Here we go, Quick Takes up on Friday morning. More to come, especially the related photos!
2. For a little over a week now I have been praying almost daily for my husband, and not just a quick one or two sentences, but a series of prayers that cover his protection, salvation and his role as husband and father. It feels like a pow-wow with God, working together to accomplish what we both want: for my husband to come to faith. Through these prayers, God softens my heart for my husband. He shows me areas where I need to change and He helps me find ways that I can love my husband today.
I know that this time spent in prayer for him is really going to strengthen my marriage! For one prayer is always powerful, but more than that, this time spent praying so tenderly for my husband in the afternoon before he comes home is keeping my heart soft towards him. My heart is in a great place when he comes home, ready to love and care for him. I think it’s also helping me to be more forgiving of him, and even to extend mercy. I have found myself ready to truly forgive even when I’m feeling frustrated or when I’ve been hurt, so long as I get a proper apology.
In addition, I’ve also added in some favorite prayers from the thanksgiving section of the Miracle Hour resulting in a powerful 30 minute pow-wow with God, that will also strengthen my relationship with Him, as I get to speak my heart to Him each day as well! And when I’ve finished the divine mercy I’m thinking about adding 1 or 2 sections of the Miracle Hour each day to my afternoon prayer time. It is such a good booklet and I’m really missing praying it. And I also realized a great way to deal with my frustration with my husband – when I feel he is being unreasonable, what better approach than to pray about it. And that he would change? Not that he would do exactly what I want, but that he would love me better-AND vice versa.
Lord, let my husband love me like Christ loved the church and Father, help me to love him as Christ loved the church.
You can find the basic prayers here, and they’re good even if your husband is a believer: Praying for your Husband
3. The Defend Life conference was very good. I was pleased with the wide range of abortion issues that were covered. I found there to be lots of useful information; I already knew most of it but for other pro-lifers who hadn’t read as much etc, it was very informative, helping to fill in some of the gaps as to why abortion has become such a complex issue. Complex yes, because there are so many different ways it has pushed its ideology into our culture and impacted our lives. And yet, the issue of abortion is infinitely simple: the young, underdeveloped and even those who are seen as adding nothing to society, are infinitely valuable as human beings and as worthy of the right to life as any one of us.
+Defend life notes
I realize not all my readers share this conviction, but if you do and you want to help out, there is a great campaign in Canada right now. (and last I heard there was one in the states too, this one spurred off it.) It’s called Letters 4 Life.
On a related note, this is sad but true: http://www.lifenews.com/2012/04/05/pro-abortion-pregnancy-discrimination-rises-in-the-workplace/
4. This week I’ve started giving the baby a rice cracker now and then. I’m pretty sure he’s not getting enough to eat with my middle son nursing every hour when he goes to the potty. As a reuslt he’s not sleeping through the night, though he has done it a couple times. I read a few months ago that they actually want you to start babies on food at 4 months instead of 6. Looking it up, the article has since been amended so I will bring it up with the doctor next time, but he doesn’t really like formula, or bottles for that matter. Sometimes we can get him to take one, and other times he just screams.
He’s also a very smiley content baby, they’ve all been pretty content but he’s extremely smiley. He also rolls all over the floor now. My mom reminded me how active I said he was in utero, and that we’re probably looking at a really active kid. Should be interesting 🙂
5. Thanks to Catholic icing, we had divine mercy sundaes after Sunday brunch. They weren’t quite as pretty but I bet they were every bit as tasty: 2 kinds of ice cream, relatively real whipped cream (from a can but it’s nothing like cool whip) and colored sugar spirnkles! I realized after checking in at the site that I did forget to put on the cherries though! We’ll just have to have them again next year… 😛
6. For this take I’m just sharing a couple links.
I stumbled on a series of romantic courtship novels. When I’m in the mood to read a light summer fiction I think one of these could be great 🙂
http://heroinesofthefaith.blogspot.ca/2012/03/courtship-novels-regal-reading-list.html
Also, 2 new lent ideas for next year:
http://www.fisheaters.com/15prayersofstbridget.html
7. And somehow I guess I’ve had to much to write about beause I kept missing sharing our movie themes. We watched Cars 2, Kermit-The Swamp Years and Baby Geniuses:
I finally gave i and let them watch the CARS sequel that they’d been interested in since they got ‘new cars’ figures for Christmas. DMIL told him all the names from the book and my big kid knew all the characters without ever seeing the movie! I had been reluctant due to the reviews that say the movie had lost the hometown feel opting instead for a worldy, action plot. However, after watching it overall I was pleasantly surprised. It was a nifty little spy film, made with cars. It had all the great atention to detail that Pixar is known for, and wonderful new characters, so even though it was nothing like Radiator Springs, the film still held it’s own with the original 🙂
I dunno hon…that milk is for the baby!! He needs that much more than rice crackers and formula..formula is totally inferior to human milk and rice crackers are just white rice and sugar…It sounds to me like its the toddler always wanting to nurse that’s the problem. Little newborns only feed about once every 3h…he is breastfeeding more than a baby. And he doesn’t need it as much either, since he can eat real food.
My bible study has been working through a book called “Satisfy My Thirsty Soul” which is a study on worship, and you might be very interested in it. I know that one of the women in our group who is also waiting for her husband to come to faith has found great comfort in it and has been learning to worship through the waiting.
Oh, wow, I’d love to get invovled in a study like that sometime too. Also, perhaps you could ask the woman in your group if she would mind you putting her in touch with a fellow unequally yoked wife. If she wouldn’t mind I’d love to get to know someone walking my road right here in person! I’ve found some good resources to share too.