I know that this seems like a random picture... taken about a year ago just as we welcomed our granddaughter, Rose Ida, into the world and into our domestic Church/family. Now she has Happy Birthday Rose on the barn to celebrate her first birthday. Well, I wanted to place this here to share that I have gotten a good part of my page on the girls written. http://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/now-stories-of-johns-4-sistersruth.html My fingers were feeling the effects of long spells writing yesterday, so check it out as I work on sharing the great stories the girls have in their lives of following Christ and His Bride, The Church! They each have touched our lives with their looking to HIM! There are times I ask the Lord - "Why?" But then I see the LIFE that comes from each Cross and I have to Trust!
I can tell that I am getting impatient for spring when these pictures catch my eye. Beautiful Ruth and Mary with the lilac hedge that surrounds my house. Usually I would have some lilacs starting by now, but with 25 degrees this morning the leaves have not even started to open yet. I can tell that my thoughts are random today and after pouring so much into the blessings of my kids yesterday... So wondrous is this world where we are called to LIVE with HIM in the midst of our domestic Church/family. I have shared long and hard about the wonderful blessing my own family was and is for me... see another page of sharing - http://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/the-amazing-story-of-13-becoming.html. Today is a feastday and I hope that I wasn't too casual with their names, and it makes me wonder if they too had nicknames in the days of Christ!?! You see it is the feastday of St Philip and St James... I have both a brother Phil and Jim, so it just seemed more loving to call them St Phil and St Jim today. That is with total LOVE and Joy that my brothers have such wonderful patron saints as those that walked with our Lord, and were called by him to be his apostles and they answered "yes." After just reading John 6 in the last weeks - it really tells us the fortitude of these men - many walked away from Jesus when he shared that we must eat his Body and drink his Blood in the Eucharist. Philip and James did not! Reading the Gospel for today from John14, and reading it from a Jewish perspective - they were God's chosen people and worshiped God alone! So for Thomas to ask Jesus to show him the Father - that is a huge deeply felt wish and a miraculous hope to see God!!! And how much more powerful to have Jesus tell us - "How can you say, 'Show us the Father?' Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe in me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, because of the works themselves... If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." Do we believe that? Wow!
Mary always has to give her namesake a sniff of the wonderful lilacs! These pictures are dated May 23 two years ago, so there is still time, and I must be patient!
Jesus, Family and Faith are getting all mixed together today in a wonderful Soup called LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT! That is a rich and wonderful soup of all that makes life tasty and warm on a cold day. I am sure that you loved your brothers, Phil and Jim, with a family LOVE, and longed for them to recognize your LOVING and Merciful Father in YOU. You and the Father are one! You came to show us the LOVE of the Father, and that was revealed unmistakably on the Cross! You ask us to pick up our Most Cherished Cross/The Tree of LIFE, and follow after YOU and find Eternal LIFE!
May we continue on as your beloved Apostles sharing YOU without counting the cost! We must live each day - "Wounded, I will not cease to LOVE." This is hardest with those that are the closest to us - those that we are to love the most we are the most impatient and harshest on. May we attempt today to be LIFE giving in all that we say and do. Jesus, we are YOURS, and we go forth into our lives filled with the power of Your Holy Spirit - with this fire in our hearts may we share YOU always and without fear! Jesus, we trust in YOU. Amen and Halleluia
Bless-bless, Barb
Mary and Snowball in the pasture two years ago as a heifer - now she just had her second daughter, Crystal! It is pretty sure thing that Mary will be showing Snowball and Crystal at the county fair this year!
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the LIFE, says the Lord; Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father." John 14
Canticle of Colossians 1:12-20
"Let us give thanks to the Father
for having made you worthy
to share the lot of the saints
in light.
He rescued us
from the power of darkness
and brought us
into the kingdom of his beloved Son.
Through him we have redemption,
and forgiveness of our sins.
He is the image of the invisible God,
the first-born of all creatures.
In him everything in heaven and on earth was created,
things visible and invisible.
All were created through him;
all were created for him.
He is before all else that is.
In him everything continues in being.
It is he who is head of the body, the Church!
He who is the beginning,
the first-born of the dead,
so that primacy may be his in everything.
It pleased God to make absolute fullness reside in him
and, by means of him, to reconcile everything in his person,
both men on earth and in the heavens,
making peace through the blood of the cross."
So Beautiful are these words of St Paul... I think he loved his Lord with all that there is in him! And just as is true of us - he never walked with Jesus on this earth, and he was actively hunting and responsible for the death of many early Christians! Just as with Jacques Fesch - a murderer in prison on death row - the world was changed and brought to Christ by his words! It gives us hope to pray for all those in our lives that do not know HIM! St Paul and Jacques Fesch intercede for them from Heaven and with your words of Truth and LOVE that have been given to us!
Jacques Fesch,1930-1957, was a murderer who spent three years and eight months in solitary confinement and experienced a profound conversion before his execution,by guillotine, in a French prison.“The cross I carry, so shameful in men’s eyes, is no less glorious than that of monk or missionary. But those who live in the world find all this very difficult to comprehend…There is no coherence in it to the eye of the mere spectator.
It’s only a short time since I really understood what the cross is. It is simultaneously miraculous and horrifying. Miraculous, because it gives us life, horrifying because if we do not bring about our own crucifixion, we have no access to life. This is great and blessed mystery for those who are persecuted."
Wow! See what I mean? I have been impressed with his profound personal understanding of the Cross whenever they quote him in the Magnificat over some time now!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlh6_5znn7U Francesca Batistelli Lead me to the Cross
My brother Jim/James - too cute!
Now my brother Phil/Philip - older but equally sweet and cute! Happy Feastday, dear brothers of mine! I love you!
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