Tag Archives: life

Come Thou fount of every blessing!

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I love this song!  It has been a favorite of mine for a long time.  I even composed a very sad version of it on the piano once while visiting my sister.  She is so sweet, she saved it and every time I visit I can find it tucked safely away in her piano bench.

This song came on while I was running today and it hit me… every thing is a blessing, the good, the bad, the confusing, the hurtful, the funny… EVERY THING.  His fountain is always pouring down on us and it is all good!  There are so many times when we don’t understand or believe that it is good and even times when saying something is good will bring anger, frustration and hatred from others, but His ways are mysterious and His plan is big and every move He makes is made with one thing in mind… bringing all of us home!

Whoever coined the phrase, “S’all good”, knew what they were talking about!

S’all good my friends.  Have faith through your tears, believe through your pain, and say Thank You for EVERY THING!

Thank You My Love for keeping Your focus on bringing us home, despite our tears.

Let them be holy

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I started praying a new prayer for my girls a few months ago.

Dear Lord, please let them be holy.  Protect them from my sins, vices and falls and guide them home with Your Holy Light keeping them pure and white and making them holy.

Guess what, since beginning this prayer He is changing me again! I have fallen in love with Our Blessed Mother, Saint Mary.  I was drawn to a book about her and now I long to pray to her, I look to her as a guide, a mentor and as the perfect example of mothering.

I didn’t tie these two events together at first, but as I think more about it I believe they are connected.  How could I, a person loaded down with baggage filled with selfishness, greed, unkindness, and sin ever hope to raise children who are holy?!?!  Alone in my greed, selfishness, and ever growing pile of wrong doings, it would not be possible, but with God leading the way anything is possible.

Thank You My Love for opening my eyes once more to one of Your Own Beloved, Your Queen, who so desperately wants to show us the Way, Your Way, Yahweh.

Our new prayer

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I am sure you have heard this prayer, and have maybe said it yourself or with your children at night.

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
Angels watch me through the night
And wake me with the morning light

I grew up saying it with my sisters and started saying it with my children awhile ago, but recently we changed the words and I LOVE IT.  Now it more closely embodies my prayer for my girls.

I pray that their way home is straight and always lit with a light from above.

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
Please cleanse my eyes all through the night
So I may follow Your angel’s light

A beautiful change

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In Mark 11:24 Jesus says

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer,  believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

I love this statement in the Bible.  It has been very close to my heart for a long time and it is one of the reasons I so strongly (and selfishly) believed and prayed for My Best Life for so long and this statement again held true when I began believing and praying for Our Best Life.

I am starting to find it very interesting that the more we believe and the more faith we have, the less we ask for in prayer.  Jesus knew about this beautiful change that happens within our hearts when we believe and He buried this wonderful secret deep within His statement for us to find as our faith and belief increase.

Lord please help me to remember every day, every hour, and every minute to believe and to have faith in Your Will so that my prayers of request decrease and my prayers of love, thanksgiving and gratitude increase despite the weather within my life.

Lord thank You for Your Divine Will… it is full of love and goodness for EVERYONE.

Please let this be my prayer…

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done, my Love.

The blessing of interruptions…

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During the Passion of our Lord, Simon the Cyrene was interrupted.  Simon’s plans and his will were put on hold when he was asked to help carry the cross of our Lord.

Can you imagine how annoyed you would be to be pulled away from your schedule and your plans to help a convicted criminal?  Sorrowfully I admit that I would be very annoyed and maybe even angry.

Simon didn’t know it at first, but this interruption was possibly the greatest blessing of his life, when he was given the honor to help our Lord.

Lord please help me to more graciously accept the interruptions and help me remember Your hidden blessings they carry as I turn away from my will and allow Your Will to be done.

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done.  Amen.

The blessing of tears…

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The first Easter that I truly mourned for Jesus was two years ago.  I cried as I went to bed on Good Friday as I finally scratched the surface of trying to understand how His disciples must have felt that night.  My sweet husband held my hand as I cried and we fell asleep.

Last year I mourned again and I cried and prayed a lot for Judas Iscariot.  I remember going for a nature walk with my family and my sweet girls holding my hands as the tears flowed.

I am not sure why I have been so greatly blessed with so many tears during Holy Week the last two years, but I pray for tears of true sorrow for my sweet Jesus to flow again this year.  I also pray for you to join me in this great sorrow NOT because misery loves company, but because following our tears we will together rise to great heights of joy on Easter morning as we again celebrate that He is Risen, He is Risen, He is Risen Indeed, my friends.

May all of the glory for ever and ever be given to Him! Amen.

A deeper love

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Last weekend I headed out to an overgrown portion of our yard with a saw in hand and planned to trim a few low hanging branches and cut down a few weeds that were becoming full grown trees.  As I started pushing branches out of the way and worked my way back to the fence I came across some dead branches/vines covered in 1-1.5 inch thorns.  I quickly recruited my sweet husband to spend the next 30 min braving the thorns while digging out this plant.  Unfortunately we did suffer a few pricks during the process and they really hurt!

The thorns and the pricks made me think of Jesus.  It reminded me of His crown of thorns and I tried to imagine these thorns pressing into my head… I couldn’t.

Thinking of this made me wonder why we have elevate the rose to such a high symbol of love when it too is covered in these merciless thorns which pressed into the vulnerable and precious head of our Savior and Lord.

Could it be that the young men of the past longed to present their dear ones with not only a beautiful, soft, sweet smelling flower, but also a flower that required them to brave the thorns before it could be obtained in order to deepen the love they were showing their sweetheart through the gift of the rose?

The soldiers could have mocked Jesus with a crown of twigs, but God placed a bush with thorns nearby to allow Jesus to show us yet another level, an even deeper level of His piercing love for us through His crown of thorns.

Jesus thank You for Your deep love that I don’t understand and cannot fathom.  You call to me, You wake me from my sleep and You long to be with me regardless of my disregard.  Please inspire me to long for You as You long for me, my Love.

Affordable comforts?

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Yesterday while I was shopping, I noticed that the price of the lunchmeat I buy had changed again.  It has bounced around quite a bit over the last few months.  Last year I could purchase a package for $2.50 and then a few months ago the price jumped up to $3.20 and since then I have watched as the price has slowly come back down.  Today it was priced at $2.89.  I was pretty happy when I first saw the new and lower price, but as I continued shopping and pushing my overflowing cart past other carts that had 2, 5 or maybe 10 items I started thinking a little more about the drop in the price of the lunchmeat.

I started wondering about my fellow shoppers who have had to pass up the purchase of this lunchmeat for the last few months because of the high price.  These are the people who have had to go without in order to bring back the lower price.  I am sure that they go without more than just lunchmeat, and their sacrifices make my comforts affordable.

Their sacrifices make my comforts affordable.

  • Are these comforts really affordable when they are gained through the sacrifice of others?
  • Is our daily surplus even ours when it is gained through the sacrifice of others?

This is the supply and demand economics of the world economy that we have built and yesterday in the grocery as I watched an empty cart go by it felt backwards, if felt upside down, it felt turned around and it felt wrong.

Lord please help me remember the backs of others that I am standing on the next time I go to the grocery and come out with a little extra in my pocket.  Please inspire Your generosity within my heart, help me to give with Your open hands and help me to remember that no comfort is truly affordable when it is gained through the sacrifice of another.

Remember our true home!

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I am not usually a cynic, but today after spending too much at the grocery I arrived home, checked the mail and found a magazine that had a picture of probably a $5 million dollar home on the front with the article titled, “Love your home!”, and I thought to myself… seriously?  Do the people writing and publishing this magazine really believe that looking at photos of this outrageously extravagant house will help me and others love our homes?  Seriously… do they really believe this?

I took the magazine straight to the recycling box, because I certainly know that looking at it would not help me to love my home, but I have been wondering why it bothered me so much today.  Most days this wouldn’t phase me or bother me, but it did today.

Maybe my annoyance with this magazine is because, as scary as it is to say or to type, in a way it reminds me of my own expensive home, of my own excess, of my own greed, and of my own issues with envy?  Maybe for a moment I forgot about my true home?

Lord please be with me and remove envy from my heart and replace it with Your generosity and gratitude because I long to always love the home You have given to me while I am here, but most of all I long to always remember that You are my true home.

Please help me, I can’t do it without You, my Love.

He makes all things new!

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Since I first thought, prayed and wrote about Our Best Life, I have changed, I am different… I think I am becoming new.  I have told friends that I don’t know why this change has come about, but I am starting to realize that I  do know why… it is because of Him, and only Him.

When I first starting praying for Our Best Life, someone very close to me was going through two very difficult and life changing events.  Her suffering and pain finally opened my eyes to my own selfishness and allowed me to step outside of myself for a moment and begin thinking of and praying for others by praying for Our Best Life.

This changed my direction, but He in His infinite humility still didn’t step in until I invited Him in through a prayer to be the seed that has been sown on good soil.

He heard my prayer and came running to help me.  Regardless of how much work there is to do in me, He pushed up His sleeves and began working to make me new!  Anything kind, loving, patient, thoughtful, considerate, generous that I do is because of Him… it is NOT me!  There is still so much to be done, but He is here and my thoughts run to Him as I talk with my husband and my children, work on homework and play with my children, read, listen to music, wash dishes, fold and iron clothes, clean our home, make our dinner and even while kneeling on the floor a few weeks ago to clean up my daughters vomit.

Thank You My Love for being here with me… I do not just need You, I desire You from the depths of my heart.