My Name is Victoria or commonly known as Vic

Hi, I have been lurking in the shadows for the past month or so getting a feel out for this blog before I posted on it, I am excited to say that I am part of this lovely and inspirational blog and I plan to post a little more frequently. I wanted to write up a little bio about myself before I got started with posting.

I have had Lyme disease since 2005 and it attacked my Central Nervous System, causing a seizure disorder and many cognitive problems. I home schooled myself for my Sophomore and Junior years of high school between many hospital stays and organized a Lyme disease Awareness walk this past year with a friend. This disease has taught me a lot about personal limits and knowing when enough is enough. I have been hospitalized a lot and learned quite a bit about the "real world". In April I am hoping to start driving again and hoping to be seizure free up until then. It will be a huge milestone for me as I hit my 18th birthday February 4th. So I look forward to posting here, I am 17, a Senior in High school and waiting to here back from colleges I applied to!

Happy New Year!

Luke 2:12-20

This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

May your Christmas Day be filled with Blessings!

A Christmas Full of Miracles

"I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the wonderful future he has promised to those he called. I want you to realize what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people.I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him.
Ephesians 1:18-19 NLT

There are those that have a hard time believing in Jesus Christ because they haven't seen him at work in their lives; because they want actual proof and not just living by their faith. I am here to tell you, I have witnessed a miracle, a true, honest to Jesus Christ, miracle.
For those who follow my other blogs, I have talked about my friend Jess' daughter Tuesday very often and her fight with stage 4 cancer. From the moment I heard that Tuesday was diagnosed, I knew in my heart that this child, this tiny little two year old, would beat cancer, even with the odds stacked so high against her.
Her body was filled with cancer, literally everywhere and more than once, little Tuesday's fight was nearly lost. But, somehow, this little child brought faith to places where there wasn't faith before. She got people to pray that hadn't prayed in many years. She got complete strangers to pray for her, donate to her, talk about her.... This child inspired.
For those who were able to spend time with her while she has endured her treatments, they found peace in her presence. They felt God's warmth and knew they were beholding a miracle occurring.
Tuesday's cancer is GONE!
This little child who was given a very minimal amount of hope, has become the meaning of HOPE. Her body is free of all cancer.
FREE.
It wasn't medicine that freed Tuesday of disease, even her doctors are stumped and calling her a miracle. It was prayer and faith.
So, this Christmas...
BELIEVE.
KNOW.
TRUST.
HAVE FAITH.
He is here and He is real.

Christmas Isn't Christmas

Until you feel it in your heart. That is what the children's choir sang at church today. My gosh, how true is that. Even those of us with the best intentions still get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season. We all know it is way too commercialized. I think many people need to be reminded about the spirit of Christmas, myself included. When those children were singing that lovely song, though, my head was spinning. How true that song rang. You can give and get many many presents and still not feel it in your heart. I know when I am shopping and stressed out I am definitely not feeling the true meaning of Christmas. I vowed that when I got home, I would focus on the true spirit of Christmas. I want to feel it in my heart and I want my children to feel it in theirs. One of my boys class has sponsored a needy family and of course I made sure that he contributed. I think though tonight, as a family , we will all contribute to this family. I will get the older kids to get involved. We'll make cards and go shopping and decorate some boxes to put the gifts in. Focus on something other than our own needs for once.
As always, we need to remind ourselves that Jesus is the reason for the season.

"Let us now go even unto Bethlehem,
and see this thing which is come to pass,
which the Lord hath made known unto us"
LUKE: 2:15

When Life Is Difficult, God Is Rock Solid

Everyone has had difficult times, disapoinments, worries, anxieties, stresses and loss. We may often feel that God has forgotten us. I am here to tell you in this post today, that He never forgets you. When you take one day at a time and you are not focussing on the worries, the stresses, you will open your eyes to all the beautiful blessings that have come your way. Sometimes our anxieties get in the way and we can not see how truly blessed we are. When we wait upon God to do His work instead of trying to resolve what we are going through quickly, we will find that the anxieties and frustrations we have will begin to fade. We need to remember what the bible tells us
*wait upon God in prayer
*wait upon God with patience...(this is hardest for me)
*wait upon God with trust
*wait upon God for His guidance
That doesn't' mean you have to just forget about everything and wait passively for God to take over. It means, you wait righteously, you wait joyously and you wait actively. Show Him you trust in him. I have a story I will share with you. I am a foster mom, and we had a beautiful baby placed with us when she was only 3 days old. When she was 11 months, she left us to be with her forever family. I was so angry with God. I yelled at Him, I doubted His existence. I said, "Lord, how could you take her away, when we love her so". I even asked for a sign of His existence. Fast forward a year later, almost a year to the day that baby "T" left us, we had not one but two precious babies placed with us. Not through foster care, but that is a different story.
I truly believe God knew these two children would need a home, and He knew if we had baby "T" there would be no way we would have been able to open up our hearts and our home to these babies. It took a full year. I did not always wait with trust or patience. However I never gave up praying. Does that take my hurt away from losing "T". No , absolutely not, but I believe that I needed to go through that. God has his reasons.
" Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield"
Psalm 33:20

He Hears Your Cry

I must say I am honoured to be apart of such an inspirational blog. I too am very similar to Debi, in that I didn't talk about my faith , I just have faith. Yes, there are times where I have walked away, angry with God. Still I knew I must believe, I am angry at Him after all. So therefore He must exist. Born and raised a Catholic, I married a Catholic man, had a Catholic wedding and raised my children catholic. Now, I must admit I was one of those catholic that only went to church on special occasions. Not because I didn't want to, but because I didn't feel like I belonged. I felt like an outsider. I didn't feel accepted. I remember feeling that way even when I was a child. It was lent and my sister and I had collected money for the needy. So we went to church without our parents on Palm Sunday to hand in our money and to attend mass. The church was packed and there was no place to sit. Not one grown up got up and offered us a seat. I don't even think a grown up had even acknowledged us. I left feeling sad and lonely, and I cried on the way home. I knew that was not what Jesus would want. I didn't' give up. I volunteered in the nursery and attended the early mass when I was a youth and still didn't get that feeling that I belonged.
I went to the very same church my parents had me baptized at and yet I felt no connection. I got married in that church and had my own babies baptized there. I felt like there must be something wrong with me. I mean, how can so many people be at the church and only I have issues. I began bringing my foster children to church. During Advent , I had dropped one little guy off at the children's liturgy, when it was time for the children to come down to be with their parents, I couldn't' get to him in time, as the pews were packed shoulder to shoulder with people and I did not want to crawl over them. So he sat with the volunteers until after communion. When I went to get him , he was quite upset, but was very happy to see me. I apologized profusely to the woman with whom he was sitting with but she snarled at me and was quite rude. I left the service upset and confused. My faith was faltering. I could feel it, and yet I felt there was nothing I could do. I became with drawn from the church for awhile again. I spoke with the priest about this lady's rudeness and he was extremely apologetic. I still stayed away. But as always, I felt God's tug , and went again. This time with new children in tow. Now I totally understand that mass is meant to be heard, and I realize how disrupting it can be when children misbehave. I am always on top of my children and when they get antsy I do bring them into the "cry room". Well one particular Sunday, Joey was not misbehaving. He was playing with a car, but I didn't feel he was overly loud or disruptive, however an usher kept giving me the look. He finally told me to take Joey out in the back room. He then followed us in and called him a bad boy. I was furious! How could he be so rude. I stayed for the rest of the service and cried . A woman usher who had observed came over to us and apologized for the gentleman and used the excuse , he was old school. This time I stayed away from the church even longer. I did have both of my foster children baptized there , but did not attend mass on a regular basis, again becoming one of those catholics. I felt unfilled spiritually. I prayed in the privacy of my home and still as always had my faith. However I was feeling very upset with the Lord. I picked up my book, One Minute Promises of Comfort, and came to a passage that just hit home.
This is what it said: He Hears Your Cry
Because God is the living God, he can hear;
because God is a loving God, he will hear;
because he is our covenant God,
He has bound himself to hear.
because he is a loving God, He will hear;
C.H. SPURGEON
Well that really made sense to me. How can I possibly give up on Him. He has been listening to me all along. Why else was I still being pulled to Him. Why? Because he heard me cry.

Word to Live By

I have found that in my life, my faith has gone through many phases and the older I become, the more in tune I tend to be with myself spiritually. I wasn't always so outspoken about my faith, but rather one to just quietly attend church, sit toward the back, pay my offering, collect the kids and head home. But, somewhere after the attacks on 9/11, I found myself and found Christ waiting for me.

I didn't just say I was going to change.

I changed.

I became involved in my church, volunteering any way and everywhere I could. At first, I think I was just trying to replace the hole in my heart that I felt after realizing the massive flaws in humanity, but somewhere in my volunteering and teaching at church, a real internal change came over me.

I can almost mark the day it happened, or atleast the event. I had become the youth leader in our church and was having a youth group meeting with a rowdy bunch of 4th, 5th and 6th graders (as well as all of my children). Myself and the other leaders decided to show a movie to the kids called Facing The Giants. None of us had ever seen it before, but we had heard great reviews from the local Christian book store.

So, we sat down to watch it with the kids, a room full of them, munching away on popcorn, & the leaders trying to hush them so we could all hear... and suddenly, the room was quiet.

For the entire movie.

Silence.

We were captured in this story.

Moved.

The entire room full of adults and kids were inspired.

When the movie ended, everyone was crying, even 13 year old boys. We all openly wept and talked and prayed on what we had just seen and felt.

The message in the movie...Nothing is impossible with God.

Those 5 words have become the words I live by.

If ever I am feeling doubtful about anything life throws my way, I know I can open the bible to Luke and find comfort.

And, if ever my kids see me or one of their siblings faltering in faith, we watch Facing the Giants together and it binds us together through inspiration & knowing that truly nothing is impossible with God.