November Gratitude Journal

Woo hoo!  2 days in a row, I am on a roll. (I will not push my luck for 3 days!)

#4 Being Catholic.  There are so many amazing and beautiful ways that the Catholic church leads you closer and closer to Our Lord Jesus Christ.  The more I learn, the more I love Him.  If anyone ever has any doubts on the authenticity of the Catholic church or just wants to ask some "why do you do this?" type questions, let me know.  I LOVE talking about my faith :)

#5 Coffee.  Do I really need to explain this one??  Didn't think so.

#6  A new friend named Sarah.  God truly had his hand in leading us to meet one another.  I am so blessed to be able to welcome her into my life.  I look forward to getting to know her and her sweet family better.

#7 The Women of Christ conference.  It is not until tomorrow, but I have a feeling I will be too busy to post about it tomorrow.  It's only 10 minutes from my house and it is a wonderful faith filled day with so many amazing speakers.  I am truly looking forward to it.

November Gratitude Journal

Here it is--November again.  I have barely posted this year and I really did such a horrible job of keeping up my gratitude journal for 2011.  It is certainly not for lack of things to be grateful for, but for lack of time to put my usually scattered thoughts together and type them out!  I will try to be a little more dedicated to it this year.  So, here goes:

#1  Listening to my 3 girls singing in the church choir last night at Mass for the Vigil of All Saints' Day.  They look so sweet up there and the choir truly brings a lot to our Masses. 

#2  Heat and electricity.  So many on the east coast are without these basic things.  I am praying for them all that things get up and running quickly.  From what I hear, tempers are starting to fly, we must pray for peace.  So many bad things can happen to people in times of trouble, by also, so many good things.  Humanity can show the good, the bad and the ugly at times like these.  We need to pray for SO much of the good.

#3  Our sweet Lord Jesus.  Every day I am allowed to wake up and start fresh, the problems of yesterday wiped clean.  Thank you for Your sacrifice, my Lord and my God.

"Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen." Revelation 7:12

Protecting our Treasure

I am not going to speak at length about this.  Attachment parenting.  Extended breastfeeding.   I feel so strongly about this, but my words and my heart just cannot convey how I feel about women exploiting their children and putting them on a magazine cover in a very personal position.  I am talking about THAT Time Magazine cover.  (I will not link to it here.  You may google it on your own if you must.)  Could they not stop for one moment and realize what they were doing to these poor kids??  Protect your treasure.  God has entrusted these little souls to you to keep for Him, to raise up for Him.  Not to exploit them.  In case you were wondering, YES, I do practice attachment parenting to an extent.  And YES, I do practice extended breastfeeding.  My last 3 children were breastfed for 3+ years of their lives.  I have tandem nursed, nursed one or two while pregnant, nursed a toddler while in the hospital after giving birth.  But I would never, ever, go on a magazine cover to prove that I am right, you are wrong, you didn't do it this way, you are screwing your kids up.  I would never do that, because it is a very personal choice to make for yourself and your child.  Whichever way you decide to parent that is up to you, just protect that treasure.
I will leave you with some postings from another mom who is a much better writer than I am.  Her post brings tears to my eyes. You can read it here
God bless.

Without The Cross

It is Tuesday of Holy Week.  The holiest week of the year.  It's been just a little over 3 months since we celebrated one of the happiest days of the year...Christmas.  From crib to cross.  From His mother's arms in Bethlehem as that newborn babe that shepherds came to adore back to her arms once again.  This time, He is dead.  He is covered in blood.  No one is there to worship and adore Him.  Yet we call this special day, this holy day, GOOD Friday.  Good?  How can we call this good?

He took up that cross, after such a harsh beating, and carried that cross, through the streets of Jerusalem.  People taunted Him, spit at Him, ignored Him.  Some wept, some helped.  Didn't anyone understand or feel how important this was?  He was carrying OUR sins on that cross.  Being nailed to that cross and dying on it opened the gates of Heaven that were closed so long ago, again, due to our sin.  that is why it is good.  He is taking our sin, crushing it, doing away with it.  We may sin again, but no longer does this mean our eternity will be spent without Him. 

We cannot celebrate Easter, or the Resurrection, without remembering all of this.  There is no hope of eternal life without that cross.  This is the way God choose to have our debt of sin repaid.  We need to embrace His cross, His sacrifice.  We need to embrace our own crosses as well.  We need to accept that we too, need to sacrifice.  At times, during Mass, when my children don't feel like kneeling all through the consecration, I point up to Him on that crucifix and whisper, "Do you think Jesus felt like hanging on that cross?"  They silently kneel again.

We all must sacrifice and suffer in some way.  How we choose to embrace these crosses that God has laid before us depends on what kind of Easter we will have.  Can we tell God that this cross is too hard for us to bear?  Can we tell Him we are in pain, please take this away from us?  "Father, let this cup pass from me..."  Of course we can ask, even beg for it to be taken away, but joyfully, we must accept these pains and sufferings, "not my will, but Yours be done."  Joyfully we can look to Easter and realize that one day, we too, will rise.  He will gently take our hand and lead us home to be with him for all eternity. 
Have a blessed Holy week and a blessed Easter!