How Do I Keep the Faith When I’m So Damned Angry

Oct. 25th 2015 Dear Clay, While taking my walk at the park this morning on this crisp fall day, I started praying and reflecting on the letter I would write to you as your Confirmation sponser. When I write I always think in terms of themes or a choosen word and then focus my thoughts on that. Today as I prayed the word that kept popping in my head was "fruits". And why?, I think it was seeing the beautiful colors of the leaves on the tree which lead my to the thought of apples. Trees, apples, fall, prayer, ....you are probably wondering by now, where is this all leading. Well, the other night at the confirmation meeting what really struck a chord with me was the message of the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit that we are given when we receive our Confirmation. An apple tree is a gift we are given by God. Now how do we produce fruit?? We have to nurture our tree. We are given gifts of the Holy Spirit, but in order to make the grow and produce we have to nurt...

So for a long time, meaning many many years, my normal consisted as taking care of Dick's needs for his daily life and taking care of my two young grandsons. Now that Dick has passed and the boys have both started full time school, which happed a month ago, it is time for me to figure out my "new normal". I have felt very paralyzed this month and somewhat pressured to figure this out because doing "nothing" does nothing for me. Last week I had some positive action. I received a call from I woman I met at my dad's golf outing in July who hires people for Tri Health doctor offices. She actual told me of a full time job opening up in a month. She thinks I would be a great fit. I will still need to go through the normal hiring procedures but I already know I am qualified. I also started attending the new grief meetings that started up again two weeks ago and this week we talked about what we are doing for ourselves to make us feel better. I shared ho...