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That Catholic Couple, Charlotte, NC (2026)

02/21/2024

Here we are at 37 weeks! We made it to full term, baby girl!

Your daddy and I have read countless books, taken many classes, and done all the nesting. Now we just continue to pray and await your arrival.

It’s still such a surreal feeling that you’re almost here. There was a time when we weren’t sure if it was in God’s will for us to be able to have children. There was also so much anxiety during this pregnancy that we constantly had to surrender to the Lord.

You have already taught us so much about trusting in God’s will and His timing.

Your life is already helping us to grow in virtue.

You’re already bringing me and your daddy closer to God.

You’ve already helped us grow more into the saints God is calling us to be.

And we haven’t even seen your sweet little face yet.

In just 3 short weeks we will finally be able to snuggle you, kiss you, and thank you for all you’ve already done to change us for the better. 💗

01/09/2024

I recently posted a reel about getting my Mommy PhD, complete with a list of books that have been so helpful for Zac and I as we prepare for baby girls arrival.

When coming up with a reading list for this pregnancy, I wanted my curriculum to be well rounded. I wanted to read books about baby’s spiritual, mental, and physical health. I also wanted to read books that would help me have a healthy pregnancy. And I wanted to read about the spiritual health of growing families from a Catholic perspective.

Here’s a closer look at each book as well as an explaination of why I’ve loved them!

1. Then Comes Baby— This book covers the health and well-being of baby and family from a Catholic perspective. Zac and I both LOVED this book!
2. Real Food for Pregnancy— An evidence-based guide to pregnancy nutrition! Also great for women trying to conceive.
3. Baby 411– A practical guide to taking care of baby. This book covers everything from first-aid, illnesses, diaper changing, and more.
4. Bumpin’— A down-to-earth guide to pregnancy for first time mamas!
5. Motherhood: An Extraordinary Vocation— Such an incredibly beautiful book. The rhetoric in this book about motherhood is deeply needed in our culture today and will make you believe that motherhood is a worthy way of spending one’s life!
6. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People— Every habit can be directly applied to family life! A must-read.
7. Glow Kids— This book is like a car crash you can’t look away from. Both scary and insightful information about the way screens impact the developing brains of children.
8. Whole-Brain Child— A book PACKED with amazing information about how to help your baby become a well-rounded and mentally healthy child.
9. Brain Health from Birth— Love this book! The chapter about creating a green nursery was so helpful! So if you’re making a registry, read that chapter first!

There are a few more books that I’d like to read before baby arrives in March, so stay tuned for Part 2!

12/25/2023

Merry Christmas from the Johnsons! ❤️

We wanted to share this beautiful prayer with you all from today’s Liturgy of the Hours:

Almighty God and Father of light,
a child is born for us and a son is given to us.
Your eternal Word leaped down from heaven
in the silent watches of the night,
and now your Church is filled with wonder
at the nearness of her God.
Open our hearts to receive his life
and increase our vision with the rising of dawn,
that our lives may be filled with his glory and his peace, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Amen

11/23/2023

Happy Thanksgiving from our growing fam! 🍁

“Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

11/01/2023

Happy all Saints Day! When converting to Catholicism, I was so happy to learn about the lives of the saints. The stories of their heroic virtue were so inspiring to me!

But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel like I could never attain that type of holiness.

It can be easy to be discouraged when we look at the state of our own lives. It can cause us to wonder if attaining sainthood is a legitimate prospect for you and I today.

But I recently heard this quote from The Imitation of Christ that can give us all hope:
“Do not be detoured nor quickly cast down when you hear about the way of the perfect. Rather be inspired to reach great heights, or at least aspire to attain them.”

Today, as we celebrate the lives and example of the saints, let us remember that they were just normal humans like you and I, who decided to use God’s graces to grow in virtue one step at a time. Sainthood is not built from one glorious moment of heroism, it’s built on turning from vice, changing our actions, choosing what’s right, and growing in virtue— moment by moment with the help of God’s grace.

Let’s ask our saint friends to pray for us as we aspire to attain sainthood, one moment at a time. All you holy men and women, pray for us!

10/29/2023

Getting ready for mass these days is like playing a game of closet roulette. I never know which dresses will fit! This is probably the last time I can wear this one before Baby J arrives!

Mass was so beautiful today, and I loved the Gospel reading. It reminds us to “love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

During our 2+ year wait for our miracle baby, I felt like the Lord was really drawing me to Himself. He was reminding me to love the Giver and not just the gifts. To love Him with ALL my heart— regardless of my circumstances.

He allows trials and suffering in our lives so that we are drawn closer to Him, and as a result, to those around us as well. He is in the business of souls. He wants as many souls as possible to know Him, love Him, and spend all of eternity with Him.

As He drew me closer to Himself, He also had my future children in mind, knowing that the closer I am to Him, the closer my children would be to Him, too.

Looking back on that 2-year wait, I wouldn’t change a thing, though it was (extremely) difficult in the moment. I will be forever grateful for the good that the particular trial of infertility did for my soul and my relationship with God.

And the blessings don’t stop with me: I know the lessons learned and the intimacy gained during that time will continue to bear fruit in my children’s lives as well.

10/27/2023

Took Baby J to a pumpkin patch last week! 🍂

We ✨officially✨ know Baby J’s gender! It’s so fun to be able to call him/her by their name and envision our future family more clearly. We are so blown away by God’s incredible gift to us and can’t wait to see Baby J face-to-face.

We will be sharing the gender with you all sometime soon and we wanna know your final guesses before the big reveal! 💗🩵 Drop your guesses below!

10/26/2023

Going to mass while pregnant has been such a sweet experience.

While struggling with infertility, I would see pregnant mamas at mass and think about how beautiful it must be to bring your child to mass even in the womb.

It’s still so surreal to walk into mass with a bump of my own now. And, so far, taking our unborn babe to mass to commune with Jesus is one of the things I’ve enjoyed most during my 19 weeks of pregnancy.

Lately my prayer has been that, in some way, these sacramental graces can extend not only to me, but to Baby Johnson too. That somehow, this sacrament can help our baby know and love the Lord more deeply even now.

10/16/2023

We got to take Baby Johnson to his/her future alma mater for the first time this past weekend! We got baby merch from the bookstore, walked around campus, and went to the football game (which ND absolutely demolished)!

It was kind of a full-circle moment for us.

Towards the end of Zac’s law school career in 2021, we discerned that it was time to grow our little family. So that day, we walked to the grotto, lit a candle, and said a prayer for our future baby. We entrusted our family to God’s will and asked Mary to pray for our special intention of having a baby.

Little did we know, there would be a 2+ year infertility journey ahead of us.

Walking around campus this past weekend, especially stopping by the grotto with Baby Johnson in my tummy, was seriously so special. I know it must have made Mary smile to see us standing at the grotto, where we lit that candle 2+ years ago, now with my growing baby bump.

So many of our biggest life decisions have been made on Notre Dame’s campus. And reflecting back on our time here gave us an overwhelming sense of God’s loving providence. Now we live in our dream city, Zac is a lawyer at his dream law firm, and Baby J is on the way! God used Notre Dame as a channel to usher these things into our lives. It’s truly one of our favorite places in the world!

05/19/2023

A husband and wife can accomplish amazing things together that neither of them would have been able to accomplish on their own!

That’s Lesson Three in our miniseries. And because we learned that lesson and acted on it, you’re able to read this post right now! It’s the reason we have this Instagram!

A few years ago, we dreamed of starting an Instagram account that would showcase the truth, goodness, and beauty of the Catholic faith (and of marriage in particular). We wanted the account to be both aesthetically excellent and intellectually engaging. But there’s no way that either of us could have created an Instagram like that on our own. Emily’s more creative and Zac’s more brainy, and neither has the other’s gifts.

But we realized something: if we combine our gifts, we can transcend our individual limitations and create something totally new!

So that’s what we did! Emily now handles the creative side of our page: she takes and edits our photos, posts our stories, and visualizes the aesthetics. Zac helps with the intellectual side by researching, writing, and editing our captions. And by brainstorming together, we come up with ideas that never would have occurred to either of us on our own.

The end result always blows us away: God is able create something through us that never could have happened without both of us working together.

So remember: God brings spouses together for a reason! He knows that their united strengths can accomplish far more for His glory than their individual gifts could do on their own. As Zac’s dad likes to say, a good marriage can make one plus one equal ten!

05/18/2023

The sacrament of marriage is powerful: you always have someone who will help you accomplish God’s dream for your life!

Welcome to Nine Lessons from Nine Years, Part Two!

Our last post talked about how spouses are united in a single mission to help each other grow in holiness and get to heaven.

At the same time, each spouse has a unique God-given mission that they were made to accomplish. This is the crux of our second lesson: God brings spouses together to help them discern and pursue the individual dreams that He’s blessed them with!

When God creates a person, He gives him or her a unique set of gifts in a combination that has never existed and will never be repeated. As Pope Benedict XVI said, “Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”

So where does marriage come in?

It can be hard to recognize your God-given strengths and talents. We can look at ourselves and question whether we even have any gifts. And we sometimes doubt whether we have what it takes to accomplish anything truly meaningful.

But spouses know each other better than they know themselves.

This means that spouses can build each other up in powerful ways: they can help each other identify their individual gifts; they can encourage each other to use their gifts; and they can provide critical help to each other as they work to accomplish their God-given dreams.

Here’s one example from our marriage. When we first got married, Zac thought that God might be calling him to go to law school. The road from application to graduation (and then to job market) was a hard, grueling grind (think of Sam and Frodo in “The Lord of the Rings”). But during the long nights, the moments of doubt, and from one challenge to the next, Emily gave Zac the indispensable help and encouragement he needed to keep going. With her help, he was able to make God’s dream a reality.

So while spouses are united as “one flesh” (Matt. 19:5), God has also called them—as individuals—to accomplish something great for His Kingdom. And they, more than anyone else, can help each other answer God’s call.

05/16/2023

We’re celebrating! We’ve been together for nine years (and married for seven and a half)! So we decided to do something special. We’re posting a miniseries: Nine Lessons from Nine Years. Today is part one of that series!

Here’s the first (and most fundamental) lesson we’ve learned: marriage is a vocation—a mission—that both spouses are committed to accomplishing.

Marriage isn’t just a phase in a relationship, and it isn’t something that just “happens” passively. Marriage is a lifelong mission that both spouses actively work to accomplish.

The Catechism explains that the sacrament of marriage “sanctifies [the spouses] on the way to eternal life” ( #1661). So for spouses, one of the purposes of marriage is to help get each other to heaven! And the sacrament gives them all the graces they need, including “the strength to take up their crosses and so follow [Christ], to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, [and] to bear one another's burdens” ( #1642).

And here’s the amazing thing we’ve discovered: God gives spouses different yet complementary gifts that will help them fulfill their mission of getting each other to heaven! The husband helps the wife become the person God made her to be, and vice versa. Simply put—the two spouses are better together! God knew that, and He decided to unite them, making them truly “one flesh” (Matt. 19:5), and giving them special graces to build up His Kingdom on earth as they journey together toward heaven.

So lesson one in a nutshell: it’s time to see marriage differently—not as two people on two missions, but as one person on one mission. United in the same mission, spouses can harness their marital graces and powerfully join forces for the glory of God!

That Catholic Couple

02/21/2024

01/09/2024

12/25/2023

11/23/2023

11/01/2023

10/29/2023

10/27/2023

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