Buddypress Blogs

Welcome to www.artist4god.net. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

your pages are so full of hope wonderful

many more to come. terrorist Beth marrried terrorist Simon last saturday. Together they could muster enough angst to take over a small country.

scarlett

Knowing we would fail, God gave us free will anyway. The Dems in their all powerfull wisdom corrected that little problem. They are slowly taking away any choices we might have or make. Unfortunately there are a few Republicans in name only that are going right along with them.

This country’s prosperity is directly tied to the Christian values and the rule of law it was founded on! Are you willing to fight for the country that Mary helps protect?

Reflections on John Donne’s poem “Batter My Heart” by Br. Michel-Steven Pham OSB or the Prince of Peace Abbey in Oceanside, CA

Batter my hardened heart, Three-Person-God!
One are you: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Triune Mystery.
All Glorious, all Powerful and Ruler of the universe;
Almighty of heaven and earth, crush me; crack my heart open under the weight of your love.
Beat it; strike it over and over again,
Tenderizing it, until it soaks in the medicine of your grace.
Oh Triune God, thrice the force!
Distance from you I freely choose;
Yet, you have never left, waiting and waiting to penetrate my indifference.
Within the wall of my heart, I feel your vibrating knocking, Father, echoing inside.
Though my conscience is sounding, I discount your kindly pounding.
Comfortably within the cocoon of my heart, heartily drunken in worldly affairs,
Indulging in self-love, and lusting after various idols.
I sense your Spirit hovering, breathing about; gently it touches, softly it nudges.
So softly, so tenderly, and mildly it brushes over me, yet it unmoved me.
You bring your Son-light; brightly shines into my darkeness.
The calluses of my sins are numerous in layers. Crust upon crust they envelop them;
In darkness where they dwell.
Seek, shout, and alter me, I plead.
I want to rise, I want to stand again and again/
Father! Don’t knock. Thrust me open, break me down, and turn me upside down, inside out,
Destroyme, confetti my existence into zillions pieces.
Like a seed must die to give new life, vaporize me and renew my life.
Holy Spirit! Do not breath over me; tornado me with your spirit;
In the midst of your whirlwind embrace, twist me, twirl me,
Brutally bruise me into ecstasy by the violence of your love,
Light of Christ, don’t shine. Purify me and consume me in the inferno of your burning love.
Transform me and make me pure like gold in the fire.
The devil captures me, sustains me, and exercises his authority over me.
I submit to his many sweet insinuations, helpless to his many suggestions.
Many of the times I want to admit you, sincerely to confess to you,
Yet! Such impotence I find when trying and trying without a success.
You have given me keen conscience and wise perceptive power.
These divine gifts appointed to me for my benefit;
Yet, Un-safeguarded, I allow them to vanish by my carnal nature,
Which is often weak and untrue.
“What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”.
Persuade me, God! Plunge into my heart some sensible sense to change.

The other day I was reading from one of my favorite little devotional books, The Imitation of Christ, and a chapter really jumped out at me. Book 3: Chapter 27 is entitled “Nothing Withholds Us From God As Much As Self-Love. The verses that smacked me between the eyes was “Why do you languish in useless grief, or why are you so worn with needless cares? Resign yourself to My will and you will suffer no loss.”

Powerful words to me as I meditation on the things that hold me locked into the regrets of my past and sorrow at the losses I have endured the past year. When I first met him I was praying a 54 Day Rosary Novena with the intention that I would find the one that God had set aside and prepared for me to be with once my annulment was complete. Everything about the budding romance and friendship seemed to be so steeped in little God moments and coincedences that drew us together. It was wild and fun and exciting and romantic and my spiritual life was growing stronger as a result.

But it only lasted for a time. The various troubles of things beyond our control frustrated and angered both of us as we wanted life to go to our plan and not Gods’ I know I had a difficult time just letting go of my pride and my will. As our relationship floundered God revealed His plan to me in a variety of ways that I am only just now coming to terms with. I see that His will was always at work, it just wasn’t what I thought it would be.

During this same prayer time I came upon this passage from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) “As to the extraordinary revelations, in order that I might not become conceited I was given a thorn in th eflesh, an angel of Satan to beat me and keep me from getting proud. Three times I begged the Lord that this might leave me. He said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for in weakness power reached perfecton.” And so I willingly boast of my weakness instead that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Therefore I am content with weakness, with mistreatment, with distress, with persecutions and difficulties for th esake of Christ, for when I am powerless, it is then that I am strong.”

Admiting weakness is so very difficutl in life. Somehow I feel it makes me less of a person to admit that I am weak and vunerable. Other times I fear that I will be taken advantage of it I admit my weakness to others. Society encourages self-reliance and confidence for those who want to succeed in life. I’ve never considered myself a competitive person but I am driven to be successful in how I work and live. Success on the job is easier as there is a certain detachment from emotions and feelings that somehow helps success to seem greater. It is an illusion, I know, because to work and live like that is a rather cold existence. But this is a very human view and not at all what God has in mind.

God shows us numerous times that there is great power in being seen as weak for the coming of the Kingdom of God. The cross of Christ is the biggest and most tangible example of this. What was seen by the society of his times as a symbol of shame and destruction is actually, for the Christian, a symbol of great joy and redemption.

Like Paul, I can recall many times when I begged God to remove the crosses and burdens from my life. My pain and sorrow have been so heavy at various points in my life that the simple act of just breathing is difficult during these time periods, especially when I’m filled with regret and can do little to make up for my sins. The inability to sleep, eat, or concentrate are all symptoms of me trying to carry the weight of my many crosses on my own. It has only been when I allow the Holy Spirit to speak to my heart and remind me that His grace alone will sustain me if I just go. The saying “Let go and let God.” use to drive me nuts because I didn’t see how this was possible. In losing the love of my life and learning to let go and live without him, I now understand this saying. God has everything taken care of and I need to let Him do that out of my love for him.

Admitting my own weakness was the first step to the healing of my heart and soul from what a seems like a lifetime of bad choices and sins. My sins, based in self-centeredness and the pride of thinking I’m the one in control, actually led to more trials and tears than I think was meant for me. I grew to believe that I deserved the trials since I thought life would just automatically go my way. I know now that God has made it abundantly clear to me more times than I can evern remember that His is God and I am not. Only by admiting my weakness and placing all of my trust in Him do I ever find peace and happiness. Perhaps this is one of the reasons Divine Mercy is so appealing to me. It is that constant reminder that I do need to place my trust in HIm ever chance I can.

The mistreatment, pain, disrespect, and outright abuse of my past can be seen in a different light now. There was a time when I believed that I deserved all these trials because for some reason I was a more wretched sinner than anyone else and my lot in life was to suffer, not be happy. What a load of pride that is! To God, any time anyone turns away from Him is a great loss but He continually beckons and whispers us to come back to Him and be reconciled. My prideful thinking led to much anger and depression and a I began to have a great crisis of faith especially after this past year. How could God ignore and deny what I was working so hard to make right in my life? I felt lost and abandoned and without hope. It truly has been the grace of God that I have been able to pull myself out of this pit and start living my life more in line with the will of God again rather than mine.

Suffering does have a purpose and I am beginning to see that more and more as I age. My patron saint is Saint Bernadette and she believed that her “weapons are prayer and sacrifice”. She took very little comfort in the things of this world but prayed and sacrificed for the many sins that others commit. Her pain was as real as my pain but her ability to offer it to God gave her strength and courage to never lose hope. I’ve spent so much of my life searching for human affection and loning to be a married woman that I’ve lost sight of the blessings contained in putting all my trust in God, knowing that His grace will truly see me through any and all harships that come my way. My lost love sacrificed on a regular basis with regards to his prayer life and was a source of inspiration to me in that. I wasn’t that disciplined and still have a ways to go with sacrifice. Because of his example, I finally understand how spouses are suppose to be totally self-giving gifts to each other in love and in sacrifice. I did not have this as I chose husbands who held different beliefs. My lost love believed as I did and that was part of my attraction and desire to remain with him. I am working on accepting that this will not happen in my lifetime. Now, with my eyes on the ultimate goal of the next life I can weather the trials and crosses a little better knowing my trust is in the right place.

There will always be those who seek to hurt me. The depth of my pain at losing the one I love the most is a testament to the height of my ability to love. I love strongly and deeply so when I get hurt, it is a very deep hurt. I cannot control how others think, feel, or act towards me but, I do know that I can love and pray for them. The fact that I do this after working through and expressing my anger is a sign of growth for me as I used to just hold everything in all the time. That tendency will always be there, I just hope to lessen it as I age. I know and admit that I am a very weak and vunerable woman. I’ve been told that being this way and knowing it opens me up for more hurt and pain but that there is nothing worthwhile in life that comes easy or without some amount of pain. I trust that God is ever present to me and will provide exactly what I need and when I need it. I’m impatient at times to see it in my life but am confident that all things will happen when He wants it to happen. In this knowledge I am joyous and willing to embrace the pain of the crosses I’ve been given.

I know that my sorrow will subside in time. It doesn’t make it easier as I still have to feel it and walk with the regret of my sins each and every day. Fortunately, God does send angels to help guide and and encourage me along the way. I will one day know why I’ve gone through this pain somewhere down the road of my life.

As I struggle with the demise of the love and friendship of the man I saw myself marrying and growing old with I’ve been going through a variety of tasks, meditations, prayers and therapeutic activites to help me with my grief. I’ve reached out to try and mend the broken shards of what I was told would always be there in regards of friendship only to by hurt once again by his unexpected cruelty.

That’s ok. He obviously is in as much pain as I am in and finds he needs to hurt me to deal with his own pain and grief. This is exactly the opposite of the person I grew to know and love but I know how pain can make us do things we wouldn’t normally do to those we love and care for. I have not ever stopped praying for him in my daily prayers, I still light a devotional candle for him and his intentions every time I got to chapel. I’m not doing this in an obsessive manner….he just came to be such a huge part of my life that thoughts of him flow like my very breath. I pray for his life to go well and for him and his children to be happy. I’m just so sad that he feels he needs to continue to hurt me.

In my struggle, I’ve been going through letters, emails, cards and music that were either written to me or that have special meaning for us and our time together. I have no doubt in my mind that the two of us were brought together across the span of 1000 miles for a very good reason. The reason just isn’t what I originally had hoped for.

In going through my music, I was seeking to come up with a Top 10 list of the songs that are helping me to grieve. The first time I recorded them it spanned three cd’s. I have narrowed it down a bit but it still fills 2 cd’s. I’ve recorded them with the purpose of sending them to him as a goodby gift as the power of the music is so strong to to soul. I have reconsidered that as I do not want to add anymore to him pain. I only want the best for him and for him to heal from the hurt I’ve caused through my own hurt anger.

These are songs that will forever be etched in my heart and my brain and connected with this man. I pray that they are a healing force in our lives for despite the problems and hurts I feel forever changed for the better in having known and loved him. I will forever continue to love, miss, bless, and pray for him and his family.

1. Amazed by Lonestar
2. Love of My Life by Jim Brickman
3.Bless the Broken Road by Rascal Flatts
4. What Happened by Gretchen Wilson
5. Fly Me to the Moon by Bart Howard and sung by Diana Krall
6. Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel and sung by Diana Krall
7. That’s How You Know It’s Love by Deana Carter
8. Words I Couldn’t Say by Rascal Flatts
9. Waiting All My Life by Rascal Flatts
10. What Hurts the Most by Rascal Flatts
11. The Healing Kind by Lee Ann Womack
12. Without You by Dixie Chicks
13. I’ve Got You Under My Skin by Cole Porter and sung by Diana Krall
14. Hard to Say I’m Sorry by Chicago
15. Not a Day Goes By by Lonestar
16. Cowboy, Take Me Away by Dixie Chicks
17. Hard Habit to Break by Chicago
18. Smile by Lonestar
19. Valentine byJim Brickman & Martina McBride
20. “Till I See You Again by Jim Brickman & Mark Schutlz
21. My Love is Here by Jim Brickman & Josh Voisine
22. Please Consider Me by Nat King Cole
23. What Do I Do With My Heart by The Eagles
24. You Move Me by Susan Ashton
25. On My Knees By Jaci Velasquez
26. Flower in the Rain by Jaci Valasquez
27. Missing You by Amy Grant
28. Somewhere Down the Road by Amy Grant
29. Cry a River by Amy Grant
30. When I Fall In Love by Celine Dion
31. You’re Still the One by Shania Twain

I was in recovery from my first 5 hour brain surgery!

Well, I finally booked a getaway for some much needed R&R. I can’t wait. I’m going to take my easel and paints, and maybe a sketch pad. The pictures of this place are beautiful. I just hope it lives up to the website. This will be the first vacation that I’ve had since 2000. Way too long to wait before a recharge.

I went to my art class this morning. I finished a watercolor. It’s a beach scene with a lighthouse. I don’t think I’m going to sell it. I think my grandmother wants to have it framed and hang it above the mantel. It’s a huge picture, almost as big as a sofa oil. Now that it’s done, maybe I can get watercolor out of my system. It’s not my favorite medium. I’ll take a picture of it and put it on here, though.