Prayer Buddy Reveal and Weekend Reflections

It was my great pleasure to pray for.....Jellybelly!

Most of you are familiar with Jellybelly, but if you aren't, please check out her blog. She had quite the Advent season and she had me holding my breath more than once! With all that was going on in my world, it was some comfort to offer my sufferings for her and her intentions for she is soo deserving of all of her desires.  As my prayer buddy at http://lifeshappyaccidents.blogspot.com/ said, "When you pray for someone on a regular basis, they become a part of your family, there's a connection established that is not easily broken." This is so true! I will continue to pray for JB and her deepest desires as she has now become a permanent member on my prayer list.

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I think I am finally on my way to recovery from this weekend. My body is TIRED, very tired, and I wonder how "normal" my exhaustion is. After another late morning nap and some food, I feel better. I figure once I get a good nights sleep tonight, I will be back in business. My weekend in a nutshell:

My Birthday: Thank you so much for the emails. You guys are great...truly. Your thoughts and prayers brought such comfort and helped me to move along this weekend. This was the big "36," a new age demographic (35-40). I have been dreading this for a while now, but I've been distracted lately so it kind of snuck up on me. The plan was to help create the environment in the church after morning Mass, but not stay all day like I did last year. What did I end up doing? Spending all day at the church. I don't mind being there all day with the Lord, preparing the church so others can (hopefully) come into and experience Christmas more fully. But that is a lot of work, and although we had several "busy bees" to help, a little unexpected bumps kept everyone busy to the very last minute. Of course, the Holy Spirit was with us, protected us, and everything turned out beautifully. Somewhere between 24 hours, 5 Masses, and 5 hours of sleep, I was able to spend 2 hours with my DH at our "Traditional Chinese Birthday Dinner Because That Is The Only Restaurant Open On Christmas Eve" dinner. The food was fine, the company was great, and my gifts proved that indeed: I am spoiled.

Christmas Music: "O Come All Ye Faithful" gets me excited. "Angels We Have Heard On High" has me choked up. My minds eye can see Bethlehem when we sing "O Little Town Of Bethlehem." When our soloist sang "Ave Maria," I was crying. By time we get to "Joy To The World," all I can do is stand there because the words cannot come out. I am overwhelmed. My pilgrimage to Israel has changed me forever.

Suffering: Can I say that I loved our Christmas Eve homily better than the Christmas Mass homily? I liked it a ton more. Father said, "We have to be like little children to truly embrace the miracle of Christmas." He said, "Suffering makes us little." Literally, we crawl into the fetal position when we are in pain, and emotionally, we regress and need to be taken care of like when we were children. Father talked about how suffering brings (some of) us towards God, closer to Him. My sufferings have done just that. I have run towards Him and I have felt embraced by God. God the Holy Trinity, embraced by His Mystical Body. I've read your blogs for almost a year now. There is a lot of sufferings around us and yet we have not lost faith. I saw your Advent trees/wreaths/creches, read your reflections, and received your prayers. We've all blogged about our sufferings, and many of us have seen the blessings behind it. I pray that we all can make that connection between sufferings and blessings; not only see it but also believe it. We don't pray for suffering, but know that suffering is redemptive when we attach it to the cross, and so we carry on, and many help ease the load. What a great gift at Christmas time, and for all time.

Tomorrow I have to go in for a follow-up on my HCG levels. They want to make sure they are zero (because 2.1 wasn't enough, I guess). I must say; I am really looking forward to the new year. I get excited just thinking about the wonderful things that are going to happen - and good things are going to happen. I just know it...