First Snow of the Season

I enjoyed writing my long book post!

I do love writing...

So I am going to be applying for that job that caught my fancy

this week.

And looking for in-between work too.

First snow last night! Cleo was interested, as you can see above.

Various lovely small things that I have had

for a long time

that remind me also of where I have been,

like writing the book post

also reminded me of.

It was so very lovely and wonderful to be at liturgy again today.

First time I wore my winter jacket since

last early spring.

Felt like everything coming together again

with the season changing,

going downstairs into the church basement

to hang up my winter coat;

so simple but spoke to me of the community

I have here.

*

It is so odd to not know if I am saying an increased hello

to the place I live in or if I am slowly saying goodbye.

**

Either way today was a beautiful day.

Story through Books, in four parts

Part I

Macrina graciously asked me to consider myself ‘tagged’ for the book meme she did of 15 (or 14) books that were influential in one’s life. So I will do so. The question then is where to start and with what book. Well. I have long been using books to look for answers and for what God may be telling me, not that He cannot tell me directly but that books are a medium that I actually hear a little of what I am being told.

The first book ever, other than the Bible, which I developed a wild love for at a young age, hearing stories of my Grandma’s Grandpa Cornelius being such a grassrooted Bible scholar that the pastors in the area all went to him for advice. Pretty cool to have a protestant Great Great Grandfather who loved God and the Bible so much that others went to him for advice and wisdom. He and my Grandmother imparted a deep love of the Bible in me, that the first book I ever asked for was the edition of the Bible (NIV with Christ as the Good Shepherd on it) that I saw other kids having in my Dutch CRC school. So the first book is the Bible. The second, which I began mentioning before having to mention the NIV Bible itself, I was given by a school teacher that helped me deal with the enormous loss of one of my classmates who, at the age of 10, died of leukemia; he was the most Christian boy I knew and I loved him very deeply. My teacher gave me the young tweens (as it would be called now) book 6 Months to Live


I had prayed every night that God would heal my deeply loved friend and was devastated that instead God took him from me. The first thing I did after hearing of his death was leave the dinner table and go and ask God why He let him die. I kept looking for this answer for months until I found and later was given the book 6 months to live where the main character has cancer herself and loses a new best friend who had the same cancer and was her age. Ecclesiastes 3 was given to this character and it was the only answer that gave me any peace – that there is a time for everything, even dying. Needless to say, in my young teens the book of Ecclesiastes became my favourite book of the Bible and it was not until 20 years later when doing a panakhyda for him that I was really able to deal with and express my grief and love for this young compassionate Christian boy.

Moving along to my teen years, I loved C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity which I was reading, along with others, by about age 13. Lewis book Mere Christianity taught me the only logical thinking that I feel I was really trained in. I read his book carefully, even diagramming some of the sentences as his metaphors could be complex, especially for someone who is in grade 7 and reading the book of my own volition. (My Dad was a big Lewis fan so the reading of Lewis was a normal development for me at that age).

Part II

Then, skipping to 1996, the happiest year of my life; I was 19 and was, in a sense, rediscovering God after going through some painful times in my later teens. I was in love with God again, reading the Bible through for the first time, discovering the alluring romance and poetry of the Book of Isaiah, and about to rediscover the books of Madeline L’ Engle. I was just about to dive into many things at once that would change my life and life with God without being able to turn back. This started with the book by Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water. One of my Roman Catholic friend’s Mothers also has a deep love for Elizabeth Goudge and calls her a mystic. I don’t worry about what to refer to her as, other than as one who really loves God and writes of characters that live in a world I ache to live in, a world that is rapidly disappearing.

This book was a loving life-giving water-shed moment / sea change in my life. I remember talking to everyone about this book for weeks and weeks. I remember siting in my grey horrid cement dorm room (at Calvin College no less, yes, I went there for the first year and a half of my rambling 8 years before I finally finished my honours BA in literature; Calvin College is near where I grew up and is close to me forever like blood because it is my family heritage; I may have never gone to much as a kid, but Calvin is a place I began from, even learned to swim there as a child; my Grandma’s brother-in-law taught math there. when I was young). Anyway, there I was at Calvin, in one of their older cement dorm rooms, reading Elizabeth Goudge and knowing only that this book was bringing out a deep healing and when I finished this book, I looked out the window and all was changed. The colours were deeper, brighter, the berries on the bush were a deep bright red; before I finished reading this book, all was grey, dusty, with a sense of lonely bleakness. I had tumbled into a great new frontier and the colours of my world were forever changed and I was left with the undoubtable sense of hope.

Soon, while I was young enough to have the courage to pursue God with a sense of abandonment, after reading The Scent of Water, and still living on the Calvin College campus (and since I was an English major, already knew the prof who was putting the conference together), I went to Calvin’s Faith and Writing Conference, my life took on another layer. I met and / or heard speak, Madeline L’Engle and Luci Shaw, Annie Dillard, Donald Hall and Lee Smith. An amazing weekend; Madeline’s talk with Luci Shaw was one that radiated a deep sense of love to everyone she was speaking to. I was quickly plunged into these authors worlds, reading Dillard (who read from her now published book for the time being)

and was introduced to Jane Kenyon’s poetry, Jane who had died just about a year before and Donald Hall, her husband and accomplished poet, was still grieving the loss of. Jane’s poetry, especially some that were written on subjects of faith and of death, formed me and still come back to me today. When I write poetry, the best of it is influenced by her; the poem ‘briefly it enters and briefly speaks’ and ‘let evening come’ still come back to me today, the lines welling in me providing the words that I speak inside, words that help me maintain my centre in a increasingly decentred world. I read Dillard’s American Childhood and Donald Hall’s book Without.


I was living in the world of New England (where most of these authors lived), a space I lived in for 6 summers in Connecticut at the same time, working at a Bible Camp. At this camp I found L’Engle’s book Walking on Water which I read and reread at age 19 and felt the world of angels and the possibility of miracles and even walking up stairs as a child without using one’s feet, like Madeline wrote of doing as a child.


My world was full of life, of the excitement and belief in a future with God that somehow would avoid the pain and grief that I had already known, that Donald Hall was already steeped in, that Madeline L’Engle knew, that Annie Dillard no doubt did as well, with her life perhaps not being fully strait forward as a writer, with a focused eye and pen on the unknowable world we live in.

Part III

But this was not to be; I too soon knew death and then even the silence of God. And in this silence of God I read all about God’s silence; L’Engle and Lewis again rescued me, explaining that silence was also the way of God. And then a dear friend in 1999 discovered Kathleen Norris, who I met years later here in Ottawa. I read my friend’s copy of The Cloister Walk and I bought her book Amazing Grace a Vocabulary of Faith (I think I may of actually read this one first) at a bookstore in St. Louis Missouri, in the airport on a flight home from BC Canada to Michigan for Christmas.

I ended up being put in a hotel due to an overnight unexpected flight layover and I remember the glorious adventure of one night in a hotel with this book. I remember sitting on the hotel bed and reading and my life being filled again with the hope of a something much greater, of a God so big that the hope and eternity with Him was so great that nothing could defy it, nothing and that the centuries of the Church and the early church was still with us and deeply alive. I discovered a St. Jerome that Norris said, feminists loved to hate and then she explained that it was not so simple and suddenly St. Jerome was no one to be feared and my then current life of literature, feminist lit theory and God’s silence was again uprooted and flipped and suddenly, give me another two years or so, and I was not a feminist any longer, instead I was on the verge of discovering another new world that I did not know existed.


Towards the end of my degree, I bought (and still have not read much of) Sherrard’s Church, Papacy and Schism which I had no idea what it was really about, only that some of my profs were currently reading it and finding it to be, at least at that moment, of a vital importance. I remember reading the beginning and the only concept of church I had at the time was the Christian Reformed Church of my childhood, a church full of God loving Christians who have the unfortunate inheritance of worshiping in a grey-walled church of cement. But it is the church of my home and is the seat of my family and if I go back for a family occasion, I see people who knew me for all of my growing up years and who still love me and care for me. People who prayed for me when I had my big all day interview back in September. Nevertheless, my concept of church was about to change forever.

Now during my time in 1996 when all was so incredibly new exciting and full of blue skied sunshine, I was also introduced to the Anglican church through a local beautiful stone and brick Episcopal church and, with the help of a Christology Catholic seminary textbook (that I read at Calvin no less) and Madeleine L’ Engle, I fully believed that the Eucharist was and is real and when I kneeled that Sunday years ago to receive Christ’s body and blood I felt the whole of myself falling in sync with a long history of Christians who had received this living presence into their mortal bodies and was never the same. I thought of Martin Luther then, who I really have never read, but he was about as far back in church history as I really knew, so it was him I thought of as my life was unalterably changed.

And so my life was about to change again, which about leads us to the present time – I was still out west and was finishing up my Honours BA thesis on John Milton’s Adam and Eve (especially Eve) and discovered some of the church father’s writing on the creation of Eve and suddenly this was very good and startling and again, I saw that what the feminists were writing and what was actually going on in earlier centuries of Christian thought, were so different that I was soon to be out of feminism all together and would find myself standing in a very different place indeed.

Part IV

And so how did I get to this place? It is perhaps the most unexpected and humorous story of this whole story of books and my life. Some of my friends from my evangelical University who were the Literature and Philosophy loving subversive Christians (i.e. my closest friends) were going to an Orthodox church. This meant nothing to me at all, just where my subversive friends were going. I knew one of my friends in this group was Orthodox and he was pretty cool; he really knew how to listen and loved books; so one day I asked one of my friends for a ride to the small Anglican mission I was going to at the time and she said no, but you can have a ride to St. Herman’s with me and p. (my other friend who listened so well) and so I went. That was Lent. Totally overwhelming and I remembered the candles burning and that image kept coming back to me. So the whole summer passed, I graduated, finished in an exhausted mad-dash my thesis and as the new semester started and I was working, I called my friend for a ride to the same Anglican church and end up back at St. Herman’s again. And this is almost the end of a never-ending story of my life: after liturgy, it being Labour day, I went to a potluck with others from this Orthodox church that I had just gone to for the second time. My friend told me about this book she was reading and loving called Courage to Pray by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom. And suddenly, as I was sitting on the couch while others ate roasted garlic and brie and drank beer, I read the first two pages of this book and suddenly, like reading Elizabeth Goudge at 19, knew I had just found the book I was looking for all my life.

It took me just over a month leave my small Anglican parish, 5 months to become a catechumen in the Orthodox church and another 6 months (by this time I was living in Michigan) to become a chrismated Orthodox Christian. 1 year after that I moved to Ottawa where I have been the past 5 years. Books that have fed me since this time (amongst others) include Christ is in our midst, a book that 8th day books in one of their catalogues called a primer for reading of the Philokalia, Light in the Darkness by Sergi Fudel and Fredrica Mathewes-Green’s book on the Jesus Prayer which, by the way, is finally explaining why I was looking for Met Anthony’s Bloom’s book for all these years; it has to do with the prayer of the heart and the understanding of the human having depths. And that is where this journey of books leaves me; and with the continued question and challenge of going forward into what I have been given.

Friday late Autumn sun with leaves underfeet: moving towards November

I wish this picture could really capture the depth of the

brightness of the sky's light and the shade of blue.

*

Well.

No job news this week!

Next week: applying for another library position that

has caught my fancy;

and seeing about getting in between clerical work while

I keep looking.

I am here to say that looking for work and suddenly falling into dream

about a new job posting

is almost like being young and in love with someone that is

oblivious to your love;

a job add emailed application holds a promise

but perhaps no fruition.

I hope that does not sound too sad or pitiable,

I am really not meaning it that way,

just that it is a similar emotional rush to it

because dreams are attached.

Let's just be thankful that God wishes us to be anchored in Him

who is not a dream...

I wish it were not this way, with suddenly falling into dream

about a job... as this is not evidence, I think, of a full

spiritual maturity; but...

as I said to a friend today,

Thank God that God is long suffering!!

This flower was pressed years ago for me

and some others as part of a well-meant loving reminder of how

something beautiful may be hidden and waiting for us,

that God has a plan for our lives.

I always kept this gift of the small yellow pressed flower as

a hope in this promise.

And while God holds true;

I am wondering if the Protestant emphasis on

God has a plan for you life - great and beautiful things are in store

is perhaps a bit misleading or even untrue.

Kind of liking falling into dream...

For now,

Cleo and I keep looking.

*

Meanwhile,

Here's a great place to spend some time in the blog world:

I loved this post about influential books in one's life;

I really value Macrina Walker's blog

A Vow of Conversation

while I am not as much an academic*

(though I can't get away from that side of myself

and perhaps should not try)

I love books and this definitely includes Orthodox books,

many of which she quotes at length.

*

May God strengthen us with thanksgiving as we go towards

November's month...

*I mean by saying I am not so much an academic is that I have not read much of the significant

academic tomes on Orthodox theology... but perhaps one day, as God wills...

Thursday, Grey and Windy

I had a special day with a dear friend;

prayed with, talked with,

loved her kids with,

it was a hearty day,

grey and windy.

*

I have begun to make inquiries about the hiring status

for jobs I interviewed for.

No news yet.

*

I plan on doing more intense job searching very soon;

of course I look online often for new postings...

*

I am seeking to pray for God's help.

*

I know it seems that this is all I blog about

but it is pretty much my life right now.

Those who are unemployed will know what I mean, etc.

*

Thankfulness, remembering God

and asking His help;

this is what I am left with as an answer...

Wednesday was full of sunshine and yellow autumn leaves

Cleo and I are still hanging out;

no job news yet.

*

It was a beautiful day today.

I visited with some dear friends

and am rereading the book on Elder Cleopa,

Shepherd of Souls,

which is a real joy to read.

*

Soon I will either be starting a new job,

moving to start a new job

or looking for other jobs in Ottawa in another way;

but this week I need to wait

soon I should know more.

*

So I realized the best thing to do with my days right now

is to be with friends and

read books that will be to my spiritual benefit.

Treasure the time I am given

as soon it will be different.

*

I must say it is almost like a joke,

my not hearing back from these interviews.

But God knows and He is merciful.

Cleo and podcasts on a Tuesday

Cleo and I are still hanging out;

no job word yet.

Meanwhile,

Some cool podcasts:

How to read the Bible by Fr. Thomas Hopko

*

I may be watching this documentary soon

on St. Nikolai Velimirovich

*

I've started listening to the podcasts from the

2010 Missions and Evangelism Conference

done near my hometown;

sigh.

Sometimes I miss home!

Hoping to go home for Christmas...

*

Cleo is not quite sure about my going home though,

as this means another Christmas without me.

But sometimes, family wins out...

Reading and Waiting

I am reading Volume I of Elder Cleopa's

Truth of Our Faith -

I recommend it.

I think it is especially helpful for us who converted from other

Christian traditions as it covers a lot of ground

in a question and answer format

that is really cohesive and gives a lot of insight.

*

I am really struggling with my unknown future;

I have struggled with this for years

and it seems it is still a huge struggle for me.

I just want my life to change,

to have a routine again, a job to go to;

it is really hard and I keep falling and getting up again

and keep trying to call out to God for help.

*

I hope I get an answer this week;

I wish I knew what answer I wanted;

I am beseeching God to give me what is most needful.

I have no idea what this maybe;

but if it is to move I'd rather know as it will be painful

but I'd rather know

for not knowing if I am about to go through the pain is almost worse

that going through it.

*

All I can say in this is that I seek to trust what is true:

Christ in the Church

and that God in the Holy Trinity

is good and loves mankind.

Christ as Father

St Silouan the Athonite

(Icon by Leonid Ouspensky 1971)

"In his recognition of the Lord as the closest,

most precious, most fatherly of Fathers,

the Staretz used to say that

'The Holy Spirit has made us His kin.'

By His coming into the soul the Holy Spirit makes man kin

with God, so that in a mighty sweep of conviction

the soul addresses the Lord as 'Father.' "

- Saint Silouan the Anthonite

by Archimandrite Sophrony

page 99

Well, no news is good news, right?

Almost the close of the last business day of the week.

I got an email saying that the position here

in Ottawa is yet undecided.

So another weekend of not knowing.

I received wise counsel

to continue to be patient

and that

this too will pass.

I must admit I find it hard.

Of course I've also been more house-bound this week

due to a head cold.

If I do anything, I always do it well,

and getting a cold is no exception!!

*

I applied to another job today;

It was a struggle as my mind feels bogged down with

what in Alabama is called The Sinus.

But the application was due today and so

it is done.

*

God sure is merciful to me a sinner;

I can get all frustrated about the wait

and I am still comforted...

*

Wishing everyone a good weekend

with the comfort of God that comes from

Him and from His Church...

Education Question

My sister is teaching science this year

to various ages of orphans in Romania

(she has a degree in science FYI)

and is looking for more ideas for
science curriculum,

especially curriculum that has experiments/activities included.

I know that various of my readers

are homeschooling

their children.

So can you suggestion curriculum for the sciences?

We are looking for a wide spectrum of ages -

from grade 1 to 10.

Right now they are going over background

concepts in Science,

like gas/liquid/solids

and density;

experiments that can demonstrate

the background scientific concepts

would be helpful.

Also if you know of authoritative websites for

science experiments

or good science textbooks or workbooks

that are not in a set curriculum

that is also good to know.

We are hoping that Rebecca can get more supplies when

God willing

she is back in the States for Christmas.

Please share any / all of your suggestions...

even if it is just other places to look

or people to ask.

Thanks!

Thoughts on a Thursday

To the very left,

the icon of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of Christ.

*

This is our end and our beginning.

*

Even for us who are in North America and really are

pretty well off, considering the rest of the world,

even myself I would say

who yes I need a job

but for the moment I still live with nice things in my own apartment.

But we struggle too.

To be honest we all have deep battles we are waged in.

Our lives or blogs may appear nice, not nice, messy or perfect.

But all of us struggle

all of us desperately need the Lord's healing and help.

*

Somehow in the midst of this struggle,

and with the current head cold that I now officially have,

I have been thinking of how

I am with Christ

even if I don't do all things right in the day

or perhaps no things right at all,

even if I only manage to light a candle

I am still with Christ.

Or I / we must pray that we are really with Christ

that we do more than merely think about Him

but want to be with Him, Himself.

I am still learning this; Christ as God

Christ as Living and a Person

with us...

*

The truth of Christ's death and resurrection is still ours

regardless of what mess we find ourselves in.

*

I still as of current have no job news.

Maybe yet today,

maybe tomorrow.

*

But I have enough for today

give us our daily bread

lead us into temptation

deliver us from evil

*

21 Thus my heart was grieved,
And I was vexed in my mind.
22 I was so foolish and ignorant;
I was like a beast before You.
23 Nevertheless I am continually with You;
You hold me by my right hand.
24 You will guide me with Your counsel,
And afterward receive me to glory.

25 Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.
26 My flesh and my heart fail;
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:21-26 nkjv

updated post

I added more explanation on the book I am searching for in the post below,

just so you know!

Thanks again!

Book Question

I read somewhere

I am certain

about a book that

has the daily Bible Readings for the year

with the Saints stories for each day.

*

I have found this Bible

that has Orthodox Commentary

and it would be most lovely to own;

Frederica Matthewes-Green mentioned it

on a recent podcast;

however

I really want the one with Saints Stories...

*

Not that I can buy it now but you know

someday I do hope to have a job!! :)

*

Anyone know what book this was?

*

update:

wow, You all are wonderful!

Thank you for all the book suggestions;

I actually have the Calendar

and I know of the Prologue of Orchid

and it is wonderful to see that is online;

I don't think I knew that... so Thank you!

I have yet to read it so this is great news.

*

I thought I had seen a book

that had the Daily Bible Readings actually

printed in it along with a Saint story of the day

you know

an all-in-one Bible Reading and Saints Day Reading

book;

kind of like a 1 year Bible for Orthodox

but it was the Daily Readings

plus Saint story and list of other Saints commemorated;

perhaps it is just laziness on my part

but I would love to have the readings for the year

(of course some of them would be moving

since Lent and Pascha always move)

set out in one book along with a Saints Story.

I thought I saw such a book, but

have not seen it since

so I am not 100% sure.

And to be honest I don't quite understand how the Daily Bible Readings

in the Orthodox calendar work

though I have been trying to read them faithfully for a few years,

so it could be that I misunderstood the book I thought I saw

and am now looking for.

*

Someday I would like to own the

The Synaxarion
in hard cover but that can be a bit pricey.

The calendar that Mimi so kindly showed me a link for

is WONDERFUL.

My Godmother gave me one for my first Christmas as an

Orthodox Christian

and while I have not kept up with buying them

(job etc)

I use my old ones and really find it to be a very integral part of my

prayer life.

So if you are looking for a place to start with Saint stories

I do recommend this calendar to you,

it is new calendar and lists the Bible readings for the day

and if it is a fast day or not,

according to the Greek Orthodox church.

(I currently go to an old calendar church but have been on both calendars

and it is easy to use on either

esp. if you have a yearly calendar from your church to show you which

main Saint's day it is.)

*

Anyway,

I hope this explains more of what book I thought I saw

and what I am looking for.

You're all great and I love hearing your comments!

Any other suggestions or books that you think

may be good for me to know about either

the Orthodox Bible Readings

or Saint Stories

are fully welcome!

:)

Tuesday Evening

My dear friend also got this icon for me

in Kiev

at a smaller monastery.

*

I had been wanting one of St. Seraphim of Sarov for some time.

I can see it when I wake in the morning

and the deep shock of St. Seraphim's white cassock

comforts me...

reminding me that

Christ is Risen.

*

I talked to my Grandma tonight!

The surgery went well,

the doctor was pleased and there were no

concerns during the surgery itself.

Thank God.

Today was not a fully easy day for her

and the days to come will be with some pain.

Please pray for her again if you can...

Her words,

"This is for a purpose" and that

"healing takes time" really struck me...

*

My Grandma is such a testimony to faith in God

and to prayer;

she assured me that she felt all the prayers...

*

Today I rested even more

as I may be coming down with a head cold.

Chicken soup, oatmeal, mugs and mugs of tea...

and some lemon, eggs and bananas.

*

I am seeking to concentrate on merely being quiet

and trying to be peaceful and mindful that

God is with me,

God is with us,

we must take courage.

*

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement via the comments

given to my last post

as I seek to take courage regardless

of the future.

I am so blessed by each of you.

*

God is with us, let us be quieted and at rest.

Waiting in fall sunshine

This only is where we can rest;

in God;

in prayer.

*

As I wait to hear if I move or not

have a job or not

I am a little more aware

of how God will be with me,

is with us,

even when many things are pulled away from us.

When we lose a friend

when we leave a church

even one's spiritual father

we must not fear.

Our anchor is not in a specific human person

but in Christ

Who is a Person

in the Trinity

Three Persons

and in the Church that

even if there were no church buildings left

is still with us

and we are still inside.

The church surrounds the world,

not the world the church.

Our bearings,

our anchor,

indeed our life,

must be rooted in Christ

in the Holy Trinity

and in prayer in the Church.

*

Of course this is not easy

but being a Christian is not easy

nor was it promised to be.

*

This time of quiet waiting

in my life

is not easy;

the emotional strain,

the exhaustion;

it is here.

But Christ

He is also here.

More glimpses of beauty

I lit all my candles yesterday evening

in prayer for my Grandma's surgery

(have not heard yet about it)

*

I lit the candles and had to leave the room

for a minute

and was overwhelmed,

upon returning,

by the brightness of the candle light,

the beauty and colour of the icons.

*

While I did not convert merely because of beauty

I can understand why some of my protestant friends

would think otherwise.

Once such beauty is seen,

how can one stay away?!

My new table runner

from Kiev,

gotten from the Pechesk Lavra

*

I also have an Icon from the Lavra

that I have had for at least 4 years now,

I think.

Real blessings, this.

*

(When my Ottawa-Ukrainian family says the word

Pechesk it sounds like Pecheskra,

need to find out why.)

*

Today I am cleaning house

listening to Ancient Faith Radio

and currently the Psalter in Slavonic,

very comforting,

provides a place to emotionally stand or rest on...

*

God is with us

promises not to abandon us

and sees our situations.

*

The Church is with us

spiritually

in all the beauty, wholeness and protection.

A rest between two notes

I am growing less troubled;

some steps have been made...

*

The intercessions of Christ

our High Priest

and His Mother

are never without effect.

*

Liturgy on Sundays is always life giving,

no matter how beaten down one may be.

*

Great sermon;

in part about how in North America we have the added

temptation of doing too many things,

of families committing to sports or activities for their kids

that means Sunday liturgy is now sports morning,

destroying the family's spiritual life.

There are no small amount of temptations here

to neglect our spiritual health and spiritual life.

May the Lord help us,

as He promises,

and may we ask for the help.

*

I made borscht and perogies,

listened to Ancient Faith Radio.

*

I do not know what I will know by next weekend

job wise

and do not yet know if I am staying or moving.

So I enjoyed this evening,

as a point of rest

between the past

the now that I am in

and the future that I do not yet know.

*

Please pray for my Grandma

who goes in for knee surgery tomorrow morning.

Beauty

I have been meaning to show you all

the Icon of St. Katherine

that I got at the

monastery

back in August.

*

Yes, things may be a bit hard for me right now

but how deep is God's love

and how great and powerful are the prayers of His Saints for us.

*

For the love and sake of Christ

all our suffering will indeed be

light and momentary...

The Lord is with us in all things

Today is cloudy.

*

I found out yesterday

that I will not know until next week about

the Ottawa job.

*

Still struggling.

*

God promises mercy.

*

Please pray for my Grandmother who is 80

and is having knee surgery this Monday.

The doctor had some concerns about her heart.

*

The Lord knows the situations we are in...

Sunshine on Tuesday

I am trusting God

and the Saints to help me find my way.

*

I did another job application today,

Another one to do tonight as well.

*

Life is not easy right now

but the sun is out and I am going to take joy in that.

*

May God help us and have mercy.