GOD SMILES ON ME

Entrusting My Words to the Holy Spirit

Linda Mary Liotino

Lent is my favorite time of the year I need this time to take a good look at myself and see how God and I are doing.  Since Lent falls just after Christmas with a gap of several weeks it is in that gap I am off kilter I am never sure why but it happens every year. Therefore, Lent is my God sent. Prior to Ash Wednesday at least a week or so I begin to look at what I will be doing extra for Lent and I am usually at least since my conversion follow through with the disciplines I set out to do.
This Lent started out that way but I found my focus on the discipline waned early and I was not even praying as I do throughout the year.  It was like I was on a prayer vacation and with God’s blessings.  I did not feel guilty that I was not doing what I promised.  Our Lord had other plans…

I found that although I speak to Our Lord daily since my conversation, the time together began to broaden through no effort of my own it was just happening.  I was pouring my heart out to Him and I knew I had His attention.  There was an air of love felt and understanding that is beyond anything that in our relationship thus far was felt by me although I am sure it was there.  I stop trying to get back on track with Him in my prayers I guess you can say I went with the flow whether I understood that or not my heart and soul certainly did. 

I am disable and have lived a cloistered life for the last ten years because I exiled my life from the world.  My decisions have not served me well and the best way to guard myself from myself is restrict myself.  I could not forgive myself for the shambles of my life and while forgiving everyone else I forgot to forgive myself.  It dawned on me I needed to forgive myself
and it came after these words from a friend when I told him my disability is reversible “Linda, how long are you going to punish yourself.”  It was in hearing these words that I realized
what I was doing imposing a sentence on myself because I felt I needed to punish myself and had not forgiven myself.
I talk to Our Lord and forgave Linda however, Our Lord was not done with me…

I dependent on a walker for ten years, living homebound, sleeping at a 45 degree angle on my back in a
hospital bed, moving from chair to chair without any exercise, weaken my back and coddled the knees to a stiffness that made mobility practically impossible.  I saw myself wheelchair
bound sooner rather than later.  I had long ceased ever seeing more than that possibility before me, however, Our Lord was going to grant me possibilities.  I
began to have a yearning to do more with my life and it tugged at my heart with fierceness.  It was On ..March 16, 2009.. I made a decision to do something about my situation
and started to do stretches and swing my legs to end the stiffness in my knees, rotate my arms and neck and yes even sit ups all are very low pack versions of
the real thing.  My knees snap and cracked, and my back screamed quit but I could not stop because I was seeing
results in a short time.  I stop using the walker and went to my cane and now while in my apartment not depending on the cane either.  I walk at first in a stiff shuffle and then in a matter of days wow I am walking bending my legs and
in just 13 days I am making amazing progress.  The last two days I have begun sleeping flat and today managed to sleep
on my right side for a short time.  WOW I AM IN A MIRACLE ME LINDA MARY LIOTINO…GOD IS SMILING ON ME!

The scope of my possibilities is endless and my life is coming back to me.  I have many things I want to do…Dreams yet fulfilled and injustices yet to be fought.  Doors are opening and I am going through them.  Our Lord has charge over my life a surrendering I make every morning before my feet hit the floor therefore, I move forth knowing that Our Lord can stop
anything that is not in His will for me.  I was told this morning that is how Mother Teresa saw her journey and all she did.  WOW…Me and the Blessed Mother Teresa thinking the same way…what possibilities can that open up to me…

May The Hearts of Jesus and
Mary bless…you!!!!

Dedicated to…Jesus Christ who granted me a blessed miracle and smiles on me…your the best!

PS…Thank you my Blessed Friend for all your prayers…      

Copyright 2009 Linda MaryLiotino

THE CULTURE OF DEATH IS NOT…

Entrusting My Words to the Holy Spirit

Prayers of St. John the Baptist

Linda Mary Liotino

Ash Wednesday 2009

The Culture of Death is not some abstract coined phrase it is a living and breathing concept with a heart and soul.  The Culture of Death is been with us since the fall of man.  It gathers strength and momentum with every passing generation.  We find ourselves moving more and more into this culture, which is gripping society and polluting the minds of its citizens in particular our children.  Unless stop the Culture of Death will consume this world mislead its citizens and leave in its path destruction that will cause immense suffering.  We are on this road now however, nothing evil can win if we ourselves are willing to take up the cross of the Culture of Death and slay it in its tracks.

What is this living and breathing concept surviving on?  It survives and breathes on the blood of the innocent, the discarded deemed by society, the weak and vulnerable,  hate and anger, war, poverty, and in the laws that appeases the appetite of the Culture of Death.  Blood it needs the Culture of Death and blood it receives as society is complacent and lazy about taking up the spiritual arms given to us by God to fight this looming destruction. 

Why is society complacent and lazy because the modern world with all its technology makes it possible for society to put blinders on to truth and reality.  Modern technology for example makes it possible to download news we want to know.  The decline of the printed news, which by sheer force of the front page made us painfully aware of the suffering and injustices of society is becoming obsolete.  Then too we have given power to lawmakers, courts and secular news to dictate what course the world should take and what society should be made to accept.  We choose not to exercise the means afforded us to make the ones dictating this direction to shake in their boots.  The actions of the citizens of this world have rolled over and accept this change with little or no resistance.  The end result is the power of the Culture of Death, which verifies this truth.

Society travails in the suffering from the many injustices in the wake of the Culture of Death and yet except for some society chooses to do nothing.  The power society hold is in its numbers and convictions seemingly neither is being used.  Society chooses to put the power in the hands of those  who live and breath the Culture of Death wondering how did this happen?  The Culture of Death is here because too many “good” men did nothing.  Society complains, moans, groans, and is great at casting blame for the injustices perpetrated by those in power.  Reality of  the matter is those who are to blame is the one you see when you look into a mirror.  The rise to power…comes when compliancy and laziness rules the heart of man and evil walks through the unguarded door. 

C’est la vie

Copyright 2009 Linda Mary Liotino