Bethie's Buzz: Marian Study and Praying for Everything

Dear Friends and Family,

I know you all were thinking you would never hear from me again after the lice episode. That was rough. I did so much laundry... I even still have nightmares about it. I combed Will's hair for a week. The last three days of coming, there were no lice in sight (yay!) so we think he's in the clear...but I've heard warnings about missing one and they come back! Yikes!

I'm currently doing a Bible study that focuses on Mary. One of the study questions said, "Is there anything you aren't praying for that you should be praying for?" I need to beg God to keep the lice away, and I realized that I hadn't been praying for our sliding door to finally be replaced. Our contractor was supposed to do it in the summer when he did the deck, but he was putting this part of the job off. So I prayed that the contractor would find time to do it, and the very next day Chris told me that the contractor called him and scheduled us for this week! I was so excited, but I wasn't going to count on him actually showing up. So the kids and I prayed every mealtime leading up to the scheduled appointment -even that morning that he would come. And he came!!!

So today we had a very cold house. Winnie watched over their work and she was very reserved. Then she started throwing up. So...now I need to pray for her to recover. She didn't eat anything all day and she has been lethargic. I am starting to worry. Hopefully she will sleep well tonight and feel better in the morning.

Back to my Mary study, I have been praying a decade of the Rosary on my morning walks with Winnie and I've started to feel Mary's presence. Then just last week, Will was playing in the driveway and he found a Miraculous Medal! That's a medal that has Mary on it. I wear medals on a necklace, but I didn't have a Miraculous Medal yet. I had also received one with my Bible Study but I was going to wait to put it on after the study was finished.

Then, this week while I was saying my Hail Marys, I had this vision of Mary putting an armor on me. I was surprised and encouraged because I didn't really think I deserved the armor. I felt like she was suiting me up to be a warrior for God. To be honest, something that I kept running up against as I started the study was a sort of unwillingness to really give myself completely over to God. But I started to realize that Mary thought I could do it, and then I realized that this was Her armor that she had made for me. I felt so encouraged because she was saying she would protect me.

I went home and showered to get ready for the day, and I decided to go ahead and put the medal on my necklace of medals. When I slid the medal on the necklace I heard the medals clink...just like an armor would clink! I remembered that God doesn't want us to come to him already perfect, we can just come as we are! And we don't need to do it alone, the Saints are there to help us! Wish me luck. I'm only on week two of this study and I feel so transformed!

I'll close with some pictures from the last two weeks!

Love,

Bethie

So many cookies! Despite the challenge of not getting to do booth sales with COVID, our troop sold over 8,000 boxes of cookies! That's less than 1,000 shy of what we sold last year. Incredible!

Claire's Thanksgiving Turkey and message to you!

Winnie and Daddy, when she was feeling better. I think she liked all of the Thanksgiving smells!

This is our family picture for Thanksgiving Dinner (ha!) - the camera was set to the timer. It's a great picture of our smiles but you can't really see anything else!

Chris and I decided to buy ourselves a grill for our Christmas present. This one is heated by wood pellets and is controlled by your smart phone! It even has temperature probes for the meat so you can get that perfect center on your steaks! Incredible! (The best part of this gift is that Chris is enjoying making us some delicious dinners - so I just do the sides!)

I ordered a gingerbread kit from Pampered Chef so we could try making our gingerbread houses from scratch this year. While I will say that the $10 store kits are a bargain for the time they save, the real gingerbread and homemade royal icing were significantly more delicious. This was also a great use of our remaining Halloween candy!