Busy as a….

“Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love,
for they enkindle and melt the soul.”
St. Teresa of Avila
Teresa of Jesus

We must know that one of the weapons that the devil uses most commonly
to prevent souls from advancing toward God is precisely to try to make
them lose their peace and discourage them by the sight of their faults.
Father Jaques Philippe

(busy bee / Julie Cook/ 2022)

“I realize as never before that the Lord is gentle and merciful;
He did not send me this heavy cross until I could bear it.
If He had sent it before, I am certain that it would have discouraged me..
I desire nothing at all now except to love until I die of love.
I am free, I am not afraid of anything, not even of what I used to dread most of all…
a long illness which would make me a burden to the community.
I am perfectly content to go on suffering in body and soul for years,
if that would please God.
I am not in the least afraid of living for a long time;
I am ready to go on fighting.”
St. Therese of Lisieux, p. 122
An Excerpt From
The Story of a Soul

(busy bee / Julie Cook/ 2022)

(busy bee / Julie Cook/ 2022)

(busy bee / Julie Cook/ 2022)

comapassion, endurance, perseverance

“Three things are necessary to everyone:
truth of faith which brings understanding,
love of Christ which brings compassion,
and endurance of hope which brings perseverance.”
St. Bonaventure

(a pollen laden honey bee / Julie Cook / 2021)

“My Heart overflows with great mercy for souls,
and especially for poor sinners.
If only they could understand that I am the best of Fathers
to them and that it is for them that the Blood and Water flowed
from My Heart as from a fount overflowing with mercy.
For them I dwell in the tabernacle as King of Mercy.
I desire to bestow My graces upon souls,
but they do not want to accept them.
You, at least, come to Me as often as possible and take
these graces they do not want to accept.
In this way you will console My Heart.
Oh, how indifferent are souls to so much goodness,
to so many proofs of love!
My Heart drinks only of the ingratitude and forgetfulness
of souls living in the world.
They have time for everything, but they have
no time to come to Me for graces.”
St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, p. 367
An Excerpt From
Diary of St. Faustina

hectic days

I am disturbed when I see the majority of so-called Christians having such little understanding
of the real nature of the faith they profess.
Faith is a subject of such importance that we should not ignore it
because of the distractions or the hectic pace of our lives.
William Wilberforce

(a snowberry clearwing moth visits the butterfly bush / Julie Cook / 2016)

Ok…
So it’s Friday and it’s back to Atlanta taking Dad to yet another doctor.
They want to do surgery next week but the question is whether or not Dad is strong enough…
So it’s off to see if he is anemic and / or dehydrated…
as well as to consider all viable options…

But until life slows down, allowing me to focus a bit more on the meat and potatoes of this little blog, I wanted to share a few photos of a most unusual visitor to the yard.

The images are of the Snowberry Clearwing Moth—also known as the hummingbird moth or the flying lobster.
I like it, the flying lobster…
sounds like some sort of crazy daredevil or fighter plane…

At first glance, I thought I was seeing some sort of unusual bee…
as it’s coloring was that of a bumble bee.
Yet with it’s long body and that even longer proboscis, I knew this bee wannabe was most certainly something other than bee or wasp.

(a snowberry clearwing moth visits the butterfly bush / Julie Cook / 2016)

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14

Small blessings

“When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.” C.S. Lewis

“Those born to wealth, and who have the means of gratifying every wish, know not what is the real happiness of life, just as those who have been tossed on the stormy waters of the ocean on a few frail planks can alone realize the blessings of fair weather.”
Alexandre Dumas

(the tiniest of bees, with swollen pollen pouches on each leg, graces a coneflower / Julie Cook / 2015)

Should any received blessing be perceived as being “less than” based upon its size or stature?

In order to qualify as a blessing,
must something be so large, so grand, so luxurious. . .
that we fall into it as if we were falling onto the softest,
most plush, most decant goose down bedding?

Or

Can something so tiny, so small, so demure,
such that it can be missed by the single blink of an eye,
be considered any less bountiful a blessing because it is just that. . .
small, tiny and perhaps considered minuscule?

Are we conditioned for the great and grand?
Are we perhaps too expectant that our expectations should soar upward to lofty heights,
so much so that we are prone to brush off the small as meaningless and insignificant?
Missing what may be the greatest moment of our day. . .

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

Busy growing

“Never be so busy as not to think of others.”
― Mother Teresa

(a bumble bee caught in mid flight at the blueberries / Julie Cook / 2015)

Places to go
And people to see
I’m just as busy as I can be

Time’s not my own
Is that Dad on the phone?
Closing my eyes I shutter and groan

Life’s always changing
It shifts and it moves
We pray for the best and hope it improves

With our ups and our downs
We all come and go
It’s the struggles we suffer which help us to grow

Waiting in silence

The Scriptures contain many stories of people who waited years or even decades before the Lord’s promises came to pass. What modern believers can learn from the patience of biblical saints like Abraham, Joseph, David, and Paul is that waiting upon the Lord has eternal rewards.
Charles Stanley

“Memory haunts me from age to age, and passion leads me by the hand–evil have I done, and with sorrow have I made acquaintance from age to age, and from age to age evil shall I do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption comes.”
H. Rider Haggard

(busy carpenter bee / Julie Cook / 2015)

My soul, now in silence, waits. . .
As the earth joins in with a palpable anticipation.
ALL of Creation shutters in the deafening stillness.
Man hangs in the balance between the living and the dead
As both Life and Death vie for final control of all humankind

A tug and war ensues for each and every soul
those that were, those which are and those who are yet to be.
Yet it is only the keen of heart who take notice.
The majority of mankind races off in the opposite direction, lost and unaware.

The ground groans deep within as tiny ripples race across the surface of time
A battle fiercely rages out of site from all of humanity,
as man sits on the precipice of eternity.
We wait, watching, listening, wondering
Our fate is sealed,
yet the question remains. .
what will that fate be. . .