Monday Morning Meandering!

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• What a week. My husband and I are in the middle of soap opera. It seems to be a compilation of several based on their titles. I never watched the soaps. What started out as Days of Our Lives has morphed into General Hospital because of a fall by my elderly sister. (Yikes! Elderly? She's three and a half years younger than I am.) I took a pretty serious fall about a month ago myself, but suffered no ill effects except a little soreness. Unfortunately, my sister broke the ball in one of her hips, so she is scheduled for surgery. Prayers would be much appreciated for both her and her medical team.

• Yesterday we had a large family party to celebrate five birthdays and send off two new college students, one of whom heads to St. Thomas Aquinas in California. Since she won't be back until Christmas it was bittersweet, and she is a bit anxious. I assured her that, while she will be homesick, all will be well and she will have a great adventure! 
  
  I shared with her mom that the school is blessed and that several years ago during massive wildfires, Aquinas was the only place spared as the flames raged around them. The school had been evacuated but two courageous souls stayed to keep the roofs doused with water. That hardly seems sufficient to explain the school being spared. It no doubt involved the same miraculous intervention as the one that protected the church on Maui.

Amidst devastation from the fires, the Catholic church stands miraculously unscathed!

• I'm looking forward to this week since two of my five sisters are coming to visit along with a niece and her two young boys. We are planning two days of child friendly adventures followed by two days of grownup trecks. Everyone is looking forward to it and one of my sisters says her little five year old granddaughter is bummed that she can't come too. She wanted to meet our chickens. But school is starting this week in her county. Goodness, I remember when school never started until after Labor Day.

• On this vigil of the Assumption, I'm asking Our Lady to intercede for my sister in the hospital and for all her family as well as all of ours. Family is the village that raises the children despite the Left's insistence that they own our kids. I truly believe that "All things work together for good to those who love the Lord and serve according to His purpose." Sometimes I can't see the good He is working in a particularly difficult situation, but I trust in Him. How He is using this particular situation for good I hardly know, but that He is right in the middle I know. We may fail, but He never does. It reminds me of Emily Dickinson's poem:

I never saw a moor;
I never saw the sea,
Yet know I how the heather looks
And what a billow be.

I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven.
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the checks* were given.

*Many anthologies change this word to "chart" which is a much weaker metaphor. The checks were the little tickets given by the train conductor to mark the destination. He placed them in a slot on the railway seat and knew where each passenger was getting off.  

Enjoy this beautiful Monday and don't forget to talk to your guardian angel. For what are you thankful as this new week begins? Ask him to help you think of all your blessings and express gratitude for them.