Mother Mary, what a woman!

You probably spent the week wondering how on earth Catholicism taught me how wonderful it is to be a woman! So let me clear up that matter and a few other things. As some of my readers are not Catholic, allow me to explain Mary’s place in the world of a Catholic. From there, you will see how Mary taught me the beauty of being a woman! Finally, it was motherhood that was the icing on the cake!

Catholics do not worship Mary I love her as a mother. Catholics love her as our mother because Jesus gave her to us as our mother. Mary said, “Yes!” to the Lord and in so doing brought us life! Thank you, Mommy Mary! So Jesus gave her to us too!

Jn 19:25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
Jn 19:26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,”
Jn 19:27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

The disciple is not named because Jesus was talking to all of us. We are to take her into our home, every one of us. Love her and care for her as we would our mothers. If we are rubbish at loving our mothers we need to do better because they are our earthly practice for Mary. Catholicism holds a huge regard for women and they are equal but not the same. Christ called men to be apostles and women to bring life either as mothers or singles in service to others. Equal not the same, there is a huge difference.

Mary always points to Jesus Many argue that she detracts from her Son because Catholics are looking at her. This is not the case. In all of her images and interactions with us she is calling us to follow her Son, into a deeper relationship with Him. From my own personal experience, the more I love her and ask her to pray for me in this journey to her Son the closer and closer I get to Him and the more I realize He loves me for me and that includes being a woman. I needn’t worry about loving her more than I should because I know that I could never love her more than Jesus does. When my son Joshua is snuggling me and telling me how much he loves me, I cannot help but think of these tender moments between our baby Lord and His mother. No, I cannot possibly love her more than He. What a beautiful thought, our God and Creator loved His mother(a woman) so tenderly as her babe!

The Catechism says: “This very special devotion differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and greatly fosters this adoration.”971 That means, she points to Father, Son and Holy Spirit as we have a relationship with her. That was her mission in her earthly life and it is in her eternal one.

Mary sacrificed herself Mary gave everything up to be the Lord’s mother. Her reputation, her safety and her home were lost to her with that single yes. The Holy Spirit had to convince Joseph to be her earthly guardian. The Holy Spirit, unlike Adam, was the spouse who protected His wife. Joseph responded faithfully, and thank you so much St. Joseph for saying yes. What a brave man! Remember they had to run away to Egypt leaving everything behind. Mary gave birth in a barn! They both lost their reputation and Mary could have been stoned! She gave everything up at the yes not to mention giving up her body to the growing baby inside her. Then she had to give up sleep to be a mother once the baby was born! Then she watched Him die on the cross for us sinners! The sacrifice never ended. She didn’t worry about her identity as a woman because she was wife and mom. She didn’t pine after the loss of a career and degree because she was a career mommy and her degree was in life! No, society has done a bang up job teaching women how to be self centered and selfish. Thank you, Mother Mary for trying to teach us the proper way to love our families. Eve brought us death, Mother Mary brought us life through her Son!(Catechism of the Catholic Church 494)

God didn’t just need a walking womb Many people say that Mary just happened to say yes. It was nothing special and God could have used any womb. Catholics do not believe that for a second. As humans, God has a special plan for us from the moment we are conceived and from that moment He prepares us for that mission. Hence, Mary’s Immaculate Conception (Catechism of the Catholic Church 491) and as a result our very clear stance on birth control and abortion. Here is the scriptural reference for this attitude.

Ps 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Ps 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

So, just like Mommy Mary, we were made for a purpose. I was wonderfully made, my womanhood and all!

Ok, so now that you know all this you can probably already tell how Catholicism helped me to see just how wonderful it is to be a woman! However, it wasn’t until I gave birth to our first son, Joshua, that I completely embraced the beauty and strength of womanhood in all its forms. I was finally given an understanding of the verse that had before offended me so much,

1Ti 2:15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

Holding my son in my arms the first time inspired me to be a better wife so that I could be a wonderful mother. I realized that I had to love Joshua’s father properly if Joshua was to fully know how much I loved him. I had to love Jesus more and more so that I could point my son in the right direction, the direction of our Lord. I had to love myself and how God created me and laid out this wonderful life completely if I was to teach my son that no matter what happens in life, no matter how the world tells you that you are useless, in fact, you are God’s perfect creation. As such He has a beautiful plan in your life. The first step in that plan was Joshua had to be male, a wonderful male. Just like I had to be female, a wonderful female!!

PS: I had a princess wedding and completely love being a Homemaker! My six year old self got her dream life, thank You, Jesus!

For an online Catechism of the Catholic Church click here.

The picture of Mother Mary and baby Jesus was taken from the Wiki entry on Madonna Art.

It's a Girl!

I was born a female, physically speaking. Psychology was teaching at the time and for many years after my birth, that gender was irrelevant to the emotional and spiritual development of a child. In some places it still is. The teaching is, essentially, you could teach a child to be “gender neutral.” Little boys don’t naturally want to play with cars and turn sticks into swords. Little girls don’t naturally want to nurture a baby doll or play dress up in princess clothes. It was a lie then and those who espouse this idea now are still lying. God created the genders equal but different. Each has a beautiful reason for being but as a society we will never find it if we keep trying to pretend the difference isn’t there. If we keep teaching our children that their innate way of being a girl or a boy is wrong how will they find their purpose?
I do not need to prove that I am as strong as a man, emotionally wired as a man or that I think like a man to prove that I am a beautiful woman created by God and as worthy of my life and freedom as a man. God created me to be unselfish, unconditionally loving, unending in pouring myself out for others, to be nurturing, compassionate and patient. He created me to be loved by Him and if it is my vocation, to create life with Him. If marriage is my vocation, He created me to be loved by a man as He Himself would love me. He created me to be a beautiful woman, physically, emotionally and spiritually. This is not less than a man; it is different from a man. Finally, after 30 years of searching the world over for the career that would fulfill me, searching for what my identity is, I have found it. I am His daughter, spouse, and mother; there is nothing on earth I would rather be.

Mk 3:35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

However, the road has been long and hard. Even now as I am pregnant with Mark and I’s second child who may be a female I realize that God has to remove the last vestiges of the “I hate women” attitude I was given growing up.
How did you get there, Dani? How did you get to the point where you hated being a woman? Well, there were a number of reasons but I will single out the most significant. Husbands, how are you treating your wife, the mother of your daughter? If you can’t be bothered to love her unconditionally, sacrificially and in an edifying manner, then your daughter is watching you. If you say horrible things to your wife, your daughter hears them and those words are for her as well. If you refuse to help your wife when she needs it or say kind words to her regularly, your daughter isn’t getting the help she needs and is not hearing those words. She is watching you, she is deciding if being a female is beautiful in your eyes or useful. She is deciding if her entire being has any value to you. If you do not value her mother, nothing you will say or do to her is going to matter one wit! Daughters create their image of themselves based on the way their parents interact with one another. Just as the mother is showing the daughter how to be woman, the father is showing the daughter if being a woman is worth anything.
Wives, are you lifting up your husbands? Are you thankful for them? Do you try and make their life easier? Do you show appreciation for your husband in front of your children? Do you speak to your children of the great things about their daddy even when he is not around to hear? Your son is watching you, deciding if being man is worth anything? Do you strive to value the traits in yourself that are inherently female? Do you appreciate them in your daughter? When she brings you a wounded animal, do you help or tell her she is being ridiculous? When she wants another baby doll burped and diapered do you help, or ask her to play a different game, you are tired of that one? Does the fact that she wants to pretend to cook bother you to no end? How about when she wants to dress up as a princess? Do you point her in other directions because that is rubbish and no woman ever gets to be a princess?
Did you know that both of your children are watching the spouse of the opposite gender to decide what they want in a spouse when they are adults? Do you want them to be treated as you treat your wife or husband? Statistically speaking, your son and/or daughter will find the carbon copy of yourself. Is how you treat your spouse the best you want for them?
The bottom line is, husbands, do you treat your wives as the beautiful princess you envisioned when you married her? Wives, do you treat your husbands as the handsome princes you imagined as you strolled down the aisle? If not, your children know, they will assimilate the treatment as unto themselves and their gender. Do you want that for them? Many times as parents in this society we are taught that we must feed, cloth, educate and dump heaps of materialistic rubbish from the store on our children. However, that is not the truth. The truth is we must feed, cloth and educate our children. Most of that education comes from their observances of our ACTIONS not our words. This means you have to work at being how you want your son/daughter to be when they grow up. You cannot just tell them, you must be kind, self sacrificing, committed, responsible, loving, etc, because if you are not, they certainly will not. This is why Paul says, “Be imitators of Christ!” Don’t just read his words and teachings and then go on your way thinking he sounds like a great guy. Strive after becoming like Him! And don’t sigh and say, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” That cliché is rubbish, I had an old dog I taught lots of new tricks and humans are not dogs. We were created to get sweeter with time just like wine. Why do you think Jesus talks about wine so much? We cannot do this without the Holy Spirit to guide us.
When I was 19 years old, I decided that I was going to remove the last remnants of anything female when I had my heart broken by who I thought was going to be my prince. He seemed to get over the loss of me so quickly that I decided I must be nothing short of a useless gender. My father had been teaching me that for years, however, I thought maybe he might be wrong so I tried dating. That experience solidified the lessons I grew up with. As a female I had no value to anyone. I would just learn how to be a man and what better way than to become a Marine? It was convenient that I felt God calling me to the Marines anyway. I shut down my heart completely until I only felt two things; anger and hate. Crying was never an option. I stopped caring about other people or trying to help them, all the men in my life were that way so I had to adopt that policy as well. I graduated boot camp trained to kill when necessary and was no longer afraid of a man hurting me. They could not hurt me emotionally or physically, ever again! The six year old who dreamed of a princess wedding and being a homemaker metamorphosed into the 20 year old who thought that she never wanted children or to be a homemaker, ever! That would just be a way for a man to use me!
Enter an officer’s wife and mother of five. She invited me to her house for a women’s bible study. I was assured that it wasn’t about how to be a better housewife and so I went. What I witnessed upon entering her home shocked me to the core and began a series of events that knocked down the giant walls I had built so high around me no one could get through. I watched her make lunch and orchestrate its consumption by five children. The oldest being six years old, spilt a glass of milk. His mother didn’t say a word, just smiled and said, “Accidents happen, I will clean it up and you will need to be very careful with the next glass.” To which the child smiled and said,
“Yes, mama.” She never got her dander up and I felt like she was the eye of a storm. Her husband, the Marine Officer, came in and the look he gave her even though she wasn’t looking stopped me in my tracks. He loved her, after all the years they had been married, all these kids they had made, all the craziness and moving and military. He really loved her. She grounded him and gave him peace. I saw all that in about 10 seconds. I don’t remember the bible study. God didn’t need me to retain the study, He wanted me to see her. He wanted me to see those children’s response to mamma. He wanted me to see a husband who loved and honored his wife. That United States Marine Officer clearly thought that women were valuable. The children thought that mamma rocked and they were so happy to see daddy. That United States Marine Officer hugged them, loved them, asked them how their day was going and listened. He asked his wife if she needed anything and asked her how she was doing. Even though there was company he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek amidst all the chaos. She was their center. A crack in my wall formed, only ever so slightly, it was enough for the Holy Spirit to move in.
Years of strong female friends who also loved the Lord was instrumental. My friend Melinda taught me that God thought I was wonderful and beautiful as a women. He didn’t need me to be married and make children to have value but if that was His plan for my life it would be beautiful. My friend Donna helped me through my journey into Catholicism and also showed me a healthy marriage and love for one’s husband. Even if that husband seemed really quirky(because I am really quirky so was worried about being too quirky to love forever), Donna told me she had her own quirks too! Was love in marriage about loving the other person even with their “faults?” Catholicism, itself, God began using to show me the beauty of womanhood, wifedom and motherhood. That will be another blog for another day, next week . . . .

Mother Theresa does it again . . .

Recently, I was attending a Bible study at my church and one of our lessons was about talents. I was unprepared for my reaction to this topic. I was angry! I was also unprepared for God’s response to my prayers.

As it has been awhile since I have written, let me give you a little back story. As a result of our move to be together as a family I lost my dog and my country house. I ended up pet-less and in an apartment in the city. I left my friends and Joshua’s friends, I left my church and my mommies group. Since that day, November 14, 2010, I have learned several things.

1) My suffering is a gift I can give to Jesus. I can offer it to the Lord on behalf of others in prayer! This fantastic teaching is Catholic and I love God for it. I feel so much less helpless with my suffering and the suffering of fellow Christians when I know that it can be used for good.

2) Suffering is necessary. Acts 14:19-28 states clearly, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”

3) I was hurting without fur in my dog-less state. It was so lonely and I was broken. Broken after 4 years apart from my husband and now having to live together. Broken after losing Tigger and now being dog-less again. Broken and unable to get pregnant and sick most of the time. Through the Holy Spirit, I met a dear woman in my bible study who taught me that I could offer up those fur-less moments. As I started getting angry towards my husband(the reason we are in the pet-free zone, an idea I came up with, as he is not a dog person) I started praying for Mark every single time I wanted fur. That amounted to a lot of prayer in one day for the head and bread winner of our family. I then started praying for those I knew wanted a baby every time my cycle came and went and my tears flowed at the lack of pregnancy and so on. God used the fur-less moments to further my understanding of point 1.

4) Jesus calls us to give Him everything. It doesn’t matter what our talents are so I don’t need to expend loads of energy figuring them out. I am supposed to use my whole being to bring Him glory and that brings me full circle to how Mother Theresa once again played prayerful intercessor in my marriage and family life.

I have a team of saints who I ask for prayer. St. Monica, Blessed Mother Theresa, Mother Mary and St. Daniel(my patron saint). After I ask them for prayer I run to the feet of Jesus Himself. I commence telling Him everything and then after exhausting myself I say, but Your will be done. On the day of the Bible study I kept asking for help because I didn’t know what my talents were and I was so angry about it. I had been very good at computers but not anymore. I had thought I was really good at training dogs but not anymore. I had thought I was a good mother but the older Joshua got the more complicated it seemed to be becoming so I didn’t think I was good at that anymore either. I kept coming to Jesus and Mother Mary to help me be a mom but no longer had any confidence in myself for that either. As far as I could tell, I was good at nothing. Or maybe I was that chap with one talent and I had buried it except I lost where I had put it! I sat silent through the bible study, so much so that others noticed. I asked them for prayer because I was so upset about it.

After the bible study I went to the gym to go for a run. All good prayer for me happens on a run. So I cried out to my team and to Jesus, praying for help with this talent thing. I didn’t know who I was anymore or what I had to give Jesus anymore.

Suddenly, in a girl voice I heard,
“You are His spouse and mother.” And suddenly the verse about doing anything to the least of these people means doing it for my Jesus! And finally, I was informed that all I am should belong to Jesus so delineating my talents is unimportant to the Lord.

I stepped off of the treadmill a different woman again. I thank God for all the work He is doing in me and pray for His continued work; there is so much more of me that needs to be more like Jesus.

Relearning the face of God!

What does it mean to relearn the face of God? Seriously, since I’ve never seen his face, how the heck can I relearn it? But I have! Many of us base our assumptions on the Lord and His character by interactions with people in our lives. Especially those that claim to be Christians! Seldom do we go directly to the source or His Word in order to determine if our assumptions are true. Funny enough, we hate it when this is done to us but have no problem doing it to the Creator.

An example, since Christians are as messed up as me, Jesus and God can’t be real. Really? It is because we are as messed up as everyone else that Jesus had to come, in order to save us. The difference between us and you is that I have accepted Jesus’ gift! An assumption that has kept people from Christ for years!

My parents said they were Christians and they were horrible parents! Always saying or doing the wrong thing! So if God loves them and accepts them, I want no part of Him. Or if I have part of Him I am scared to death of the rest of Him. What if He is unpredictable, angry and unforgiving? What if He asks me to do things He won’t do Himself? Just like my mom or dad or parents? What if He never does what He says He is going to do?

This is the category I fell into. I was afraid that God was going to get angry at me or push me away because I wasn’t perfect enough. That He was going to fly off the handle at a moments notice for something I didn’t really do and if I did it was a tiny thing so shouldn’t have upset Him so much. When my life was going so well He would do something to throw a wrench into the works because He would be angry that my life was so grand.

I also came to the severe realization that God does not have to play by our rules and that He will do what is best for my eternal well being not my temporal satisfaction. This is really hard for some people to take, hence the: Why do bad things happen to good people question? I think that this is why Jesus said that there is none good but His Father in heaven. He wanted to clear that matter up straight away, nothing bad happens to good people because there are no good people. We all need a savior because either externally or purely internally we are messed up in some manner or another. It is pride that keeps us running from that truth and by the way, that is an internal messed up! Haha

So back to this relearning His face . . .

So when I came to the Lord in confession I always saw His face as disappointed and angry. I always saw Him as wishing I would just get it right, for God’s sake! It wasn’t until I did a bible study at the Hope Mills Catholic Church that I learned otherwise. There is great rejoicing in heaven when just one of us who turns back towards the Lord(repents)!(Luke 15:7) That is a party! Read the section in the Word around that verse and you will realize that God is not frowning when we return, He is dancing, singing and coming to give us a great big hug! How awesome! You don’t have to look much beyond the Prodigal Son story to figure that out, so why had I been so blind to my Father’s face all these years? Because I was constantly seeing my earthly father’s face, the one that could never be pleased and would never completely let go of a transgression. Do I blame my earthly father? No, he is human and like me wrong in a lot of ways! My responsibility is to go to the Lord to relearn His face!

Joshua is almost two and constantly does not respond to my requests for obedience. Does that change in any way how much I love and adore him? Do I think ill of him or not forgive his transgression? Absolutely not! I love him unconditionally and pray that God gives me the strength and love to do that throughout His growing up years. But if I as a mere mortal(breathing dirt) do that for my sweet Joshua, how much more can God do that for us who sees me like I see Joshua, someone created in His image!

God’s face became so much more beautiful to me on the day I made that epiphany! There was more to follow.

His face is also brave and beautiful. He will weather any storm with me and help me to be stronger on the other side. As that awesome Christian rock song says, Sometimes He will calm the storm but sometimes He will calm the storm in me! So true! Fear has been my constant companion since I can remember. I learned to manage it by becoming a Marine. I thought then that no one could hurt my heart again(had a huge heartbreak post high school) and no one was going to hurt me physically. I shut off my heart and learned the awesome United States Marine Self Defense techniques! I was great and unafraid, sort of. The last two years, God has decided to show me this part of myself and to take it out of me, or rather, have me give it to Him and depend on Him. After I had Joshua I realized that I could not keep us safe from diseases, world calamity or someone trying to hurt us! This fear steadily grew until paralyzing proportions were reached. I got a dog, a Cane Corso, thinking that this would finally set me free of this fear. However, training a dog to be a therapy dog is a long process and I can’t take him with me into stores until that is done. Grocery shopping became very difficult because I couldn’t take him, Wal-Mart was so hard because he was not yet a service dog. Suddenly, I realized that I was trying to wait and go to these places when Mark was home or when I could go with a friend! This is severely inhibiting. So the dog only took care of part of my fear, the home and road trip fear. I still had to go to places without his comfort. I knew that God said He could take my fear, but why would He do that. Fear is such a stupid and annoying thing to have! I should just be able to get rid of it on my own.

With the help of the Bible Study, my husband and a Christian counselor(these people are great for helping you walk through issues) I realized that I expected God to respond like my earthly father to my fear. Never once did he comfort me, in fact, it was the opposite. When I came to him in fear he shoved me away, made snide comments and even tried to lock me out. It was my earthly mother who always came to save me from my fears. This was great in helping me to know that Mother Mary would pray for me, however, it did nothing for helping me to know the brave and protecting face of God. Since I never felt protected by my earthly father I did not believe I could be protected by God.

However, finally, there came a second epiphany and fear that I had fought for years was stripped away as I bathed in the protection of my God and Father. I know that doesn’t mean that He is going to save me from pain, but I know that it means He is going to walk through all of it with me and that none of it is willy nilly, all is for something and I trust His total love of me. I, as Joshua's mother, want to protect him from everything, but I can't. In order to learn to walk, he had to fall and so it is with the rest of life! I have to trust God to walk Joshua through that and me through mine.

Amazingly, this even had an affect on my view of my husband’s ability to protect me. Suddenly, I realized how much he makes me feel safe in many things. Mark makes me brave enough to speak in front of people and to do Mary Kay. He makes me brave enough to train Tiesto and raise Joshua. He makes me brave enough to try to figure out how to keep a house under control! Because I know that Mark is taking care of everything else and that he believes in me and loves me. Does that mean that Mark and I won’t go through hard stuff? Nope, this year alone I’ve had my gall bladder removed after being hospitalized for five days and they discovered a cyst on my pancreas. I also have inflammatory arthritis that renders my arms useless from time to time. Mark and I's definition of organization and "clean" are two entirely different things. However, Mark and I know that our Father in heaven has our backs. He is going to walk us through the fire of life and we trust Him to do that.

The cyst on my pancreas taught me that life is precious, no matter the trials it contains because I might not be here to live it! God loves Joshua more than I ever could so I have given Him back the son He gave me. This does not absolve my responsiblities as a parent, but it does mean that I have God there to help me every step of the way! Freedom, that is how I would describe how I feel after these two remarkable epiphanies.

Being a wife, mother and Catholic are remarkable methods that God uses to teach me His true face! His face is loving towards me at all times(even when I mess up), it is strong and when He is holding me close and looking at the rest of the world, it is a fierce face of protection because I am His beloved daughter. Thank God!

Never Perfect!

So today I suddenly had a realization. I will NEVER be perfect and not only that, it seems that I was the only one expecting me to be! Isn’t that hilarious? No really, here is how it all started. For days now I have had A LOT of stress, the least comment from Mark about it would be easier if I did it this way, or no, he would do it cause he has a certain way or anything that was short of “Dani, you are so darn perfect there is nothing about the way you (insert anything here) that could be easier for you or more efficient.” I took offense to. Poor Mark didn’t know what to do. It broke my heart because this alienated me from him and he is my best friend! What had Mark done wrong? Nothing.

To top it all off I am doing a bible study at the church called Deepening your Friendship with God and I was realizing that I not only suck as a friend to God but that I ONLY trusted God when I had to. What does that mean? It means once I have exhausted all of my resources, once I’ve done everything I can do to change a situation, once I’ve cried myself dehydrated because I can’t fix something no matter what I do, I then go to God. And I don’t go to Him with a grateful heart, with a heart full of love knowing that I am about to approach my knight in shining armor, the lover of my soul who has stated repeatedly in His word that He would pursue me into the desert if He had to. Nope, I go to Him like a dead-girl walking to her executioner! What? Why do I do that? Has He not proven Himself faithful over and over again in my life? Yes, He has.

I thought, prayed and cried some more over this realization when it suddenly hit me. It is because I do not trust God. I don’t trust Him to make sure that Joshua doesn’t get hurt, that Mark is always safe, that our families will be safe or that I won’t be beaten up and left for dead cause I’m trapped in a woman’s body. Nope, God may not stop anything bad from happening to me or my loved ones, so therefore I did not/do not trust Him. So many people I knew had this same problem! I had never had an answer for them and now I know why! Secretly, I agreed with them! This was a shocker because I’ve been telling myself and everyone else in my life that I did trust Him implicitly! So after admitting the lie to me and my husband, Mark had some very interesting tidbits to add.
“What are your priorities? Are you more concerned with your soul, Joshua’s soul and mine then you are about situations in this world?” That really gave me a start. I had thought up until he asked this question that I was. I’ve been saying for the last 18 months that the most important thing I can do for Joshua is live out the life of a Jesus-lover honestly and point him to the Lord. However, I don’t know what I meant by those words, because if I meant them in the right way, it would mean that I could answer yes to his question. However, when my mouth tried to form it I choked! Were those my priorities? Because if they were I was going to have to take a serious look at what causes me so darn much fear!

To be honest, I am a fearful and angry person. I constantly give these two things to the Lord, only to take them back again. I am angry at people for hurting people and then I’m angry at myself because I am one of them(doing the hurting and being hurt)! I am afraid that something horrible is just a breath away from happening and the conglomeration of these two items becomes a severe distrust of humanity and a heavy reliance on my canine companion to bring me comfort during my days. How that plays out is that I hate going somewhere without Tiesto because I am scared and nervous the entire time, this anxiety is only increased when Joshua is with me and the dog is not. However, when they are both not with me I feel naked and pray that no one notices me, or if they do that they will think I’m fine and smart and then leave me alone. However, I am not afraid of anyone causing harm because I figure I can take care of myself. What is wrong with me? According to God, nothing, He loves me just the way that I am. Some of you reading this might me shocked by that fact, but it is true. However, like any really good parent, He loves me way too much to leave me where I am and thank God for that.

The talk with my husband and my bible study today brought two things to light. The first being that I will never be perfect! Mark’s attempts to help and streamline are not an affront to my personhood or my value! I will never be perfect so crumbling because someone appears to have found something wrong is silly. Above all, God knows I’m not perfect and He chased me! Mark knows I’m not perfect and still hangs on for another day every day! Why was I the last one to know!?

The second thing that dawned on me is that God knows I love dogs and babies. He knows that dogs help me to feel safe and Joshua makes me feel whole. He loves me and these personality quirks about me! He has watched me become me! However, He is not going to leave me that way because He needs me to see all creatures through His eyes. That means loving adult humans with the same agape patient love I give to dogs and my son. This stunned me! Today, my Bible study teacher said that our unhealthy attachments are things that God wants to use to show us more about Him, but we have to look at the relationship as God would want us to see it! I thought about my relationship with Tiesto. He makes me feel safe when nothing else can. Tiesto loves me no matter how much work I get done in a day, if I was feeling poorly and never thinks I’m coming apart at the seams when I start crying, he just lets me wet his fur. This unconditional acceptance is something I crave and have always craved. For someone to scream to me, “Dani, you are alright just being you! Stop tweaking, going to college, writing papers, stop striving for being more because you in this moment is the most beautiful being in the world!” Today, I realized that God was trying to show me that He was that God, He has been singing it softly to me since I was a babe. First, in my mother’s arms, then in my husband’s and now every time sweet Joshua looks at me. He is all the puppy dog eyes that have ever looked up at me with complete love and interest. He whispers it in the breeze through the trees and hums it in the warmth of the sun on my face! He has been telling me over and over again and never so loudly as when He suffered, died and was buried to free me from the ultimate horror of eternal separation from His beautiful love. He came back to life again to show me that while this life ends in death and is filled with pain and bad things, He promises life and loves me completely and unconditionally! He made a picture for me and that picture was dogs! Why was I so slow to see that? Understanding His love for me makes me want to love everyone with His love and it sets me free from not only harsh expectations I have of myself, but those I place on others! I am FREE to love and be loved! FREE to meet people and talk to people and be friends with people! Why?

Because I trust God to get me through this life to be with Him on the other side. Just like a good parent who can’t control their child’s every whim as they walk through life so God is not going to control humanity. However, He promises that for His children, those who run to Him, He will redeem all things! He promises that He has overcome the world and that some day it is all going to be alright. So my priorities, yeah, they are in the right order now, our eternity is sooooo much more important than our temporaries, and in this world it is all temporary! It is okay that while I breath I am never going to be perfect because He thinks I’m dandy right now and in the end He is going to give me the biggest lovin’ hug anyone has ever seen!

This world is a fearful and horrible place, filled with horrible evil, however, I have a soul guard and so does my family! Nothing in this world can touch the beauty of my God and His strong arms for catching my family when bad things happen! He will carry us through and we will just keep truckin’ until that day we are blest with sweet release into His heaven!

Bad Day Redefined!

I thought I knew what it meant to have a bad day. However, God enlightened me today through my 17 month old that I, in fact, did not know what it was to have a bad day! After this lesson, which I shall share, I have decided that I can be a bit of a whiner and should learn to suck it up, buttercup!

So there we were playing on the back deck. My son was playing happily in a big cooler filled with water. A causality floating in this water was a June Bug. I had no idea how long that June Bug had been floating because we just got home from a several week journey. In the mad splashing about the June Bug splashed out. To my amazement, he started moving his legs wildly in the air(in the air because he had landed on his back), so I flipped him over. He seemed like he was trying to catch his breath after so long a stint in the water. Joshua rediscovered him and commenced a very close inspection of the exhausted and water logged June Bug. Not moving fast enough, Joshua took off on another adventure and finally the bug commenced walking to somewhere far away from the cooler and its water. However, Joshua returned from his adventure to resume playing in the cooler and before I could stop him he raced right over the top of that poor bugger. Did you know that one baby foot can in fact squash a bug?

So, I redefined my definition of a bad day!

God does STILL work Miracles!

I love it when people say,

“God doesn’t work miracles like He used to in the Bible. He just watches this mess.” I laugh at that because it is as if everyone doesn’t realize how horrible the mess would be if all He did was watch. As people turn away from Him more and more it gets worse and worse because that is a natural consequence. Like children, when mom says,

“No, don’t touch that it is hot.” She takes the child away but he sprints to touch it and gets burned. We are those children.

I love it when something unexplained happens that is positive and people call it karma, luck, fate, in fact, they call it anything but miracle because that would mean there may be a creator and then that would mean they might need to know Him.

In my life alone God has done so many miracles that I could write another Bible filled with my own awesome stories of God’s work in my redemption! Let me assure you now, I do not intend on doing that.

However, I do want to talk about a recent miracle that God preformed in the life of this mother. My son got allergies this year. I was making sure he had lots of fluids and was eating properly and we suffered through together as mine also got excited. However, after two days of this he woke up with crusty eyes. Now I was out of my depth. I was concerned it was conjunctivitis so to the doctor we went. To my amazement, his eyes were fine, it was allergies. However, she listened to his lungs and found fluid in the lower right lung. Very minor she assured me it was just the beginnings but we put him on the medicine to clear it up! Amazing!! God brought me to the doctor with my son when he needed it but before it became anything serious! It was a Friday, just think how much worse it would have gotten in his tiny body in just 24 hours!

I pray every day for wisdom as both a wife and a mother because I KNOW I don’t know anything. In the past I’ve been so arrogant before the Lord to think that I could figure anything out. My role as both wife and mother keeps me constantly on my knees before the Lord! However, this role also gives me the privilege to watch God work miracles in their lives as well! Thank God, it is wonderful to watch Him work!

Bumps in the Road, Road Trip Part 3

Obstacles, flat tires, dead end roads, annoying traffic back ups and detours, yes, these bumps in the road trip are out there by the 1000s and it is no different in life. We plan to go in one direction but life seems to drag us in another, we have two choices, bitterness or go with it and look for the good!
I remember once going on a road trip with Mark and he would not stop for anything! Not real food(I had to live on nuts and berries from a wee cooler on the passenger side floor board), not the bathroom(I just had to hold it!), not for anything but crabs and that the car needed gasoline. Needless to say, I loathed the trip, we had only road tripped in Britain before, a tiny island not more than 4 hours to anywhere really, so I had no idea of his penchant for going until I wanted to scream! In fact, it was so horrible that I remember little else from that trip! I spent the whole time angry, not once thinking that I had a captive audience I could have talked his ear off or sung it off. I could have listened to my tunes and relaxed and thought about deserts and very very dry places until the car ran out of gas. I could have read my Bible(except that probably would have made me car sick). But, you see my point, the obstacle of Mark not stopping got me so focused on him not stopping that when ever I think of that trip, that is the first thing that comes to mind! Silly, Dani! That is exactly what we can do to this wonderful gift of life God has given us.
Mark and I love each other immensely, we want to be together, and this is odd for most married couples nowadays. I thank God for him daily and we have been married for six years! 3.5 years of that we have been apart! That is not counting a few absences here and there. We are flat sick of it and are striving to make it different but every turn means more waiting. I could fixate on that, hold onto that frustration, pet it, love it and call it Crap, but I wouldn’t notice all the wonder that is our life! We get to go and visit him in new places! I have Joshua and I get to be a homemaker! I have a dog that I get to take to work with me every day because I’m a homemaker! How freakin’ cool is that? I love my home, my land and my car! I love my neighbors and I love my friends! I have so many cool things going on with my church and so much fun with Mary Kay! How could I be blind to all that? Easily enough; simply fixate on the bad, on the absence of the love of my life. I am a firm believer that you will reflect what your mind loves on. Another words, what do you think about when you have nothing to really think about. In those times it is the most dangerous for our hearts!
The Holy Bible, New International Version. Pradis CD-ROM:Mt 15:19.

Mt 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. d
So what should we do when our mind starts to wander and we find it wandering to everything that is negative and we commence the poor me party!
First, remember that Jesus did not spare Himself hardships. He didn’t have a bed onto which he could lay his head and he roamed ceaselessly for three years and then died a HORRIBLE death; now grant it He rose again three days later. However, couldn’t He have taken a more cushy route, certainly, but He did not spare Himself. He stayed on His road trip with ALL of its obstacles to the bitter end to save us! Considering that helps me get a right perspective on my painful circumstances.
Secondly, I remember Noah, Abram and Jacob. Think about the road blocks these folks had in their lives! Noah had a huge boat to construct in the middle of the desert, then all these animals to care for and was on a boat for a year – then he could go on with his life. Abram was separated from his family and told to go to another far off land and he went, but he moved around constantly and was told he would have a child. While he tried to do things to fix his childless status (the Arab Nation) he couldn’t do it, God removed the obstacle and then Abraham went about raising Isaac. And Jacob, that poor man had to work for 14 years to get the wife he wanted and then she wouldn’t get pregnant and became very bitter and angry with Jacob! Talk about a case of the grass being greener on the other side! These are people that God chose to have a relationship with, to talk with and share in His plan with! I want to have a tight relationship with Him, doesn’t that mean that I should expect life’s circumstances to shape me as it did the forefathers?
Finally, I start making a list of everything that is right and wonderful in my life and thanking God for them one by one. When I am done I have God’s peace again and I know that He will fix Mark and I’s separateness in His time. Until then, Mark and I have to bloom where we are planted, we have to focus on Him and wait on Him. We have to trust in Him and know that His ways are not our ways! That is hard, so hard and we are not perfect at it. However, I strive to stay on my knees before the Lord and in His word. I race to church on the weekends for Mass, even when I am out of town because I need Jesus to get through this road trip called life. The fact of the matter is, Mark and I will be together again and then there will be another flat tire on this road trip, so we have to keep abiding in Him and then He will abide in us!
Until next time, you do that too!

Passengers on this Road Trip Part 2

Many times I've heard the saying "You can pick your friends but not your family." How true is that? They should also add "or your workmates." It is always interesting to me that no matter what your occupation or family location in life you can never distance yourself completely from people who would hurt you or just annoy the heck out of you.

I've even gone so far as to think that if I could hand pick my family, friends and workmates, life would be grand! Then I thought about the most perfect road trip I'd ever gone on and my only traveling companion was Tigger, my Staffordshire Bull Terrier. She didn't complain about wrong turns, she didn't complain about frequent stops, she didn't talk incessantly and when we walked 33 miles in two days, she just kept walking. It was a wonderful weekend but there were things missing. She didn't tell me funny stories, or cause me to expand my compassion or endurance level. She didn't challenge my understanding of the universe based on her viewpoints. The very fact that she just went along with me meant that I didn't have a chance of growing as a person.

People in my life who drive me nuts or hurt me are the first people I try to push away. Once successful I think, aww, those that remain are perfect but my tolerance level recedes and suddenly one of the in crowd is annoying, I withdraw and the cycle repeats! Now in case you start thinking that I warrant staying in an emotionally or physically abusive situation, I do not and I want to clear that up right now. However, those that are guilty of minor infractions are everyone because everyone is human and sooner or later they will disappoint and a road trip alone is no fun, and it is the same with life! So, deciding that we don't want to walk through life alone what to do about those in our life who are like sand between our toes?

A friend once explained to me that those people in your life who cause discomfort are the very ones that God is using to make you more like Jesus. For a long while I thought that was nonsense! However, I thought I would take a look at Jesus workmates and family to see if He had anybody that if I were Him(you know, able to know everything) I would have said, "Yeah, this isn't going to work out . . " and walked on by. Jesus knows the hearts of all men so He knew all of his constituents before hand and fully, better than they themselves. So who did He pick for His road trip?

The first obvious oversight was Judas, that is a no brainer, the guy that was going to betray me to death, with a kiss no less! I would have walked right by him.

Secondly, there would have been the power hungry Zebedee brothers and their mother who asked for the best seat in the new kingdom, seriously, Jesus is going to get crucified soon and she is worried about seating! I would have kept walking.

Thirdly, Mary, His dearest mother, if she had pushed me into making wine before my time, I would have said, "Do you know who I am, God's son, the only one? You can't push me around . . ." And poof my Mom would be outta here! But He didn't in all the above cases He loved them and honored His earthly mother!

I kept going through each disciple and I came up with at least one reason for each, Peter would deny me, John is too clingy and so on and so forth. How much lonelier would the Lord have been if He had gotten rid of all those that hurt Him or annoyed Him. But Jesus used all of them. Mary's wine demand to start His public ministry, Peter to start His church, John to give us His mother and even Judas to consummate the Passover. And just like He used all of them in His life so it is with ours!

Those people that rub us wrong or hurt our feelings or pride(we all have that in abundance some call it honor) can make us better if we give the situation to God to redeem it and love anyway. I've actually had people that I hated and when I started praying for them and trying to run to God with He not only redeemed the situation but I became friends with the people.

We love to think that we are the best person on this road trip! The victims of heartache and pain by horrible people but how can we say that when we are all sinners. I once heard a pastor who I don't remember the name of say, "We are like thieves, found guilty and sent to a prison of thieves. On our first night in someone steals our favorite book and we say, you horrible thief you stole from me!" I died laughing to hear that! Yes, we are all passengers on equal footing. There is not first class on this ride!

So we can't pick who we ride with, how do we cope in love with these people? Go to our knees and stay there. Distance ourselves when we have to in order to deal with our own hearts because you can't change other people or give them rules on how they can interact with you, you have to deal with your own issues and heart! Think of ourselves like St. Paul did - the greatest sinner and the lowliest person. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, WASHED THEM! The God of the universe, WASHED the feet of His less than perfect, hurtful and at times annoying passengers on His ride! So how can we not?

What I have learned is if someone hurts me, annoys me or makes me angry I should go to my knees! Tell the Lord how hurt I am and never lash back, in rage at being wrongly accused and baggage being dumped on me. I have lashed out and lost loved ones as a result. Is that the answer? I don't think so, should I be walked on? No, but I should respond in Christ and in love not out of wounded pride and bent noses! So I pray for the situation and the person. Everything about the person, family, finances and walk with the Lord, worklife and happiness. Everything I hope people are praying for me and my heart starts to change! Suddenly, I have so much love for that person because God is giving me that love and they don't seem so hurtful or annoying - they are God's child too and I want them to enjoy this ride too! Who knows, I might even loan them my iPod for part of the journey!

++Note: If a relationship(blood or friendship) is riddled with rules, regulations, manipulations and essentially a emotionally abusive or physically abusive one it is not the kind of hurts or annoyances I am talking about here - NOT at ALL! In those cases, I myself go in full retreat but maintain praying for them.

Enjoying the Ride Part 1

When I was a kid and we were planning a road trip – long or short, it didn’t matter –the anticipation was great. I would dig out my road trip bag and pack an outfit and a book and thought that was good. My morning of the road trip was littered with exasperation from my mother when I was so excited I couldn’t eat and needed cheese to calm me down, only to get sick 2 minutes before walking out the door. 15 minutes after we left the drive way I would say,
“Mom, I’m starving!” She would say,
“You should have eaten before we left.” I would say,
“I tried but it left.” She would sigh and we would go to McDonald’s. Both my parents believed this to be an evil ploy on my part to eat out but fed us anyway. Funny, now that I look back, they always got something to eat too! Everyone stopped thinking it was an evil ploy when this feature carried into my marriage, I just get too darned excited!
Did I mention my packing? To my mother’s exasperation yet again, when we would arrive and I had one outfit we would have to go somewhere to buy one more. Again, the assumption was that I did this to get new clothes. That was much to complicated a scheme for me, nope, I was just so focused on the destination and how wonderful it was that I could not get myself to focus on the planning and preparation for the destination. While I am getting better, I have to for my son, I still do this!
On the actual road trip we only stopped for gas so you better go while we’re there. That meant never seeing a point of interest on the way. Never stopping to see something that might be obscure but neat! These opportunities for enriching the journey are often overlooked by people not just my family. It is like driving Route 66 and never stopping ANYWHERE!
Then there was getting lost. I will never forget the hilarity of one getting lost occasion. My dad would “sometimes” not listen to my mother’s directions,(to his credit this could be dodgy at times) saying,
“You can’t read a map.” But every trip he would give her the map and every trip he would not listen to her and every trip we got lost at least once. This time it was on a Turnpike in IL going to Chicago. In my child sleepy haze – I was 4 – I remember mom laughing in the dark and asking,
“Is there something you want to stop and take a closer look at on this Turnpike? This is the sixth go round? I keep telling you to get off here!” Then her laughter resumed as Dad said,
“I keep telling you that is wrong!” And he drove past it a seventh time, on the eighth pass he took the exit and we were saved! How funny not to listen to the person with the map!
Once we would finally arrive I would be so excited for the first hour. Running around seeing everything new! Where would I sleep? Where would we eat? Is there stuff to do outside? After all that I would settle on the couch and have a distinct moment of, this is it? Home is better but I’ll enjoy what I can! I would sigh deeply and go get my book for a bit of reading before the next adventure, sometimes missing out on the wonder of the new spot.
It was amazing when at 31 I realized that I was living like I took road trips. I was even more shocked to realize that life as a Catholic is not only a road trip extremely focused on the destination of heaven but also one focused on the journey with God in the driver’s seat. So how does one go about this road trip called life and enjoy the ride?

What is the plan?
Well, no good road trip can be had without a plan. However, if the plan is too detailed it is so oppressive of a journey that no one can enjoy it. Ask anyone who has ever been on the military equivalent of a road trip – a convoy – and they’ll let you know all about too detailed plans for road trips.
So it is with life. If you over plan that means you leave no room for God to move you. Not giving Him that liberty in your heart will mean the obstacles and course changes in your journey can make you hard hearted. If you have a heart of stone you will not let God drive on your road trip and it will only get worse. I once had such a detailed plan for life and it was all MY plan! Mark just needed to get out of the military and get a civilian job like I had. We would work from 8 to 5, never have kids, have lots of money, travel the whole world and then die. Sounds pretty great if you are talking to someone with no relationship with Jesus and during that time in my life that would be an apt description. Thank God, He physically removed the wheel from my hands. I had become so angry with my schedule and Mark’s schedule never coinciding and so angry with the Army for TDYs that this rage not only affected my friendships, work relationships and family relationships, it also drastically affected my marriage. Mark hardly touched me and it mattered little to me if he did. I weighed more than I had my whole life and could barely breath to climb stairs thanks to smoking. Marlboros became a past time I indulged in more and more to suppress the beast.(My pet name for the rage threatening to destroy me: its container) Nothing was following my plan! Finally, I got a break and a promotion that put Mark and I on the same schedule. That same week, Mark got orders to Bragg then to Iraq for the next 15 months! Needless to say the sound of my heart of stone exploding into a million pieces as I crumpled to my knees in rage and anger at the Lord for letting it happen was audible! How could He so destroy my plans? I had a timeline and everything! I went to church most Sundays, how could He do this? Weren’t there an abundance of horrible people needing a beating, why beat me? Three years and four months later there is a light at the end of the tunnel of our separation and I cannot enumerate all the wonderful things that God has done in our hearts, minds and lives! I will tell you that it is nothing less than a miracle and we now plan to serve the Lord with our lives, we plan the day to day and we plan to have to replan often as God guides us. Dr. Alan Shreck says it best in his book The Essential Catholic Catechism,
“Thus it is that Jesus can call all his followers to have a profound yet childlike trust in their Father in heaven, in divine providence guiding all things finally to the good and to the perfection of His plan.”(67)
Like the road trips with my parents, I just had to trust they would get us there. I had to trust the destination was good because I’d never been. Sometimes I felt we were never getting there but in the end it was great!
It is hard not to have a detailed plan. Everything about our world pushes us to do it from as young as 3 years old. So I remind myself daily of these two verses:

The Holy Bible, New International Version. Pradis CD-ROM:Jer 29:11.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

The Holy Bible, New International Version. Pradis CD-ROM:Ro 8:28.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Until next time, abide in Him and He will in you and hand over the wheel with prayer!

Dogs, kids and hubbys!

Well, I have to say that between my toddler, my 15 week old Cane Corso, my Mary Kay business and my husband, I'm pretty busy. However, I am loving this life! I love every day, even when I collapse from utter exhaustion at the end of each day.

Tiesto is my Corso's name and he is amazing, a great dog. He already knows sit, his name and the watch me command!

Joshua grows more and more every day! He does amazing things and has started toddleing about, it is great! He plays in the dog's food dish and water, climbs kitchen chairs and says "OK, Car and Gorga(a relative's cat name kinda)." He also signs, "More, All Done, bird, dog, cat and Semi-truck." Essentially, I think he is a genius.

He loves Tiesto and Tiesto loves him as long as neither are receiving attention from me. As soon as Tiesto is getting attention, Joshua acts up, as soon as Joshua is getting attention Tiesto acts up! I laugh all day when I am not chasing one and then the other.

God continues to reveal to me different things in me that I have to give up. When people mention public schools I would break into a cold sweat. Now, due to prayer and trying to find out how to get over that fear for Joshua, God set me free! I can now consider all options of schooling for my son and not choke on fear. I can't believe how amazing He is, there is no fear too big for Jesus!

So, life is good, God is great and I love every minute of this wild ride called LIFE!

Mountains do Move

I found myself taking a tour of the house for the 100th time that night. Not sleeping due to fear that someone would try to come in the house and take my most precious treasure. Knowing that I am only a woman, a woman and mother who finds herself alone alot, I am afraid. I cry out to the Lord for comfort, for peace. I fight against the fear with every fiber of my being because I was in the dog free zone, there was no way I could get a dog.

I read verses that deal with fear. Especially the, do not fear man, they can only kill your body. But it wasn't my body I was scared for, it was my precious precious treasure!

After a full 1.5 weeks of sleepless touring with a steel bat I asked my husband for a waiver to the dogfree zone. If I could please have a security gaurd of the fur type. As suspected, he was not happy. The heated discussion that followed was one for Mark and I's history book. At the end of the conversation I said,

"Mark, I love you and I have nothing else to say on the matter so I am going to bed now." Again we were talking out serious things on the phone because again he was gone. I went to bed crying out to the Lord, God, why am I scared? Why do I need a dog? Why can't my husband come home and be my body gaurd? I was sobbing into my pillow, crying out for God to do something to make this situation at all better! When I felt Him say,

"Do what Mark asked." What?? He asked me to find about getting a security system installed, he asked me to talk to someone about my fear issues to see if they can help me! In other words, get a big computer to do your safety and see if someone can help you with this craziness! I was so angry for a moment I couldn't speak, God was asking me to do what Mark asked and everything in me was sick of going the long way around when I knew what could help. But fine, God makes me take the long way around on everything, why would this be any different? My rage passed as I calmly found out the prices of security systems, my anger at being misunderstood and over believed in traded itself in for sympathy for my husband. Somehow, a man who has no use for dogs got tied to a woman who had a million uses for them. At the end of all the phone calls, getting an appointment to talk to someone, finding out the cost of the leading security systems and a lot of praying later, I saw my husband's point of view. I felt his pain at being unable to protect me but not wanting to have to himself or with a dog. Him wanting me to feel so strong and realizing that might not happen. I was crying for him, my sweet husband by the time we spoke on the phone the next night.

I told him I had done exactly what he suggested. I got an appointment to talk to someone and I told him the price of the security systems. I told him that the cheapest was a Cane Corso and laughed. I wanted him to make light with me. I wanted him to know that I choose him, that I always choose him! He is so wonderful, a wonderful provider, husband, father, a wonderful man and leader. I will follow him where ever and with my whole being I needed him to know that, I would always do all that he asked.

We chatted on for a little bit when we were about to get off the phone I asked him,
"Honey, which security system can I go with?" He said,
"Why don't you put a deposit on that puppy and when I get home will pick him up." I froze, did he really say that or was it my inside voice wishing he would.
"Mark, are you teasing?" I started laughing and crying and instantly the universe lifted from my shoulders.

God would continue to protect me like He always has, my gardian angel and my son's would continue to protect us but now I would have the tangible fur I needed to sleep. I would hear Zeus' breathing and know that everything is going to be alright because that big brute was going to have my back and most importantly my son's! It is amazing that while God was softening my heart toward my husband's side of this conflict, He was softening my husband's.

You would think that my husband's homecoming might be overshadowed by the homecoming of our sweet bodygaurd. Let me be clear, to quote a prez, that is most assuredly not the case. Again, I am waiting, breath abated for the return of my sweet hero, my gorgeous husband, best friend and wonderful lover! God showed me that I must trust Him above all and He will move my mountains.

Mark and I are striving together for a better future for our son, one where daddy is home every night and God maintains our holding pattern. This event reminded me that God is going to move the mountain of my husband's perpetual absence too, I just have to wait and do everything He says!

A Nun can teach a Mum . . . .

I left off last time realizing that action love takes work and is from the Lord. So how did that work out for me? And how is it that a Nun can teach a Mum about being a Mum and a Wife?
Mother Teresa is just one of those women that the whole world knows about rather Protestant or Catholic or atheist even! I, being raised Protestant had heard all about her. When I became Catholic I thought I would like to learn about her. A fabulous book put together by Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C. called Mother Teresa Come Be My Light - The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta, was the natural next step in the process of learning about Action Love. If you have not read it, I highly recommend it!
However, before I delve into her and her book let’s talk about what started me on the road of reading her book. After last lesson and blog called What is After Romantic Love, I started trying to live what I had just been taught. It was at this point I realized how hard it is to give action love and how tired I was physically and emotionally from the past 9 months and all of life’s changes! I asked God,
“How far? How much? When is enough?” I wanted Him to say, oh, right here is fine, Dani. No, no, you’ve done enough, here is good. I wanted Mark to say how amazing I was of his own accord, without me asking for it, as this is how it usually goes.
“Mark, say something wonderful about me.”
“Your wonderful.” Me, sigh, I asked for it, but how else do you get him to say something sweet!? I wanted God and Mark to say, Dani, you are the single most amazing woman to have ever been born! Silly, Dani, Mother Mary was born on the earth!
A verse kept coming to mind as I asked the Lord to help me know how far(I always like to know how long a journey is going to take before I set out on it also, can anyone type “control freak“?) I had to go. Well, not the whole verse, just pour myself out like a drink offering . . .it kept spinning around in my head. What was a drink offering? Every time a drink offering comes up it is in reference to fellowship with the Lord in the Old Testament. When God met with man they generally poured out a drink offering on the spot. Later, God prescribed drink offerings as part of the Peace offering. The offering that was when man was in communion with the Lord. So far I had learned what a drink offering was and that I was supposed to poor my life out like one so that I could be in communion with the Lord. So I had to look up what examples I had of people who had poured their lives out at the feet of the Lord.
First, the obvious, St. Paul. He was the first to talk about pouring lives out in such a manner. He mentions it twice.
Philippians 4:17,
“Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.” I thought about this verse in respect to my life. I’ve read this verse many times but thought as many think, it doesn’t apply. I’m not a missionary, I don’t wander the earth in robes and carry a big stick. So I just read over it. However, this time I stopped and thought and prayed. God, is this how I am supposed to feel towards my family? Is my life being poured out as a drink offering for their faith and service? I should be rejoicing with them? Am I Your missionary to them? The thought was like a record scratching in the distance! How much was enough? How far was too far? The answer is never is there enough and too far isn’t far enough! I’m pouring my life into them as my sacrifice to bring us into communion with the Lord, my loving them limitlessly and pointing them to God untiringly is a reason to rejoice! I will duck tape my eyes open and continually pour my life into them for God! By that pouring I will feel God even closer and who doesn’t want to be nearer and nearer to the Lord!
The second verse is 2 Timothy 4:6,
“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.” Well, I wasn’t sure when my departure was arriving but I hoped I had a lifetime left to sacrifice myself for the Lord. It was at this moment I realized that I had been living my life waiting for what I could get from the Lord. Sure my lips said all the right things, my life is the Lord’s, I’ve asked Jesus to take over, I want to be 100 percent His. But I only really meant that so far as it didn’t cost me anything. So St. Paul died for his beliefs, crucified upside down. In earlier blogs I have stated my admiration of this saint. However, more recent saints help me to keep in perspective what is required of me. Not just in St. Paul’s day does the Lord want everything, but in my day too!
So the Lord brings into my headlights, Mother Teresa, yet again! How you might ask. Mere chance, well, chance in light of the Lord, which is no chance at all! I signed up for a Bible Study at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Fayetteville. We would be studying the Bible and the book I mentioned in the intro.
Her goal was to give everything to the Lord Jesus Christ, her spouse! She even called herself “His little spouse.” That is amazing! I had known on some vague level that Nuns were “married” to Jesus but I had never realized that in their fervent love for Christ they loved Him like I loved Mark. That was an idea that was just beginning to dawn on my heart! My mind understood the concept, love the Lord like you love your Spouse, however, by reading Mother Theresa’s example I was realizing that it isn’t about how far, it is about there isn’t a distance far enough to show Jesus that I love Him and He is calling me to show love to my husband and children that does not exhaust, does not expire and does not hinge on any kind of action on their part. The finish line is death, the path is long and only the Holy Spirit is going to keep me on course. Just like Mother Theresa emptied herself out for the poor to bring souls to Christ! My calling is to pour myself out to bring my family’s souls to Christ. So I join the ranks with millions who have Mother Theresa as a role model and I’m a wife!!

On the lighter side . . .

Okay, I love traveling with Joshua. He is a great travel buddy and gets a fan club every where we go. There have only been a few sticky situations and here is one I lived through today.

First, I had to stop on our road trip to use the lou. I stopped at a gas station and hoped there would be a changing table. I hoped also that there would be one of those fold down baby chairs that you put the baby in while you use the lou. My hopes were dashed as I sauntered into the sour smelling toilet that looked as if the last person to clean it was Methusala himself. So held Joshua with one arm, he was dangling in the air! We were both dangling forward and I peeed with the precision of a Marine Sniper hoping against hope that the toilet paper would be the easy part.

Gas Station owners pay attention!!!! If in the course of using your lou you turn the toilet paper, grab a hold of it and pull just for it to break immediately let's assume that that toilet paper is not right for your establishment! Think about all those poor mothers traveling on their own, we know if we put our baby down on your nasty bathroom floor we are going to have to scour our child! Here are some suggestions:
1)Clean hourly.
2)Install changing table and little kid chairs.
3)Buy TP that can withstand at least the weight of itself.

Evil Swinging Car Doors and other mishaps

I was having a good day, really, I was, until I tried to get gas. It was one of those stations that say some great gas price and then when you look at the tiny print(that print that looked like a dollar sign), it says cash only. So I was raped on the gas price! I went from there to Wal-Mart to buy teething medicine for the wee one. He was in his stroller sitting beside my car when my door swung open and pinched Joshua's fingers between the stroller bar. I sobbed on my knees facing him in his stoller, my face buried, knowing that I had broken him. I explained that I needed to get myself together to get him to the hospital for his broken finger. While trying to get myself together, Joshua was gripping my finger with all of his fingers which had taken the impact. I started laughing through my sobbing. He was fine. After getting the thermometer at Walmart I headed home and checked the reciept, what??? They charged four dollars more than it was marked. Sigh, some days just keep going down down down, thank God for bedtime!!!

What is after Romantic Love?

About two months ago, my husband and I were walking around the lovely city of Charleston SC when he turned to me and said,

"Yeah, I think for us our Romantic love days are over. . ." And looked to me to see if I agreed and understood. Funny enough, I just smiled and nodded like I was okay with that when on the inside I thought, "What does that mean?" Does that mean he doesn't love me anymore and is just hanging around because I have his kid? Does that mean he was going to grow tired of me now and come home from his business trips just to see the wee one and pretend he wanted to see me? I shrugged it off at the time because I was too tired and overwhelmed from the career, location, life change that I had just walked through.

Weeks passed and as you've read I went through a myriad of other trials until finally coming back around to this, he doesn't romantically love me anymore? By the time I would have learned what that kind of love was my parents hated each other, so I had to look elsewhere for an example. I knew in my heart of hearts that Mark was right, that stay up all night, madly searching for moments together and butterflies dancing in your tummy at the sound of their voice had passed. I had heard talk of an abiding love, but who knew what that was?

I will point out now, Abiding Love is hard to notice. Romantic love is everywhere, in the movies, on the streets and on the radio. You see it being declared from the roof tops and in lovely ballads and in operas, but abiding love . . .well, not so much! That is that happily ever after that no one goes into detail about. Seeing how God is love I thought I would talk to Him about this mystery.

I find that a great description of abiding love can be found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

"Love is patient,love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

Now I had read these verses probably 1000 times and sat in on homilies, teachings, sermons and read books all about this. But do you think ever in all that time I noticed that love is all about action! Never once in there does it say, Love is butterflies, love is easy, love is flitting about on endorphines. . .nope, Love is something much deeper that many marriages cannot and do not touch because they are trying to be married(a Christain institution between man and woman) without Christ! This is like trying to drive a car without a steering wheel! Both are heading for a wreck!

So realizing it was an action verb I thought, well, what action can I take to love my husband? Most of society believes that sex is where it is at, as long as a marriage has a good sex life then viola, they will be married forever. However, that cannot be because sex was made for procreation not love. Adam saw Eve and before they ever touched he LOVED her.

"Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man."

It was love at first sight. So we have to rule out sex as an act of love, as the Church says it is a dandy gift from the Lord and no one would argue that it ain't one of the dandiest, but it is not an act of Love.

So I started researching what abiding love's actions looked like and how I could put them into place. The first verse I noticed was Proverbs 5:19,

"Her love will invigorate you always, through her love you will flourish continually,"

It is like that great saying, behind every great man is a great woman!

How did I invigorate my husband? I pondered this question for a while, when did I make him feel the lightest, morning coffee to be sure. This is getting up getting coffee and bringing it to him while he is still in bed, then we, mostly I, chatter on about life and such. Then there was the cleanliness of the house and being organized. Finally, willingness to travel. I was sure there were others but without asking him that was what I could come up with.

How did I oppress my husband? Telling him all my emotions, God gave us girlfriends for this. I find that I as a woman can go on and on to him about how I am feeling but it doesn't help anything or any situation spouses may find themselves in. Remember, abiding love is action. I realized that I finally understood what the curse was when God said to Eve, your desire will be for your husband. What wife hasn't longed to be emotionally intimate with her husband. We get glimpes of this in such special moments but then they retreat again into the male place that no woman can touch. When we try to force ourselves in, this oppresses our husbands. So, I must remember to wait for the next special glimpse. I also oppress him with my desire for pets. I love dogs, he doesn't . . .this one I did not have an immediate answer for but I knew God would take care of this some how and He had until August 3, 2012 to do just that. There were other things I was sure but these were the two biggies. Making a list of these two areas helped me to see things I should do more of and those I should do less!

Finally, in the day to day, what is abiding love? That was when I found Matthew 25:35-36. This is Jesus telling those who are coming into the kingdom that they had abiding love so they can come in,

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

Okay, so I needed to make sure he had clean clothes, food on his table and something to wash it down with. Even when I felt disconnected from him I was to make his home inviting and so on. However, why did I have to feel like I was dying to take care of my husband and my son. That there was nothing left of the original Dani and now not even can I expect butterflies and romance, just abiding love! Even our original way of relating seemed to be dead!!! What was going on, Lord? What was expected of me?

That was when I found it for only the millionth time in my life, Ephesians chapter five, to be more specific, 5:22. I should submit to my husband as to the Lord. What did that mean anyway? Most of the time I didn't really feel I was submitting to the Lord either and He is the creator of the universe so how was I going to submit to my husband? What was that?

I stumbled on it by looking at the referenced scripture in my Bible, it pointed to, Mark 8:34-35.

"Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it."

Yuck, so I was expected to die to myself not only for God but for my husband, that was supposed to ooze over in how I related to him and our family. Now before you get your feathers in a dander, I have to metaphorically die, in Ephesians it says, Men LOVE your wives like Christ LOVED the church. How did He love the church? He died for it, His bride! So I'll keep my lighter load.

So to sum up I learned that abiding love is action love and it is from God. I learned that the actions were described nicely twice in the Bible. We have to get it from Him and give it away. Our husbands are to receive that action love. We must submit to them as we do to Christ. Finally, we need to invigorate them! Abiding love takes work and sometimes there may be no feeling behind it but it is sooooo much sweeter than romantic love! No wonder a world without Christ cannot attain it!

Now, at this point you may be asking yourself, what do I get from my husband for all this abiding love? Instead, ask yourself, what does Jesus get from you for His unending and unfailing love, love that WE never deserved or earned and can never adequately return.

Until next time, abide in Him and He will in you, and pray!

God loves us too much to leave us . . .

I thank God that He loves us too much to leave us alone, to leave us where we are at. That He is faithful to complete the good work He started in me!(Philippians 1:6) Last week I left off my blog in a state of disconnected pain and anger. The last bit of my old life, the old Dani, pre-Mommy-D had just pasted away.

I was feeling anger at not being able to get another dog and anger at my husband for being okay with that! I had learned in my Catholic Bible study the Sunday before that when you are in desolation(that feeling that God is far away when your brain knows that He says He will never leave you nor forsake you but you just can’t feel it) to keep PRAYING until Consolation comes(the knowing He is right there and rejoicing in all things)!

So I would put my son to sleep, get some grub to eat, then go to my room and get on my knees and pull out my rosary and pray and pray and pray. Until I fell asleep, then I would wake the next day and start again, I couldn’t pray the rosary but I did not stop talking to God. Asking Him why? And when later in the week I was diagnosed with Inflammatory Arthritis, I said, “Okay, God you are in control.” And I repeated that to Him and mostly myself all the way home. What was going on? Why was all this happening this week?!

Finally on Thursday I was willing to give to God what He wanted, every last shred of me, up to and INCLUDING my love for our canine friends. It was then that I heard about Job while listening to the Christian Radio station in our area. Job lost everything of his old life too, job, friends, kids, belongings, health . . .pretty much the only thing he got to keep was his nagging wife, and we know what Proverbs says about the nagging wife! Poor Job didn’t even have a roof to sit on the corner of! (Proverbs 21:9)

I know that I’m not righteous and I know that I deserve death, so I should be rejoicing in the beauty that is this new phase of life! The wonder that is God using me, little old me with all my silly anger about losing the old me(the me I wanted God to destroy so I could be for Him, so I am getting exactly what I prayed for, I just didn’t think it would hurt so much or include Tigger!). That old me, in all her carnality and weakness in flesh had to be fully destroyed and I’m sure there is more to kill. When I get angry about things in my life that aren’t going the way I planned and I want to think in my mind and heart and sometimes be dumb enough to say in my outloud voice, okay, I most always am dumb enough to say it in my outloud voice, I should rememberJob 42:3:

“Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.“
When I remember it, I should be silent!

God is not finished with me, there will be more squeezing, but may I take it on my knees! May I recognize immediately the guiding hand of the Lord and give Him ALL of me, even the bits I think He doesn’t care about. Someday, God will give me another puppy, just like He restored to Job all that he lost. Someday, Mark and I will be able to live in the same house on a day to day basis, someday we will find the place that God wants us to be together for a while and raise our babies together.

But right now, we are Job, sitting in the beautiful place of dust that we don’t see the beauty of sometimes because we are longing for the life that was before, when we knew and understood what we were and where we were. Just like Job we cannot fathom the beauty of the life God is going to bless us with after the pit of dust. I think Job’s wife even stopped nagging! May God continue to show me the beauty of the dust I sit in and not leave me unfinished!

Until next time, abide in Him and He will in you and Pray!

Daydreaming should not happen!

I loved day dreaming and I used to do it often. You know, thinking about that place in our never too distant future where all things will converge to perfection. Funny enough, I’ve never attained it and I know that the treacherous 2007-2008-2009 that I have walked through has helped me to learn that. I have stopped day dreaming, unless it is about heaven and how awesome that is going to be . . .

I also knew that Mark and I would have struggles when we came back together full time. We haven’t come back together full time but even our two weeks here and there have become strained. We are starting to believe that God is keeping us apart because being together would be way to difficult to deal with. We appear to have become sand paper to one another. God is using the other to rub off the rough edges of the other. This was never more apparent to me than with the loss of my beloved Tigger. Mark is indifferent because he isn’t a dog person and that makes me angry. He is also expecting me to fulfill my pet free zone for the next three years, sure it was my idea, but I thought when he saw the awesomeness of Tigger he wouldn’t make me stick to such a stupid idea! I DAYDREAMED that I could convert him to a dog person.

Now I am in the pet free zone and I must be feeling what he was feeling all that time I had Tigger. Disconnected, angry, frustrated and why does it have to be this way? My mind goes to really angry thoughts when I give it a chance. Like, he isn’t even here, why should he give a crap if I have a dog? He still smokes and I should get to have a pet until he has to give up his vice!!! Then I will give up mine! Or this is the greatest thing I like to scream out in my head, why does me having a dog always have to be an issue, God, my whole life never once has it just been sure Dani, here is a puppy, have fun, live free and be happy! Nope, it is always a knock down, drag out, fight to the death and quite frankly I am sick of it. So God please take out of my heart a desire for a puppy, or put one into Mark, either way I don’t care but make it one or the other. But He still hasn’t answered. So basically I teeter between rage at Mark and frustration at the Lord. All because I daydreamed? Should I have known you can’t change a person in ANY respect that includes animals? I don’t know. All I know is that I am having to constantly pray to the Lord about my heart towards my husband and I’m praying that August 3rd 2012 gets here before I know it.

The lesson in this I have been praying about and wondering about. I think it is for me to learn that even if I feel nothing in my heart I have to keep going and stay the course, feelings are not important. I thought I had learned that in the hell I walked through with Mark being gone and pregnant and sick all by myself in England. However, maybe not. Another possibility is to learn that daydreaming is of the devil, but I thought I had learned that already also. Maybe I needed review on both counts . . .

So, until next time, abide in Him and He will abide in you and pray . . .

Career Change

Domestic Goddess/Program Director: Able to work under high stress with little to no sleep and eating times will be a chore. Able to multitask on a perpetual basis and complaining will not be tolerated, if you feel like complaining count your blessings then shut up. Weak and high maintenance people need not apply.

It dawned on me as I woke on Friday with excitement because it was Friday that this custom will have to temporarily die for me. My husband will be traveling frequently on business in his new job and that means that from time to time I am a “single” mother. Where we moved to I have no friends as of yet and so I don’t trust any one with my most precious Joshua. Sadly, this means for me that my down time consists of his naps, which occur less frequently.
With this revelation dancing in my head I rose out of bed to retrieve Joshua from his, he had decided it was breakfast time. I realized that I was dizzy, ugh, not vertigo. I’ve gotten bouts so bad in the past that I couldn’t go to work, I always hated calling in sick! Then I burst out laughing, there are no sick days in my new job either. Joshua always needs me no matter if I am dizzy or if I feel that I need a break. He needs me to love him 100% - 100% of the time that he needs me. It was at this point it hit me, working outside the home is easier! All this time I was thinking I was getting off easy not working in my old job. I thought I was shaming, as I took Joshua to the changing table to get ready for the day because his breakfast was over I wiped the sleep from my eyes, no more of that today. He looked up at me and smiled and I realized that weekends will still happen when Mark is home. I can have a bit of a break while he plays with the kids. It dawned on me that Mark would also be able to help if I got crazy sick, those benefits mean nothing. That smile I get to get a hundred times a day because I am home with him. I see the first time he coos a new sound, or learns he can do other things other than cry to get attention. I’ve gotten to witness his scoot morph into a crawl and I wouldn’t trade these and the many more I will get for all the sleep or sick days or “weekends” in the world.
People see me now who don’t know me and think,
“Oh, boring homemaker, we’ll have nothing to talk about but kids and who wants that.” I’m not used to this response and the automatic dumbing down of conversations, if they only took the time to get to know this homemaker they would find their assumptions are wrong. Making friends has turned out to be the single hardest thing about this career change and move. I marveled at the fact that I had seen this before! I’ve always loved homemakers because I wanted to be one. As a Marine I got the privilege to meet many homemakers and found them each fascinating in their own right! But I had seen others respond to these homemakers with the same blank eyes and dumbed down conversations. How little the society outside of Homemakers actually knows about Homemaking!
This fact further manifested itself in that when I was changing my career I had other working mothers say to me,
“You’ll get bored, I did! Couldn’t do it due to boredom!” I looked at them with shock, how? But because I hadn’t been a homemaker before I said,
“Oh, well, I hope not. I’ve wanted to be a homemaker since I was 14 but we’ll see.” I had resented the idea of homemaker for some years when I thought I couldn’t trust the husband. But God gave me Mark and I trusted him explicitly! So I was getting to be the career I always wanted with the exception of a few years. My hatred at being a woman during that time ran deep. I read 1 Timothy 2:15 and snarled,
“Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.” What does that mean? I am saved because of Jesus and am smarter than at least half the men-teachers this Paul is so proud of!” My flesh roared at that verse, how could I fulfill what seemed to be my calling when I wanted so much that my calling would be something else, to be a teacher! What does that mean? So when my career change occurred I knew I would have to deal with this verse again. I went back to it and reread it, I prayed that the Lord would help me understand it. I read the blue letter bible Chuck Smith commentary on it and was gob smacked! The saving Paul was referring to was not dying during childbirth! Why hadn’t I thought of that? My career now is the most important one I’ve ever had!? I was to teach my son and any subsequent children God blesses us with about Him. I was to be the helpmate of my husband! Why had I longed for a different calling? For something better?! I started to realize that I still listen to the secular worlds version of the meaning of texts in the Bible and I was going to delve into this thought more deeply later, stay tuned for that. . . .

Thank God He keeps us growing!

Never Foresaking: A change in Perspective.

How dumb and insipid was I that for a moment I believed that Mark and I's relationship had been intimate before Iraq over cigarettes, beer and swearing? Are those the three words I would use to describe us and our relationship before Iraq? Heavens no, there was morning coffee and camping! There were long drives and the talks that happened on them? Adventures of a million kinds, why had I become so blind to that? Because I was focused on the death of fleshy Dani not on the butterfly I was becoming! Our relationship was so much deeper than that and since coming back it has continued to blossom into that flower I love resting on in the glorious sun! How much I had become so focused on the differences in myself and our relationship that I did not see the beauty of the metamorphisis. I am human so naturally I wanted it all to stay the same forever, no matter how much that would have meant my heart staying hard and closed off as is was back then!

The smack in the head came when I got the first speeding ticket of my life, that I have blogged about previously. When I told my husband on the phone, he cracked some joke about it had me laughing in no time flat. How Mark can always make me laugh! We talked about the ticket and the story around it and laughed at the I wish I could have said that phrases! Then we went on to talk about his day and what it was like. Then we laughed about Joshua bumping his head as he took a flying lesson in how not to crawl forward. We talked and talked and then it was time to say good bye! I did not want to get off the phone, it wasn't like the last two weeks where I struggled for conversation and there was none, it had been a lull. Lulls are okay, they are normal and I have to let them wash over me. Sometimes there is nothing new to share, just a quick I love you and miss you is all that is necessary.

I realized that I had lost perspective. I had forgotten that we were going to go camping when he wasn't on his buisness trip. That we were going to take family outings to the beach to play in the water and the sand. The biggest thing that I forgot was morning coffee. The time we try to wake up before Joshua does and sip coffee together and discuss the night and the coming day. I get to bring him his coffee in bed(he brings me breakfast in bed when I need him too, what a sweety) and we chat over life, love, liberty and the prusuit of happiness. hehe

God taught me through the little sioree with the local swine that I had lost focus, I had forsaken not only my first love, the Lord, too busy traveling apparently. That I had forsaken the sweetest moments for focusing on the lesser ones! Reading the daily My Utmost for His Highest( http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php ) I remembered that as much as God isn't going to forsake me, no matter how busy I am on my travels He isn't going to forsake me when I am floundering in my new career. As He isn't going to forsake me, I cannot forsake the sweetest moments by getting distracted by the hard or uncertain moments of my life!

I love my husband more than words can say and his patience with me as I floundered through this adjustment period(and I'm sure I may flounder some more) just speaks volumes about him as a man! Not only a wonderful husband but a wonderful father, taking care of me and Joshua like we are his royal family, I his queen and Joshua his princely son! I know that he will never forsake us either because he is as sure as the sun! I thank God every day for my family and pray continually for the Lord to keep me on track so I can be the best for them!