— 1 —  This Week’s Post:  Fear!  Wow! I received a lot of feedback on this post so it appears that fear is a factor for many of us. Next week I will continue the post from last week and expand on a number of concepts including healing and trust.

— 2 —  Big Week:  Sunday the 19th was our 12th Wedding Anniversary. But! It was also the day that Pope Paul VI joined the ranks of the Blessed.  Blessed Pope Paul VI.  Music to my ears.  Love him.  Have you seen my post about him from 2 years ago?  See #5!

— 3 —  Not Alone Series:   This week’s NAS topic was Let’s Talk About Sex!   All the girls had great things to say about this wonderful topic, including what appears to be a new participant, Meg.  This was my favorite part of Meg’s post:

“And though not every sexual relationship leads to such unfortunate (and sometimes nightmarish) aftermaths, I’ve seen these situations arise often enough to recognize a pattern ~ and so having sex outside of a marriage is a bit of a crapshoot for a woman. 

What’s absent from all these scenarios above is any sense that a woman would be pursued by a man or set on a pedestal.  And I don’t think that it’s unrelated to the sexual nature of these relationships.” 

— 4 — Spotlight On:  This week’s spotlight is a double spotlight.  First, Laura from Life Is Beautiful for her guest interview over at Triple Braided Life.  Loved this:

“God is so good in the way He transforms us and molds us over the years as we learn to surrender to Him and His amazing love. I feel like I struggled more with being single in my early twenties than I do now. I think it was the control freak in me—I had planned on getting married in that time and it just didn’t happen (despite lots of dates and even a broken engagement). As I learned to let go of my perfectionism and instead grow in intimacy with a perfect God, I found more peace, more trust, more contentment in the present moment as well as with His timing for the future.”

Spotlight #2 is on Joan from Everything Is Yours for her meditation on the Feast day of St. John Paul II over at Blessed Is She.  Great job, Joan and Laura!

— 5 —   The Courage of Pope Paul VI:  Did you see Jen Fulwiler’s post about how the courage of Pope Paul VI led her to the Catholic Church?  Oh yes, it was Humanae Vitae! See #2. 

— 6 —   Ephesians 2:15:  Did you notice the reading from Ephesians this week? Do you ever feel divided within yourself and hostile?  Check out how Christ makes us one and through this harmony, comes peace:

“For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken
down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law
of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in
himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might
reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby
killing the hostility.”

—  7 —  Receive:    Did you see Audrey Assad’s new YouTube of her song Receive?  First, read the lyrics, then enjoy her beautiful voice.  

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