Your Hands

Wanted to give a quick update that while my mom's mood has not been balanced (she has bipolar disorder) she does sound better each time I talk to her.  There is less grossness anyway.  She is going to the new psychiatrist and complying with prescribed medicines.  My father sounds less strung out everytime I talk with him.  There was a cost to him getting the leverage to get her to take her medicine but it is small relative to the damage from her last acute mania episodes.

Your prayers, and the prayers of others, as well as the cooperative efforts of my sister, my Dad, my brother, my Dad's priest, a few of their friends, my Dad's lawyer have been successful.  As I wrote in my first post on this situation, we have all been in God's Hands all along, as always.  It was good we finally got Dad's cooperation to intervene this time.

Last acute mania episode had the following financial damage (the physical and emotional damage can't be measured as easily):  

• approximately $474,000 net loss (sometimes my Dad says "1/2 million", sometimes $650,000) due to unscrupulous people praying on my mother's mental illness . . . only found out recently this could have been criminally prosecuted
• $34,000 truck purchase by HVAC worker that agreed to go into business with my mom---after she paid for his truck with her credit card she didn't hear from him again
• $300,000 across 3 different investment frauds
• $40,000 for bonding newly made "friends" out of jail
• $100,000 for townhome purchased to provide housing for "friends" from AA meetings
• bankruptcy
• second mortgage that took many more years of work past when my Dad should have been retired for age and chronic pain from job injuries to pay off.

This acute Mania episode should be less than $20,000:

• $7000 in legal fees (lawyer, court filings)
• $5000 in medicine
• $2000 in travel
• $? hospital bill after insurance

Much better . . . while the prayers my family has offered over the years haven't always been answered the way we would have liked when we prayed them, there is no question that God hears us, and as I always ask Mary on the 4th Sorrowful Mystery, that she is interceding for us as my parents carry the cross of my mother's mental illness.  I have tremendous confidence in her motherly care and prayers.

Thank you for your prayers.  Thought you might enjoy this beautiful song by JJ Heller.  My other favorites from her are "What Love Really Means" and "My Savior's Love Endures" which is the Magnificat and the Glory Be set to music.

The amazing lyrics are contained in the video and also pasted below, in case you tire that many of the images are repeated many times over the course of the song, especially during the chorus.

Your Hands by JJ Heller

I have unanswered prayers

I have trouble I wish wasn't there

And I have asked a thousand ways

That you would take my pain away

You would take my pain away

I am trying to understand

How to walk this weary land

Make straight the paths that crooked lie

Oh Lord, before these feet of mine

Oh Lord, before these feet of mine

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave your hands

When you walked upon the earth

You healed the broken, lost and hurt

I know you hate to see me cry

One day you will set all things right

Yeah, one day you will set all things right

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave your hands

Your hands that shaped the world

Are holding me

They hold me still

Your hands that shaped the world

Are holding me

They hold me still

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave you

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave

I never leave your hands

Sabbath Moments - Prostrate Before God

Sabbath moments are a way of taking time to rest in God, to enjoy God in silence or in nature. The word sabbath comes from a Hebrew word meaning "cease." And that is what we need to do sometimes, cease our activity and live in the moment and breathe in God.

Priests do it during their Ordination Mass.

Moses did it for 40 days and 40 nights interceding for God's mercy for the Israelites as recorded in Deuteronomy 9:25.

Judas Maccabees and his companions, who with "Help from God" (2 Macc. 8:23), freed Israel from the oppression, tryanny, and injustice of the Hellenists, did it as recorded in 2 Maccabees 10:4.

My first sabbath moment this week was Wednesday after work, when I stopped in our church between leaving work and picking up my children from school.  We have one of those numeric code key boxes, so we can get in anytime to pray.  I didn't bother with the lights.  The sanctuary candle was lit, and there was light coming in through the stained glass windows.

It had been a very frustrating week and a half at my new client.  Most of all because of the laptop they issued me.  I was having one problem after another with it.  I would give you the geeky details but you would go into scan mode or bounce away fast.

Oh,  forgot to mention that at 4:30 p.m., after I abandoned my laptop to the PC tech, as it would no longer boot up, I was assigned to have a presentation ready for "Senior Management" by 11 a.m. the next day.  "Senior Management" titles at this company end in "of North America".

The bigger problem eating at me was the coldness that was creeping into our married life.  Don't want to expand on that more, but you can imagine it was a double whammy situation going.  Between the home situation, and the zero productivity situation at work, I was having a hard time.

Well, I went into the church, and went right before the sanctuary, and went down into prostrate praying position.  I usually begin my prayer, when I have solitude in this church, by going down into the prostrate position that is more like the child pose in yoga.

This was no child pose prayer moment though.  Earlier in the day, I am not sure now of the source (well I am sure of the Source, source, but not where I read it), I came upon Philippians 4:5-7

5	Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.
6	Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
7	and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

When I am really in a situation where I am clearly in need of divine intervention, or someone else I care about is, or I am praying in profound gratitude after God has acted, then I go to the full prostrate position, more like the priests in the top picture.  To me it is the most whole-hearted prayer posture of realizing my nothingness, sinfulness before God, and my desperate need of his love, and active hand in my life.

I laid my problems out, yes even the laptop problem--yes seems like small potatoes.  I prayed for my marriage too.  I prayed in confidence that I knew he loved me, that I adored him, and would he please help me according to his will, when He willed to do it.

God heard my prayer.

• It seemed that later that night we were past whatever the disagreement was that left the prolonged coldness going on at home.  
• I was able to wake up at 4:30 a.m. and get the presentation in decent shape on my own laptop, before the kids were ready to eat breakfast before school.  
• When I got into work, the PC tech, who was a bit cold toward me the prior 4 times I stopped by the lab, had my laptop ready and it was working like a dream.  He even, without me asking him, put large fonts on everything for me, and made the color scheme more neutral and consistent.  I don't know why he thought to do this, i had a few larger fonts, and he and I are around the same age where eyes decline, but it was better than I could have hoped for.
• The presentation was done and reviewed at 11 with no suggested changes by the VP that needed to present it later.
• I found a new fresh water filter for our turtle vivarium in a saltwater only shop, and it was on clearance.  Our other filter had a hairline crack and has been leaking water for weeks.  This new one stays on the inside of the tank, and is much quieter.
• A man in a hobby shop soldered a new battery for just $5, that shipped from China two years ago but has sat in our garage receiving monthly comments from my husband as to when it was going to be taken care of, or "Should (he) just throw out the toy jeep?"
• I was asked to be the head basketball coach for the girls JV and Varsity basketball teams at my daughter's high school.  This is a major miracle, but this post's length as it is, I'll have to go into it another time.

I thought it was one of the best days of my life, and I had a giddy joy on the drive home that God had acted on my behalf. 

Am I just being simple attributing all these good things that just happened to happen all in a row within a 24 hour period to God?

Was it just luck, or good fortune, or whatever a non-believer would term it?

Or was it the God of Joseph:

And the Lord was with him, and he was a prosperous man in all things:  and he dwelt in his master's house:  Who knew very well that the Lord was with him, and made all that he did to prosper in his hand.  (Genesis 39:2-3)

Or the God of Daniel, who he faithfully served, praying on his knees three times a day even after the decree that no one pray except to the king. The God who saved him from the lions and then prospered him ever after.  
There are some very holy and faithful people that are poor and struggling. There are other men and women of faith that were not saved from martyrs' deaths. Still I am thankful that God worked things out to my benefit.
He did hear my prayer. He is the great I AM!

I stopped into a church closer to home a little over 24 hours later. As it was the Holy Hour, and there were a number of folks praying the rosary, I did not do the full prostration in front of the monstrance. I did though do the child pose like version of a prostration, on the side, in the back, to thank my Lord and God for his favor and love.  

It was the second Sabbath moment of the week. Thank you to Colleen at Thoughts on Grace for hosting.

God's Providence: Like A Parachute

There is something about the way I contribute financially to our family that exercises my dependence on God's Providence.

I was just reading trust in God's Providence is like using a parachute.  You don't really trust that it works, until you make the jump out the airplane's open door, and it sustains you in a slower descent, to land on the ground in one piece, breathing, and yelling joyfully that you were able to dive from the sky, live, and walk away.

I've never done that, but that is how I imagine it would be.

Being an independent IT contractor is a little like jumping out the window of a career as a permanent employee, and trusting in God to provide the next job.

• Every single client (job) I have had, has the finger print of God orchestrating different relationships in my work life to the good of me and my family who loves Him.  
• Three times I've found work after taking off for the summer, within one week after the kids returned to school.
  
• I've made some great friends while working.  Then, at contract end or more suddenly, the daily nature of the relationship can come to an end.  In this way, God has taught me that he is the friend that I will never be parted from.
  
• God has also provided me some lasting care and support through some of these friends long after the contract has ended.
  
• Some contracts have ended suddenly, and that feels the exact same way as getting "let go" or "downsized", which feels exactly like getting fired.  Usually this affords me solitude and time for several hours of prayer a day that I don't usually have, unless I go to bed super late, or wake up super early.  God provides time for me to reconnect with him, when I have needed it most.  Also he knows better than me when I need to be "delivered" from a situation.  

Where I still need to trust him and seek his help, is that he wants me to remember him and talk to him throughout my day, and he even wants to help in the mundane tasks of each day.

This I haven't yet mastered, although being new at a client forces me to at least act patient, because I don't want to appear to be impatient.  It seems to rub people the wrong way.

This means I act like I have grace and patience initially, but then when I think I've put up the false front long enough, I start "driving".

I don't think I reflect God's grace when I'm driving.   Especially when the impatience, frustration lead to disrespect and gossip.

I am wondering if I am now getting to the point where I am old enough to trust God more like a child trusts a Father and not just when it comes to a big thing like, where is the next job coming from, but in the small stuff, like how do I get the four to twenty levels of approval needed to move something along.

I even have a couple of experiences where I knew he must of helped me, because something was resolved or went better that, in hindsight, it ever should have.  There have been a few times where I saw the opposite of Murphy's Law.  Of course these were also after praying alone in front of a tabernacle, so I asked for God's help, and he gave it.

The Jesus Prayer may be part of that solution.  I'm trying to get to keeping my soul at peace while at work, by remaining in Jesus, like a branch on the vine.

The harder challenge will be at home.