The message of Hope, Love & Compassion

Wow!!! what a weekend is was for me. Coming back from the Cursillo women's retreat I realized so much more of the plan that God has for me. I witnessed God in his fullness these past four days from Thursday to Sunday. As I am not allowed to go into full detail of what took place this weekend, I can just really say that "God is Love" and "Love is what I saw this weekend, an enormous amount of Love.

Love among people I know and love among complete strangers. You may ask yourselves how can you love a person that you have never met. Well, as I can't really put it into words because it is and continues to be very overwhelming for me to explain, I saw it this weekend. I witness the true message of the Gospel, "God is Love" and you can truly love someone you've never met. I firmly believe that he allowed me to see this very love because it will be the same love that I will feel the moment that chinese Ayi hands over our daughter and they say to her here is your mama and baba. I can't wait to hold you in my arms, my precious one and I promise to show you the very same love that God our Father has shown me. Until then I continue to pray my baby, that you are loved and that you know how to love back.

On this note, I want to take this time to thank each and everyone one of you that send me a palanca letter. Thank you for your kind, encouraging words and for your special prayers and offerings that you did for me while I was on retreat. The prayers were heard LOUD AND CLEAR and I felt them as well. Below I will give you a brief description of what Palanca means: let me explain.

Palanca: The prayers and sacrifices which our offered to God to obtain something. The word Palanca is a Spanish word meaning "lever". Just as a lever allows a person to move things which are beyond his / her strength, prayer and sacrifices allow an apostle to accomplish more than he/she would be capable of achieving.

God Bless and may the peace of the Lord bless you today and always.

I am thanking you right now

Dear GOD:

I want to thank You for what you have already done. I am not going to wait until I see results or receive rewards; I am thanking you right now. I am not going to wait until I feel better or things look better; I am thanking you right now. I am not going to wait until people say they are sorry or until they stop talking about me; I am thanking you right now. I am not going to wait until the pain in my body disappears ; I am thanking you right now. I am not going to wait until my financial situation improves; I am going to thank you right now. I am not going to wait until the house is quiet; I am going to thank you right now. I am not going to wait until I get promoted at work or until I get the job; I am going to thank you right now. I am not going to wait until I understand every experience in my life that has caused me pain or grief; I am thanking you right now. I am not going to wait until the journey gets easier or the challenges are removed; I am thanking you right now. I am thanking you because I am alive. I am thanking you because I made it through the day's difficulties. I am thanking you because I have walked around the obstacles................

I am thanking you because I have the ability and the opportunity to do more and do better. I'm thanking you because FATHER, YOU haven't given up on me.

God is just so good, and he's good all the time.

When God Broke me down

So here we are ?? - What then happened from August 2003 - Oct 22, 2004.

Herb and I along with some other wonderful people are very involved in our church youth group. We belong to this incredible ministry called "Life Teen" and the mission of this ministry is to Lead Teens Closer to Christ. Well, as most leaders do - we were scheduled to go to a Life Teen Core weekend retreat. I knew in my heart that I wanted to attend this retreat and that I needed it now more than ever. As I felt very alone in my walk, confused, angry and bitter. I was not sure what was going to happen at this retreat. As when you walk with the Lord there are always surprises. I did not want any more surprises and I was very scared at what the Lord had in store for me. Now keep in mind that we lost Baby Emmanuel 14th months prior. We ended up at the retreat October 22nd, 2004 (this was our due date for Baby Emmanuel). The weekend started off late Friday afternnoon and it ended on Sunday. I had gotten to the retreat house that Friday pretty early - a few of us were there earlier and we had gone to be able to pray for one another and for the rest of the core members that were going to attend.

Well when I tell you that there was so much healing that was done. Not only with myself but also with my relationship with other friends and family. On Sunday we were affirming one another before the sessions were over and it's almost like God entered my soul and took over. I have never ever ever cried so much like I cried that Sunday. (For those of you that don' t know this crying in the sprititual realm of life is the first signs of healing and cleansing). And then, it was Herb's turn to begin to affirm others and he broke down completely as well. This was a huge break thru not only for him but also in our marriage. As he mentioned so many things that I was not aware of. He always felt like he had to be the stronger one to give me the support to get thru this trial with losing the baby, but little did he know that we are all called to draw our inner strength from the Lord and not from one another. When I explained this to him as all 20 core members were in tears, it was almost like a 1000 pound brick was lifted from his spirit and so the brick was also lifted from my spirit.

For the first time in 15mths, I felt alive again. God had truly healed me and had finally removed the veil from my eyes to be able to see and live again. He is truly our Lord and Savior in all aspects of our life.

We concluded our retreat and headed to mass, and all Core Members were emotionally drained for the experience that we had just endured. It was not until I had gotten home later that evening that I called my sister to tell her about my retreat and about my healing experience. I was so blessed to be able to tell her everything that I had been feeling inside and I must have asked her for forgiveness 100 times. I knew that I had to receive forgiveness from her so that we could begin our sister to sister relationship all over again and I must say that day was the beginning of my new life with her. I love you soooo much, thank you for being a blessing in my life.

My sister gave us a card that I wanted to share on Isabella's journal and this is what it said

" Someone's watching over you with the greatest love. Someone wants you to be happy, safe and secure. Someone considers you a wonderful individual and cares about your needs. Someone's making blessings for your benefit right now like sunshine for those rainy days and rainbows to remind you of the promise up ahead. Someone's watching over you especially today. I know .... because I've asked the Lord to take good care of you" that's what the card said and this is what she wrote:

"Ily and Herb remember how the world was drowning around Noah ? And do you remember how his faith brought him to a beautiful rainbow. In October (which was supposedly the due date for Baby Emmanuel) your faith is going to lead you to a beautiful rainbow and he shall be named Emmanuel".

God Bless ! All my love, Munny

Well here we are three years later and my sister was right. In October my faith did lead us to a beautiful rainbow and his name is Emmanuel meaning God is with us and indeed he was. May his grace continue to shower upon us.

For those of you that read this, if you ever find yourself in a situation that you are in non -speaking terms with someone in your family. Please I pray that you don't allow the enemy to continue to poison you with his evilness. God always prevails if we give him our battles, don't hesistate on knowing this. This is the truth and there is alot of wisdom in scripture when it says "The truth will set you free" because it did it for me.

God Bless and remember:

"God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it." 1 Corinthians 10:13

My 15th month journey in the desert

Pronunciation –noun Desert: emphasizes the difficulty of finding one's way, any place lacking in something.

I start off on this part of my journal with the definition of what desert means because that was pretty much what I had been experiencing during my 15th month walk in the desert.

Reflecting on what this means, I can really say that this 15th month walk was one that I did not enjoy very much. I wasn't myself at all, I was flustered with alot of mixed emotions and at times even took it out on the most important people in my life.

One of those important people was my son Anthony. One time things got so crazy at home with my emotions that I even had him go and stay with my sister and brother in law for about 2-3 weeks. There was no doubt that during this time, I grew spiritually more and more and my relationship with my son grew as well. The Lord allowed me to see into his world, the void that he continues to carry in his heart regarding the loss of his biological mother and at the same time unveil my eyes to realize that I was grieving more than ever for the loss that we had with Baby Emmanuel. It was almost as if the Lord had intertwined our two hearts together to experience that one loss (his biological mother and my biological son) and then tied our hearts together again in a knot to unite us a mother and child again. I remember having this conversation with him at a nearby park while he was still staying with my sister. And I want to thank my sister and Scott for being there for us during this difficult time.

Another important person in my life that I took out my innermost emotions on was my wonderful sister. You see when I was struggling with the infertility and finally got pregnant, my sister and I became very close, even though at the time she was living in the East coast. She was extremely supportive during the entire trial that we were up against. Well, what happened with our relationship is that upon losing our baby, she and Scott were moved to adopt their own child. Again, I honestly must say that I was flustered with upsetting emotions and feelings that I had no control over (and honestly I feel that Satan took advantage of my emotions to drown me even more in my sorrows). I had the worse feelings of resentment towards my sister and my brother in law, because I felt that "How dare they want to adopt a child after we just lost our baby"? Looking back at this now, I can see that I was very selfish but at the same time, I was consumed with my own grieving. This feeling of resentment controlled my relationship with my sister and her hubby for 3 long years. Can you imagine? Three years of one's life taken away with feelings of resentment, jealousy, envious, anger, self-pity, hopelessness, self-doubt and I can go on and on, but you all get the drift right ???? These emotions pretty much rocked my world and it was not a happy time for me. Believe me, those of you that are close to me know what I went through, and I thank you for your support during that time. You know who you are. Needless to say, months kept going by and I kept speaking to my sister less and less. She had already begun her adoption process with Belarus at the time and the less I knew about it, the better off I was, or at least I thought.

When it came to the rest of my family and friends, I guess I was alright but I was very cautious as to who I would share my real feelings with. It was almost as if I was living in a dark cloud and not sure who or what was happening. There was no clarity, and I was just living for the moment. I did not care about anything or anyone at the time. Many, many times I cried myself to sleep, asking our good Lord to come and rescue me, but It was as though I needed to be where I was for the sake of my spiritual growth because he was healing me but not as fast as I wanted to be healed.

Believe me, when you are going through tough times of trials an tribulations, trust GOD that you are where He wants you to be. That was a lesson that I learned very quickly.


When was my final breakdown ????? Stay tuned coming up soon.

The birth of Baby Emmanuel

My journal between the time that I got pregnant thru invitro-fertilization and the present is quite an amazing story. Please note that I will be very honest in all of my journaling, the only reason why I chose to tell my story over and over again is to give God all the honor and glory for what he has done in our lives and also because it is in telling my story that I can continue to recieve his mercy and healings from the heavens above. So here we go again .....

During the entire complications, as I mentioned before we were in and out of specialist. Well July 2003 I was already close to 7mths pregnant. Our baby was very active and I felt him moving almost all the time. He had his own little personality that I his momma already knew., Oh how I was looking forward to spending the rest of my life with this little one. But in the later part of the month of July, I remember Herb was having knee surgery in the hospital, and his mom and my mom were with me waiting for Herb to come out of surgery. I started to feel concerned because I was not feeling the baby as much as he should have been moving. I mentioned this to my mom and my mother in law and we laughed it off as if maybe he was just tired. Well, this day was on a Wednesday, on Friday we were scheduled to go to the East Coast. It was my sister's 40th birthday weekend. I figured since we would be in Miami, and the better doctor's are over there, I would make an appointment to meet with a set of specialist and get a second opinion on all of our complications. Well the people that went with us was my sister, my mother in law, my hubby Herb and of course my self. I remember this day like it was yesterday. After waiting a while they finally called us into the room, they were getting me ready to do an ultrasound and they did. Well then, those words that no pregnant woman ever wants to hear came out of this nurse's mouth and it sounded something like this. "I'm sorry mam, I don't hear your baby's heartbeat", and as mystical as this may sound, it seemed like the moment had just gone into very SLOW, SLOW motion, I faintly heard the cries coming from my mother in law, my sister's eyes swelled up (poor thing) and my hubby's face was like "what a horror!- and he had turned white". BUT YET, this amazing feeling of peace, covered my entire being. I can't quite say the human feeling that I felt but I did know that the good Lord was with me, because the peace that I was annointed with that very moment was not a man made feeling. The nurse just kept saying "I am sorry, I am so sorry". and I just keep saying it's ok, it will all be ok and I knew that my mission was to make sure that everyone else can feel what I was feeling at the time. That incredible sense of peace flowing from the balconies of heaven.

Well while all of this was going on, we got in the car and I called my doctor in Ft Myers, to let him know what had happened and he asked me how I felt and I told him that I was ok and he said well you can either come back to Ft Myers and we can handle this now or you can wait for the weekend to be over and come to our offices on Monday 1st thing in the morning. He also advised to do this if I was feeling ok and I pretty much did feel ok ( but the real reason was that I had planned a 40th surprise party for my sister the following day and I did not want to cancel this party because of the circumstances that were occuring). I then called my mom who at the time lived in the east coast to let her know what had just happened as well. I said please call some of your prayer warriors and ask them if they can come to your house and pray over me some time tonight. And as all prayer warriors act, shortly after getting to their house they were all there waiting for me to just sit with me and pray. The presence of the Holy Spririt was sooo intense that I honestly felt that everything was going to be ok. Well, all of this occured on Friday, we had my sister's surprise party on saturday and I danced and sang like there was no tommorrow, we had alot of fun at her party and then sunday came and went. I remember laying in bed with my hubby and telling him Next Friday will be here sooner than we think. (Not that anything special was going on next Friday but it was just a time thing, that everything will soon pass).

On Sunday afternoon, we (literraly the entire family) began to head west bound towards Ft Myers, we had the appointment with my doctor in the morning at 9:00am. I remember driving to the hospital with 3 cars behind us and walking towards the hospital, it felt like God's Army was about to take over and indeed we did. Herb and I went in to see the doctor and they too did an ultrasound and they too confirmed that our baby had died. I asked the doctor, " ok then, what do we do now?" Well, there was not much of an option, we had to get the baby out from inside me almost immediately because then my health could be jeopardized. We waitied for a few minutes until they could get me a room in the maternity ward and off we were to deliver this little guy. Later on, I was told that they put me in a room all the way in the back away from other women giving birth because they did not want me to hear the cries of other babies being born. I remember asking a friend of mine if she had any Cristian CD's in her car and she said she did - the hospital accomodated us with a CD player and during the whole time we were playing Christian music and praising and worshiping our GREAT GOD. Words would not justify what took place that day in the hospital but what I do know is that I got a glimpse of what heaven will be like some day and it was just like that. My family and friends, that were there that day were the angels in disguise singing with me and praising our GOD like they do in heaven.

During the time that I had to give birth to our precious angel Baby Emmanuel - I felt the most amazing peace that I knew deep down in my heart was something that was not man made, the feelings that I was going thru, was coming from a divine source, a source that I have come to know in a very deep way, a spiritual way. Our God has been that divine power and light that has continued to move me to where I stand right now in my life and for that trial, I am so grateful. I am grateful that God used my body and baby Emmanuel to do great things in our life thereafter. Many lives were touched and there is no doubt that in itself was it's mission.

Come into my world

I just wanted to introduce myself to everyone and give you all a taste of my world. My husband and I met in college. We dated for a year and a half before he proposed and we then entered the beautiful sacrament of marriage. After being married for alittle over a year, my nephew Anthony (who is now our adopted son) came into our life. You see, Anthony is the son of my brother and his biological mother passed away when he was 3 yrs of age. My brother (he is the one on the above picture standing in the middle between my hubby and I ) was left being a single dad. After some time, my brother realized that we could give Anthony a better life than what he could possible give to him at that time. Anthony then came to live with us when he was five years of age. Little did we know that our Great God was already at work in our lives without us even knowing what his plans were.


After battling infertility for a long long time, we decided to take the route of Invitro-fertilization. January 2003, after alot of shots, and alot of time with specialist, we got the call that we were finally pregnant. We were thrilled. It was such a blessing of our GOD, for I knew that he created alittle miracle in my womb. During the pregnancy, we endured lots of complications and we were told that our baby could have Down Syndrome and we believed firmly that if our GOD would send us our baby with down syndrome then that would be his will and all we wanted was for his will to be done in our lives. And then, August 5th, 2003 came and it was known to us that our precious miracle had passed away in my womb. Through much prayer and healing, I gave birth to our stillborn precious angel of ours, he was 2lbs, 10 ounces and 16' long at 7 1/2 months. It was a bitter sweet situation but not once did I ever doubt that GOD's plan was not being done. After a couple of days of this happening, we found that our son Baby Emmanuel as we called him did pass away of complications with Down Syndrome. Please follow us on my next post - three years later 2006.