Happy Birthday, Ladybug!

Sweet Evelyn, you are loved. We are very grateful that God sent you into our lives. Continue with the curiosity and enthusiasm that has marked your childhood and youth. May womanhood grant you a greater knowledge of the Father in Heaven and every grace and strength for the paths ahead of you. God give you wisdom and encouragement in your every endeavor. I love you! xoxoxo---your MOMMY

When we drop the needle in a sewing project

Sometimes a person could be attempting to sew a garment from several cut pieces of fabric and drops her needle.  When the needle is in the sewing machine it can't fall out of someone's hand.  Thank God for the progress of machines that make sewing a quicker and more productive endeavor. 
The stability of the individual is linked to what kind of posession of relationships in families and in communities and in churches.  God has ordained and continues to bless with stability, those who put their trust in Him and live in the light of their sins having been laid upon our Savior.
When my soul is anchored in the Lord, it is attached to His Body the Church.  He is working out His purposes in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. 
No one individual is so totally necessary that it cannot be replaced.  God proposes and disposes as He sees fit.
The stability of mind and soul is not one person's task. We are fitly joined together in the Body of Christ and members one of another.  God has many sewing machine churches, ie. restoring the souls of the afflicted, developing the continuance of the Gospel's expression on the earth; doing His will on the earth and the corporate Body of Christ is helped and blessed. 
Learning to become and stay attached to Christ in His Church is my meditation today.

"Mystery is a thing not easily captured..." Make Love Stay

Oh, that Dan Fogelberg, what a way with words he has in that song. Mystery...Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy sang that song, "Sweet Mystery" and I am sure that there will never be another mysteriously beautiful couple on screen. The mystery of the mystery that happens with the glance. Uncle Barry called my attention to it. I was oblivious, when he did. He looked me in the eye and said these new movies can never beat the mystery of the old, in the romance. I said what could he be talking about? Does he want us to go back to silent films? Then, I saw the glances between Nelson and Jeanette. Amazing! They captured the reality of the mystery in that song as they sang to eachother. Uncle was not one for mystery as a rule. He had every part of his desire displayed before him at all times and everywhere. Nothing seemed left to his imagination. He had every back issue of Playboy that there ever was and here he was talking about mystery. What could he be talking about? Now, I think about Dan's catchy and significant phrase-not easily captured. Is that what we are trying to do to a man, some man, our man; catch a mystery. We try showing it and it doesn't work. We try not showing it and it doesn't work. What is it? The question is so cleverly put, by Dan in this song. How do we make love stay is not the question when you are trying to catch a mystery. But it is well meditated upon when you are thinking of how much of yourself, physically and spiritually that you want to show. RC Sproul described so poignantly his captured mystery with Elizabeth Elliott. She is a spiritual giant and there was much in their verbal interaction that he remembered because of the care that she took to be so guarded. He reiterated the conversation, nearly verbatim. None of us know how to be as guarded as she, nor do we wish to be, though we study her to learn how to mortify sin. Still, that is the thing that catches the man's attention and it is so very curious to us women. How can the same man who will put his last paycheck on the table to see as much of someone that they will show, desire to preserve the mystery. I don't want to know that much, they seem to say. Dan said, "once deceased, not easily exhumed." In other words, as we know men say- been there done that, just as easily as not. He says if the heart does become involved you become as a statue whose eyes are no longer alive. Death to your soul for the unrequited love that was experienced. What a way with words he has. This was not God's way for us. It is part of the curse that people can use and disgard people as we do. That is why He gave us the protection of oaths to remind us that we must answer to Him for our actions with the souls of others. It protects us and the other person. Passion is explosive, handle carefully, should be the stamp on the box. Still we have so much access to each other through social media, we must think twice before we open our hearts and bare our souls on social media and elsewhere. I imagine Uncle Barry looking at the difference in the mystery lost to social media. This is not a chosen few as in movies and music, it is the masses whose souls are unscripted before all. Are we strong enough to rescusitate the mystery?

I had the biggest argument with my mother before "Confirmation!"

I don't want to get confirmed. "WHAT!?" "I WILL NOT HAVE IT!" Mom, I don't feel what you feel in church. I don't want to just get confirmed to have a big party and get money from people. "What is wrong with you?" my sisters queeried. "We won't do that, when it's our turn." There were gossip and myths about what happened when you got confirmed that were floating around. Some of them were scary. I didn't really believe them, I just didn't want to pretend that I was believing, when I wasn't. I believed that I didn't believe. You will get it, everybody gets it after a while. I don't get it. We went back and forth and of course, she won. The Bishop comes and we took classes and we learned that the Bishop would be the most Holy person we may meet in our life and there was certain decorum and circumstance for such and occasion. As the day got closer, I started to get excited. I am pretty sure that it was Ronny who started the rumor that the Bishop slaps hard on the face. Should I duck? Did I want the Holy Spirit that bad that I would let a complete stranger {no matter how holy he is} slap me in the face and give me a new name? I am sure that my mom was concerned about what the Rosarians would say, if her eldest daughter was a heathen and unconfirmed in the 7th grade. Mom, you don't know what I am talking about. You sway and close your eyes in church, I am only there because Dad would beat us, if we weren't there. I hate that big picture of the fierce white old man that stares me down and the "gospel singers" and all that is in that place. I have to seek and look for God. She would have none of that. A confirmed Catholic girl gets loads and loads of opportunities that a non-confirmed girl cannot even wish for. Well, I got confirmed. I got the slap and it wasn't quite as hard as Ronny promised it would be. I, even think my mother knew the Bishop who came to give us the "Spirit". I got loads of presents and my sisters were still sure that I was crazy for even thinking about declining such a huge privilege. None of the rest of them ever questioned my mother's spiritual direction. She knew best, when it came to the Holy Spirit and gifts. {People are so generous to Catholic girls. Maybe they know that we have harder judgements on us. I don't know, but they were.} Eventually, I did come to know the Lord, personally. My mom was right that He is worthy to be praised and great and good and all of that. I learned some things about God through the types and parallels of confirmation, but knowing Him is far greater than knowing about Him through forms and shadows. I have seen alot of Protestant mothers slap the Holy Spirit into their children, taking the role of the Bishop in the Catholic service. Maybe the Holy Spirit does come through the slap in the face, I don't know what the relevance is of the slap in the face except the closeness to the cloven tongues of fire. I think encouraging the children to get to know Him is better than slapping them.

Keep the Candle Burning! Great Expectations

The flames of attraction are best submitted to God. The flame of attractiveness will, as Stella said attract all sorts of moths and creatures. Sort the true attraction through the sieve of covenant. The one who, like Pip has the sword of the Spirit that will fight the grasp of Satan upon your soul is the one to embrace and not let go. God has a way of showing you who will not be deceived by your beauty. Christ cleanses and nourishes His Church. The true man of God will be committed to nourish and cherish your soul, though he may be ravished by your beauty. You mustn't deceive him for your selfish motives. If you find this sort of love upon the earth, you are much blessed and will be used of God on the earth for God's glory. I love how Pip is motivated to greatness in the world and in spiritual exploits by the beauty and love of this wretch of a woman. Wise is the beauty who sees her wretchedness and prays and labors to use it to motivate to godliness and not to selfish gain. Pip in the end exorcises the devil of Ms. Havorsham from that woman's life and wins the damosel in distress, who has no clue that she is in distress. Her soul was tormented and stuck in sin. Her rebirth was attached to the love of that lowly orphaned boy. Christ is the author of our salvation and He will write the love story that exorcises our earthly bodies into the story that will glorify Him in our passions.

Did the Devil win with Herodias?

Oh the dance, It tumbles nations and can take the head off of the most godly man on the earth. Herodias wielded her power on the earth, to detach the godly from the earth. Her trophy for her dance was his head on her wall, as if it were a Lion. This would truly send chills to any who would embrace godliness to know whose hand ruled the morality of the kingdom. Is that not the case? Do we not rule the morality of the kingdom, by our dance and what makes us dance? We know if a man will move toward or away from such a dance and there is a dance for each of the kind of men in our influence. What will you give me? Did not the perfect man deny the Creator for access to the perfect woman? There is power in this: fearful power, indeed. God's power is greater still. He has redeemed and empowered godliness. See the Conquering Savior coming to seek and to save that which was lost. The kingdoms, which would be subject to the Herodiases of the world is able to be subject to Christ. God is able to make the kingdoms of the world subject to the morality of Christ in His families. He plants them and implants them with power to subdue the immorality of the world. When husbands love their wives they are fulfilling the law of Christ. Strengthening her to desire godliness and use her dance for the good and upbuilding of the kingdom of Christ. When we dance before our lord and husband, we are empowering him to walk in strength and confidence in an ungodly world. We are a granade of grace and strength. I look at Mr. Day, in life with Father (played by William Powell) His wife danced about him and had the leash of the lion in her hand. When we work together in this, it needn't be the "battle of the sexes." Job's covenant with his eyes was that he would learn and teach himself to be engaged in lust with only his wife. This strengthens and builds her up, too. If you steal the godly woman's tool of dance from her, you set the man up to be beguiled by Herodias. No! Dance for your husband, godly woman! Strengthen the granade of grace for the taking of the kingdoms of this world into the captivity to Christ, who created the "Marriage". The Kingdoms of this

America, the Beautiful!

Beautiful and to be beautified, America.   Don't stop beautifying America, with yourself.   I love you,  Happy Fourth.