Friday, December 19, 2008

Prayers for Emilie

Every now and again I have asked you to pray for another Catholic writer and mom named Emilie. I link to her wonderful blog, lemmondrops, over in the left column of this blog page. Emilie has cancer, and she is now in hospice care and facing the final chapter of her life. Please go to her blog by clicking HERE and read her post, and, if you have time, follow her link to her most recent column on finding light in the darkness of Advent.

I am awed and amazed by Emilie and her faith and her will to live even while she is dying. I don't know why it has to be this way. Why she has to leave her two young sons and her husband. Why someone who has so much to teach the rest of us would be taken so young. This is one of those things that leaves me asking the big questions. I don't know Emilie personally. I know her only through her blog, and yet I feel connected to her and inspired by her. I don't know how she's managed to remain so positive throughout her incredibly difficult ordeal. She was handed something that none of us want to face and all of us fear, and yet she has done it with grace under pressure.

Tonight, when I am feeling crushed under the weight of minor problems, I think of Emilie and wonder how I can be so easily beaten down when someone else can muster up so much courage in the face of such suffering. Please pray for Emilie and her husband and children this weekend, and then go give your children a hug.

6 comments:

Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle said...

Mary,

Thank you for posting this. My prayers are going out for Emilie and her family.

God bless,
Donna

Anonymous said...

hi Mary. You turned me on to Emilie's blog awhile back and I've been attached to it since. This morning, after reading her blog and yours, I'm quite amazed at the sadness I can feel for someone I've never met. ANd I'm just angry that it's happening to her. No doubt there are lessons here...I'll find them eventually.
- Jean

Roxane B. Salonen said...

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that I am with you in prayer and thought regarding Emilie. So much of what you shared in your post were words I could have said, too. We'll grieve the letting-go of our writer-mother-spiritual friend together, even if from afar.
Roxane (Peace Garden Mama: www.roxanesalonen.blogspot.com)

Christina said...

Mary,
Thanks for lifting up this prayer intention. The blogosphere can do many wonderful things, like eliciting genuine compassion among people who have never met (i.e. Jean) and functioning as a swift prayer chain is one of its greatest traits.
I know Emilie personally and it's true that she is amazing and that it seems woefully wrong for her to go so soon. I know she has so much more to write and teach us.
Christina

Sharon said...

Mary, I have been reading your blog for sometime. Always find inspiriation by your kind words. Please be assured of my prayers for you! Know words will really easy the difficult moment now. Keep the faith and Merry Christmas to you and your family.

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