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My 1st Book Review: In this week’s blog post, I shared with you a book review of Katie Hartfiel’s book, Woman In Love: Redefine The Journey Toward Your Husband To Be. Go here to read my review of this wonderful book!
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Brokenhearted: I was blessed to spend time with my friend, Carolyn, this past weekend and it reminded me of the wise advice she once gave me after she read my book. As a favor to me, she read it and provided valuable feedback.
One concern I had about the book is that some of my advice would appear to be ‘snarky.’ One hazard of providing advice about Chastity is coming off as a kind of ‘know it all.’ In order to prevent this from happening, Carolyn’s advice to me was to approach each chapter “as if I am talking to a brokenhearted girl over coffee.”
My hope is that this blog is providing both wisdom and hope and that I am bringing you the truth about Chastity in a way that heals. Please know that when I write, I try to picture you, a brokenhearted girl, sitting across from me. I also picture myself as that brokenhearted girl and try to share with you the insights that would have helped me during my single years.
May the Lord use me to encourage you. Most of all, may the Lord by glorified!
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Scrooge: Gregg and I have a tradition of watching this classic every Christmas with a bottle of wine. We are convinced that the 1970 version of the movie with Albert Finney is the only one worth watching. We watched it last Friday night. Watching it prepared my soul for the Sacrament of Confession which I received the next day. It helped me recognize the many links in my chain!
“…I am alive! I’ve got a chance to change and I will not be the man I was. I will begin again, I will build my life. I will live to know that I fulfilled my life. I will begin today and throw away the past. And, the future I build will be something that will last…”
Ebenezer Scrooge
May we all be inspired to change, to begin again and build our future on something that will last!
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Crowded Mass: We spent Christmas with my family and everyone reported on how crowded Mass was at their church. Some might see the crowds as a great inconvenience but I think the crowds are beautiful. Sure, sure, there are folks who only come to Mass on Christmas. But, won’t it be sad if there is ever a day that they choose instead to stay away?
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The Hobbit: Saw it. Hated it. Way too violent. Nothing spiritual other than in the very small role for my favorite character, Sméagol/Gollum and his Precious. He is the only one I enjoy in this movie or in the trilogy…which may tell you something.
Anyway, about half way through the 3 hour movie, I got up to use the rest room. I could have very easily started to weep once I was away from all the violence, gore, blatant disrespect for property, frightful scenes, creepy people, dirty fingernails and unbrushed teeth. Zero stars from me. Everyone else in my party loved it. Sigh.
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Previews: When we went to see The Hobbit, there was a full 30 minutes of previews before the actual movie started. Violent, violent, violent previews! It is as if the ‘creative’ world can only tap into one thing ~ destruction. You see, in our house, everything we watch is recorded on DVR. NFL football is the only thing that comes close to being violent and we fast forward through all the commercials. So, I am not used to it….especially 30 minutes of hard-core, in your face violence. I had to either close my eyes or look away.
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Meg Hunter-Kilmer: Our Church is hosting an all-night event for our youth tonight filled with fun, Eucharistic Adoration, Mass, basketball, games, movies and spiritual talks by Meg Hunter-Kilmer. I am so excited to welcome Meg to our church! She will talk to our youth about several topics including ‘The New Evangelization.’ She will be visiting my family and me before and after the event and we are very excited to meet her! I will report out on her visit next week!
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The Veil of Chastity 
I totally understand about #2. I was actually just reflecting back on the just the other day. I used to do speak at a lot of retreats, confirmations classes, youth groups, etc. to talk to my “peers” or a little bit younger about chastity. In hindsight, I am sure there were times where I must have appeared “overconfident”. My personal testimony and story of redemption always seem to speak to them more. I suggest a lot of Leslie Ludy’s books. She is not Catholic but she definitely has a gift of speaking to the feminine heart. I learned a lot from her.
Hi Jiza! Thank you for visiting and for your comment. Trying to strike the right balance is challenging for sure. God bless you, Cindy
I can’t wait–to speak or to meet you guys!
Hi Meg! See you soon! Looking forward to it! Cindy
My husband wanted to take our two older boys (12 & 11) to see The Hobbit but we keep hearing about the violent content so we’ll probably pass. Even my hubby’s coworker (who has no problems taking his son to those types of movies) said that it was violent. The kids were looking forward to it, sigh…
Hi Amy! I am ashamed to say that we took our almost 8 year old and, other than the violent previews, he did fine. We had to cover his eyes during some scenes. He has been watching The Lord of the Rings since he was two, so we figured it would be okay. But, The Hobbit, to me, was just too over the top with violence. I still regret taking him. I just think that all that violence desensitizes them to it and the mind should be protected from it. Thank you for visiting and for your comment! God bless you! Cindy