A Prayer Request

Dear Praying Friends,
Re: Girls Purity Retreat St. Joseph Church, Grimsby, May 30 – May 31 2006

In just two short weeks we will be hosting our first Girls Purity Retreat for high school aged girls. We are very excited about this event. Our schedule is packed with fun and inspiring activities and talks. Three university-aged young women will be coming to share from their life experiences. Our event closes with a mother daughter tea, and a purity commitment ceremony. It’s going to be life changing.
As a praying friend, you have a significant part to play in this as you pray over the girls and this event. We need your prayers. Join us as we pray
That we would reach our capacity number. That not one girl, or her mom, would be missed.
Against any distractions that could come at critical moments of understanding and decision.
For a profound, transforming, permanent work of the Holy Spirit that will sever every evil plan of the enemy and set these girls on a path of victory and purpose.
That they will go back to their communities spreading the fire and message of purity.
For physical and spiritual protection as they leave this event – that the Truth received would not be lost.
For a deep hunger for God’s Word and a passionate pursuit of Christ’s likeness.
For great boldness and courage to share their faith in the midst of this generation.
For the organizing team and speakers, and the provision of every resource need.

God bless you and thank you for your prayer support!

“We are meant for so much more than we often realize. It’s difficult to believe that an act as simple as a breath of prayer can have some kind of cosmic import, a place in the grand scheme of things. He is ever inviting you and me to join Him on this amazing adventure, to live life – day in and day out – on the edge of holy expectancy.”

Standing with you “on the edge of holy expectancy” for this generation.
Girls Retreat Organizing Team

Trinity Sunday/Communion Day

What a great day for a Communion. God opened the floodgates of rain on this spring day and we celebrated. My Cathecism class was wonderful. After weeks and weeks of preparation, they did a truly wonderful job. I was so proud. Like a momma bird hovering over her baby's. What a wonderful day. And on Trinity Sunday too. It really doesn't get much better than this.

Happy Mothers Day

Watch to the end for a beautiful blessing!

Finally Free, Home at Last

OTTAWA - Brenda Martin is finally a free woman.


Martin was released from a Kitchener prison Friday after being granted full parole. She had been held at the Grand Valley Institution for Women since returning to Canada last week after spending more than two years in a Mexican prison on fraud charges. Sitting in the passenger seat of longtime friend Debra Tieleman's car, Martin told reporters she'd been on pins and needles all day.
"When they finally called, actually when two guards came to the house, and (said) 'Your parole officer wants to see you,' I said 'Oh my God, maybe I'm getting out!"'
She thanked the "three heroes" in her life: her mother, Marjorie Bletcher; Tieleman; and a journalist who followed her plight.
Martin said she was headed to see her mother in Trenton, Ont.
"I'm just going to relax with my mom, and probably cook dinner for my mother and my stepfather."
Carol Sparling, a spokeswoman for the National Parole Board, said Martin is a first-time federal offender sentenced to a non-violent offence.
"Those offenders are reviewed with only one criteria, which is if there is reasonable likelihood of them committing a violent offence," she said.
"The board found that was no evidence in violence in this case and directed full parole release."
Parole documents cite a 1993 conviction for drunk driving but don't consider it germane to her current case.
A Mexican court found Martin guilty last month of involvement in a scam run by her ex-boss, former Edmontonian Alyn Waage.
A Mexican judge sentenced her to five years in jail and ordered her to pay a fine.
She has steadfastly maintained she knew nothing of Waage's fraud scheme, which bilked 15,000 investors out of nearly US$60 million.
Waage was arrested in 2001 and is serving out a 10-year sentence at a low-security federal prison in Butner, N.C.

Found a little...long way to go.

I found some motivation, the sun came out, I opened a window and just jumped in. And I do feel better which makes me want to keep going. I love it when my house smells fresh and feels clean. It's a 'good thing'. What cleaning products are you using these days? Making the switch to 'green' or staying with old faithful? I'm into products that don't make you wear gloves. Love that! So what's making your houses fresh?

I need some motivation

My house is a bomb and I need to tidy up...but it's grey and cloudy and I'm not in the mood. Ever happen to you guys? I'm just blahhh. I know I'll feel better when its done, its just starting. Blahh. What gets you going? What helps you get the blahh into submission? Blahh blahh blahh...blahh.

Okay, this is how much God loves me!

You know those moments that happen in your life that are so incredibly sweet that they're like a hand picked moment between you and God? Well I just had a weekend of Divine Appointments with God. I just love Him so much because He cares so much about the details of our lives. On Friday, my daughter and I left our Homeschool Event a little later than I planned (hard to tear away from those things...) and I still had to stop and pick up snacks. The plaza I went to is crazy hard to pull into traffic going left, so I was stuck there for a while waiting, feeling later and later. I prayed out loud,"God just please make a break in the traffic so I can get out of here." And I'm not kidding you, the very next car stops and lets me go. God is so good. We get to the conference which was at the University of Waterloo and we stayed in the dorms. What a neato experience that was for my daughter and I. We loved it! Not the comfyest sleep but didn't matter, it was the funnest ever. The next day (Saturday) was the best part of the conference only the biggest bummer for me was no coffee. I love coffee. Not more than God, but man, I really love coffee. So there I am, brewing a coffee headache (it amazes me that I only drink one a day unless its a celebration or a really small cup, but I still get a headache if I don't have one...hmmm) and I'm sitting in the bleachers (but Jenny saves the day and blesses us with some chairs, thanks Jen!) kind of grumbling about not having coffee and again, I just sort of pray a simple little prayer, "Lord I would just love a coffee." Nothing. That's okay cause God is still good. I see people coming and going all day with their coffee's and its bugging me but God is bigger than coffee so I don't really care alot. We have lunch and I'm getting ready to settle in for the after noon, my headache is still there and I'm not perky happy but content to hear the afternoon message when this complete stranger comes up to me with a tray full of coffee, Tim's no less, and says, "I just bought too many coffee's would anyone like one?" And she looks right at me. There are 1200 people in this place and she comes up to ME. She's not even sitting near me so she doesn't know my coffee circumstance. I jumped out of my skin saying yes yes yes, because even though she paid for it, God just bought me coffee!!! It was the best coffee I ever had. I actually wept. Because it wasn't at all about the coffee, it's simply that God loves me that much that He would bring me a coffee. But it doesn't end there. The day just kept getting better. The afternoon door prizes were being announced and my daughter silently prayed, "God, don't let me win the CD, but if I win the Bible I will give it to my best friend Sandra." And don't you know, the very first name called in the Bible draw was my daughters. And then about 5 names later, my name was called for a Bible. They thought we were sisters...I loved that. Honestly, I was just saying thank you Jesus over and over. Because now, He rewards my daughters faithfulness, and then amplifies it by giving us 2 Bibles. What an incredible day. God is so faithful and cares about the simple little details. More than ever, I'm in love with my God. I know I'm His favorite. And so are you, and you and you and you. Isn't that so great? To honestly say your the favorite and not be at all puffed up in anyway bragging, because its true. God is just that good!

Images

Well here's a good conversation. My strangerfriend at Aduladi&Co. offers a great commentary to make you go hmmmmm on her blog post from yesterday. Is it okay to look at images of Christ in the new covenant even though the old testament covenant still applies. But by the blood of the lamb we have a new promise so how far do you press it? As a Catholic woman I find myself really thinking on this because we are loaded with images in the Catholic church. And I honestly love them. I'm visual so that part of me is fed well with so much to look at. So my take on this is that as long as I'm not making an image INTO God, then having a picture of Jesus should be okay. If we get all legalistic about it then we should probably not wear crosses either. And I really don't want to give up my cross jewellery. I love it, but its not a god to me and none of it has power. And too, watching The Passion Of The Christ, really puts into perspective what he suffered. Until that movie I never really 'got' it. So as a tool to deepen my faith, seeing that movie helped. So then, gazing on the face of Christ, weather in my minds eye or through the eye of someone else, if in a desire to grow in faith, has to be okay. Am I justifying too much? I pray for the mind of Christ because scripture tells me to do so. Is that cheating? I don't think so. I love how St. Thomas Aquinas says it: Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.[St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 81, 3 ad 3.]. Regarding idols we find this...2113. Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, 'You cannot serve God and mammon.'[Mt 6:24 .] Many martyrs died for not adoring 'the Beast'[Cf. Rev 13-14.] refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.[Cf. Gal 5:20 ; Eph 5:5 . This site www.newadvent.org has a neat description of the issue too. But sadly as I poked around the web, there is alot of anti-catholic stuff out there. It's a hard subject to tackle and my friend Angel said it best, its not a salvation issue. Its more about living in Victory. Trying as best we know how to live a life for Christ, that he would be blessed by and that would show who he is by how we live.