Tag Archives: Your Best Life

The many facets of His Holy Face

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I was thinking about the Nativity this morning and about the time Mary had with Jesus before His presentation in the temple. Prior to presenting Jesus in the temple, Mary had a time of infinitely deep Joy as she gazed moment to moment upon the Holy Face of God.

As I thought about this I wondered about the many facets of our sweet and Holy Lord’s Face during those days and nights with Mary. Did it change from instant to instant as the light and shadows and angles changed? Mary would have noticed every detail and change as she contemplated His Beautiful and Holy Face.

Was there an infinitesimally small moment when Jesus looked like my daughter? Did our sweet and holy Mother gaze upon Him and see my daughter’s infant face shining through for one tiny moment? Did Mary see each of us shine through the infinite facets of our Lord’s Holy Infant Face during this precious, holy, and hidden time?

I don’t know if this true, but I pray that all of our infant faces are treasured up and pondered within Mary’s heart, and as we look upon each other remember there is a sweet and tiny baby buried within everyone!

Luke 2:19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

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I didn’t know that many years after my daughter was born, I would be sitting at my kitchen table praying over a photograph of her tiny newborn feet, but He knew and many years before my prayer He set her feet upon a rock making her footsteps firm and shod her feet with preparation of the gospel of peace, and kept His law in her heart to keep her steps from slipping. He is always listening – yesterday, today and tomorrow.

He is so Good as He opens my eyes and reminds me that He is outside the box of time and He honors our prayers, in all times – yesterday, today and tomorrow.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 pray continually

Buried Inside

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Surrounded and full, yet nothing to say – His word speaks for me.

Psalm 150:6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

The never-ending story…

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I loved the movie The NeverEnding Story when I was younger. I watched it recently with my girls and it was not as good as I remembered, but there is a depth to this movie that I still love.

So often we think of never-ending, the infinite, in terms of numbers going on forever. We rarely tie it back to anything we experience in our daily lives unless we are studying mathematics or the universe. I think this is one of the reasons why I loved this movie so much. It opened my eyes to the perspective of my life being part of a bigger story, to the idea of a living story, and it brought the infinite into my finite world.

As a child I wondered where the book of my story sat and how the pages were magically added every day, but as I have grown I see that for a story to truly be living and never-ending, the depth is found within a finite number of pages, hidden between the lines where infinite new meanings, insights, and inspirations are waiting to be discovered every time it is read. Just as the numbers between 0 and 1 stretch to infinity, the meaning buried within the lines of a never-ending story is inexhaustible.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

A time to be silent

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In this time of the great opinion, many of us spend more time forming, preparing, mulling over and then sharing our own opinions on the many platforms and soapboxes we have created rather than actually stopping to listen and take the time to understand the opinions of others. Ironically, the instrument that we use most for sharing our opinions must now be covered with a mask when we go somewhere and universally a covered mouth means, be quiet or be silent.

We might not be getting the hint just yet, but I think it is being given none the less. The time to speak has passed and it is now a time to be silent and listen.

Ecclesiasties 3:1-8
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Our chance…

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A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, “Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.” The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew which smelled delicious and made the holy man’s mouth water. The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.  The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The Lord said, “You have seen Hell”.

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man’s mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The holy man said, “I don’t understand.” “It is simple,” said the Lord, “it requires but one skill. You see, they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves.”

When I started this blog I was thinking a lot about this parable and at the time I thought that I might find myself at the wrong table if I was called to stand before our King. Now I am sure there are still many days when I sit down at the wrong table, but I am trying everyday to be more intentional about taking a seat at the right table.

With the world wide spread of Covid-19 we now find ourselves in a situation where we clearly have the chance to choose a table every time we meet our neighbor. All of us are potentail carries of Covid-19 and if we choose to wear a mask, but are surrounded by others who are not wearing masks, our pontential for contracting the infection is only decreased to 70%, while the very act of wearing our own mask decreases the chances for our neightbors to contract the desease to 5%. We are very clearly dependent on the decisions of others to stay healthy and to decrease the spread of Covid-19.

Will you take this opportunity to sit down at the right table everyday? Show your love for others by wearing your mask!

Philippians 2:4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

His Breath

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This week I have been thinking a lot about my breath.  I love breathing and taking a full breath of fresh air into my lungs – I think we all do.  I have never had a serious lung issue, but I have had moments of anxiety in college and as a young adult when I felt that it wasn’t possible to get a full breath, and they were terrifying. As I listen to the news and watch the hospitals and doctors repeat over and over the desperate need for more ventilators – I am finally realizing that it is our (His) precious breath that is being taken away.

Exactly a year ago today, I wrote a blog titled “Breath of God“.  My prayer last year was… 

My Lord, I pray that You guard every utterance of my mouth so that the words I speak will never again pollute the sweet scent of Your breath, but instead will carry forth from my being to bring You Eternal Glory.

Right now, while we still have His Breath in our lungs let us truly Glorify Him with every breath we take, we must pray without ceasing. I have found that
breathing in on -Je and out on the –sus 
OR
breathing in on the  -Thank and out on the -You 
align perfectly with my inhale and exhale rhythm.

Genesis 2:7 – Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  

The Stones Are Crying Out

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There is a stone tile in my shower that reminds me of the face of our Lord gazing up to His Father in Heaven and saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34

I have looked at this tile almost every day for the last 8 years and I am always dumbfounded by the fact that our Lord created it, had men prep it and install it in this shower for the day I would notice it and then see it every day and experience, for a moment, His forgiveness and sorrow over my unrealized sins.

In just the last few days I have finally realized that not only am I experiencing an image of His great forgiveness and sorrow daily, but I am also experiencing His guarantee that if His disciples become silent, the stones will cry out. This stone is crying out.

My Sweet and Holy Lord, please do not let me be a silent disciple, teach me oh Lord to cry out in joyful praise for all of the miracles I have seen!

Luke 19:37-40
As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting:
         “BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD;
         Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!”

An image of His Immensity

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When I am running I like to pray and place people at the foot of His throne. I have always imaged that our Sweet Heavenly Father is big, but in the image I have conjured up in my mind I come midway up His dais if I am kneeling before Him and come up to His foot if I stand before Him. This must sound silly to most of you, but I have a very visual imagination. This morning He gifted me an amended image of His Immensity. Today as I prayed over my children’s school, in my mind I pulled their school out of the ground and lifted it up to His Throne. Instead of the normal image I see of a large room with a big school inside, He filled my mind with a new image. In this new image I saw how minuscule their school was before His throne. Their large elementary school looked like a tiny speck before the immense dais of His Holy Throne. When I looked across the vast space I saw a few more specks in the distance that I realized were large groups of people gathered and I somehow knew that these groups were families that had believed and walked in His Holy Will over many generations. If the whole earth had been placed there it would have look like a child’s toy ball laying on the ground before His Throne.

The only words that come close to describing what I saw are IMMENSE and VAST. Isaiah saw this too and described it for us, but now I have seen it in my minds eye and truly there are no words to describe it.

Isaiah 40:15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

The Belly of the Whale

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My sweet husband took me to Lourdes, France this summer. On our first morning we attended the International Mass in the Basilica of St. Pius X. The Basilica of St. Pius X is a huge underground cathedral with a maximum capacity of 25,000 people.

During the mass there were many times that I didn’t understand what was being said, because it was held in many different languages. In these moments, I took in my surroundings and was amazed to realize that I was sitting in what looked like the belly of a whale.

We were not there for 3 days and 3 nights, instead about 3 hours, but in that time I prayed and praised the Lord for inviting us, bringing us and preparing all of us, me, my family, everyone there (about 2000 people), to do His Holy and Good Will!

Jonah 2:1-10

From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said:

“In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me.
From deep in realm of the dead, I called for help,
and You listened to my cry.
You hurled me into the depths,
into the very heart of the seas,
and currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers swept over me.
I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight;
yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’
The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
brought my life up from the pit.
When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered You, Lord,
and my prayer rose to You,
to Your holy temple.
Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.
But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to You.
What I have vowed I will make good.
I will say, ‘Salvation comes from Lord.'”

And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.