Faithful and True chekopeva Real and Tru...'s blog: "Cheryl's"

Last yr this time I had a job and my kids all together.

In Nov the younger ones dad tried to take me to court for full custody, I won but he got unsurpervised visits. Some already knows the situation and do know that he has a bad history of mental and physical abuse towards me and the kids and is using drugs and an alcoholic with a heart desease.

Then in Jan. they stopped a massive stroke when my oldest boy took me to the ER because I had a severe headache and throwing up everywhere. I did have a full time job, not much but had the bills paid and was able for once in my life to go on a trip alone and get some RR (never been seperated and had kids all of my adult life to take care of) Met some wonderful and loving people.

Lost a good friend do to some drama that happened too. In March my, then, 7yr old cussed me out one day and I pulled his pants down and spanked his butt for it. The next morning (worked 3rd) I came home and 2 hrs later the dfs and cops was at my door saying I sent him to school with a fresh mark on his face, I hadn't seen him in 10yrs. They had also told me that the babysitter signed a statement saying I did it and regularly beat him, which is a lie. I then was thrown across the room and cuffed and spent 4 days in jail with a felony charge and had the younger kids taken.  Was sent to this class that taught that spankings is alright and go to all appts and everything they asked of me and still not good enough.

I lost my job because of everything and my insurance and still fighting to get the charges dropped and my kids back.  Not easy finding work when you have felony charges and the only work I could find is one day a month at 7 bucks an hr 35mls away.

It's christmas now and here we are seperated and being told that I am depressed, weill tell me how I am supposed to feel right now. I have one kid here out of 4 and my oldest is bringing the grandchildren which I haven't seen in many months. I love all of my kids dearly and at times I do feel I don't exist. I don't know how he got the mark but do know that I didn't do it and that I want my kids back.

If I seem moody or not there this is why, I am depressed and frustrated and missing my kids.

For the past week I have been dealing with alot of real life drama. My Son's Girlfriend here and feeding the kids sugar behind my back and trying to take over my house and playing the cry baby bullshit game and feeding my kids sugar in everything they eat and then bitching about how rotten they are. My X is trying to give me orders and demands again and the Kicker. My Closest friend in the world had gone offline about 4 or 5 months ago and no word and another friend telling me things that I had recently found out alot of lies and I am feeling like a major fool and ass over it and trying to apologize and nothing. Plus my Sister has been calling when it's time for me to take the kids to her house for the night so I can go to work. Saying shit like I ruined her life and playing games. She just called screaming at me for it and saying she is not babysitting again tonight and my Son says he don't want to. I am so tired of the games and everything here and even though I hate it here with a passion and sick of it all, I have no choice. I want to scream and hit a wall and just want to crawl in bed and give up and cry my eyes out because all of it is coming to a head and I am feeling out of control

For the Dear Loved ones of the Fallen Ones that will never Know.

"Gardeners of the Spirit": Something in us hungers to be reconnected to the Earth like Black Elk was. Something in us yearns to find the "living presence," to feel enveloped by it, empowered by it, loved by it. And maybe it's this very presence that calls us to be gardeners, but not just in outer gardens. We haven't really been talking this morning just about corn and tomatoes and dahlias and delphiniums. The outer garden is a symbol, a rich metphor for what it takes to care about something, to help it come alive and grow and flower, and then in the full circle to allow it to die. So you may not raise cauliflowers or roses, but if you have a spouse, you have a garden. If you have a child, you have a garden. If you have a friend that's unique to you in all the world, you have a garden. Anyone you care for is your garden. And each and every one of these gardens demands of you hard work, patience, trust, humility, dignity, and reverence. But even if you were a hermit way up there in the Himalayas alone in your cave, this would still hold true because you'd be working in your inner garden. Consider this--you are not only the gardener; you are the garden. The power and the presence of which you are the servant when you love another is the very power and presence in your own heart, in the very soul of you, in the very soil of you. Think of it--you are the seed; you are the sprouting; you are the growing into fullness; and you aare the flowering. "A single immense miracle of a flower" is a line from one of May Sarton's poems. You yourself are a single immense miracle, and then after the flowering you are the dying. But from your death springs new life from a new seed, and the dance goes on.

Please Hear What I'm Not Saying Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear for I wear a mask, a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off, and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that's second nature with me, but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled. I give you the impression that I'm secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name and coolness my game, that the water's calm and I'm in command and that I need no one, but don't believe me. My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask, ever-varying and ever-concealing. Beneath lies no complacence. Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness. But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed. That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant sophisticated facade, to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows. But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope, and I know it. That is, if it's followed by acceptance, if it's followed by love. It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self-built prison walls, from the barriers I so painstakingly erect. It's the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself, that I'm really worth something. But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to. I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance, will not be followed by love. I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me. I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing and that you will see this and reject me. So I play my game, my desperate pretending game, with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks, and my life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that's really nothing, and nothing of what's everything, of what's crying within me. So when I'm going through my routine do not be fooled by what I'm saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying, what I'd like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I can't say. I don't like hiding. I don't like playing superficial phony games. I want to stop playing them. I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me but you've got to help me. You've got to hold out your hand even when that's the last thing I seem to want. Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead. Only you can call me into aliveness. Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings-- very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings! With your power to touch me into feeling you can breathe life into me. I want you to know that. I want you to know how important you are to me, how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator-- of the person that is me if you choose to. You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble, you alone can remove my mask, you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic, from my lonely prison, if you choose to. Please choose to. Do not pass me by. It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach to me the blinder I may strike back. It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man often I am irrational. I fight against the very thing I cry out for. But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls and in this lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands but with gentle hands for a child is very sensitive. Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you know very well. For I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet. Charles C. Finn September 1966 This is the original version of "Please Hear What I Am Not Saying" Original Version

Gen. George Washington's instructions for the Badge of Military Merit: “The General ever desirous to cherish virtuous ambition in his soldiers, as well as to foster and encourage every species of Military merit, directs that whenever any singularly meritorious action is performed, the author of it shall be permitted to wear on his facings over the left breast, the figure of a heart in purple cloth, or silk, edged with narrow lace or binding. Not only instances of unusual gallantry, but also of extraordinary fidelity and essential service in any way shall meet with a due reward. Before this favour can be conferred on any man, the particular fact, or facts, on which it is to be grounded must be set forth to the Commander in chief accompanied with certificates from the Commanding officers of the regiment and brigade to which the Candidate for reward belonged, or other incontestable proofs, and upon granting it, the name and regiment of the person with the action so certified are to be enrolled in the book of merit which will be kept at the orderly office. Men who have merited this last distinction to be suffered to pass all guards and sentinels which officers are permitted to do. The road to glory in a patriot army and a free country is thus open to all. This order is also to have retrospect to the earliest stages of the war, and to be considered as a permanent one.” Only three soldiers are known to have received the original honor badge: Sergeant Daniel Bissell of the 2d Connecticut Regiment of the Continental Line; Sergeant William Brown of the 5th Connecticut Regiment of the Continental Line, and Sergeant Elijah Churchill of the 2d Continental Dragoons, also a Connecticut regiment. For unknown reasons, the medal apparently was not awarded again. In fact, it was not until October 1927, after Word War I, that General Charles Summerall proposed that a bill be submitted to Congress to revive the “Badge of Military Merit.” In January, 1928, the Army's Office of The Adjutant General was instructed to file the materials concerning the proposed medal. Among those materials was a rough drawing of a circular medal disc with a concave center on which a raised heart was visible. Engraved on the back of the medal was “For Military Merit.” In January 1931, General Douglas MacArthur, Summerall's successor as Army Chief of Staff, resurrected the idea for the medal. Miss Elizabeth Will, an Army heraldic specialist in the Office of the Quartermaster General, was assigned the task of designing the medal according to some general guidelines provided to her. The Commission of Fine Arts obtained plaster models from three sculptors and, in May 1931, selected the model produced by John Sinnock of the Philadelphia Mint. On February 22, 1932 -- the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth -- the War Department (predecessor to the Department of Defense) announced the establishment of the Purple Heart award in General Order No. 3: By order of the President of the United States , the Purple Heart established by General George Washington at Newburgh, August 7, 1782, during the War of the Revolution, is hereby revived out of respect to his memory and military achievements. By Order of the Secretary War Douglas MacArthur General Chief of Staff Army regulations specified the design of the medal as an enamel heart, purple in color and showing a relief profile of George Washington in Continental Army uniform within a quarter-inch bronze border. Above the enameled heart is Washington 's family coat of arms between two sprays of leaves. On the reverse side, below the shield and leaves, is a raised bronze heart without enamel bearing the inscription “For Military Merit.” The 1 11/16 inch medal is suspended by a purple cloth, 1 3/8 inches in length by 1 3/8 inches in width with 1/8-inch white edges. Army regulations' eligibility criteria for the award included: * Those in possession of a Meritorious Service Citation Certificate issued by the Commander-in Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. (The Certificates had to be exchanged for the Purple Heart.) * Those authorized by Army regulations to wear wound chevrons. (These men also had to apply for the new award.) The newly reintroduced Purple Heart was not intended primarily as an award for those wounded in action -- the “wound chevron” worn by a soldier on his sleeve already fulfilled that purpose. Establishing the Meritorious Service Citation as a qualification for receiving the Purple Heart was very much in keeping with General Washington's original intent for the award. However, authorizing the award in exchange for “wound chevrons” established the now familiar association of the award with injuries sustained in battle. This was reinforced by Army regulations, which stated that the award required a "singularly meritorious act of fidelity service" and that "a wound which necessitates treatment by a medical officer and which is received in action with an enemy, may, in the judgment of the commander authorized to make the award, be construed as resulting from a singularly meritorious act of essential service." Until Executive Order 9277 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in December 1942 authorized award of the Purple Heart to personnel from all of the military services (retroactive to December 7, 1941), the medal was exclusively an Army award. The Executive Order also stated that the Purple Heart was to be awarded to persons who “are wounded in action against an enemy of the United States, or as a result of an act of such enemy, provided such would necessitate treatment by a medical officer.” In November 1952, President Harry S. Truman issued an Executive Order extending eligibility for the award to April 5, 1917, to coincide with the eligibility dates for Army personnel. President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 11016 in April 1962 that further extended eligibility to "any civilian national of the United States, who while serving under competent authority in any capacity with an armed force…, has been, or may hereafter be, wounded" and authorized posthumous award of the medal. Executive Order 12464 signed by President Ronald Reagan in February 1984, authorized award of the Purple Heart as a result of terrorist attacks or while serving as part of a peacekeeping force subsequent to March 28, 1973. The 1998 National Defense Authorization Act removed civilians from the list of personnel eligible for the medal. The Purple Heart is ranked immediately behind the bronze star and ahead of the Defense Meritorious Service Medal in order of precedence. Possession of the Purple Heart medal does not by itself qualify veterans for Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability compensation. However, since November 1999, Purple Heart recipients have been placed in VA's enrollment priority group 3, unless eligible for the higher priority groups (1 or 2) based on service-connected disabilities. Recipients are also exempt from co-payments for VA hospital care and medical outpatient care, but not from pharmacy co-payments for medications prescribed for non-service connected conditions. Sources: The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration; U.S. Army Center of Military History

Someone sent this to me and Fri June 20th is the 5yr Anniversary of the car accident that killed my Son in Law and my Daughter and her unborn twins and his Little 6yr old Sister survived miraculously A drunk man in an Oldsmobile They said had run the light That caused the six-car pileup On 109 that night. When broken bodies lay about 'And blood was everywhere,' 'The sirens screamed out eulogies,' For death was in the air. 'A mother, trapped inside her car,' Was heard above the noise; Her plaintive plea near split the air: 'Oh, God, please spare my boys!' She fought to loose her pinned hands; 'She struggled to get free,' But mangled metal held her fast In grim captivity. Her frightened eyes then focused 'On where the back seat once had been,' But all she saw was broken glass and Two children's seats crushed in. Her twins were nowhere to be seen; 'She did not hear them cry, ' 'And then she prayed they'd been thrown free, ' 'Oh, God, don't let them die! ' Then firemen came and cut her loose, ' 'But when they searched the back, ' 'They found therein no little boys, ' But the seat belts were intact. They thought the woman had gone mad 'And was traveling alone, ' 'But when they turned to question her, ' They discovered she was gone. Policemen saw her running wild And screaming above the noise 'In beseeching supplication, ' Please help me find my boys! They're four years old and wear blue shirts; 'Their jeans are blue to match.'' 'One cop spoke up, ''They're in my car, ' And they don't have a scratch. They said their daddy put them there 'And gave them each a cone, ' Then told them both to wait for Mom To come and take them home. 'I've searched the area high and low, ' But I can't find their dad. 'He must have fled the scene, ' 'I guess, and that is very bad.' 'The mother hugged the twins and said, ' 'While wiping at a tear, ' 'He could not flee the scene, you see, ' 'For he's been dead a year.' 'The cop just looked confused and asked, ' 'Now, how can that be true? ' 'The boys said, ''Mommy, Daddy came ' 'And left a kiss for you.'' ' He told us not to worry 'And that you would be all right, ' And then he put us in this car with 'The pretty, flashing light. ' 'We wanted him to stay with us, ' 'Because we miss him so, ' 'But Mommy, he just hugged us tight ' And said he had to go. He said someday we'd understand 'And told us not to fuss, ' 'And he said to tell you, Mommy, ' 'He's watching over us.' The mother knew without a doubt 'That what they spoke was true, ' 'For she recalled their dad's last words, ' ' I will watch over you.' The firemen's notes could not explain 'The twisted, mangled car, ' And how the three of them escaped Without a single scar. 'But on the cop's report was scribed, ' 'In print so very fine, ' An angel walked the beat tonight on Highway 109. 'The 7 Second Prayer, Just repeat this phrase and see how God moves. 'Lord, I love you and I need you, come into my heart, and bless my family, my home, my friends, and me. Amen. ' Pass this message to 7 people {EXCEPT YOU AND ME}. You will receive a miracle tomorrow. He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare. This morning when the Lord opened a window to Heaven, He saw me, and He asked: 'My child, what is your greatest wish for today?' I responded: 'Lord please, take care of the person who is reading this message, their family and their special friends. They deserve it and I love them very much. ' The love of God is like the ocean, you can see its beginning, but not its end. This message works on the day you receive it. Let us see if it is true. ANGELS EXIST but some times, since they don't all have wings, we call them FRIENDS. Pass this on to your true friends.

In these uncertain times, we realize more than ever the vital importance of the men and women who serve in our country's military. On Memorial Day, we pay tribute to our fellow countrymen who died in wartime, fighting to preserve the freedoms we enjoy today. On this solemn day, let us also remind ourselves that we must not take these freedoms for granted, but gratefully remember the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect them.