Holy Tuesday and an anniversary for the Munchkin

Today was the Munchkin's 

baptism anniversary.

He was so excited for his special day treat of a 

happy face pancake at the dinner!

(He kept talking about it and by 3 pm he was saying,

only 2 more hours and by 4:30 he was trying to talk me into going early!

Mr Husband and I love to tease him about his beloved

happy face pancake... 

and I kept saying, so you will get a sad face pancake,

with no chocolate chips, right? ;) 

We had fun with that meal! 

We were texting Mr Husband and the Munchkin's

Mom pictures of us goofing off with big sunglasses,

his meal and big smile, and we made it to church early, 

he got to talk with our nearby church priest and get his blessing.

Munchkin is growing up and not always needing my help

to do prayers at icons and I am so glad to see him grow...

as much as I will miss the things I did when he was young,

I know that part of my job as 'God-Aunt' is to grow him up

and help him be independent and, I hope, help plant

seeds of love of Christ, of hope and love of the Church... 

I love seeing him happy and having good days

and loving church... 

of course when he gets tired with the long services,

we let him draw (he is usually drawing something related to the 

Church and his imagination/what he has been thinking of) and I have

a little pusheen wallet that is like a little toy that he likes to hold

and play with.  Helps for the long evening services.

That way he loves church and builds up endurance by having the 

needed 'breaks' that anyone would need to gain this.

He also helped me decorate for Pascha (I knew he wanted to do 

something with Easter eggs and that is all I had for him!) and

we even watched parts of Mr Husband and I's wedding video

because our far-away priest is in it and of course Munckin was

curious about it, after looking at pictures of our wedding...

It was so funny, when he got to the newly married 

husband and wife section, and saw a picture of us

"smooching" as he would say (quoting snoopy basically or Calvin and Hobbes),

he would say 'ewwwwww' ... we had the same thing with nieces....

of course this means we have a sure fire way to do extra teasing... ha! 

And so our day ended with Bride Groom Matins and 

then reading the story of David and Goliath 

(we were seeing if it was true that David used the sword on Goliath) and 

then all about Saul who became St Paul ...

we ended up discussing both St Peter and St Paul and how they both

made big mistakes but repented and became great Saints.

It was following up with the discussion we had about 

the difference between repentance and despair... 

Someone on IG asked us how our Holy Week was going and 

I said, basically, 

"having trouble focusing but trusting in God's mercy"...

it's hard, this, I find. But I trust that this too can be used by God...

and if you read the words of the service, and how 

the Harlot repented and saw her self as a sinner...

if I can only learn to see myself as this and throw myself at God,

trusting in His mercy, 

well, what else is there to do?

One challenge with this is that repentance, I was told years ago by my

Ottawa spiritual father, is not a feeling.

You may not feel (or cry tears) deeply repentant but continuing 

to go to Confession and seek to change sins into virtue,

 or at least not loose sight of this, 

is what we are called to...

Basically 'we are called to be faithful, not successful' even in 

what we would like to see in terms of growth

in the spiritual life...  

***

Well, tomorrow is Holy Wednesday, we hope to be at our

far-away church the rest of the week

and Munchkin will be reunited with his Mom and get to have

some special times in this most special week.

***

May God protect us all and carry us to His Holy Pascha!