God's love...and bacon

Today is Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday for you non-French-speakers), the day before Catholics begin the 40-day Lenten period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, leading up to Holy Week and Easter. Many people go overboard and eat and drink too much today to try to "get it all in" before they go on the wagon. Don't do that. Enjoy the day and remember it when you're feeling deprived soon (and give thanks for both things because God loves you enough to include feasting and fasting in life). 

On this day, every year, part of our celebration always includes...bacon. Not just any bacon. This bacon

I don't know how many years ago we became acquainted with this delicious morsel but I am grateful, specifically, for the bringer of the gift - my aunt. She is an 87-year-old Slovak lady who suffered a lot growing up and now, a successful, retired physician, she enjoys sharing her bounty with her family. She receives a million food catalogs every year and was excited to try this because, not only is it bacon, the pigs are treated like royalty...they're fed acorns and who knows what else (she had no children of her own and she's one of those crazy-cat-lady-animal-lovers...but not in a completely crazy way. You can still have bacon, it just needs to live well first). It's some pretty special stuff. Perfect for a pre-Lenten treat. 

The synopsis? God loves us. So much that He sent His only Son to die for our sins. He is the Creator of all and giver of all good gifts. His gifts in my life are innumerable and today we celebrate two...my dear aunt who loves us enough to seek out amazing treats to enjoy and for the humble pig. We will enjoy our feast together today and tomorrow we will start our journey into Lent. 

I realize there are some of you in Septuagesima season already and that's cool. I'm not exactly an expert in the 40 days yet so I'm not going to add more challenge at this point. For now, we went as a family to Adoration this afternoon and we'll pray that we can have the graces we need to achieve the exact Lent that God has planned for us. Like before I gave birth the first time, I usually have a lot of things planned for Lent and they usually don't end up the way I thought they should be. Luckily for me, they're always so much more...because God took the reigns and did His work in my life. 

Holy Father, let us be open to You in our lives this Lent and always. Help us to never fail to see you in our neighbors, our friends, and in those who cause us grief and pain. Let us be first to help. Let us be first to give. Let us be first to sacrifice. Let us help Your Kingdom Come. 

We are blessed.

Telling my story

    I have the wonderful blessing of meeting, on a regular basis, with a beautiful and God-fearing friend. She is beautiful in the way she seems to hold no type of agenda when we meet. She is just there to listen and to ponder aloud and to share the journey. What a gift she is to me! What an inspiration for me to try harder with my other relationships!

    At our most recent meeting, she suggested I should dust off my keyboard and begin to write again. It's funny that she should say that because it's been in the front of my mind for some time. The kind of writing I was considering, however, was all the letters the Holy Spirit has been nudging me to write. I will do my best to get to that tomorrow (or definitely this week! Then, work on my procrastination...but later).

    Truthfully, the whole idea of sharing my story via blog or other means has been coming up again and again lately. A few days ago we went to a talk by a local bishop about Evangelizing like Sts. Cyril and Methodius. A few days prior, I watched this video and thought, wow...what if we all started doing this? So, let's begin (you can watch the video first...I'll wait...but you don't have to watch the whole thing. You can start from around minute 17 to 30 or so...)

    Since I'm talking about Evangelization, I do hope you watched part of the video....specifically the minute 20 on bit...because I'm not talking about anything more than what Fr. Mike is - telling our story to the people we meet (I'm meeting you this way, thanks for reading, but that's not the only possibility. If you know me IRL, I hope we exchange our stories that way which, for me, is by far my preferred method). 

    Lots of build up for this small thing but here's my latest story. During our talk, my friend mentioned signal graces and, when I admitted I didn't know what they were, she instructed me...like praying the St. Therese novena and receiving roses at the end. I can't remember that I've ever had that happen. Not anything as big as roses, at least. 

    After our hour-long chat about writing and praying to God for signal graces and insight, I picked up my little chorister and prepared to head out into the dreary evening (it had been overcast and raining all day). I'm not sure I've covered our family's idea of "God rays" but they are just sunbeams, coming down out of the clouds, that we acknowledge are heading down from the heavens and, thus, we credit their Creator. Just semantics...kind of. 

    So, after a day of heavy cloud cover and the type of weather that non-Pittsburghers like to bemoan, we drove home. During the drive I was lucky to have two red lights at key moments that allowed me to take these photos. 

    Not terribly clear, I grant you. Like all things, the real life is better than the online version. Still, there were two distinctive sets of God rays and, instead of coming down out of the sky, they were going up and out. For you scientists out there, yes, my husband beat you to it...I know it's because of the position of the sun on the horizon, etc., etc...but, as he said, God put them there at that moment. He's right. I know that there are people who get very specific signal graces (like roses) but me...I'll take this. My God is in His heaven sending out love for me and, yes, perhaps it is time for me to turn back to writing.

    If sharing my story with someone who, in turn, recognizes the presence of God in her life, how grateful I would be. I believe deeply that the more we share our story, the more we will all start to see that God is continually present to us. In others, in ourselves, and in His Creation. 

Stay tuned for more of my story. Please seek me out and tell me your story!

We are blessed.