Are you there God? It's me, Lisa. Chapter 2

Hi there,
If you can hear me, I need your help again. I can feel the pot starting to simmer and I don't want any of us to get burned. So I hope you'll help guide us away from the ugly vibe I can sense. In other words, make sure that we don't let ourselves boil over the edge.

Sometimes we can all take it too seriously and get caught up in the excitement, forgetting the what matters most. I know we're not the only ones, but it can be so frustrating and all of us end up feeling miserable.

We remember our own parents telling us that life isn't always fun or fair. Now, today, we find ourselves delivering this same "reality check" speech. Yet somehow our message fails to ease the disappointment and can actually fan the flames of self-pity.

Dreams, especially those of children, can often outweigh the scale of reality. But without the dream, many of us would never venture outside our comfort zone. Failure, even by the smallest of margins, must not diminish the glory of the effort.

The lesson we want the boys to learn is that most of us fail before we succeed, and all of us have felt disappointment along the way. Yet it is how one faces defeat that is the true measure of character.

So please, God, whisper in our ear (or shout if we don't hear you the first couple times) how to effectively teach our sons the value of grace & dignity, and how we can soothe the inevitable wounds of despair.

My Wish for the Wall

Another one of my posts that I originally published on "MySpace". I wanted to share it with all of you. By the way... Happy Valentine's Day, friends. May your heart feel love & joy throughout the year.

I had never heard of the wishing wall in Israel until today. One of my co-workers is taking a trip to Israel and she asked me if I wanted to give her a wish for the wall. Evidently when you go to this sacred place, people write down their deepest desires, hopes, prayers and/or dreams on bits of paper, then stick them into a crack in the wall. It is believed that the wall is sacred and blessed, therefore your wish is believed to have miraculous power to come true. So although I was at work, I gave it a bit of thought and came up with this wish:

My deepest wish is that my family and children experience a long healthy life accentuated with peace, love, joy, harmony, prosperity, forgiveness, poise, loyalty and perseverance.

May they live unselfishly in the process of making a positive impact, change or difference on society and the world.

So that's my wish. I hope it, even remotely, comes true. I know about 10 years ago, that wish would have been much much different than it is today because I didn't have children then. I probably would have wished for enormous wealth and celebrity. But money and fame are no longer priorities on my list anymore. I am comfortable with the person I am without those. My children and my family are my main focus now. If I had to sacrifice everything for their happiness and health, I would do so without hesitation. The power of a mother's love is incomprehensible and invincible. And I know that I am a more successful woman today as a part-time grocery clerk & full-time wife and mother than Oprah will ever be, because I have touched the lives of my own flesh & blood.