Welcome to Our Holy Chaos

Welcome to our holy chaos!

Guests frequently receive this greeting as they enter our home. Usually, it’s in response to their obvious overstimulation at the sights and sounds of our home.

We are Dan and Tara Brooke. We’ve started this blog as an outlet for thoughts, observations, lessons, and thinly veiled cries for help as we navigate family life. Hopefully, some of what we say is useful.

Real life is messy. Real life is also where Jesus waits to meet us. Our blog is about finding holiness in the midst of the chaos of our lives.

What Do Dan and Tara Know About Holiness and Chaos?

We aren’t experts at living our faith as we raise our family, work, and play. If you’re looking for professional advice, there’re lots of options out there.

We simply offer reflections on our experiences trying to walk with our God through the ups and downs of life. We have biological children, adopted children, and have had foster children. We’ve suffered miscarriages, infertility, and an ongoing wait of over three years to complete the adoption of our son from China. Some of our kids have special needs, some have diagnosed needs, and all of us have ordinary needs that keep things interesting. We’ve homeschooled, have kids in public school, and have kids in private Catholic school.

Today (the date of this post) is our 18th wedding anniversary. We’ve helped engaged couples prepare for marriage in multiple ways. Dan is a permanent deacon in the Diocese of Bismarck. That means we journeyed through a five-year formation process together and active ministry after. We’ve crafted and led retreats for engaged couples, couples entering a second marriage, and couples whose marriages are in desperate need of healing. We train deacon candidates in the practical and spiritual components of preparing couples for marriage.

Dan leads a team of software developers and makes a hobby of mixing and matching ideas, skills, and graces from his vocations of husband, father, deacon, and professional coach. As a nerd monk, Dan is enthusiastic about things like using agile principles to stay organized as a busy dad and weaving contemplation into software development.

Tara has used her Master’s degree in Pastoral Ministry at several parishes and as the Director of Family Ministry for the Diocese of Bismarck. She helps prepare couples for marriage and baptism with Agape Catholic Ministries and is an elementary instructional aide in our Catholic school system. Tara often writes about her experiences as a mother of special needs—and typical needs—children. There are so many lessons to learn from them!

Most importantly, we sincerely try to live our faith in Jesus always and everywhere. We really believe that Jesus saves us right in the middle of ordinary life. We’ve become passionate about relating these daily successes and failures to our path to heaven.

Who Will Be Interested in Our Blog?

We write about our life experiences and how we’ve found God in them. We hope to appeal to anyone interested in recognizing God’s fingerprints in their own lives.

In particular, we want to resonate with busy parents who sense that God wants to be more present in their lives but find themselves trapped in a crazy cyclone of chores, appointments, disappointments, fears, and uncertainties that make connecting with God feel like a fantasy. Our message is to stop trying to find God somewhere apart from the life he’s called you to live. Look more closely at the chaos. He’s right there.

We plan to post an article every week or so. We’d like to narrate these articles as an audio podcast someday. Who knows how it will all shake out. We’d love to have you on the journey of finding out together!