Moving from Acceptance to Redemption

Recently, I was talking to a friend about the move in my own life from acceptance to redemption. All of us have some hurts that need forgiving. Part of recognizing the need to forgive those who have hurt us is being aware of our own sins that need forgiveness as well. Recognizing our own sinfulness is a big part of redemption and true forgiveness. We all need to be forgiven.

All of us falter in our walk with Christ, and sometimes we fall completely down or wander far off the path which leads to true peace. In my own experience, besides being way out in the wilderness not even on any type of path, sometimes I have believed that I was on the right path only to find out that God has so much more in store for me than my own limited vision. As we meander along life's twists and turns, the path of acceptance has been an essential element of healing but not the most essential.

It is redemption that brings beauty to the path of acceptance, an awareness of the profound Love God has for each one of us and His desire to demonstrate His Love, not only for us but for those who have hurt us. Acceptance helps us realize that we have been wronged and can lead us to forgiveness; redemption has faith that God will bring good out of those wrongs and always leads to forgiveness. Without the hurt, I may never have desperately ran for God's Love, for His solace and consolation, for His Loving Embrace. And for that I am thankful beyond what words can describe. Redemption desires God's Love to enter the hearts of all of His creation because of the joy He brings, because of the peace He gives, because of the Unity He Is. When we are redeemed, we recognize our own desperate need for grace and so the need of all of our fellow travelers.

Acceptance came for me from beginning a true walk with Christ, and redemption came for me by living the sacramental life of the Church. It is in the fullness of Him in the Sacraments that He opened my eyes, ears, and heart beyond my limited vision and into His Vision. Life in the land of exile is still a struggle, but what treasure is discovered in realizing His joy here in this place, His Kingdom here now amongst us and within us.

It's come to this

Well, it was kind of quiet earlier, so that is always a warning sign around here, unless it is after bedtime of course. So I went looking for our soon to be 2 year old and this is what I found:

There she is outside on the driveway with her brother's slipper on one foot and his sandal on the other and holding not 1 but 2 pez candy dispensers which she is eating in my lap right now while I type this and a Miller hat on (at least she doesn't have a can of beer in her hand). Maybe that's what I should be doing. Just kidding, it's before 5pm on a weekday. The good thing is that she IS dressed and that she IS still in the driveway. Don't pay attention to the empty flower beds (it's only April!!), the bare feet on her brother, the cracked driveway (the winters are harsh up here in the tundra!), or the soggy diaper. What can I say, it's Friday. I am a good mom, I promise, just Google it (see yesterday's post)

On a better note, this is adorable too in a different (and much much better) way:

Well, sorry for the way the pictures are laid out, I am new to blogging and can't quite figure it out and have spent way too long on this post already as said 2 year old has since left my lap in search of more pez.

Have a great weekend!

God does not need Google

Have you ever felt like if you typed in "worst mom in the world" or "worst teacher in the world" or "worst friend in the world" or "worst daughter in the world" on Google your own name would pop up as the #1 link. That is how I feel a lot of the time, wondering why in the world God ever thinks that I can do this because I feel like an epic failure so much. And I mean epic. But I guess that is the lie that we believe sometimes or a lot of the time in my case lately. Here is what I wrote in an email to a good friend yesterday and it pretty much sums it up for me right now:

I am sorry if I have been so distant, I feel as though I am just barely hanging
on and in survival mode. I long to just sit and read and drink tea or sit
and talk about everything and nothing for hours and it makes me sad that life is
so blurry right now. I long to sit down and write about it all, but cannot seem
to find the moment to do it, and when I do, exhaustion keeps me from finding the
right words. I long to sit and play the piano from my heart but cannot
find the time to relearn how to play. When the sun is shining and the
birds are singing and I look out the window and see such beauty it makes me even
more sad because I feel like I am missing something big that God is trying to
show me. And when one of the kids looks at me and says will you play with
me and I don't feel like it, I know I should but I haven't been able to. I
used to be able to multi-task, now I can't even accomplish one thing and it is
weighing heavily on my heart. Need another silent retreat. But God
wants me here and I feel like a failure.

But the truth is that I am not a failure and God knows me and doesn't need to search anything out to find out who I am, faults and all. He knows me. And the best part of all is that He loves me. I was praying the other day, looking for God in the sanctuary there in front of the tabernacle. Then I had this thought that I was trying to put God in a box, and well, here was His answer to that thought while I drove home and listened to Times by Tenth Avenue North:

Are You done forgiving? Can You look past my pretending? I'm so
tired of
defending what I've become. What have I become?

But I hear You say My Love is over, It's underneath, It's inside, It's in
between.

The times you doubt Me, and when you can't feel, the times that you question
is this for real?

The times that you're broken, the times that you mend, the times you hate me,
the times that you bend.

My Love is over, It's underneath, It's inside, It's in between.

The times that you're healing, and when your heart breaks, the times that you
feel like you've fallen from grace.

The times that you're hurting, the times that you heal, the times you go
hungry and are tempted to steal.

In times of confusion, in chaos and pain, I'm there in your sorrow under the
weight of your shame.

I'm there in your heart-ache, I'm there through the storm, My Love I will
keep you by My power alone.

I don't care where you've fallen or where you have been. I'll never forsake
you, My love never ends. It never ends.

So thankfully God does not need Google to find us. And come to think of it, I don't need Google either. Especially to find Him.

Feminine Genius in the Catholic Church

I read an amazing post by Elizabeth Scalia over at The Anchoress called The Myth of Held Back Catholic Women. It was very inspiring. Especially considering the media's attack on the Church in recent weeks. Not that these attacks are anything new, but they have been quite intense recently. The Anchoress was responding to the Lisa Miller piece at Newsweek which she called "staggering nonsense on several levels". Amen sister! People who are attacking the Church about not ordaining women do not understand Catholic teaching at the most fundamental level. This is not the post to go into what the Church teaches (look for that sometime in the future) about why in her wisdom, given by Christ, women are not ordained. I am very thankful that God created men and women to complement eachother, not to compete with eachother. There are God-given gifts and abilities women have that men do not, and God-given gifts and abilities men have that women do not. This does not negate our equal dignity, but in fact is a grace that helps us to fulfill our potential and become all we are meant to be.

Here's an exerpt from the Anchoress refuting the myth about oppression of women in the Catholic Church:

The fact is, for all of the talk about how oppressive the church has been for women, there has been no other institution in history which has given women such free reign to create, explore, discover, serve, manage, build, expand, usually with very little help from the coffers of the diocese in which they worked, and often with little to no intrusion on the part of the male hierarchy.

And these have not been mealy mouthed “sheeplike” women, but educated, accomplished women who have chosen their lives because they could do nothing greater with their gifts. Rose Hawthorne, daughter of Nathanial Hawthorne, founded the Hawthorne Dominicans, an order of nuns who take care of cancer patients – free of charge – and who subsist entirely on donations. The Grand Duchess, Elizabeth left her royal privilege behind to serve the poorest of the poor and suffered a 20th century martyrdom. The daughter of General Patton joined forces with a nun, Mother Benedicta, in France after WWII to come to America and form the Abbey of Regina Laudis, an abbey that is still attracting educated women, sculptors, writers, linguists, musicians – creative women – to use their gifts in the praise of God and for the good of us all. Did I mention that Mother Benedicta, before she became a nun,
was a medical doctor who helped to hide and treat Jews who were being hunted by
the Nazis?

I can go on…Mother Theresa built an international order of women which thrives, doing work no one wants to do, wouldn’t do in a million years. For that matter, she might seem quite mad – she probably is – but there is in Alabama an extraordinary and strange woman named Mother Angelica, the media-mogul you never heard of, who founded a Franciscan monastery and church in (of all places) the hottest bible belt in the deep South, and then – with two hundred dollars ($200.00) and no help from her bishop – was inspired to build a television station (and a radio station), which has become EWTN, a global Catholic network – also founding an order of friars – while hobbling around on crutches, yet.

Extraordinary, mad women, all of them! And I cannot think of a single institution on the face of the earth other than the Catholic Church which would have allowed them to run with their madness, BE who they were and accomplish great things.

The church gets a bad rap in this area. She has fostered literally thousands of great, great women, whose accomplishments are unjustly overlooked because they were done in a habit and a wimple. Compare them with the ‘ideal’ of today’s “smart, educated, successful” woman, like . . . Maureen Dowd, who only yesterday was whimpering about how difficult it is to be a celebrated woman in a position of prestige and power because – you know – men are so mean! The contrast could not be more
stark.

Do go read it.

Alas

Great. Now we can't even safely watch Dora. Go read this about government getting their message out to our kids on Dora from Charlotte at Cheeky Pink Girl.

While you're over there reading, read about why Charlotte blogs, I love it! I can relate to that totally.

HT Matthew at Creative Minority Report

Will. Blog. More. Later. :)