Gifts

I am in a weight loss group called "the Light Weigh". It's a Catholic group of women [a few men] who use the idea of sacrifice for others as a way to lose weight. If you're not Catholic then you might not know that the Catholic religion teaches that suffering here on Earth can help those in need. We "offer up" our sufferings to Jesus as gift to help lessen the suffering of others who may be in need.

The topic at last night's meeting was the gifts that each of us can bring to the world. There are 7 gifts: service, teaching, giving with zeal, contributing, mercy, exhorting, and prophecy. I am wondering what my gift is. The theory is that we each have one of these gifts in a more dominant way. You can have all of them or some of them to lesser degrees, but one will stand out for you more than others. I don't think it can be prophecy because I don't have any foresight [prophets are supposed to unite themselves to Jesus and proclaim His pathway, direct us spiritually toward the Lord]. This one doesn't feel like me. I contribute [which is monetary] but not as much as I could and probably not as much as I should. Definitely not it. Exhorting, probably not. Exhorters bring people to the Catholic Church. They're the folks that convince people it's the correct religion, the one founded by Jesus Christ and the only true religion [sorry it that sounds exclusionary, but really, if you don't think your religion is the right one, why would you bother with it?]. While I did bring one guy to the fullness of the Catholic faith through my explanation of the Virgin Mary as venerated [not worshipped], I don't think I've really done this to any degree. That leaves SERVICE, TEACHING, GIVING WITH ZEAL, and MERCY. Not teaching because while the person doesn't have to be an actual teacher, I don't think I've taught anyone about the Catholic faith, except again in that one instance with that one guy. I don't really understand giving with zeal as a gift. It has something to do with being ultra-organized and always working on some task. Since I am WAY unorganized and prone to laziness, I'm going to take a guess that this isn't my gift. So I think my gifts is Mercy and not serving. Servants always take care of others. They're the volunteers who run stuff for the Church. They are the behind the scenes people who make sure that all runs smoothly without looking for thanks. Since I do little and again tend toward laziness, I'm guessing this isn't me. Which leaves me with Mercy. When we were discussing this gift it really struck me. People with the gift of Mercy are very compassionate, they feel other's pain [not physically]. They empathize and sympathize and try and help the less fortunate. I really feel like this is what I do with forensic science. The victims of the crimes I help investigate are not always the most upstanding of citizens. They tend to be on the lower rungs of our society - the poor, the disenfranchised, the victimized. I think that by doing my job to the best of my ability and speaking for people who may not have the ability to speak for themselves I am giving the world the gift of Mercy. I need to think about this somemore. I feel another post on this coming later.

Uriel

So this last May I had a miscarriage. Not uncommon I hear. My gyn told me about 33% of women will have a miscarriage at some point. It seems to be true. Once it happened to me women were coming out of the woodwork telling me their stories. It helped. Some.

What's weird, I think, is that so many people asked me if I already had children and when I said yes, seemed to dismiss this child as nothing. As if the child I already had could take the place of the child I lost. They seemed to think it lessened the loss because I already had one child to take care of. They were wrong. It's been 6 months and I still can't talk about him without crying. My precious little baby that I never got to hold. And when people find out I was very early in the pregnancy, well, they dismiss him even more. I hear platitudes like, "It was probably for the best. He probably had something seriously wrong with him". So what? What if there was something seriously wrong with him? Would I have loved him less because of that? Probably more, because if he had some life threatening problem I would know that I only had him for a short time here and to make the most of it. It would have been a challenge. And perhaps not one I am up to. God only gives us what He knows we can handle and maybe I coudn't handle a child with severe difficulties. I don't know. It helps that my mom had a dream about my dad [he died in 2006] holding a baby. Maybe it was Uriel. I like to think of them in Heaven together. My dad loved being a Grandpa and I mourned the fact that Gman didn't really get to spend any time with him. I like to think that my dad and Uriel are sitting in Heaven together reading stories and Grandpa is telling Uriel all about his parents and brother and sisters and how much they loved him, even if they never got to met him in person.

I love you, Uriel. I hope to someday meet you face to face, hold you in my arms and smell your baby smell, feel you sleep on my shoulder, feel your little heart beat. All the joys of being your mother that I dream about. Pray for us, that one day your whole family can be with you in Heaven.

My first post

Welcome to my first posting. I don't know how good I will be at doing this. I might go strong for about 2 months and then just quit. I have a habit of doing that. I hope not. Right now I am pondering a bunch of weird stuff. Who decided to add bacteria to milk and then eat it [yogurt]? Or cottage cheese? I mean, I like to eat both things, but if you really think about them they're kind of gross.

So today is the day before Thanksgiving [in the United States]. I wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving. I won't be posting again before next Monday [November 26, 2007].