Skip to main content

Posts

In His Embrace

  John and I are in a different season of life, one filled with health challenges and the many other things that come with a leave of absence, including making changes and adapting our home to meet our needs during this time. Over the past year, I have learned that there are many different treatments available for people who have undergone back and spine surgery and who live with chronic pain. I have done a great deal of research, tried some traditional approaches, and learned along the way what works for me and what does not. Part of my ongoing treatment now includes acupuncture and physical therapy specifically focused on the back and spine. I am praying that, over time, these treatments will help my recovery and provide some relief from the chronic pain and flare-ups that have become part of my daily life. My beloved has had his own health challenges, and we have been walking through those together as well. After several difficult days this week, I had an acupuncture appointment...
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts
  Hearts Rosary Newsletter ALONG THE WAY – I got a great big love tap to the head from the Holy Spirit   I have been praying the Surrender Novena for many years, often on repeat. But sometimes I wonder whether the words become so familiar that I pray them by rote rather than in earnest:   Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything.   This week I received a great big reminder of what those words really mean.   I know without a doubt that I have surrendered my current season to the Lord. It took me a while to get here, and when the pain is at its peak, sometimes I have to surrender all over again. But I know that I am loved beyond measure and that Jesus is with me in every moment.   My physical journey and my spiritual journey are two different things. Physically, not much may have changed. There are still flare-ups, cramps, chronic pain, limited mobility, sleepless nights and days when ordinary things require new ways of doing them. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sharing the journey and our second newsletter

  We started Joy in the Journey and Heart's Rosary  Company 8 years ago. These pictures are from June 2018 after filing our paperwork. We had mission with Joy in the Journey to share Jesus and His love and hope along our journey and with Hearts Rosary to share our love for Jesus and the Blessed Mother with prayers and handmade rosaries. For us making rosaries is more than a craft, it's a labor of love, devotion and deep faith. We also through about a newsletter at the time, but it was new and not the time to do one. A few years later we did one for a short time, but we didn't stick with it and persevere as we should have. We have come to understand that it wasn't the right time. Over the years there have been many moments that have touched our lives in ways that we could not have possibly imagined,. A few months ago we started talking about our mission, our spiritual and prayer life and the many blessings that have come not only from the rosaries we have made but ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hand crafted Rosaries, Shared Stories, A Journey of Faith

  We just finished our first newsletter and are excited to share an invitation to join us on a weekly journey of faith.   We wrote this newsletter to share our faith, hope, hearts, and our trust in the Lord and His unfailing goodness and grace, even when we haven't been able to see it at the time. Maybe its something that resonates with you, maybe it not. Either way it's our hope and our prayer, that sharing the lives of the Saints, prayers, reflections and stories is a reminder of how God's goodness and grace is all around us always, in people, places, nature, in the quiet and in the chaos and difficult times. And every day we continue to be reminded at how present He is in every circumstance bringing hope, joy, peace, comfort, conviction and sweet remembrances, often in unexpected places along our journey. This link Hearts Rosary Newsletter  will bring you right to the newsletter. If want to receive future newsletters in your inbox, you can subscribe on the websit...
Post a Comment
Read more

In this season every day is a new adventure!

  I was thinking back to when I was a kid in my parents kitchen and the many different kinds of foods that to me were just the fixings for another meal, but as I got older learned that was not the case for many of my friends.   When I was a kid, after it rained my mom would go out in the yard and look for snails, and at least one a week she would to out and forage chicory and dandelion greens.  I recall one afternoon some friends and I were playing outside in the yard and my mom came out and she was picking chicory and dandelion greens and putting them in the fold of her apron as she bent over and pull the greens from the ground. My friends were so curious, with wide eyes they asked what is your mom doing? I responded nonchalantly, getting stuff for making salad.  That was common place in our Italian kitchen, no so much for my friends. But my young friends who were open and adventurous loved whatever my mom and dad served at our table.  I was never a big fa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Seek the Lord and His strength & presence !

One of the readings I did this morning reminded me of 1 Chronicles 16:11 "Seek the Lord and His strength, seek His presence continually." In this season of my life, and my recovery journey I am reminded every moment of every day how much I rely on Jesus and seek His presence daily in joy and in pain.    It was a rough night I got about 2 1/2 hours sleep and was up at 1:30 am and I was unable to get back to sleep.  I was hoping to make the sunrise, but I am moving a bit slower these days and ended up missing the sunrise by a 7 minutes. But what a blessing when I opened the around 6:20 am to a beautiful cool morning breeze.  And I am so grateful that I got to enjoy that cool breeze in the Backyard Oasis with my readings and meditations and a  delicious iced espresso. I got in a little PT with a light walk around the vegetable garden, grape arbor and rose gardens and picked our first roma tomato and a few roses for the Blessed Mother.   A start to a beaut...
Post a Comment
Read more

All it took was seeing one post - and I headed down memory lane

  These are pictures from an afternoon visit to the Eremo di San Bartolomeo in Legio (The Hermitage of San Bartolomeo in Legio) a place I dream of returning and brining my beloved to share the experience with me. The afternoon we visited in 1998 my heart was heavy with grief from the loss  of my mother, my best friend who went to glory less than a year before. Grief that was hard to work through because I was also dealing withe reality of a difficult and dangerous situation at home.  Being in Italy with my family was a brief respite from the situation I was dealing with at home.  I don't mean to be cryptic, that is a story in itself for another day. i traveled from Boston to Rome and my dad, my two sisters, each with one of their daughters and my sister-in-love and her and my brothers son all few in from Texas.  We were going to visit our family in Italy and to make a family pilgrimage in honor of my mother who recently passed to her and our family's patron Sain...
Post a Comment
Read more