Wednesday, April 27, 2016

BLESSINGS AND PEACE!

Hello Out There! What a busy day! I hope you are all having a great week!
I just wanted to share the Prayer for the Evening from the Magnificat before I
start cooking dinner.


The Lord lives in us and we in him:
let us give thanks and praise, alleluia!


The following are scriptures for this evening:


Isaiah 27:2-3
On that day -
The pleasant vineyard, sing about it!
 I, the Lord, am its keeper,
 I water it every moment;
 Lest anyone harm it,
night and day I guard it.


Ezekiel 19:10
Your mother was like a vine planted by the water;
Fruitful and branchy was she because of the abundant water.


I hope you enjoyed reading these beautiful words from scripture!
Peace and blessings to you and yours wherever you are!


                                                               Bye for now,
                                                                             Sharla



Monday, April 25, 2016

THANKING GOD FOR ANOTHER DAY!

Good Morning Out There! What a beautiful morning! We started our morning bright
and early, not really bright, because it was still dark outside but we did start out early!
We go to the Adoration Chapel on Monday mornings from 5:00 a.m. - 6:00 a.m.
Spending an hour in quiet meditation, prayer, reflection or reading the daily scriptures
is such a great way to start the day. We signed up almost a year and a half ago and we
have really treasured our quiet time of Eucharistic Adoration. I've told y'all before that
I am definitely not the early bird in our family, but once I'm up, look out world here I
come! On our way home we stopped and picked up burritos. We walked into the
little restaurant at about 6:10 a.m. and there were three ladies working. Jim nods his
head at them and I say, "Good morning, good morning, Buenos dias!" I'm in such a
joyful mood I just want to spread some happiness. The ladies look at me, kind of
shocked, and still kind of asleep, and mumble good morning. Jim tells me it is way
too early for my cheerfulness and that I probably scared them, I just laughed! I am
in the best mood, and I have a million things going through my mind. Once we get
back in the truck I start telling Jim all the things I need to do this week. He says if
I don't calm down I'm going to be so tired by the time we get home I won't be able
to get anything done, I just laugh again! I have to share some of the scriptures I
read this morning:
Mark 16:15 -
Jesus said to them, "Go into all the world, and proclaim the Gospel to every
creature."
The response for Psalm 89 is: For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
(I'm singing it)
Prayer for the Morning:
Jesus Christ is the voice of salvation:
let us listen and give thanks, alleluia!
I better get busy if I'm going to accomplish all that I need to do! I hope you all have
a wonderful day! Blessings and peace to you and yours!
                                                                    Bye for now, Sharla


#faith
#adoration

Thursday, April 21, 2016

SEEK, AND YOU WILL FIND - GOD IS ALWAYS NEAR!

Hello Out There! How are y'all doing? I am feeling much better today! Tuesday and
yesterday I just felt blah, a case of the sniffles and blah, blah, blah! Sometimes I just
get so frustrated with what is going on in this crazy old world! Do you ever have days
like that? Jim and I went to the noon Mass today and that was exactly what I needed!
I needed to kneel down and pray, listen to the scriptures and receive Holy Communion!
When Mass was over I knelt down to pray and I sang very quietly:
Lead me, Lord, lead me, Lord, by the light of truth to seek and to find the narrow way.
Be my way; be my truth; be my life, my Lord, and lead me, Lord, today!
I smiled at everyone we saw at Mass and stopped to visit  with our friends as we were
leaving. Jim patiently waited in the vestibule for me and then out the doors we went!
I felt rejuvenated, I felt happy, I felt at peace! Jim and I talked about how blessed we
are to be able to go to Mass during the week also. We don't make it everyday, but I'm
sure going to try harder to go more often during the week! The next time I read some-
thing in the newspaper or on face book that gets me down, or really makes me angry!
I'm going to stop and take time to pray. Sometimes I need to be reminded about what
I need to do when I'm feeling tired, frustrated and blue!
Ask, and you will receive.
Seek, and you will find.
Knock, and it will be opened to you.
For the one who asks, receives.
The one who seeks, finds.
The one who knocks, enters.     
  Matthew 7:7,8


I hope and pray that your day and rest of the week is blessed with love and joy;
with happiness and sunshine; with family and friends! God loves you! He loves all
of us so much! Tell Him what is on your mind, He is always listening!
May God bless you all wherever you are!  In Jesus Name I pray, Amen.
                                                            Peace and Blessings, Sharla

#prayer

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

THE WAY I WRITE IS THE WAY I FEEL - WORDS FROM MY HEART

Hello Out There! We've been blessed with rain! This message I want to share has
really been on my heart. I've been trying to find the right words to say, but maybe
I just need to jump right in and write the way I feel! Because the truth is, the way
I feel is the way I write. Some of my posts are fun and light hearted, but all of my
posts come from my heart.
I want to get the message out there that adoption is a life option. I would love to see
billboards and commercials and magazine covers about people who have been
adopted. I want to hear adoption stories because I know how special each story is!
I want people to know that babies are a gift. If you are in a crisis pregnancy and
this is not the right time for you to have a baby, please consider adoption for your
baby. I was blessed to have been adopted at birth and I want to share the message
that adoption is a life giving option! I see the commercials on television where the
movie stars are holding a puppy or a kitten and they are crying, begging people to
adopt these poor innocent animals. That is fine, but what about the poor, innocent
babies? What about the unborn, where are the tears? Where is the compassion?
Why are people so afraid to speak up for the human babies? If I had the money to
pay for advertising on billboards about adopting the human babies, I would. Maybe
I need to get more information about how much it costs and have a fund raiser.
Maybe that is why God has placed this so on my heart. I write these posts but I
must do more. Thanks for listening, just writing about this has helped me. It is
time for me to take the next step. If you have some ideas please share them with
me. I will keep you posted on the billboard idea. I wrote a post back in September
of 2014 and I am going to re-post it today because the words I wrote then are how I
feel again. God bless you all from wherever you are.
A post from September 2014: (I've tweaked it a little bit, just following
my heart!)
You know, things don't always go as we plan, dream or hope. Many times God is
reminding us that He is in charge of our lives, not us. Maybe it's a job loss, a transfer,
not getting the house you want, or maybe it's something like not having good enough
credit for an expensive vehicle or maybe just any kind of vehicle! An unplanned
pregnancy definitely changes everything, absolutely changes how you live your life,
but if you stop and think about it, this baby is a gift from God. Maybe you need a
new direction. This baby will change your life for the better, this baby is part of you.
To all the men out there, no matter what age you are, if your girlfriend or wife is
pregnant, be a real man. Take care of your family, take care of your responsibilities.
Love, protect and support them, be proud to be called dad. As far as that goes,
be proud to be a husband! Take pride in yourself and say "Hey, it's going to be ok,
we can do this." Your girlfriends, your wives, they need to hear you say,
"We're a family, yes this changes everything, but for the better!"
Children need their mothers and their fathers, babies are such a blessing,!
When did we get so off track. We need commercials and television shows that
support family instead of the stupid stuff that's on. We need magazine covers that
have positive messages about happy families and not the tabloid trash
that is on the rack right by the check out stand in the stores. 
Men, step up to the plate and be a loving and supportive dad. Be a great boyfriend,
better yet, be a great husband, make the commitment that says this is for real,
this is forever! I realize that the majority of men are wonderful husbands and dads
who take great care of their families. I personally know many men who are the ones
raising their children.  The single dads I know are amazing, and they do a great job
taking care of their children.
I am talking about the young men who drive their girlfriends to the abortion facilities
and/or those who push them into having an abortion. A baby is not a choice, a baby
is a gift, a unique individual and should be loved and cherished. Choosing adoption
for your baby if you are not able to raise them, is choosing life. I'm not saying that
adoption would be an easy decision but at least you would be choosing life, giving
your baby a chance, just like the chance I was given.
I keep seeing all the challenges on face book to raise money for good causes,
and there is nothing wrong with that. But here is a real challenge, take care of your
family. Be there for your family day in and day out. The world tells you that partying
is the way to go. Bar hopping gets old and what a sad, empty, lonely life.
Being part of a loving, caring family is the most amazing gift you can have, and
give back to others. Put God first, find a parish home, get involved, spend time with
your family. Pray with your family, attend Mass or church with your family.
 A good marriage is such a blessing and it is worth all the time and effort.
Communication and respect are really important in all relationships.
Ladies, motherhood is the most amazing gift, but be careful who you pick to date
and marry, make sure they want the same things in life that you do. The same goes
for men also! Men and women, please make sure that your children, no matter what
their age, are protected, loved and nurtured!
Spend time with them, turn off all the phones at meal time. When you are in the car
driving them here and there, talk to them, sing with them, laugh with them, pray with
them! Tune out the world and tune into family.
This ugliness in our world will not change unless we change. We need to get our
priorities straight, we need to put God first, family second, and everything else will
fall into place.  To sum this all up, I'll say it again, a baby is a gift from God.
Our lives are gifts from God, what we do with our life, how we treat others,
how we love others, is our gift back to God.
So get out there! Reach out and take care of each other, take care of your family.
(I ended up adding a little more and now I want to close with the first couple of
paragraphs of my story, my life.)
EVERY BABY SHOULD BE ABLE TO GROW UP
 AND HAVE A STORY TO TELL
Once upon a time, fifty or so years ago, a baby girl was born and she needed
a home. Never knowing the circumstances or the reason why, her birth mother
couldn't keep her, she had to say goodbye. This little baby girl was three days
old when a loving family came, and took her to their home. Now this baby girl
had a family of her own.
With love and joy and happiness this baby girl grew up, she never met a stranger
and her heart was full of love. She loved to hear the stories about her special day,
the day her family came and gave her their name.

                                                     Bye for now, Sharla
#adoption

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

BLESSINGS FROM OUR JOURNEY: FAMILY, HISTORIC CATHOLIC CHURCH AND A REFUGE!

Good Morning, good morning! It is a beautiful day! Hello out there! I hope your week
is going well! My last post was about the wonderful blessings that happened during the
first couple of days of our trip. Today I want to tell you about some more of our neat
experiences. I ended my last post with Friday evening, April 1st.
Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to the baseball/softball complex. It was
opening day and they were having a small parade. The teams and their coaches walking
from the school to the field, each team carrying their banner. These are the little league
teams, so you had children from probably kindergarten age to 5th, maybe 6th grade.
The team names were all great and the little ones who play T-ball, oh my goodness,
they are so cute! After each team was announced the kids were able to go and play
in the park area where they had jump houses, big slides, and carnival type games.
We stayed there until our granddaughter's game began at 1:30 p.m. Her dad is the
coach, so of course we were doubly proud to be there and watch! She is 7 and this is
the first season she has played, she is also the catcher! It was a great game, so much
fun to watch! We went out to eat afterwards and then went back to the house to visit.
Now I will move on to Sunday morning. We woke up early and got ready, we were
meeting the kids at the catholic church they attend so that we could all go to Mass
together. Mass began at 9:00 a.m. Jim and I loved being with our family at Mass!
After Mass, the girls showed us where they go to CCD classes. The older one will
make her First Holy Communion in May, we are very excited!
Next, we all went to eat breakfast and then it was time to head back west toward
home! We decided to stop in Praha to visit one of the old catholic churches that has
been undergoing renovations. St. Mary's Church of the Assumption in Praha, Texas
is a historically beautiful, amazingly designed catholic church. The paintings,
stained glass windows, statues and architectural design will just grab you. This is the
second time that Jim and I have been to visit this church. It is listed as one of the
Painted Churches. We arrived about 4:00 p.m. and the doors would not be locked
until 5:00 p.m. so we had plenty of time to look at everything. We both knelt down
to pray for a little while. Jim walked up to one of the shrines and lit ten candles, one
for each of our grandchildren. We walked back outside and went toward the grotto.
Jim said he wondered who had given Mother Mary the beautiful flower. I walked into
the grotto, the statue of the Assumption of Mother Mary is so beautiful and gives
you such a feeling of serenity. I noticed the prettiest, dark red rose lying right in the
crook of her arm. I laughed and told Jim that I didn't think he was supposed to pick
the flowers. He told me it was just one, the prettiest one out there, and he felt like
that was where it belonged. I couldn't argue with that logic! I'll attach the picture of it
after I finish this post. We got back into the truck and headed west once more. We
were only a few miles down the road when I asked Jim if we could stop and visit
Raphael's Refuge in Flatonia (which is only just a little further down the road). I knew
he was tired and just wanted to travel on but I really needed to stop there and so
we did! It had been almost two years since we first found Raphael's Refuge, and I
wanted to see how much more work had been done. We thought we might be the only
ones out there but were pleasantly surprised to see Midge, the amazing woman who
listened to God, and donated a large piece of her land for this wonderful place to be
built. She was saying good-bye to another woman when we walked up. I said hello
Midge, you probably don't remember us, but you know what? She did, she remembered
our first visit and gave us both a big hug. She was so excited to show us around. I will
have to share everything about that visit later on.
I will call it: Raphael's Refuge - Part 2
This is their website if you would like to look it up: www.RaphaelsRefuge.org
This is their mission statement:
To build and maintain a memorial in honor of babies, born and unborn.
- To provide peer counseling for those suffering a loss of a baby due to:
miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death, and abortion
I'm going to close with this prayer from Raphael's Refuge:


Parent's Prayer
for a Departed Baby

Holy Spirit, creator of life and love,
thank you for breathing life
into the soul of my baby.
Heavenly Father, thank you
for letting me play a role
in my baby's creation.
Lord Jesus, thank you
for my baby's love.
From my empty arms,
I place my baby into your arms,
to be held for all eternity.
Amen.
#catholicchurch
#paintedchurches


https://plus.google.com/114064205814456335695/posts/Bnpy1bkZxGC

Saturday, April 9, 2016

UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS, FINDING GOD EVERYWHERE!

Hello Out There! How has your week been? I'm so happy that I finally have time to
sit down and write a post. It has been ten days since I wrote my last one. I think I
will do a timeline to catch y'all up on everything.
On Thursday, March 31st, Jim and I headed out of town. We were going to see our
oldest son and his family in the Houston area on Friday, April 1st. We decided to take
off a day early and just take our time and stop here and there and everywhere!
We were supposed to leave early on Thursday morning. The early part didn't happen.
We left around 11:00 a.m. I only had to run back into the house twice to grab the
things I forgot. We weren't even out of the driveway yet so it wasn't a big deal.
When Jim asked me if I was sure I had everything I smiled and said yep, I think so.
Then I told him to drive kind of slow as we were going down the street so that I could
go over everything we brought, just in case we had to turn around. I did get a "look"
from him on that comment. After a few minutes I said, "we're good, lets say a prayer
and speed it up!" Jim always says that patience is a virtue and it is not one of the
virtues that he has. After being married to me for almost 33 years, I think Jim has
definitely earned the patience virtue!
We do have a good time when we are able to travel out of town. We take our time
and stop whenever we see something interesting or if we just want to take another
look. We are known to whip U-turns, but only on country roads when there isn't much
traffic. We stopped at a little town southeast of Temple, TX to visit a sweet couple that
moved away from San Angelo years ago. They have always been like a second set of
parents to Jim and they are special to me also! We stayed a couple of hours and then
continued on our way. We pulled into Bryan/College Station just as the sun was
going down. We were trying to find a place to stay and took a wrong turn. Then all
of a sudden I cried out, "Look, it's St. Anthony's Catholic Church, he found us!"
Jim found a place to park and we got out and walked around. You will not believe
what we found. They have a beautiful rosary garden dedicated to the unborn. It is
called St. Anthony's Walking Rosary and the sign says that it was dedicated and
blessed on 12/08/2006 as a memorial for the victims of abortion in our community
and in our world. My eyes filled with tears and I began to cry as I read all the names
of the groups and people who contributed to the garden. I told Jim how much God
knows our hearts, and how amazing it is that St. Anthony helped us find our way
to this special place. We walked along the stepping stones of the rosary for a few
minutes and then we checked the Mass schedule and drove off to find a hotel. The
next morning we woke up early and drove back to St. Anthony's church for the
7:15 a.m. Mass. It was overcast and a heavy mist was falling as we parked and
dashed to the Prayer Chapel. Mass was wonderful, and afterwards we talked to
some of the parishioners. They were all very friendly. Our Bishop for the San
Angelo Catholic Diocese is from there. When the people found out where we
were from they all told us how blessed we are to have him as our bishop. We told
them that yes, we are very blessed, he is wonderful. Some people were cleaning
the large church sanctuary and they let us go in and look around. It is a beautiful
old catholic church. Another lady stopped by and told us that we should go over
to St. Joseph's Catholic Church for the 8:15 a.m. Mass with the school children.
Jim and I finished looking at the church and when we walked outside that same
lady was waiting in her vehicle for us to follow her. We went to Mass at
St. Joseph's and really enjoyed seeing all the school children. The sanctuary was
full of families. I love seeing the mothers and fathers, and all the little ones!
Jim and I felt so blessed, what an awesome way to begin our Friday morning.
After Mass we met some more people and we were introduced to the priest.
He shared some stories about our bishop and told us how he knew that someday
he would be a bishop. We thanked him and said good-bye.
While Jim and I were looking at the beautiful, Old Testament story telling
stained glass windows, a lady walked up and started talking to us.
Her name is Ruth, and she is the sweetest woman. She led us through the
doors to the Adoration Chapel and told us to sign in.
As Jim and I were kneeling to say our prayers, she brought us three rosaries and
some reading material to take with us. Ruth told us that one rosary was for our
vehicle and the other two were for us. She hugged us and then she was gone. Jim
and I stayed for a little while and prayed. Tears kept streaming down my face. I
could feel the Holy Spirit right there with us. When Jim and I got into the truck
I immediately hung up one of the rosaries on our rearview mirror. We went back
to the hotel, had some breakfast, packed and checked out. We had only been gone
from home a little over 24 hours and were so humbled at the blessings we had
received. I just kept thinking about one of my favorite hymns,
 Lead Me, Lord. I sing the refrain from it a lot.
"Lead me, Lord, lead me, Lord, by the light of truth
to seek and to find the narrow way.
Be my way be my truth; be my life, my Lord,
and lead me, Lord, today."
We traveled toward the Houston area.  We stopped at a neat store on the side of
the highway. There was every kind of concrete statue you could imagine, and a
bunch of other stuff too! Jim took a picture of me next to a life size painted
statue of a lion. I wanted to take a picture of him by a big ape but he wouldn't
cooperate! We journeyed on, stopped at a barbecue place and ate and then
drove on to our destination. We checked in at our hotel, freshened up, and drove
over to our son's home. Our granddaughters ran out to greet us right as we drove
up. Hugs and more hugs, kisses too and then we all loaded up and headed to
the field where our younger granddaughter was having her first softball
scrimmage, she is 7 and she is the catcher, our son is the coach. We enjoyed the
game, they both did a great job! We found a place to eat dinner and then we
called it a night! The next day was going to start early and we all needed a good
nights rest! I will have to finish telling about the rest of our trip in the next day
or two! I've been running back and forth fixing dinner and washing dishes while
I wrote this post! The cornbread is almost ready and the goulash is simmering!
Have a wonderful evening. God bless you all wherever you are!
                                                                 Bye for now, Sharla