I love it when God speaks to me...

I hadn't been to church in about a month due to us being gone over a couple of weekends and sick the other ones. I went to church yesterday morning and prayed for God to fill me with His Spirit.

We had a visiting priest, Fr. Vincent, come in. The Gospel was about Jesus asking the disciples to feed the crowds, but the disciples told him that they only had 5 loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus asked them to bring the food to him and He blessed it and it was then passed out to the crowds and everyone was sattisfied and they picked up the baskets of leftovers among the 5000 men. Fr. Vincent gave the homily. He talked about how one of greatest needs and desires is to be loved. He talked about how a baby learns love by someone feeding him and taking care of them. He talked about how we seek love all during our lives, but that God is the one that can truly love us unconditionally and fill us with the fires of love for Him. He said that God's love will sustain us through anything once we are on fire for Him.

He graduates from the seminary next June 2009 and he came over from Nigeria to attend school here in 2000. He said he should have only had 2 more years to get his masters, but after arriving here and going to school, he found that his credits didn't transfer and he had to start all over. He said he was greatly discouraged and debated going into another career and living the American Dream, but he also knew he had to be true to his heart and to what God was calling him to do. So, he started all over again and next year will be ordained as a priest. There was something about his spirit and his actions while I watched him celebrate mass, that I just completely burst into tears. I cried all through communion. When Mass ended, Mom took my hand and led me over to the bench outside and asked me what the matter was. I couldn't put it into words. I told her "does God ever speak to your heart?" I've felt so lonely and empty lately and unloved and taken for granted. That homily that Fr. Vincent did was beautiful, but it also made me realize that while my husband does love the Lord, he doesn't have the same love of the Lord that I do. I've known that for awhile...it's something I keep praying about. I told her that I've missed conversations that I used to have with a co-worker that I had that also went to the same church that we did...He fed me a bit everytime we talked. I could share God with him and he with me. It's not like God never comes up among Andy and I, but we don't talk about Him or our faith a whole lot. Granted, Andy has come a long way...there used to be a time that all we did was fight about God and what church to go to and so forth. And Andy will go to church with me and so forth...I just miss being able to share my faith and talk about God with someone that completley understands where I'm coming from at times. All I can do is keep praying for my husband and hopefully one day we can share Him together in the same depths and so forth.

My Mom said that she completley understood where I was coming from as her and my Dad were never equally yoked either. She said that she never believed our priest from back then, Father Batory, when he would tell the kids of the parish and the unmarried not to get involved with someone who didn't share your faith or celebrate in the same way as it would make you unequally yoked and cause problems. She said that only now does she see what he was talking about. I told her that I understood after seeing some of the problems that Andy and I have had with figuring out where to go to church, if we should go, how to raise Deidra, and so forth...that was a huge thing for me shortly after we got married. It took a couple years we didn't go at all or talk much about it or we would get in a huge fight. Finally, I prayed about it and prayed about it and Andy agreed to go through the Catholic catechism classes (RCIA) and see if he wanted to convert or not. He went through it and agreed to convert. We went to church together as a family and things were good. Until we moved back to MI, and couldn't find a church that we agreed on...and we didn't go for those two years but maybe a handful of times. Once we moved to TX, we knew where we would go...we enjoyed my Mom's little church...it's hard with fostering though as it's hard to get all the kids to sit for that hour so that we can be fed spiritually. So, Andy doesn't go with me a whole lot anymore. We did start bringing the kids back and Deidra makes her first communion this year and so we'll be there more this year. But, I need to pray that it sticks this time and we're able to keep continuing to go to church so that God can spiritually feed us and renew our spirits.