To All Veterans ~ We Will Never Forget Your Sacrifice!

Working with Project Compassion, Utah artist, Kaziah Hancock paints portraits of fallen soldiers for their families. Hancock considers every soldier she memorializes as one of her adopted sons and daughters. Hancock and others like her in charities like Project Compassion are what makes America great.

Thank you to all the veterans – men and women – who have fought for our country’s freedoms. Your sacrifices will never be forgotten.

God Bless Us Everyone

Nollaig shona duit to all our military men & women who are fighting to protect this country, away from their family & friends. May God keep you safe and bring you home soon.

Remember Jesus is the reason for the season.

Merry Christmas to my all dear friends, Ruth, Erica and John.

A Watershed Thanksgiving

I love the start of the holiday season from Halloween through New Years. Out of all the holidays though, Thanksgiving has always been my favorite. The fragrant, delicious traditions of my mother’s cooking, the memories of colorful televised parades, fire engine Santas waving and throwing candy to children standing in front of their homes, and everyone sitting around afterwards stuffed, watching football. There are so many good memories of Thanksgiving growing up that I can’t help but be grateful as I prepared this year for our family holiday dinner.

Being grateful was always a part of the Grace. “Bless us, O Lord for these thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from thy bounty, through Christ, our Lord. Amen.” As a child, ‘thy gifts’, usually meant the food. As an adult, I understood it to mean, everything we receive is through Christ. With God, everything we receive or experience, good and bad, has important meaning to our lives and the reason for our being. As I cleaned and cooked,

I told God that I am thankful for family. My parents, who created our family and gave us their love, their experiences and memories growing up in two countries during the war, their work ethic, and for their Catholic faith. I learned from my parents how to be a parent. I learned from my brother and sisters what is important in life. I grew up wanting to make my family important. I asked God to keep them close.

I told God thank you for giving me a family of beautiful, healthy children that have grown into smart, responsible, hard-working adults and for their loving spouses who together have brought into this world beautiful and healthy grandchildren. I asked God to be with my children and bless their lives.as they bring up their families responsibly.

I told God thank you for my husband, my rock, my knight in shining armor. Through my husband, I have been blessed with a beautiful stepdaughter and a loving second family, Through him, I know what unconditional love is and that my family is stronger for having him in our lives. I asked God to continue to bless our marriage and show us how to be good examples of love for our children.

I told God that I am thankful for my family overseas, friends here and around the world, my peers, and my enemies. Through their touching my life, I have been blessed with love, support, and strength. I asked God to bless their lives.

I told God that I am thankful for the brave men and women who are fighting and have fought to build and protect this country. I asked God to protect them in their mission and to comfort the families of those who have committed their lives in the ultimate sacrifice of love and duty.

The last three months, surviving cancer, I have been focused on my health. I told God that I am grateful for that health, and for living in the United States of America. I can tell you through my experiences, this country is blessed with the best, most compassionate, most generous doctors, medical scientists, and health care workers in the world. I asked God to bless them as they give unselfishly of their services, ability, knowledge, and time to those in need and in sickness here in the United States and around the world.

This Thanksgiving was a watershed moment in my life, literally in more ways than one. As traumatic as it has been the last three months, every moment and contact has given me insight into the true meaning of love, what really matters, and who will be there for you when it really counts. Thank God that circumstances allow me to be here longer to see our grandchildren grow up, to be there for our children, to experience life with my husband, and the opportunity to strive to protect the future of our country. For my families’ sake.

For that I will celebrate with thanksgiving to God the rest of my days.