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During our storms of turmoil, our descents into hellishness, we cry but fail to see that everything in a watery drop is distorted and or inverted, subject to our perception; up is down and white is black. Humor me this, picture a mountain behind a pond of water and for some that same mountain is laid before their feet…or not. We’ve passively learned to trust our eyes, like our hearts trust those we love all the while missing that “love” like God, just “is” and makes no distinction to quantify what it is attached to or by whom. Our love is never wrong, I’ll repeat that; our love for others is never wrong and I would even dare say it is always right.  This is a guest post by Poet of the Light. To continue to read his insight and discover the 5 Wounds of Christ and the 5 Stages of Grief in Divorce, please join me at SingleMomSmiling.com.  Thank you for following, liking, and sharing!  God Bless...

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I am a doer. I do and I do and I do, and sometimes I get so caught up in  doing that I forget things like eating, sleeping, and playing. Luckily, I have five boys who don't let me forget eating for very long, but the sleep and play part I have to remind myself about. I tend to put them on the back shelf behind the never ending list of responsibilities that assault my time. The truth is, I really do have important things that need doing for  my life coaching , my teaching, my children, my CCD classes, my home, and for so many other things. I often get so caught up in what needs to be done, that I forget that downtime needs to be done too. I forget to make time to rest, to play with my children, to feed my children without their reminders (I won't win Mother of the Year Award again this year!) I forget to make time to sit with the Lord and say the Rosary, quietly reflecting on Jesus' life as I move from verse to verse along each bead. I forget to take time to read

What had happened to my life and how had things turned so quickly? We had renewed our vows on Valentine's Day, and it seemed, even to me, that we lived the perfect life. We had four beautiful little boys and another child on the way. Our large home had been built, much of it by our own hands, in an upscale neighborhood. Yes, it needed a lot of work, but we were looking forward to making it "perfect" together over the years. Friends and family were welcome and visited often. Laughter was a constant companion in days filled with sunshine. Challenges and darkness had risen ugly heads in the past, but they seemed to have faded and finally been replaced by a deeper Love, a Love that comes only from choosing to face hard times with maturity, Trust, and sheer stubbornness, the refusal to succumb to defeat. To read the rest of the post and see how abandonment can be a gift from God, please join me at SingleMomSmiling.com Happy Easter & God Bless...

Have you ever felt lost, alone, confused, unsure of what to do next, unsure of what your calling is? Do you ever sit back and wonder what God is asking of you? Maybe there was a time you knew your calling. You were to be a Wife and a Mother, a caretaker, a healer, a child's giggling dance partner, a coloring book aficionado, and a world class booboo kisser. You were to be a partner, a supporter, a champion, a budget-applying miracle worker, a secret look across a crowded room interpreter, and a soft place for your better half to land at the end of a long, hard day. And now...you are just not . So what is God calling you to do? When your dreams have been dashed and reality is that you need to concentrate just to support, to feed, clothe, and house your children. In Sunday's Gospel, Luke 3: 10-18, John the Baptist addresses crowds asking similar questions, "What should we do?" To read the rest of God  What Should I Do? please join me at SingleMom

It came to me in the sudden realization, "This is what Hell is." I didn't see the burning, unending agony the Saints have seen. I thank the Lord He knows me well enough to understand I'm not strong enough to witness such suffering even in those justly condemned by their own choices. But I understood what must be one of the greatest agonies of Hell, and it wasn't an eternity of physical torture. It was no gnawing and gnashing of teeth. It was what was not in Hell that hurt souls most. It was their inability to give or receive Love. What made Hell so awful was, quite simply, a complete absence of Love. And I knew this is what Hell would be. To continue reading, please join me at SingleMomSmiliing.com

My husband, Michael, and I have been married for 36 years, and we are happy and still in love. Surprisingly, we have become one in reality, deeply in tune with each other’s spirits even though we are still opposites in personality. Our tangible joy is inexplicable through secular eyes, because from all outward appearances our life together has been a tough journey including poverty, nine kids, overwhelming chores on a small family farm and long-term, clinical depression. Accessing Power in the Sacrament of Marriage The grace available in the Sacrament of Marriage is not some esoteric theology;  it is real and it is powerful. The power available in the sacrament is what kept my husband and I together through the rough years. We both understood, beyond a doubt, that God brought us together. We never questioned this basic call from God, our vocation together, even during the dark years. I have always managed to keep our difficulties in perspective through humour.  One of my jo

If your hand leads you to sin, cut it off. If your eye leads you to sin, pluck it out. John 17 These are the words spoken in Sunday's Gospel. Sounds kind of harsh, doesn't it? We often think of the words spoken in this Gospel as hypothetical examples of the extreme. Jesus  didn't really mean cut off your hand for taking something that doesn't belong to you; He didn't really mean pluck your eye out for looking greedily or lustfully at another. That sounds more like Sharia law. Surely He couldn't have meant that! Jesus certainly did not want to impose Sharia law upon Christians. He wasn't like that. Sharia law is designed to punish. Sharia law is meant to cause pain. Sharia law is imposed on one person by another. Sharia law is man's weak attempt to impose justice on an unjust world. Sharia law is intended to provide revenge for those who feel, correctly or incorrectly, wronged. Jesus was not about providing justice in an unjust worl

I have the book Have a New You by Friday by Dr. Kevin Lehman, but I haven't read it. It's on my very long TO DO list, although by the title, it sounds like it should be at the top of that list. Imagine, a new me by Friday...    ...cue the wavy, dreamy scene change as I am transformed into A New Me by Friday... I'd always find my keys and cell phone but lose the extra 20 pounds I've been carrying around the last few years... I'd be thin and in shape and curvy but only where I want to be curvy...  My hair would finally tame itself and listen when I tell it to relax and straighten out... The line between my brows would be gone, my upper lip wouldn't disappear when I smile, and my lashes would be long and lush... I'd be smiling and happy, filled with Joy every day, in every moment no matter what was happening - or how crazy those boys drove me to be some days... continue

MARRIAGE DIVORCE ANNULMENT YOUR VIEWS?

What happens to the seeds that fall to you? Matthew 13: 3-8 After my husband left, I spent hours, or was it days, weeks, or even months, wondering what had happened to his faith. Despite going through 12 years of Catholic school, his faith in God was weak. He'd claimed I brought him to faith and then ruined faith for him, but as I look back over the years at red flags I should have taken more notice of and at my own weaknesses, my own feeble faith, I wonder about the seeds each of us sowed and at the ground those seeds were planted in. If I follow his suggestion that my leading him to faith planted the Seed of the Word of God in him, then I also found myself asking… Was he the path and were the birds who came to eat up the little bit of faith I'd planted, devils of temptation in the forms of greed, lust, and pride? And why did I stop at just a little bit of seed? Why hadn't I planted so much seed that it couldn't be stolen away? Was he the rocky

I’m divorced, but not annulled – It’s weird having an anniversary that’s not an anniversary,  being married to someone, but not really married to him,  being grateful to be out of that marriage,  but saddened at its death and dismayed by the load dumped upon you. Its weird having an anniversary that’s not an anniversary. I didn’t even think about it for a while after I woke up. It’s weird that each year your anniversary becomes – somehow less , but still there . It’s weird how, despite the passing of time, the awareness of what you promised on this day creeps in and you think to yourself Oh yeah…Today’s the day we promised forever… or at least I did.   I don’t know what he promised.   And then you start thinking of the wedding day. Some people have picture perfect weddings. Maybe our day should have served as an omen.  I thought it was a sign that we could make it through anything. I guess he didn’t share the same optimism. But the wedding is a distant memory, a stor

As preparations heat up for Pope Francis'  2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family , it's a good time to revisit some ideas for fixing what's broken about the marriage preparation and annulment process in the United States. Catholic author John Zmirak recently asserted that we could  fix Catholic marriage in five easy steps . But can we? Although thought-provoking, Zmirak's proposals underscore the need for more thorough education about the annulments process among Catholics today, say some canonists. Let's take a look at Zmirak's five proposals and see what might work, what might not work, and what's already being done. Read more here...

What should we do when people in our social circle abandon their marriages? When they're openly, even scandalously, unfaithful? Kristin Gomez has encountered this situation one too many times, and now she's speaking out about it. A graduate of the University of Virginia and former Spanish teacher, Kristin is now a homeschooling mother of 6 in Manassas, Virginia. She's part of a core team of couples at All Saints Catholic Church who are using the Alexander House resource, Covenant of Love, to help create "a marriage minded community." Best of all, she's  married to a Colombian and living la vida loca, Catholic style! Abandonment is when one spouse leaves the other despite the other's pleas for counseling and healing of the marriage in the hopes to restore love and stability to their family. (I'm not talking about the legal definition of abandonment here, just the common-sense meaning of the word.) Check the stats, but surprisingly this is MANY,