and over and over again? In places where people repeatedly choose love.

For years, people have told me they could never do what I do or commented on how strong I must be. That's always felt a little strange to me. As if I'm doing all of this on my own and somehow succeeding through sheer determination. I often had nothing profound to say back and used to say something like, "You do what you have to do" or "You might surprise yourself." It was always kinda awkward trying to explain it to people, especially people who truly believe they wouldn't be able to parent kids like ours. 

The older I get, the more I realize they were right. I couldn't have done it either. Not all at once. 

If someone had handed twenty-five-year-old me the entire story of my life and everything it would require, I would have been overwhelmed. 

But life didn't happen that way.

It unfolded one day at a time and so did the grace to meet it.

God gives ordinary people what they need for today's task. I'd rather believe and trust God to give me the strength and abilities to get through each day instead of thinking I'm doing it all alone.

Looking back, there have been so many moments that seemed ordinary at the time but now feel more holy.   

There was a homily on the Gospel of John 9:1-7 several years ago that changed how I viewed that reading and my children's disabilities forever. 

As he passed by he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him." 

Until that homily, I had always thought of that passage literally, as a story about a blind man. Then the priest began talking about autism, Down syndrome, and other disabilities. Until that moment, I had never connected that Gospel reading to my own family.

It felt like a lightbulb went on in my head.

I left Mass that day feeling lighter. For the first time, I was seeing my own children in the Gospel. 

Since then, I've watched those works become visible through my children, but also through the people who have loved them.

I’ve seen them in my brother Tommy showing up at the hospital after Lily's birth with a laptop so I could research everything about Down syndrome. 

I’ve seen them in Janell, who advised Reagan and Kaelan during their college years and repeatedly dropped everything when Reagan needed her most. 

I’ve seen them in Matt standing at the orphanage gates as Dasha left her old life behind and entered ours.

I’ve seen them while filling my mom’s pill dispenser every week, even though she affectionately called me the “Pill Nazi.”

I’ve seen them in a martial arts instructor who welcomed an autistic eight-year-old into his dojo and in a gymnastics coach who patiently carried my son to the car when PANDAS made even leaving a lesson difficult.

I've seen them in my youngest brother, William, rolling up his sleeve to give blood for his niece's open-heart surgery when he was just eighteen years old.   

None of those moments looked particularly extraordinary at the time.

Yet each one was an act of love. Each one was a person showing up for someone else. 

Maybe that's why I still think about the man at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

At the time, it felt like a brief interaction between a stranger and my daughter. But years later, I wonder if what stayed with me was seeing his love made visible. 

For a moment, the love he carried for his daughter was written all over his face and heard in the catch in his voice. 

It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't grand.

It was simply love showing up.

Maybe holiness isn't found only in monasteries, mission fields, dramatic conversion stories, or among the saints we read about in books. 

Maybe it's found in hospital rooms, at orphanage gates, in therapy waiting rooms, in church pews, around kitchen tables, while caring for aging parents, and even at race tracks.

Maybe it happens every time someone chooses to show up.

Maybe sainthood grows in ordinary places where people keep choosing love.

And maybe God gives us exactly what we need—not all at once, but for the next step, the next day, and the next person He places in front of us to love.