After reading today’s message from Journey of Hope, I wanted to share it with those of you who aren’t yet on their list.  It’s about suffering… and the positive that can come out of it.  Do yourself a favor and read it and, also, sign up to receive these daily messages.

May God bring you peace,

Manya

I came across this article about Stanislawa Leczynska – midwife at Auschwitz.  It is, of course, difficult to read of the horrors she and others experienced, but it’s also inspiring.  I encourage you to read it.  This woman will most probably be declared a saint one day.

I wonder if, under similar circumstances, I would be able to work as hard and be as brave.  I pray that I would…and that we all would.

We don’t hear stories like this often enough but I’ll bet they take place daily all over the world, by people of every faith…and even of no faith.  If/when you come across one, please share it by leaving a comment here.

God please bring us peace…and courage.

Manya

We all have bad days…especially those who have experienced the hell of being deeply hurt by

When in the middle of separation and divorce, pretty much every day is a bad day.  As time and understanding put distance between today and the hell of “back then,” you will have more good days than bad…but, for various reasons, bad days still happen on occasion.

Lisa Duffy shared her thoughts on ways to get through the bad days that inevitably crop up.

5 Secrets for Getting Through a Bad Day

I hope this helps!

God bless you and bring you peace.

Manya

It’s that time again…St. Valentine’s Day is upon us.  Is this a difficult day for you?  It is for many…and it was for the woman who wrote Broken and Mended on Valentine’s Day But she discovered the best Valentine and the day brought some wonderful surprises and gifts for her from an unexpected love.

I wish you love, today.  Remember that you are not alone.  Shower your children, parents, and friends with your love. Shower God with love, too.  You’ll be surprised by how very loved you feel in return.

Happy St. Valentine’s Day!

May God bless and bring you peace…and love.

Manya

I hope 2010 was a good year for you…that progress was made towards healing and happiness for you and your families.

2010 was a very challenging year for me and my family.  The first 6 months saw my mother’s struggle with alzheimers increase by leaps and bounds.  In July, she passed on to heaven.  I miss her but I’m so happy that her struggles have come to an end.  My father (her husband of 68 years!!!) still struggles with his loss but he is doing really well.  After the initial, overwhelming sadness and fear over being without her, he has settled into acceptance and finds great strength in his faith.  Our parents continue to teach us til the end!  I will be forever grateful for all my parents taught me in this life.

During my mothers illness and after her death, my business suffered from my being away from it (physically AND emotionally) during that time.  I am a Virtual Assistant – I work with small business owners and nonprofit directors, handling their administrative and online marketing needs.  I’m happy to say that my clients were very understanding and stuck with me through those difficult days.  (May God bless them all!)   The second half of the year, I was completely overwhelmed with trying to catch up and then stay on top of their needs. It was such a challenge that I let one client go, as of the beginning of January, so that I could get back to some balance in my life. (i.e.  less time devoted to client work…more time devoted to family and “down” time)  This will mean a tightening of our belts around here, but it’s a change that’s worth the cost.

Due to all of the above, this blog was sorely neglected by me!

My New Year’s resolutions:

• No client work on Sundays!
• Make progress towards no “work” of any kind on Sundays!! (Remember how we’re supposed to “Keep the Lord’s day holy”…?  There is a huge amount of wisdom in that.)
• Make progress towards rest and relaxation on Sundays…do only those things that are enjoyable (I enjoy working in the garden so I don’t strictly classify that as work. )
• Post to this blog on Sundays.
• Drink at least one green smoothie each day.  (this is my “get physically healthier” resolution…see www.greensmoothiegirl.com for more info…I highly recommend this!)
• Keep striving towards giving God control of my life (so far so good…some wonderful and totally unexpected blessings have come my way recently.  God DOES love to surprise and delight us…especially when we let him do the driving. )
• Oh…and I might actually start a newsletter this year (finally….)

So…if all goes as planned, this blog will be updated more than once every month or so!  Thank you to all who have been loyal followers  in my absence!  I can’t tell you how much that means to me and how that motivates me to continue here.

I’m looking forward to what is in store for us this year…and to what we MAKE of this year!

A request….when you find that a post is “right on the mark”….or when you take issue with a post…or when you have something to add…please, please, please leave a comment.  This can be done anonymously, so please don’t hesitate to join in here!  Your thoughts will make the content here richer.

May God bless and bring peace to us all!

Manya

The first day of Advent!  Do you have an Advent Wreath prepared and in a place of honor?  I don’t yet…but hope to correct that by this evening.

Today the new liturgical year begins AND we start looking forward to the birth of Jesus Christ…Emmanuel.

An Advent wreath helps us to keep in mind that Christmas is coming.  Traditionally, it is made up of 4 candles: 3 purple and 1 rose (or pink).

Advent, like Lent, is a time of penance (I didn’t realize this until recently).  That’s why 3 of the candles are purple.  The rose candle falls on the 3rd Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday) and symbolizes a time of rejoicing, for Christ is almost here.  A good explanation of the Advent Wreath can be found here.

This time of year can be particularly painful for those going through separation and divorce…and for those who are beyond divorce but still hurting. Prayer, distraction and, finally. accepting & offering up to God the cross you’re bearing right now, all work wonders in getting you through this time. Also, focusing on others can help…for example, volunteering at a homeless shelter…

I wish you all a blessed Christmas season as we prepare for Christ’s birth…and for family celebrations..and gifts to be given to those we love…all in the name of Christ.  That, of course, is the important part…all in the name of Christ.

May God bless and bring you peace.

Manya

Just a quick note to wish you all a very, merry Christmas.  This can be a very difficult time of year for those going through separation and divorce as well as for those who have been divorced for a while but who find that this time of year can magnify feelings of loneliness and loss.  And if this is the year when your spouse gets to spend Christmas day with your children….well, enough said.  That’s just even harder.

I wish you all faith that grows stronger now and into the new year.  For this is the key to the speediest and most complete, deep down recovery from the pain, fear and changes that are brought about by divorce.  If you find that your faith is weak right now because of the divorce, please hang in there and “fake it til you make it.”  This is exactly what happened to me but I kept practicing my faith and trying to pray…and my faith eventually returned stronger than ever.  And I became stronger than ever as a result.

Also…I’ve highly recommended this so many times and in so many places, but please bear with me while I recommend it again….go to www.DivorcedCatholic.com and join the site (it’s free!) and then become active on the forum.  It’s a great place to talk with others who understand what you’re going through and this is VERY healing.  It’s quite a gift from the authors of Divorced. Catholic. Now What? – Lisa Duffy and Vince Frese.  Please take advantage of it being there for you.

God bless you and your children and bring you peace!

And MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Manya

By the way..I’ve decided to start off the year by going through the process of total consecration to Jesus through Mary.  This entails daily prayers and readings for approx. 30 days (if you go through the entire process).  I plan to give more info here but if you want info now, go HERE.  I also purchased the book that is recommended for this, but they say it’s not necessary to have.  Greg & Jennifer Willits of The Rosary Army have made all the prayers available on their site and you can even download the audio prayers to your iPod!  I’ll be starting on Dec. 31st…perhaps we could go through this together.

May God bless and bring you peace.

Manya

My poor father. There were many times over the last several weeks when I thought he had simply given up trying, which made me resentful.  It hasn’t been easy to take care of my children, my business AND my parents (and myself now and then).   And I wasn’t alone in taking care of them.  My brother, his wife, our sister and I took turns helping out.   All of that was much easier, though, when we thought Dad was working towards being able to walk again – when HE was helping, too.  However, when it seemed he had given up and wasn’t interested in getting stronger, it became very difficult to help him and to not be openly angry with him.  Now that I know the severe pain he must have been in, I feel very badly about all those thoughts I had!

I started out this post with the intention of simply explaining why new posts have been few and far between. But as I wrote, I realized that comparisons can be made between physical breaks, emotional breaks and the healing process.

Hidden breaks in our relationships…

For how long was the break in your marriage hidden from view? For how long did you try to go on as if everything was “normal,” maybe even working on your relationship but thinking that nothing was truly wrong (broken)?   Did your gut try to warn you just how wrong things were?

It’s very much like the proverbial elephant in the room that everyone tries to ignore.

The big thing about breaks of any sort is that in order for them to heal, all parties involved need to commit to work on fixing them. In my dad’s case, he was trying to get better but the doctors weren’t doing their parts…so the exercise and walking practice that my dad was doing wasn’t helping him (it was actually causing more damage).

In the case of a broken marriage, both spouses need to be genuinely committed to healing the relationship or healing won’t take place. And more damage (emotional) can be done to both spouses when one of them truly is not trying but continues to play games, do more damage or ignores the whole situation.

My husband and I had our problems and they came on and grew worse gradually over the years. For a long time we ignored the existence of these problems.  I admit that I took my marriage and my husband horribly for granted.  I viewed marriage as being a lifelong commitment – for better or for worse – which made me complacent.  I felt that our problems could be worked out ‘later’…at a more convenient time.  Afterall, I had children to raise and that was taking all my energy and focus.  I was wrong to take my husband and marriage for granted AND for putting almost all of my focus on our children.  An equal or even greater focus should have been on my husband and marriage.  If that relationship had been healthy and nurtured, our children would have been better served in the long run.  I’m very sorry to say that I couldn’t see that at the time.

My husband, for his part, didn’t communicate his deep sadness to me. When finally it came to light, I was stunned.  By then, though, it was too late.  He had moved on.  We eventually went through counseling (three different counselors) and even participated in a Retrouvaille weekend.  All that didn’t stand a chance of helping us, though, because my husband wasn’t genuinely interested in healing our marriage.  He was convinced that too much damage had been done and I’d never be able to forgive, forget and trust again.  Perhaps he didn’t think that HE could forgive, forget and trust again.  Perhaps he was right, but we’ll never know because an honest effort was never made by both of us together.

I did all I could to try to keep us together and that knowledge helped me to be able to move on after I realized nothing more could be done. I was fighting a losing battle.  I’m sure I could have done better but the fact is, I did what I could at the time – as flawed as that might have been. I don’t have any feelings of guilt regarding that time in our lives/marriage.  I DO have feelings of guilt regarding my part in leading us to that horrible break.  The things I did were out of stupidity and I’ve forgiven myself for that…still, I do regret not having been more wise back then.

So how to heal after the break is recognized and acknowledged and not healed?

It takes time and work and perseverance and a willingness to experience the pain. You need to resolve yourself to work THROUGH the pain (because there will be lots of it but it will decrease over time).

My dad had surgery yesterday. The break has now been fixed and recovery lies before him.  They will probably have him on his feet today, which will be difficult and painful for him.  The pain will get worse before it gets better…but it won’t get better at all if he doesn’t embrace it and work right on through it – in spite of it.  He will probably never again walk without a limp…that damage has been done and can’t be ignored…but he WILL walk.  And that’s a glorious thing to look forward to!  There’s hope and that’s everything.

It’s just the same for healing from the emotional pain of a relationship that died or was destroyed. No matter what the damage, you CAN heal from it.  There will always be scars and regrets but you will learn to live with them and they will become less noticeable with time.  You will also learn to ignore them.  And you have hope, too.  Life WILL be better and you will know happiness again.

ALL of the above healing, of course, will be made easier when you invite God into the process. Ask for His help.  The very wise go beyond that, though, and ask God to LEAD through the pain and out the other side.  God has been there.  Remember, he became human like us.  He knows what real pain is and what it feels like to experience it and get through it.  Chances are that any pain we feel, physical or emotional, has been felt by God and in much greater quantities.  He understands.

God bless and bring you peace,

Manya