Friday, September 30, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
So What About Israel?
I have a friend from Jordan and we have had some strong disagreement over our stand on Islam and on Israel. She has challenged me to research my own historical stand of support for Israel. I grew up a dispensationalist (explanation here) and always felt it was my duty to support Israel every way I could. But now days I have a slightly different view of the current State of Israel and whether or not we should just support anything they do blindly without expecting them to behave as humanely as we expect ourselves to behave. But I'm torn. When I study the Old Testament, which I have been doing a lot lately, I still feel this sense of family and roots with the Patriarchs and a sense that those who are the descendants of the Hebrews belong no where more than in Israel.
Borders move and most often warfare is the method of moving them. I don't like that any more than anyone else, but it is history. I believe we should just pray for peace, try to make peace and let Providence decide.
Here is an interesting article about different Christian views of Israel that I found interesting. It will help explain where I came from and it will help explain why so many politicians have always felt we must support Israel no matter what.
Borders move and most often warfare is the method of moving them. I don't like that any more than anyone else, but it is history. I believe we should just pray for peace, try to make peace and let Providence decide.
Here is an interesting article about different Christian views of Israel that I found interesting. It will help explain where I came from and it will help explain why so many politicians have always felt we must support Israel no matter what.
Prayers for my Girls
I would be very appreciative of prayer for my daughters. They all have some important challenges right now. My eldest has a big decision to make this weekend. Please pray she will be open to that still small voice and make a wise choice.
My third daughter needs a job. Actually, she needs one and I need her to get one! I'm paying some bills for her that I really need to be giving to her, so please, St. Joseph and friends, pray a job comes along. She is searching and thinks she has a line on one, so I'm asking for prayer for her job search.
Thanks everyone for your prayers!
My middle daughter is expecting her second child. She is about twelve weeks along. The little darling is very active and Nana is praying for a girl. I'll be happy either way though. Pray her first trimester sickness fades quickly. She's been feeling kind of icky.
Thanks everyone for your prayers!
The Catholic Knight: U.S. Government DECLARES WAR on the Catholic Churc...
The Catholic Knight: U.S. Government DECLARES WAR on the Catholic Churc...: The Administration's failure to change course on this matter will, as the attached analysis indicates, precipitate a national conflict betwe...
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
What's Been Going On In My Life
You may have noticed that I haven't been writing much about my own walk and where God was leading me lately. It has been a horrible, wonderful few months since I moved into my own place in June. You really get to know yourself when you are alone with yourself.
A few things have unfolded in the last year or two that led to the decision to be on my own. Last January I was diagnosed with Dercums Disease. I had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia in the early 90s, and unfortunately these two conditions exacerbate each other. In delving into both of them, I learned how significant emotional trauma was. Having been diagnosed four times in the last 15 years with PTSD, its obvious that my body is reflecting not only the trauma of the past, but my ongoing learned reaction to stress.
In 2007 my eldest daughter left her husband and moved in with me and her two sisters in a two bedroom apartment. She brought along her two year old son and her baby who was not yet a year. I have not written about these things because I don't feel it is my right to discuss their personal lives and I won't be discussing them in much depth here. We went through the horrors of her divorce and the heartbreak that comes from marrying too young and without proper discernment. My heart broke for all involved and it still does.
One of the hardest things that came of the divorce was the realization that she was terrified of pregnancy. Being Catholic, we live open to life. Having been open to life, she had experienced eclampsia once in a near-death delivery of her first child, and then pre-eclampsia during the high risk and heavily monitored delivery of her second baby. She eventually stopped practicing her faith and began to live as though God was a far away concept. I wept the first Sunday she didn't go to Mass. But I believed she would come back someday.
Not long after she moved in, my second daughter got married. It was a joyous event. Both she and her new husband were thrilled to be married at St. Thomas and took their commitment very seriously. While I watched one daughter dissolve her marriage, I watched another enter into hers. It was hard and it was beautiful. Mothers of adult children will no doubt understand.
Then my youngest daughter left the house and went off to Franciscan University of Steubenville and had a glorious semester there. It was good for us all since the boys were a hand full at home and I was dealing with so much with my eldest and her divorce.
When the youngest returned for the summer, disaster struck. Her beloved boyfriend who seemed so inevitably to be her future husband broke up with her and entered the seminary. I watched my youngest go from being an alive and flourishing Catholic to being a heap of empty flesh. Her faith took a nearly fatal blow and I was helpless to breathe life back into her. Though another very different relationship came into her life a year or so later, she was never quite the same girl. Her faith never really recovered fully, though I saw great signs of personal maturity growing in the years after.
She ended up finishing her degree here at Grand Canyon University. She had a tough time at GCU. She was the lone Catholic and the lectures sometimes made her furious because of the anti-Catholic rhetoric. Meanwhile, the University hired young people that definitely did not reflect even an evangelical belief system. Many had no faith at all. Her whole philosophy that last year was just "get it over with."
So with her home and studying, and Kim and the boys living with me, it was a very chaotic and stressful household. I rarely had a moment to myself to reflect and recoup. There's something about adult children that never fully grows up as long as mom lives under the same roof. Dishes can be left in the sink, laundry in the machines, toys on the floor (the boy's, not the adult daughters) and mom will get it eventually when it drives her nuts enough. Well, it drove me nuts alright.
I decided that I wasn't able to mind my own boundaries without some support somewhere, so I went back to a woman counselor who has worked with our family on and off for the past ten years or so. She is brilliant and she knows us so well that she is highly effective. I needed the backup in order to stand strong and direct the affairs of my own life while being buried under the burdens of my children's lives.
After a month or two of meeting with her, I kind of broke one day while trying to do laundry and ignore how bad the kitchen was. I decided that I had to live alone and the kids had to fend for themselves. It was a terribly hard decision to make. I knew it put my eldest in a terribly difficult position since she receives no child support and pays so much in childcare. But I decided I'd rather contribute to her childcare bill than live as every one's maid and nanny.
The next six weeks or so were rough. I had to stand my ground while she looked for a place to live. God provided a house for my second daughter and her husband (who had been living with my ex-husband) and they said that Esther could move in with them temporarily. Eventually the hard part of choosing a place and getting us all moved was over and we were now three households instead of one.
It has been a great change. My eldest's kitchen is always clean by the way and her house is pretty good as well. Her laundry is caught up and she does all her cooking. Miracles do happen!
But then one day a few months ago I got a call from my youngest. We had not lived together since June and had been working hard finishing her degree. She had been planning on returning to Franciscan for her masters. She started telling me what she had been going through since we were apart. I know it must have been God holding me on His lap while I listened that kept me calm and unafraid. She was telling me that she has struggled with doubts ever since she was a child and that she doesn't even really know if God exists, so she isn't going to be a practicing Catholic for now. She isn't a practicing anything except a young woman seeking her own authenticity. I know in my heart that is a good thing. She and I have always been so close that I think she "inherited" my faith rather than hashing it out on her own. Now is a great time to do that. At the same time, I felt this racking sob welling up in my heart. It waited. It waited for a week or so and then one day in Mass I looked at her and all the years of shared Holy Hours and long talks about the faith and about the lives of the Saints and the Theology of the Body came rushing at me and I could not stop the tears. Once the dam broke, I could not stop the tears for about three weeks. I threw myself before the Blessed Sacrament and wept. Why? Why one who seemed to "get it" so perfectly? Why the one that taught me so much? How could this be happening?
Throughout this entire series of events I've been observing my own reactions and learning so much about what makes me tick and what makes my illness tick. Every emotional upheaval would bring on a wave of pain that in truth was my body's way of dealing with the emotional impact of the events of my life. I've learned a lot through my sessions with the therapist about regulating how much trauma I subject myself to. But the greatest things that have come of our discussions are the realization that much of my responses to life's struggles had been learned from observation of my own mother and from the false teaching of my past. Between Bill Gothard and John Calvin, I've had a lot of healing to do. There are volumes in that realization alone. I'll probably be unpacking that topic as time goes on.
This past couple of weeks I've been working on letting go and trusting Jesus and Mary to keep pursuing my children. I can attest to the tenacity of the Hound Of Heaven. My entire life He has stayed on my heels, calling to me to stop running and let Him love me. If He was willing to chase me so long and so faithfully, He will not give up on my girls. Sic'em Lord!
Another thing I've been working through is the difference between the God of Calvin (and Gothard) and the God of Catholicism. I've grown so over the past ten years as a Catholic, but there is this nagging tension between the oppressive, negative, heartless God of my former faith, and the God of grace and love of my new faith. My therapist has explained how the majority of our brain forms early on and learns responses to life like fight or flight. We develop the more logical and rational part of our brain later in life. So when you ask me what I believe on any given day, I can tell you about the amazing things I have discovered as a Catholic and those are the things that animate my life. But when things go wrong, I regress into that part of the brain that still remembers the oppression of a perfectionistic, capricious God who wills what He wills and cares not how it makes His children suffer. But as soon as I calm down and regain my composure, I am back in my "right" mind and I know God is not like that; I know the God of the historical Church of Christ.
So now I can watch that progression take place and I have a much easier time telling my "panic zone" to calm down and reject the lies of Satan and return to the peace and joy of my Catholic faith even if that means enduring suffering through His grace. And believe me, the past year or so has been exactly that.
And as odd as it seems, my therapist, who obviously has a faith, but doesn't disclose that faith, has made me a better Catholic. She has worked with me so long that she knows that my Catholic faith is my strength. We were talking about my mother one day and how strained my relationship was with her and she suggested that I embrace my Mother Mary and ask her to be what my mother could not be. It was an epiphany! Ten years ago, as I stood at my kitchen sink crying into the wash water about something my mother had done that hurt me to the core, I remember praying "God I need a mother who will understand . . ." and with that the Lord said, "You have one!" I know He was referring to Mary and it threw me a little since at that point I was just in RCIA and just barely studying the Church's teaching of Mary. But here I was ten years later being encouraged to embrace that same Mother in a deeper way and allow her to fill the gaps in my mothering. It was perfect. It was the balm my soul needed.
So all that to say that it has been a painful yet purifying year or so. I beg your prayers for my girls. I believe that God will call them back home when they have had time to work out their own issues and fears. He will be faithful. I've learned to trust Him while loving them as they are at this time. I'm hashing out the last remnants of the heretical beliefs of my past and learning to respond to life's valleys with confidence in Christ rather than dread and fear of that capricious, abusive god I grew up with. I'm doing things that help my body recoup and rejuvenate and taking the pain as it comes as a gift to be offered up for my children and all those in need of Christ. Meanwhile, I went for a walk around the lake this morning and as I stood on the bridge over the lake, a flock of geese flew right over me so close I could almost touch them. God is love and He loves me so very much!
A few things have unfolded in the last year or two that led to the decision to be on my own. Last January I was diagnosed with Dercums Disease. I had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia in the early 90s, and unfortunately these two conditions exacerbate each other. In delving into both of them, I learned how significant emotional trauma was. Having been diagnosed four times in the last 15 years with PTSD, its obvious that my body is reflecting not only the trauma of the past, but my ongoing learned reaction to stress.
In 2007 my eldest daughter left her husband and moved in with me and her two sisters in a two bedroom apartment. She brought along her two year old son and her baby who was not yet a year. I have not written about these things because I don't feel it is my right to discuss their personal lives and I won't be discussing them in much depth here. We went through the horrors of her divorce and the heartbreak that comes from marrying too young and without proper discernment. My heart broke for all involved and it still does.
One of the hardest things that came of the divorce was the realization that she was terrified of pregnancy. Being Catholic, we live open to life. Having been open to life, she had experienced eclampsia once in a near-death delivery of her first child, and then pre-eclampsia during the high risk and heavily monitored delivery of her second baby. She eventually stopped practicing her faith and began to live as though God was a far away concept. I wept the first Sunday she didn't go to Mass. But I believed she would come back someday.
Not long after she moved in, my second daughter got married. It was a joyous event. Both she and her new husband were thrilled to be married at St. Thomas and took their commitment very seriously. While I watched one daughter dissolve her marriage, I watched another enter into hers. It was hard and it was beautiful. Mothers of adult children will no doubt understand.
Then my youngest daughter left the house and went off to Franciscan University of Steubenville and had a glorious semester there. It was good for us all since the boys were a hand full at home and I was dealing with so much with my eldest and her divorce.
When the youngest returned for the summer, disaster struck. Her beloved boyfriend who seemed so inevitably to be her future husband broke up with her and entered the seminary. I watched my youngest go from being an alive and flourishing Catholic to being a heap of empty flesh. Her faith took a nearly fatal blow and I was helpless to breathe life back into her. Though another very different relationship came into her life a year or so later, she was never quite the same girl. Her faith never really recovered fully, though I saw great signs of personal maturity growing in the years after.
She ended up finishing her degree here at Grand Canyon University. She had a tough time at GCU. She was the lone Catholic and the lectures sometimes made her furious because of the anti-Catholic rhetoric. Meanwhile, the University hired young people that definitely did not reflect even an evangelical belief system. Many had no faith at all. Her whole philosophy that last year was just "get it over with."
So with her home and studying, and Kim and the boys living with me, it was a very chaotic and stressful household. I rarely had a moment to myself to reflect and recoup. There's something about adult children that never fully grows up as long as mom lives under the same roof. Dishes can be left in the sink, laundry in the machines, toys on the floor (the boy's, not the adult daughters) and mom will get it eventually when it drives her nuts enough. Well, it drove me nuts alright.
I decided that I wasn't able to mind my own boundaries without some support somewhere, so I went back to a woman counselor who has worked with our family on and off for the past ten years or so. She is brilliant and she knows us so well that she is highly effective. I needed the backup in order to stand strong and direct the affairs of my own life while being buried under the burdens of my children's lives.
After a month or two of meeting with her, I kind of broke one day while trying to do laundry and ignore how bad the kitchen was. I decided that I had to live alone and the kids had to fend for themselves. It was a terribly hard decision to make. I knew it put my eldest in a terribly difficult position since she receives no child support and pays so much in childcare. But I decided I'd rather contribute to her childcare bill than live as every one's maid and nanny.
The next six weeks or so were rough. I had to stand my ground while she looked for a place to live. God provided a house for my second daughter and her husband (who had been living with my ex-husband) and they said that Esther could move in with them temporarily. Eventually the hard part of choosing a place and getting us all moved was over and we were now three households instead of one.
It has been a great change. My eldest's kitchen is always clean by the way and her house is pretty good as well. Her laundry is caught up and she does all her cooking. Miracles do happen!
But then one day a few months ago I got a call from my youngest. We had not lived together since June and had been working hard finishing her degree. She had been planning on returning to Franciscan for her masters. She started telling me what she had been going through since we were apart. I know it must have been God holding me on His lap while I listened that kept me calm and unafraid. She was telling me that she has struggled with doubts ever since she was a child and that she doesn't even really know if God exists, so she isn't going to be a practicing Catholic for now. She isn't a practicing anything except a young woman seeking her own authenticity. I know in my heart that is a good thing. She and I have always been so close that I think she "inherited" my faith rather than hashing it out on her own. Now is a great time to do that. At the same time, I felt this racking sob welling up in my heart. It waited. It waited for a week or so and then one day in Mass I looked at her and all the years of shared Holy Hours and long talks about the faith and about the lives of the Saints and the Theology of the Body came rushing at me and I could not stop the tears. Once the dam broke, I could not stop the tears for about three weeks. I threw myself before the Blessed Sacrament and wept. Why? Why one who seemed to "get it" so perfectly? Why the one that taught me so much? How could this be happening?
Throughout this entire series of events I've been observing my own reactions and learning so much about what makes me tick and what makes my illness tick. Every emotional upheaval would bring on a wave of pain that in truth was my body's way of dealing with the emotional impact of the events of my life. I've learned a lot through my sessions with the therapist about regulating how much trauma I subject myself to. But the greatest things that have come of our discussions are the realization that much of my responses to life's struggles had been learned from observation of my own mother and from the false teaching of my past. Between Bill Gothard and John Calvin, I've had a lot of healing to do. There are volumes in that realization alone. I'll probably be unpacking that topic as time goes on.
This past couple of weeks I've been working on letting go and trusting Jesus and Mary to keep pursuing my children. I can attest to the tenacity of the Hound Of Heaven. My entire life He has stayed on my heels, calling to me to stop running and let Him love me. If He was willing to chase me so long and so faithfully, He will not give up on my girls. Sic'em Lord!
Another thing I've been working through is the difference between the God of Calvin (and Gothard) and the God of Catholicism. I've grown so over the past ten years as a Catholic, but there is this nagging tension between the oppressive, negative, heartless God of my former faith, and the God of grace and love of my new faith. My therapist has explained how the majority of our brain forms early on and learns responses to life like fight or flight. We develop the more logical and rational part of our brain later in life. So when you ask me what I believe on any given day, I can tell you about the amazing things I have discovered as a Catholic and those are the things that animate my life. But when things go wrong, I regress into that part of the brain that still remembers the oppression of a perfectionistic, capricious God who wills what He wills and cares not how it makes His children suffer. But as soon as I calm down and regain my composure, I am back in my "right" mind and I know God is not like that; I know the God of the historical Church of Christ.
So now I can watch that progression take place and I have a much easier time telling my "panic zone" to calm down and reject the lies of Satan and return to the peace and joy of my Catholic faith even if that means enduring suffering through His grace. And believe me, the past year or so has been exactly that.
And as odd as it seems, my therapist, who obviously has a faith, but doesn't disclose that faith, has made me a better Catholic. She has worked with me so long that she knows that my Catholic faith is my strength. We were talking about my mother one day and how strained my relationship was with her and she suggested that I embrace my Mother Mary and ask her to be what my mother could not be. It was an epiphany! Ten years ago, as I stood at my kitchen sink crying into the wash water about something my mother had done that hurt me to the core, I remember praying "God I need a mother who will understand . . ." and with that the Lord said, "You have one!" I know He was referring to Mary and it threw me a little since at that point I was just in RCIA and just barely studying the Church's teaching of Mary. But here I was ten years later being encouraged to embrace that same Mother in a deeper way and allow her to fill the gaps in my mothering. It was perfect. It was the balm my soul needed.
So all that to say that it has been a painful yet purifying year or so. I beg your prayers for my girls. I believe that God will call them back home when they have had time to work out their own issues and fears. He will be faithful. I've learned to trust Him while loving them as they are at this time. I'm hashing out the last remnants of the heretical beliefs of my past and learning to respond to life's valleys with confidence in Christ rather than dread and fear of that capricious, abusive god I grew up with. I'm doing things that help my body recoup and rejuvenate and taking the pain as it comes as a gift to be offered up for my children and all those in need of Christ. Meanwhile, I went for a walk around the lake this morning and as I stood on the bridge over the lake, a flock of geese flew right over me so close I could almost touch them. God is love and He loves me so very much!
Friday, September 16, 2011
I've Got To Read This Book!!!
After the last two posts, it's easy to become overwhelmed with the evil that is ravaging this world. Scripture says that we should not be overcome with evil but overcome evil with good. So we are to do as much good as we can to stem the tide of moral decay in our part of the world, but I probably don't have to tell you that this decay is global. So what then?
I don't remember what Saint taught me this, but I've learned to realize that if the world condition breaks my heart, it must be infinitely more painful to Christ who gave Himself to ransom this world and to Mary who said "yes" amid a tsunami of souls saying "no." So when I come to the end of what I can do to stem the tide of evil, I turn around and face the Lord and seek to console His breaking Heart. Listen to this discussion and get in line for this book. I can't order it till payday, but it's the first thing on my list. St. Faustina, St. Therese, pray for us!
Monday, September 12, 2011
The Death of a Christian Martyr
Warning: This is a video of a Christian young woman being stoned to death for her faith in, of course, a Muslim country. I posted this yesterday on facebook and they removed it. I have reposted it and we will see how long it stays.
My friend Leslie made this comment:
I cried for an hour, and then I realized that I belong to The Church. The Church is built on the blood and bones of this type of martyrdom. We look to her for the strength we will need to die for Truth. I stand on the shoulders of giants...from the Palestinian Martyrs of the first and second century to the Martyrs of today...I stand on the shoulders of Holy Men and Women.
What Next?
Canada has released a woman who strangled her new born child on the basis that abortion is acceptable in Canada. You know, in a way they have stumbled upon the truth. What they are saying is that there is no difference between killing a baby in the womb or out. If only they would realize that ramifications of what they are saying. Since it is considered murder to kill a born child then it should also be considered murder to kill a pre-born child because, as they have implied, there is no difference.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Obama Administration Accuses the Catholic Church of Spreading "Homophobia"
The lines of battle are drawn clearly by the Obama administration as they accuse the Catholic Church of being a major instigator of anti-gay propaganda in Poland. My first question is what business is it of ours what the sexual attitudes in Poland are? How much are we spending to analyze the Polish attitude toward homosexuality? Secondly, this ought to make it clear that the gay rights movement has a far more political agenda than just simple human rights. The goal is obviously to make religion the outlaw and sexual "rights" the law of the land.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
In Reparation
My friend, Lisa Graas, posted this and I wanted to share it. In my post below (Accepting Abundance) a Catholic mother had shared that she couldn't take her kids anywhere any more without seeing gay or lesbian couples engaging in public acts of indecency. In the typical angry venom and anti-Christians, she was deluged with hate mail and even threats against her own children. When the evil of this world feels like it is going to overwhelm us and wipe the memory of Christ from the earth, there is only one thing to do. Remember who you are and make Reparation.
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