"The miracles, the healings, and the LIFE!" Barb during prayer

Here is a photo that represents the "miracles, healings and the LIFE" that make up my walk with our Lord.  Why today?  I am preparing on all levels of my being for a sharing/talk I will be giving this evening at the Serra club about an hour away.  I am sharing my conversion story, which I have dedicated a page to here...  http://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/the-amazing-story-of-13-becoming.html.  But really that is just the beginning of my journey.  As John and I were just praying morning prayer in the Breviary I thanked the Lord for all "the miracles, the healings, and the LIFE, and The Church, and The Church, and The Church, and The Church!  How I love The Church!"  Sitting next to my son, who has been healed from brain cancer, and now to gaze upon this stunningly beautiful picture of little Lamb, Patrick, gazing at his mother, Maria... there is so much that fills me and yes, it is all overwhelming to feel the fingerprint of God upon my life so profoundly!  So much LOVE/LIFE/LIGHT!!!  With two daughters now carrying new life in their wombs - how they have been surrounded by prayer from the moment we knew of their finding LIFE there!  So powerful, and as I have been known to be kind of a nut about LIFE... being pregnant constantly, having 12kids - 5 with me and 7 in heaven, and on and on and on!

One more angelic picture of Patrick - his hands folded in prayer and the cross of LIGHT on the plastic of his bassinet.  How Patrick discovered the Cross as it was set upon his shoulders in the womb - about 20 minutes before he was brought into this world through an emergency C-section... born dead and brought back to LIFE!  He was an innocent Lamb led to the Cross and such a symbol to so many praying of the power of prayer, and how The Trinity is there to LOVE us and come to our answer our every need!  http://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/the-story-of-little-lamb-grandson.html
Today the Trinity is so evident in the Gospel as Jesus is talking to His Father at the end of his time here on earth, and the LOVE they share is the Spirit, "Father, they are your gift to me.  I wish that where I am they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.... that the Love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them."  John 17:20-26  The Holy Spirit which comes to dwell within each of us that believe, and ask for Him to take over our lives - Come Holy Spirit and dwell within me, so that Christ may live and move and breath within me!  May I die so that You may live, O Lord!

Who better to instruct us in the ways of self-forgetfulness than St Therese?  Just now as I gazed at this picture... her lips are in the sign of the Cross!  How can we not be happy if we forget ourselves and embrace our Most Cherished Cross? 

My Most Cherished Cross on our wedding day at the Basilica of St Mary, my parish church in Minneapolis.  Yes, I am a city girl come to the farm! ...  The letter from our Daughter, Little Sister Hallel, to her sister, Nancy about 4 years ago on the occasion of her engagement to Bill...
" Nancy, Look I am writing you a letter... aren't you impressed? Well, you better be because both you and I know how often this happens. I am writing to tell you now extremely excited I am about your engagement to Bill. I have to admit, when I got the news I wasn't really shocked but that night as it sunk in during adoration and the next day during mass I was so happy. My heart overflowed with joy for you. How beautiful to know that you have found your... most cherished cross. While I have never had the experience of being married, from what I hear is that he will truly be your cross. But not your cross as human eyes look at it, as a thing to run away from, as a thing of torture but rather as that which is truly the tree of life. It is only when clinging to the cross that one can truly live, it is the source of all life and of all love. Your marriage to Bill will be this, not something to run away from when it gets hard and when it hurts, but something to hold tight to, especially when it hurts because it is in this that you will find life and love. Know that it is through your marriage that Jesus wants to show you his great love for you and also that the best example that you can give to the world of Christ's love is a marriage lived in truth. So, in other words, know that I am so happy for you and that I love you a whole lot. Know that you are in my prayers during this crazy time of wedding planning; that you may not go crazy but rather learn to love each other better and that you may both have great joy and great peace. Remember to pray for me too! God Bless, Your little Sister Hallel"
How the Spirit has worked through Patrick Gerard Verly!  His statement to me - "The world needs LIGHTS." set the stage for all that we have lived by in our marriage/domestic Church and now that of each of our children!  http://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/my-most-cherished-cross-patrick-gerard.html

Me pregnant with my second daughter, Nancy, in the barn- my coverall made room for her.  The other day when Nancy was here and we were sending out our fat cattle... she reminded me of this time!

Life is a precious gift to be cherished and protected at all costs!  Just look to the example of the Pro-life Saint - St Gianna Molle to see how far that can mean sometimes! 

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianna_Beretta_Molla Clouds are such a symbol of glory and beauty to me!  To put my toes in the reflected clouds last evening was a thrill to my heart, mind and soul! Lord, my story is so huge and enormous and amazing and miraculous and filled with LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT, and filled with my Most Cherished Cross, and makes me cry both times I prayed with Pat and John this morning because it is too much for me to take in!  It is God within me and working through the fabric of my life is such beautiful ways - An ongoing masterpiece of unbelievable price - the pearl of great price...  I am the lost sheep that you found and placed upon your shoulders and carried me into the fold - Your Church - along with 12 members of my family against the tide of those leaving at the change of Vatican 2, I am the one You asked to consider a call to religious life, showing me the beauty that lies in that LIFE with You as a spouse.  Yet, I was led to my Most Cherished Cross and by embracing him I have found LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT, and those LIGHTS have each listened to what you want for them - 3 have considered a "call" and one is now Little Sister Hallel, and as John prayed this morning -"Hallel brings your LIFE and LOVE and LIGHT to the world."  I did not lose a daughter, O Lord, I gained many more daughters and sons and so many loving prayers that are the wind beneath our wings!  With John and Patrick's healings their prayers were huge and powerful!  Thank you, Lord!  Jesus, we trust in YOU.  Amen and Hallelujah   My youngest grandson, Luke, with two more to join our family soon!  Three new little boys to grow up together - so different after we had our 4 girls and then a boy!   Many boys are in heaven praying for us, and that could be instrumental in the change... Christopher, Thomas, Joseph, Paul, William, Robert and Mary pray for us - we certainly feel and know of your prayers for your old mom on this journey of LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT!  Keep me in your prayers this night as I share from the heart, mind and soul! Bless-bless, Barbara Luke "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us."  Romans 8: 16-18 St Paul... I love your revealing the Truth to me! A year and a half later - face to face with St Patrick at the Cathedral of many prayers for little Patrick's miraculous healing!  The 13 just around the time of our conversion into the Church - Isaiah 55:1-2  The 5 brought together by John's brain cancer - Susan back from France!  June 2009  Little Sisters come to the farm shortly after coming to the U.S. - Kansas City  in 2008  Susan tells us in front of Our Lady of Guadalupe in KC that she is joining the Community of the Lamb - summer of 2008 The 5 with first grandson, Simon in 2004... Why is our family so close, because we shared the pain of the Cross called being open to LIFE and many losses along the way. I will end for now, but I need to keep my talk to half an hour and that is going to be a challenge for sure! Danielle Rose - Give and Take The first song we heard this amazing young woman sing - she writes all her music in front of the Blessed Sacrament in prayer! Casting Crowns - Praise you in the Storm Peter Mayer - Holy Now