#PrayerStories - Life on the Road Less Traveled

February 4, 2024

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How Can I Pray for You?

Believe it or not … Prayercast (at CatholicMom.com) going to be a year old this summer! Maria and I were just conspiring the other day, to figure out what we need to do to take our podcast to the “next level” (she’s great that way). Uh… how about I put it on my website and social media pages? Duh, huh? It’s been a great year so far … From our first show with Fr. Fred Jenga (President of Holy Cross Family Ministries) to our most recent one with “Arthur the Clumsy Altar Server” author Theresa Kiser, it’s been a great adventure — learning from […]

March 7, 2022

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#PrayAcrossAmerica: Washington DC

After having couple of my FB posts disappear from my feed yesterday, all about our visit to the UC National Shrine of the Holy Family (a shrine belonging to an eastern rite east of Poland that has been much in the news of late), let me go with abbreviations: UCNSHF for the Shrine, and U_ne for the country. Unless you are looking for it, many people don’t know about this beautiful house of worship that is two doors north (past the retreat house) from the Saint JPII Shine on Harewood. The cornerstone was blessed in 1979 by St. John Paul II; their pastor, Rev. Theodore […]

February 21, 2022

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Night Watch

UPDATE: This morning when Mom woke up, she was chipper and her chest pain was gone. So … declining, but not dying — that’s what the nurse says. Still, I’ll be glad when Dad and Kathy (and her daughter Kaitlyn) get here, and Father has a chance to bless her. The weight of the decisions of caregiving can be heavy, and God knows how fallible I am. As caregivers, we can only make the best decisions we know in the moment, ready to adjust as new information becomes available. Right? I had just pulled in from the Columbus Catholic Women’s Conference and prepared dinner for […]

February 11, 2022

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A mother’s prayer

“So many women in our group are young mothers who want to know God, but are so busy with tending to little ones, they can’t imagine how to find time to pray,” the voice on the other end of the phone said. “What would you say to them?” Actually, these are my people, I thought. I can remember those days like they were yesterday. The time my new foster son punched our priest in the midsection when the kindly man reached out to bless him. The time an elderly man from Kingdom Hall showed up on my doorstep after two nights without sleep and four […]

February 10, 2022

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Joy in the Muck…

This week the 50+ year old septic field at the cabin gave up the ghost, and we discovered the hard way exactly what happens to septic tanks when a forest grows up around it. Tree roots, as it turns out, LOVE septic tanks. Not reciprocated, of course… but at least now we know how to get our plumbing speaking to us again. So I’m a happy camper. As we were going through all this, a friend texted to let me know that her job interview did not pan out. It has been a hard road for her, and my heart went out to her because […]

January 8, 2022

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More Joy in Heaven…

This week my old friend, Fr Dave, flipped his car on an icy Michigan road. He was killed instantly. Today Craig and I drove up for the funeral, and I was reminded that at almost exactly the same time last year, we were saying goodbye to Fr Ubald. Both were holy priests in their fifties. In both cases, you could nearly hear heaven resound with “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master.” The cathedral was packed, with many more watching livestream. Dozens of his brother priests lined the front pews, surrounding his dear mother and sister and family as […]

December 24, 2021

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2021: The Year in Review

A year ago today, as you see from this photo, we were cozied up at the cabin in East Jordan, Michigan. The snow outside the window sparkled, and through the fir trees you could just make out Lake Charlevoix. I’ve always dreamed of living by a lake, and though I couldn’t exactly dive in from my back deck (who am I kidding, I’d never just dive into a lake because I’m afraid of fish), it was a lovely sight. The fire roared and crackled. The kids had their mouths full, so they weren’t bickering. The dogs were splayed on the rug, exhausted from an earlier […]

October 5, 2021

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Strange but True #PrayerStories

Has God ever done something extraordinary to get your attention? Some heavenly sign that changed the way you looked at life? On a cold winter’s day in January 1983 I woke up in the ICU. About a week had passed since my car accident — leg in traction, tubes coming out all over my body. My car had slid down a hillside road on a patch of black ice, and skidded into oncoming traffic. The impact was so hard, my seat belt broke. I had severe internal injuries, crushed pelvis and femur, and required a complete blood transfusion. I spent a month in the hospital, […]

September 9, 2021

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The Day I Argued with God: A healing #PrayerStory

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about why God heals certain people, and not others. My uncle Don passed away yesterday, and I also found out that a friend from my Bethany days — a lovely, prayerful lady who has been battling brain cancer for several years now — has had her cancer return. When I go for my uncle’s funeral next week, I hope I get a chance to hug her one more time. (Please pray for Joyce.) It was at Bethany that God began to teach me about the reality of healing, and God’s purpose for it. Jesus healed many people over […]

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