Lenten Prayers and Thoughts

It's after 8 PM and between TV shows, not quite ready to call it a night, so one last hurrah on this electronic device. As I sat down and cleaned up some paperwork next to my chair I saw the Living Faith meditational booklet that my friend, Hilda, sends me. I am guilty of not reading it daily even though I know I can use the extra boost of faith each day's reading brings me.

Today's reading is very appropriate to a parcel of feelings that I've carried for years. My life as a Christ Loving person has taken many turns and lows and highs. I've never lost my faith even in the low spots but in those low places when I gave up talking to God I knew my friends and family were praying for me. There are days I feel like I am walking in an empty space with no spirits to guide me but I've learned those are the days when He is there watching but letting me search for the answer on my own but with His guidance. I do believe in His Angels too surrounding me.

My biggest trial, test, exasperation, maddness and void was when Brian died. There's been lots of crisis in my life, but none so as Brian dying. I gave everything I had to him, for him and with him for those years we cared for him at home after his accident. I firmly believe that Mothers are gifted with a degree of hope and love no mortal man would understand. And through all that care and hope I wanted that he would survive. I hoped with all my heart that he would recover from his brain damage and that his lungs would heal. We did everything for him everyday. He was our everything during that time. We also shared our love raising a grandson, our daughter's son. She was diagnosed with a mental illness a short time after we brought Brian home from the VA hospital. The struggle to raise an active undisciplined at the time four year old boy and attempt to get my daughter in a mental hospital was beyond imaginable. Bob and I were younger, stronger and more determined then. God did bless us with all the strength we needed to care for these children's needs. He gave Bob and I a chore to care for His children because He knew we would do what was necessary. I know today that He gave something greater to Bob and I than we could ever imagine because our marriage survived this trial where we know other marriages have fail even less. Our marriage is so blessed and our love is so great for one another, I see it now that is our gift for following His will.

Grandson Tom has turned out to be a wonderful person. I love him so much and can't imagine how he felt not having a father and having a mother who was ill and couldn't care for him. I always had faith in him and stood by him and with him and he has gone on to be all he can be. We do have miracles and God's love is apparent and prayers are answered but we have to have the faith eyes to see and accept. Suzanne still struggles with her illness but she is taken care of and we are all here as her family to love her and be with her when she needs us. She will never be the same and it is very difficult to understand how our only daughter suffers with this illness.

I guess I am sending mixed messages. There are the prayers unanswered, the questionable reactions, and blank slate where we never know why. Bob and I talk about this all the time, even though Brian died almost nine years ago, we still talk about our feelings that we knew God could have healed Brian, we've seen Him heal others. We know all the usual sayings "it was his time" and "he's in a better place" the things people say to make you feel better, we know, we know, but it doesn't help. We are compelled to accept only for sanity sake that we will find out when we get to Heaven.

Today's reading in the book says "Ask and it will be given to you...Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish?" Matthew 7:7, 9-10.

The author, Pat Livingston, of today's meditation in her second paragraph says this: "Only slowly have I realized that it has been in that breaking open that I have come closer to God. It may not have been the bread I had asked for, but it was the Bread of Life."

She's finishes by praying: "Dear God, help us to trust that, no matter what we ask for, you will always give us life."