Hope

It is so hard to stand helplessly by and watch the drought hit us day after day... it was so nice to be away from it all in beautiful Michigan with much of my family, so today I am just going to allow myself to go back there and to remind myself that we must continue to have HOPE!  As I am sitting here writing this - I look out the window overhead and actually see dark threatening looking clouds on the horizon.  John and I just prayed for rain with our shared morning prayer, and we do pray with some hope and trust in the Lord's plan for us in our hearts.  We especially are aware of this fact in the journey called cancer/healing that we shared over the last 3 years.  John just prayed in thanksgiving for his cancer as well as his healing, and "how it brought me closer to you, O Lord."  Yes, John does certainly thank the Lord for his cancer, as it was an answer to his prayer of many years - "I don't know what I believe, because I have never had any hard things in my life.  I want to believe, Lord!"  His prayers were answered in the most crazy way!  As a parent there is nothing that can send shock waves through me much more than the thought of one of my children having cancer and cancer in the brain is too hard!  When I tell people that this happened to me and to my son... it still is just almost too much to believe!  I told John that this reading from morning prayer reminded me of the before John..."The lamp of the body is the eye.  If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness.  And if the light in you is darkness, how great will that darkness be."  Matt 6: 22-24

Mary took her first of many geology projects to the fair this year... here she and her brother are posing on a huge rock with a fossilized sponge - Stromataporide- in it!   She will be able to impress people with her huge words at 6 year old!  Back to John and his eyes - about the only sign of his cancer was that he developed double vision,which got worse by the day.  Knowing of how dead he was to his faith and that his vision was affected... this verse just brought me to the place where the Lord snatched him out of his lethargy - he was very tired and sleeping all the time too- and his lack of faith and put the fear of death very much there in his face.  Yet, he was immediately aware of so many prayers and seemed to have so much peace and hope in the face of the Giant - brain cancer!  At the time we were going through the scariest times of his biopsy, chemo, regrowth, and radiation... we were reading about David - the young and wise and good looking youth, who was called by God.  He was the embodiment of courage as he faced the giant and killed him with a single stone in a slingshot - I Samuel 17 - Watching John's courage and calmness in the battle - I saw him as a David!  The prayers surrounding him, the sacraments of annointing, daily Eucharist, reconcilliation... as well as the Word shared in prayer and mass, the devotionals in the rosary in constant use, the angels surrounded him, as well as the saints in many relics, and visiting Our Lady in Lourdes twice!  I guess I can see where his courage came from, and it has never left him!  Now he is taking it a step further in considering his possible call to the priesthood!  It is very obvious to him that he has been spared for a higher purpose!

Walking to the lighthouse - a true symbol of Christ there to show us the way - come to the Light!  May we truly put all that we have into the "pearl of great price" which is our life with you!  We find so much happiness and HOPE in our allowing the Kingdom to take root within us.  Jesus, we are alive only in YOU!  We are weak and sick without your healing... May we embrace our Most Cherished Cross and follow after you.  "You are our way, our truth, and our life: - make us courageous disciples.  Open our eyes, O Lord, to the light of your love."  No matter what it takes - even brain cancer - we come to you and ask that we become totally and without hesitation yours alone!  We need the light to come and dwell within us and reveal to us all the ways that we need to love and serve you in one another.  May we share your LOVE most especially with those closest to us in our domestic church/family.  Jesus,we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

"For the love of you, he has made so many other beautiful creatures, that they might serve you, and that they might remind you of the love which he has borne to you, and of the gratitude which you owe to him.  'Heaven and earth,' says Augustine,'and all things tell me to loev you.'  And when the saint beheld the sun, the stars, the mountains, the sea, the rains, they all appeared  to him to speak and say:  Augustine, love God: for he has created us that you might love him." 

St Alphonsus Liguori (1787), pray for us on this your feastday!