Struggles with myself

Loving God please help me pray not for those things that I want to happen but pray for what you want to happen in my life.  And please help me to understand if they are so opposite of one another.  Grant me stillness in my heart and grace and trust in your greater plan.

amen

Help

Please loving God keep my broken heart from standing in the way of clear mindfulness  and appropriate actions.  Please do not let my sorrow for the damage that has been and is being done to the children I gave birth to make my heart harden with hatred. Please help me remain silent when silence is the only way to can find your comfort and guidance. Please pull me from my mourning of the innocence lost  and be strong so that I can teach healing and safety and faith.

Please give me strength and walk closer to me so that I can be mindful of the promises I have made to you.  Also,  that I may remember and thank you loving God for the blessings which you have already bestowed upon me this Lenton Season

It is a dark night tonight.  I feel so small.  I will go to bed with this prayer in my heart.

amen

Day Two

My blessing is having night terrors, will not eat and has strep throat. 

I will practice praying for my enemies tonight.

Where is my blessing?

I lived here for almost a year and everyday I find a man staying the appropriate amount away from our now smoke free building.  We first just said hello, then a little small talk and then one day we spend a few minutes in the sunshine together.  We talked a bit about kids and cars.   I made the off-hand comment that I haven't cleaned my car in years..... YEARS... seriously.    Late that night he came to my door and asked me if I knew my trunk was open (oh yeah and it was raining).   I thanked him for noticing it and started to put my shoes on but he stopped me and said he would be glad to go do it.   He asked for my keys to make sure my battery wasn't drained.   I didn't think at the time but then this creeping horror came over me because my awful truth was about to be known outside the secret circle of close friends.  My car is a freaking horror!  Once it goes into my car it rarely sees the light of day  (except though the sun roof) .  I paced back and forth until he returned and I said quite embarrssedly,  "like my car?"   And he said without a blink of an eye, "No"  "You and your beautiful children should be sitting in a comfortable and clean car.  I nodded my head in embarrassment and he said,  "I would love the chance to clean it for you" I think I just stood there ready to say no , but before I said anything he said,  "The hardest part of charity is being on the receiving end because we  never believe we deserve it. You deserve it.  Please give me the blessing of giving this to you".   My pastor's voice began to slip in my ears, that it was the moment  I could bless him by saying yes.  I said "Yes" with my eyes first cast to the ground but I raised the long enough to look him sqaurely in the eye and say a heart felt "thank you".  He absolutely beemed with  joy.  He came the next day at 3pm and I handed over my keys.  

At 6pm he came back and handed me several cans of this and that.  He told me how low all my fluids were and the consequences of such.  I thanked him but he say "Oh I am not finished yet"  I looked at him curiouly and said,  "but you spent 3 hours down there.  He said that he had washed all the windows inside and out and checked my fluids but there is more to be done so I will be back again.  I stood speechless.

He then called Hannah to the door.  He said,  "you know when you see your mother smile that smile where her whole face lights up?  She nodded.   "Are you committed to make that happen for 7 days?"   She said,  "of course!  He brought out a beautiful metal "halo" of sorts and said,  "Okay then this is what I want you to do for 7 days.  Every day when your mother's alarm goes off,  go to her with this on your head and wake her up.  Mom you will say,  "where is my blessing"  and Hannah you will say,  "Here I am".  Promise me to do it for one week and you will see that smile on your mother every time."   She laughed and said okay.   He left then to have dinner with his wife.

Then comes morning.  Hannah put the halo on the lamp next to the bed.  She missed my alarm but I couldn't wake her up after months of her imposed sleep deprivation.  So I let her sleep another half an hour.  I went back in and woke her up.  I said with a grin,  "where is my blessing?"   she reached, and stretched to try to get her halo but couldn't reach it without leaving her warm bed.  We both started laughing and I laid my head next to hers and said,  "who knew my blessing would be hanging on a lamp shade"   we laughed and giggled.  I looked at her and said,  "where IS my blessing?"  and she said,  "here I am"  and I stroked her hair for a moment and said,  "yes there you are".  Then I asked my blessing if she wanted to sleep a little longer but she was already there.

I ask you today where are your blessings?  Halo or not,  where is your blessing?

Gratitude

KING HENRY V might explain so much my then unknown urgency...

:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

I know this quote is not traditionally very "Lenty".  A cry for war?   But I see the spirit of God working all around me.  I am gathering strength every day with the Lent covenant  I have with a loving and supportive God. I feel Him beside me every day within the noise and struggles, within the seasons changing before my eyes and the path in front of me in which all things are possible. He understands my battle cry and knows that I move forth to protect all of His children.

listen/silence