If letting go is hard to do, staying put is even harder

Just a quick thank you to all of you out there reading and praying for me.  It seems like I come here and write what is in my heart and then just sort of leave and don't come back for awhile.  This is where I write some of my most personal thoughts about life,  and it is a gift to have you to read and to pray with me, even if most of us have never met face to face. 

Right now, I am really struggling with staying where God wants me.  Even if I am home with my children, sometimes, many times, I am not truly present to them.  With God, I am trying to remain faithful.  Having a family is a wonderful gift, but I am learning that being an authentic wife and mother does not allow me to hide away what is really going on in my heart, and it is just very overwhelming at times. Like I said in my last post, my fight or flight instinct kicks in, and it just does not work.  Only surrender to God does.  God is healing me, one step at a time, and I need to be patient with His time, with my weaknesses, and with my family.  So, even though not as much is written here right now, a lot is happening, and it is all good, even if it is difficult.

Thank you for being good online friends and thank you also to those I have met face to face for reading here and for your friendship.  God is good.

I will pray for your intentions too.  God knows what they are. 

A Friend in Christ is a Treasure

Good friends are hard to find, but they are out there!  There have been many people in our lives who have come and gone, and as I am growing in faith, it is becoming less painful to say good bye because I trust that God has a plan for each person He places in our lives.  Once every relationship is viewed in the light of Christ and His Love, the ups and downs are easier to handle because Christ is always the same and He never leaves.  And we can recognize that it is Christ loving us through those people with whom we are friends and Christ loving them through us.  With Christ in a friendship, it is possible to truly love another person for that person's sake, not for one's own selfish reasons.  And with Christ in a friendship, it becomes possible to truly forgive and to be forgiven.  Today, I am speaking about relationships where Christ is the foundation for both sides, but in reality, this can apply to all people with whom we meet and interact.  We can love them for who they are, love Jesus in them, and hope for Jesus to come into their hearts when it seems like they do not know Him.  In all of this, it is Jesus Loving us, and them, with an eternal Love.

One such family that has come into our lives will be moving away next week.  We knew they were only here temporarily, so it has been easier to prepare in this sense, knowing always that they would be moving.  But it did not stop us from nurturing a close friendship in Christ.  Christ has provided us with the freedom to enter into a friendship that we know will change over time, and to dispel the fear that we would get too close and then have to say good bye.  It is sad to say good bye, but yet, I also have a great amount of hope and am looking forward to see what Jesus has planned for them and for us over the years.  I will truly miss spending time with them, and so will my husband and our children.  The best part was how well our entire family got along, moms, dads, and the children!

Really, God has provided such grace in all of this.  We both homeschool; we both had 4 children when we met, and had babies 1 month apart last year.  I came home from the hospital on Mother's' Day, and their daughter was born on Father's Day!  Our families are both lego fanatics (well maybe not us moms, even though we think legos are cool); the dads are both Eagle Scouts and went camping with the boys' cub scout troops, we love playing games (except a couple of us need to work on the other two about their lack of desire to play cards ;)  ); we went to Mass together for the first time in our newly restored Cathedral here in our diocese; both moms blog; and both families have a heart for Jesus!

Our oldest son Joseph will be going to his first confession this weekend.  Joseph has found a true lego soul mate in their oldest son, Kolbe.  They have spent hours building legos together.  Kolbe made the card shown above for Joseph (all out of his own desire in religious ed, with no prompting from his parents).  My heart is full of gratitude for each person in their family.   

Thank You God!  We pray for their safety and blessing as they finish packing and as they travel back home.  Give them courage, hope, perseverance, a strong faith, and love as they live out their beautiful vocations in You.

When the Damage is Already Done

Have you ever said something you have regretted, sometimes almost instantly?  And in this day of social media and electronic communication, have you every written/typed/texted something you wish you could take back?  Recently, in an online conversation, in trying to be "helpful", I typed something that I could not take back.  In the end, it was not helpful at all, and I wanted so hard to delete what I had said, but really it would have done no good except maybe protect myself from others seeing what I had typed.  I could have deleted it, but the damage was already done.  I apologized, but my apology was ignored.  It is very painful when our apologies are not accepted, but also I can understand hesitation to forgive as I have been there before.  I would love to say that I could live a life with no apologies, but the fact is that I am human and I am going to mess up and say stupid things, even when I'm trying to be helpful.

In the aftermath of self recrimination and self doubt, God let my heart know with certainty, that no matter what we do, when we come to Him to seek forgiveness, He will never reject us.  Never.  He always receives our plea for Mercy with Love and forgiveness.  Do I forgive the way He does?  Or is my forgiveness cold and conditional?  And on the other side, do I seek forgiveness with love or with a desire to make myself feel better?  The damage has been done, but with Christ, all things are possible, and His Mercy endures forever.

A.M.D.G.

Here is a good response to the video Why I love Jesus, but hate religion.  I actually haven't watched that video, but this one is good!  And considering my daughter, who is 10, just encountered some anticatholicism yesterday, it is timely for us. 

What happened  in a nutshell:  One of her friends told her, "A lot of people think Catholicism is messed up."  and "Why do Catholics add books to the Bible?"  and "I believe you only need to confess your sins directly to God."  All in the middle of an art class!  I'm proud of my daughter's response to this and that she held her ground and also told me about it even though she knew it probably meant she was not going to get to go on a playdate with her yesterday afternoon.  Although she did not have enough knowledge to talk about the ins and outs of the history of the Septuagint and the Canon of Scripture in the Catholic Church with her friend, she did have a great response about confession.  She told her friend that when she goes to confession she actually" is confessing directly to God, and that the priest acts in the person of Christ."  Pretty good for a 10 year old defending her faith to another 10 year old.   

I was torn about whether to let her go play with her friend anyway yesterday afternoon, but decided to have one-on-one time with her instead, so we went to our local coffee shop and had a wonderful talk! She is still friends with her, and I had a wonderful discussion with her friend's mother which made me realize how many misunderstandings and inaccuracies there are out there about our Catholic faith.  There are definite differences, but how will people know what we REALLY believe and where it came from if we are not willing to share it?  I am glad that her friend asked her questions and for my daughter's courage.... this is where her strong will is beneficial.  May we as parents help guide her to follow Christ and His Truth and to help her to grow in courage to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ with love and generosity.

Her mom apologized and was very gracious.  It was something that could have ended badly but ended up being a wonderful place to begin a dialogue.

Here's the video I was talking about before:



HT GNW_Paul on Plurk for the video

I'm with Swissy

Image from Vincenzo

We are excited because swissmiss and her family are coming to visit this weekend! :) We have never actually met in person, so I am kinda nervous too!

The kids keep asking, when will swissmiss be here? Maybe they think she will bring them some hot chocolate or something.

They wonder if we will talk to each other on our computer screens while in the same room. Er, no probably not, we're too old to do that :)

And it won't break my heart to say goodbye...

For the lonely, the sad, and the forgotten on this day of September 11, 2011:

Wow, that was good!

A dear friend came over last night and we had the best tea EVER!!! It was from TEAVANA. We had strawberry lemonade pomegranate herbal tea, sweetened with german rock sugar. What a treat! If you have any tea lovers in your family, this might be the best Christmas present for them.

Thanks Vincenzo!

A big thank you to Vincenzo for designing my new blog header! Isn't it awesome? I love the detail. Vincenzo is amazingly talented and has designed so many awesome blog headers. Go visit him at Sancte Pater or Amentior.

Encouragement from Friends

It has been quite the week! We were traveling last weekend and did not get home until Tuesday evening, so it felt as though the week was half over before we actually got started. Needless to say, we did not get a lot of homeschooling done this week. We tried on Wednesday and it was an unmitigated disaster! I had been planning on posting all kinds of stuff about our homeschool, but after this week decided that we really don't have it all together and maybe we never will.

Despite being perpetually undone/works in progress/not quite there yet, God is good and He is right here along with us, encouraging us as we go, even when we fall flat, or when we mess up. We may have to do a homeschool starting do-over (even though technically we started last week). Things are so different this year. Last year we ordered our books the beginning of June, we started a whole 2 weeks earlier than the local public schools, and we had our Family Rule set, schedules organized. This year, we didn't order the curriculum until the week before we needed it, we started almost 2 weeks AFTER the local public school (still do not feel like we have officially started yet), we are living in a new home, I can't even find our calendar anymore, and we still have a lot of unpacking to do. Whew! And now there are two children to homeschool instead of one. God, help me to trust You and Your grace to get us back on track. Thank You for always being here to guide us and for never abandoning us. Help me in my discouragement, and thank You for friends to help me along the way. In Your Name, Amen.

Oh yes! About friends, what this post is supposed to be about ;) . Through all this, I have been a little discouraged about blogging and kind of running into a wall about if I should continue or not, but God has provided several things these past few weeks to encourage me to continue blogging.

One is Mary333 over at The Beautiful Gate recommended this blog as a new blog to come check out! There have been quite a few more visitors coming here this week and I so appreciate you coming by to see this blog! Thanks so much Mary for your kindness. Check out her blog too. It is one of my favorites, along with her other blogs which you will see links to when you go visit her. And while you're at it, check out another new blog Crooked Halo as well. She was also recommended by Mary333. I look forward to visiting her blog even more in the future.

Another thing that happened is Vincenzo tagged me for my very first meme! I must admit that I was kind of feeling left out of all these meme things going on in the blogosphere, so I am thankful for being tagged finally! Vincenzo is a lot of fun, and I love to read his blogs Sancte Pater and Amentior that he does with swissmiss and Cathy_of_Alex. This is a food meme, and I'm working on it, so look for my answers coming up!

Thank you friends for the encouragement. God Bless!