What does my faith tree look like this many years after sowing my "Bobbypin tree"? Learning to know the faith, the size of a bobbypin cross.

Today is the bobby-pin lady's birthday. Second grade, she found herself far from her mommy and daddy. She found real faith in God. She said to God that she wanted to be with her mommy and daddy and not there at the boarding school. God gave her what she wanted and let her mommy and daddy come and get her and take her home and gave her a sister and 2 more brothers to enjoy after that.

It was amazing that she valued family and God's instruction about what a wife and mommy should be. God let her have a very big tree of faith by the time I met her when she was 20. Now, at 73, I can't see the top of her faith tree. Every once in a while fruit from her tree drops to the ground and we can see that it is much bigger than we could know about. Mountainous faith of continuance and blessing. God is still answering prayer. God is still planting new trees for her. God is faithful and if someone has the faith of a mustard seed, he can say to this mountain...We know he does, because our trees are still growing.

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

First it was me and my mommy!

look at that cute blister on her thumb?

As I look at it, every year my mommy went to the storks house and brought me home a present of a playmate. The first playmate she brought me was Ju. We were a dynamic duo, for that 18 months that it was just the 2 of us. I do remember very early being resourseful with our limitations. We played very hard and we did alot of what we wanted to do. Mommy was tired and sick with Jackie toward the end and we got into loads of messes. ie. the orange juice incident. Ju was a social butterfly. She was born with showbusiness on her mind. Dad would say, "Ju, do the twist"; she couldn't even stand up and she could do the twist. She had little memory for the words of the song. I harped on her incessantly about that.
Mom and Dad were very aware of the differences between us. Ju, was friendly and outgoing and quite a show off in her own way. Not, that I am jealous. LOL Of course, I was jealous and it wasn't long before I used all of my big sister powers to manipulate Ju as often as I could.
I was certainly none of those things. I could read and I could sing, but I had no intention of befriending outside people. When I lived with Aunt Jessie, she reminded me of that part of myself, when we were little. Aunt Jessie said that Julia was so special. Everybody always said, That Julia is so outgoing and friendly. I don't remember you. I know. I said, Ju, you are so fake, you make everybody think that you love them. I do love them, she said.
The light downstairs in the hallway was our limitation that kept us from going downstairs and getting into trouble. We couldn't turn on the light. I remember the day that we decided to try standing on eachother's backs to reach the light to go downstairs for something. Shhhhh! if Mommy hears us, we will be in big trouble. There was nothing in the house that was out of our reach when we learned to turn on the light. That was when Ms. Newsome came to help us out. I didn't like Ms. Newsome. Ju liked everybody!
During the blackout, I said Ju, bet you can't stick your head in the chair like this. She was shorter than I, so her head went into the chair at the narrowest part. She got it into the chair and couldn't get it out. We started screaming and it was dark and mommy and daddy were out. We were being watched by Ms. Newsome. Ms Newsome got some soap and some vaseline and got Ju's head out of the chair. I remember being so amazed that Ms. Newsome could use soap to get Ju's head out of the chair. We were quiet after that.

I remember my Mommy's walk!

I haven't seen her in ever so long...:( but, the main thing I remember is seeing the different walks of my mother. There was her happy walk as she strutted to the net to vanquish another attempted foe on the tennis courts and there was the humble walk when she was bringing up the gifts at offertory. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, yesterday and it wasn't her, it was me:).
I remember her carrying the gifts and her head bowed in humility and her shoulders down. I admired that about her. She had just the right walk for the occasion. She stomped on Norma, over and over again on the courts and she never accidentally walked as if she had a chalice in her hands. Don't mess with me on the courts, that walk seemed to say. Only God is God! Even if she lost( rarely), her walk was only the chalice walk at church. That was very interesting to me and powerful.
I love my mother's walk! Miss you MOM!XOXOXOXOX

I know my Mommy for 47 years!

My mommy is 67 today. MOMMY, MOMMY never gets old! Now she's probably the youngest great grandmother in her group. If mothering is a race, mommy is at the head of the pack. Packing experiences like a closet. 7 children before 30, 30 grandchildren before 60 and ? Great grands now? O my you look too young to be a great grandmother and a nun and a nurse and all of the spiritual accollades doused upon her, and a wife having been committed till death they did part, etc., etc. Who can follow her trail. We each have to, just take one aspect and concentrate on that part and follow if we can. Jo has the nurses cap. Jack has the maternal child cap. Ju has the spiritual accollades and Aim has the public persona. Tony is the first boy and now the writer and I am still looking for mine... Abby is looking down from above, I hope and admiring the view. Happy birthday MOMMY and I hope that you have as many "fresh promises of fulfillment" and accomplishments in the next 67 years as you have in the first.

The little girl with the bobbypin cross of prayer!

Holy Providence, the first retreat for Mommy was definitely unwanted. God came to answer the prayer of a little 2nd grader and took her out of the boarding school and gave her her parents back. What a holy thing, when little children pray! It is sad that we have to go through things to make us pray. But God draws us to Himself in various ways.
I have been thinking recently, what the common element were in Mom and Dad and that was the commitment to an intact family and the negative emotions when they thought about that not happening for them. Mom's prayer carried her through life attempting to hold it together with Dad, "til death do us part" Not an easy accomplishment, I must say.
We all are applauding this Christmas the legacy of accomplishing the goal of an intact family. The fact that none of us had to go to HOLY PROVIDENCE! Halleluia!


I fell on my bottom while I was cleaning my carpets the other day. This reminded me of the time Ju and I decided to get our own orange juice from the fridge and crash; we dropped the juice bottle. Mommy was expecting Jackie at the time. (In our house we call it not having a pouring license yet:) We definitely weren't supposed to be in the fridge by ourselves yet. Mom came running down the stairs and fell sliding into the kitchen on the slippery orange juice. I don't remember her crying about that. But, I would have. My bottom still hurts from falling in my bathroom with a bucket of water in my hands, because my feet were wet from shampooing my carpets. I said, I am in good company. I remember seeing my mommy slide into the room on her bottom. I am not laughing at that, just comiserating. As Grandma Ruth would say, "How did you stand it?"

I came home to a letter from Mommy!

Thanksgiving is coming. And my mommy wrote me a letter. There is not a day that I don't think about her and pray for her comfort. I realize that one of the things that I want to tell young women during the mothering years is "Don't look down!" It is staggering and there are no comrades with you when you have alot of children to raise. You talk and people can't see where you are coming from. Each child takes you a little further up the mountain climbing effort in human relations.
It reminds me of when Ben talks about walking up the Matterhorn Mountain. He thought he had a good pace and was going up the mountain and he had climbed and was getting to the top and these old ladies walked past him at about double his clip and when he got to where he could see his way up, he was just at the foot of the mountain. Motherhood is like that. You are using all of your effort and the midwife says, "its going to get worse, before it gets better!" Amen. Love you Mommy! No girls in the house anymore, only ladies!

Help! God! and Mommy!

mommy sewed these coats






The three words you use when you are drowning or in trouble. Sad, afraid, in pain, sick, sore...
After saying those three words, if the life-guard doesn't come, that is it. You are "done for". Thank God for Help and Mommy!