Prayer for 2007

Here is a prayer for a wonderful 2007, that you will be blessed and most of all be a blessing to all who surround you.

Let your little light shine and reach for those dreams!

A New Year Prayer

Holy Father,
God of our yesterdays, our today, and our tomorrows.
We praise You for Your unequaled greatness.
Thank You for the year behind us and for the year ahead.
Help us in Your new year, Father, to fret less and laugh more.
To teach our children to laugh by laughing with them.
To teach others to love by loving them.
Knowing, when Love came to the stable in Bethlehem, He came for us.
So that Love could be with us, and we could know You.
That we could share Love with others.
Help us, Father, to hear Your love song in every sunrise,
in the chriping of sparrows in our backyards,
in the stories of our old folks, and the fantasies of our children.
Help us to stop and listen to Your love songs,
so that we may know You better and better.
We rejoice in the world You loved into being.
Thank You for another new year and for new chances every day.
We pray for peace, for light, and for hope, that we might spread them to others.
Forgive us for falling short this past year.
We leave the irreparable past in your hands, and step out into the unknown new year knowing You will go with us.
We accept Your gift of a new year and we rejoice in what's ahead, depending on You to help us do exactly what You want..
I say it again, we rejoice!
In Jesus name,
Amen.

New Year's Resolutions

I know. I can't believe I am sharing this. However, I am also going to share something that happened today that makes me feel more confident about telling everyone of my goals and thus making myself vulnerable of being teased if I don't live up to it.

I have three new year resolutions.

1. Read the Bible. Everyday. At least a paragraph. I don't have to understand it or even like it. In fact I plan to journal about it. But I will do it. With the grace of God!

2. Finish my correspondence course on writing children's literature. I am a bit ashamed to admit that I have completed only 3 of 12 assignments in the last...ahum...2 years. I have already paid it in full, but if I give a couple hours a week to work on it I should be done within a year.

3. Lose weight and get into healthy, active habits. I have an even more specific goal which will go unmentioned for now. This, to me, actually seems one of the hardest objectives for I have an emotional eating habit I need to work on and also a bad attitude towards workouts.

But the good news is that today I put a pair of jeans thinking it was one of the newer ones I was given but instead it was my PRE-PREGNANCY jeans!!! Woo-hoo! I am on the way already. I guess getting sick actually paid off. Perfect timing for the holiday season.

Sure, the jeans are not a perfect fit yet, and my hope is that they will actually be too big to wear in a few months, but it is a start.

Another reason to share: I have a lot to do that does not involve being on the computer. In fact, I really need to curb the time I spend 'surfing' the net. Butyou can always reach me at my email, so do not hesitate to contact me. Every comment you leave goes directly to my inbox.
Just a click away :)

All other ground

In Christ the solid rock I stand

All other ground is sinking sand

I have been meaning to post about a movie I saw recently. It's called "Second Chance" and it is a movie about church culture smashing with true faith and Christianity. Michael W. Smith plays one of the main roles, and honest to goodness, he is a pretty swell actor! I have to admit I was sort of skeptical though the plot intrigued me because it is something I believe every Christian, especially American Christians needs to hear.

My favorite part is close to the end, where Smith shares this old hymn "On Christ the solid Rock" and realizes that he had been wrong all the time in regards to what it meant to be a christian:

I wanted to serve Him as long as I could stay
comfortable, stay where it was safe.

Comfort is sinking sand.

Safety is sinking
sand.

I know I can say 'amen' to that. I also had this vision of a life of faith here on earth that was ease and painfree (especially emotionally), a vision that serving him would never cause me any pain or discomfort. Holding onto that notion, living as if that was what Christ was about, I found myself sinking through what I thought was unsinkabled. It's by God's grace that I was pulled out on to the rock. And the rock is not comfortable, let me tell you, nor is it in a safe place by any of our standards.

But it is solid, it is real and it is life.

So, if you have chance, watch the movie. It isn't cheasy or corny, so you shouldn't be dissapointed!

Merry Christmas!

Love to everyone! Enjoy the rest of the year!

The Christmas Cold

Well, Amy March said "It doesn't feel like Christmas without presents." Well, guess what Amy, that is fine for me. But it sure doesn't feel like Christmas when you can't smell your own chicken soup boiling or when you hear yourself speak like some kind cartoon character speaking from a glass globe around his head. That is what my week before Christmas has been like.

But I am glad it is Christmas. Because even if I don't get to see my family and visiting relatives because I am in quarantine, I still know they are out there, enjoying all kinds of delicious food and pies that I can not have (because it hurts the immune system like the lady at the health food store told me) and even if I could most of my taste buds have gone on vacation as well. So I guess this is good, I am getting a good start on my new year's resolution to lose weight. Without even a pill my appetite has been curbed to 45%.

My poor little boy is also sick, only that he still manages to be just as active and energetic as ever. I guess I got the cold, he has the ear ache infection. So you should see our table full of our Christmas presents from our loved ones: oranges for vitamin c, shacklees multivatimins and more vitamin c, emergen-c (yes, we believe in this vitamin), echinacea, echinacea tea, cough suppressants, congestion medicine, sudafed that I no longer take b/c it isn't working, and last but not least, garlic extract, to put directly on the toungue. Jon is also feasting on all these supplements, although he is now on to blowing his nose too. I am afraid he wasn't spared the cold.

But I didn't want this to be a negative outlook on my present day before Christmas. One good thing: I am getting to spend time with the two guys I love the most: my hubby and my baby. Together we are taking medicine, trying to sleep and get plenty of rest, watching movies, talking through clogged nasal passages, and most of all, thanking God for each other and for His love. Because that is what matters at Christmas: the ones we love (you too, my friendly readers) and the One who loves the most.

Thankful for Christmas and what it means to us.
May yours be blessed with love and grace and hopefully without a cold. :)

Teething, crawling and busting his lip!

J-man is starting to pseudo-crawl! He pushes himself across the floor at a pretty good speed, pushing on those strong legs and with his elbows, and obviously getting himself places I rather not want him to be. Sigh. It is beginning to look like Christmas for him! And for me, it is time to get the discipline thing going. "No Jeremiah, you can't have that/touch that/get into that/play wiht that." That's the easy part. The hard part is consistently showing him you are serious and keeping a watchful eye on what he does next! Testing his boundaries already!

But I did feel like a bad mama the other day when I was not watching and he quickly got from the carpet to the kitchen's hard floor and, having this need to gnaw on everything like a little puppy because of his teething (no teeth yet, but his gums are sure bothering him!),

BHAM! He slammed his face into the floor as if it were mush cereal. Immedietly he started screaming and giving this loud cry of pain. My heart just broke. How could I have not been more careful. I go there and think "Sounds like it's really bad" and sure enough his upper lip was bleeding. He buried himself in my arms and got blood on my shirt! I gave him a wet rag with an ice-cube in it and let him suck on it. He was so distraught that he fell asleep while I rocked to comfort him.

As you see, his new crawling place is our coffee table. Paper and books are great chewing toys for him!

Birthdays in Heaven

Last week I got in the mail a sweet invitation to a friend's child's birthday.

It was a beautiful pink handmade card with a "Hello Kitty" motif.

Hope, my friend's little girl, would be turning two. This was her estimated due date, for she was born too soon here on earth and went straight to Heaven.

I had heard that recently a radio talk show hostess while airing made a derogatory comment regarding people who take pictures of their 'dead' babies once they were stillborn and how morbid that was. She was talking about me. And about other families I know. I do not think many people agree with her but I know this comment hurt a lot of families who have lost a child.

I love my friend for making a little invitation for her little girl, even though it isn't much for her as it is for my friend. Yes, it is a little crazy for some, a childish 'make believe', perhaps some would argue it is not a good thing, it won't help us 'move along' or maybe it is a sign of psychosis, who knows. I want to disagree. I think it is a very healthy sign, of a mother who loves and misses a child she never got to hold and she is using God's given gift of creativity and showing courage and strenght to do something for love in the only way she knows how.

We would want to brush our child's hair, help her get dressed in the morning, teach her "Jesus loves me," help her cross the street, read her little books, take her to the park...so many activites that we as parents often take for granted. But when your child dies all of the sudden you miss these things. Even if you never did them before, like when I lost my first child.

And inthe same way you miss giving a birthday party.

For Gioia's first birthday I held a baloon release. I got a big container to inflate the baloons and bought pink and yellow baloons, my colors for Gioia. I also made pink and yellow cupcakes and decorated them with little butterflies. I got a number 1 candle to put in one of the cupcakes for Gioia to "blow out." I invited close friends and family, those who have been close to us and who love Gioia too although they never got to 'see' her perhaps. We went to the place where she is buried and at her marker we sang together some special songs and a lullabye and then lit up the candle for the wind to blow out. We then wrote messages on the baloons for Gioia and sent them up to Heaven. While we watched them 'dissapear' in the sky we ate our cupcakes and had pink lemonade. It was a good time. And it did my heart a lot of good too.

Not everyone who has lost a child will feel the need to express her love this way. We are all different and our personalities are different, therefore we should not assume everyone will grieve the same way. It also doesn't mean that some might love the children they loss more than others. Everyone has a certain degree of comfort with their experience of loss, just like my husband sometimes has a different way to express his feelings than I do.

So, do they celebrate birthdays in Heaven? I remember always wondering when was Gioia's birhday. She was born still on Sept. 4th, but she actually died around August 28th sometime. So is it then that she was born, albeit into Heaven? These questions can make it hard for someone who has lost a child to stillbirht or miscarriage. You wonder if you even had a child, if it was legit, if you are a mother. I have chosen to say yes. Yes, I did have a child. I am a mother, even if my second loss was only a few days past conception.

So, dear Hope. Happy Birthday! I wonder if you will have a birthday party in Heaven? Or is it that really, every day, is a true celebration for you because you are home with Jesus, happily waiting for your family to join you there?

Celebrating Hope, and life and death in Christ, knowing that there is peace and fulfillment awaiting for us there!

P.S. My friend also sent party favors in the mail! cute little pink favors for little girls. I brought them to Gioia's marker to show them to her. She likes hello kitty too, I am sure, just like every little girl:)

Forgive the Silence

First forgive the silence

That answers prayer,
Then forgive the prayer
That stains the silence.

Excuse the absence
That feels like presence,

Then excuse the feeling
That insists on presence.

Pardon the delay
Of revelation,
Then ask pardon for revealing
Your impatience.

Forgive God
For being only a word,
Then ask God to forgive
The betrayal of language.

Mark Jarman, from the "Five Psalms" in "To the Green Man"

I found this poem in the book on Prayer by Philip Yancey.
Here is an excerpt that really spoke to me about God's silence.

Religious radio and television, as well as certain books and magazines, say little of God's silence. By their accounts God seems to speak volubly, commanding this minister to build a new sanctuary and that housewife to launch a new Web-based company. God represents success, good feelings, a sense of peace, a warm glow. To an audience regaled by such inspiring stories, an encounter with the silence of God hits like a shocking exception and stirs up feelings of inadequacy. The exception, in fact, is the cheery optimism of modern consumer-oriented faith. For centuries Christians learned what to expect on their spiritual journey from the bumbling pilgrim in Pilgrim's Progress, from John of the Cross' Dark Night of the Soul, from Thomas à Kempis's challenging Imitation of Christ. The one mentor who wrote most openly about the presence of God, Brother Lawrence, composed his thoughts while washing dishes and cleaning toilets.