⚜On the wings of the night amidst the stars ⚜

i'm just in love with these depictions of the Japanese madonna & her peaceful, loving countenance.

Immanuel, Gott mit uns. 🙏🏼💚🎄

What a Christmas time this year. 😵🥴 I know we're all struggling but I just need to let it out.

I had been looking forward to this year's Christmas time all year, really! But now it's 4 days till Christmas and I'm sitting here, listening to the rain outside and feeling very exhausted and just meh. I'm down with some kind of the flu, I received my social benefits only today (I applied at the beginning of November and should've gotten it at least on December 1st) so I wasn't able to buy any presents so far, I hope I can still get something for my mother. The money I've received is way less than it was supposed to be, I'll have to deal with this again after Christmas. I'm so exhausted from everything and I'm still waiting for my best friend, my boy cat, whom I love soooo, sooooooo much. He hasn't come home since November 19th and I've spent the last weeks looking for him. I still have hope, I'll be waiting for him and praying every day. 💗🐈💖 I love him soooooooooo much.

So yeah, I feel a little heavy at the moment, I'm only focusing on my fantasy worlds because that's where I can live the most. I'm trying to recover at the moment. I just feel sad a lot of the time. I want to live with more joy and more hopeful and I'm still trying to do this in the ways that I can right now. I just want things to get a bit better.

I'm grateful though that I have a roof over my head and that I'm warm while outside it's cold and rainy. I'm really, really grateful that I have my mom and that she loves me. ♡ And I'm grateful that we at least were able to buy a Christmas tree and most likely also a goose for Christmas. I'm grateful for the "Harry Potter"-books, which are an immensely great gift to me and I see more and more how great of a gift they are! 💗📗 And I'm grateful for the most wonderful Old Hollywood movies and for Winnie Pooh. Those are things that I really love. 💖🐻

I hope there are better things ahead next year, this year was so hard. So many of my friends have had a terribly hard year and so many are struggling. I'm trying to not give up on life and see the divine, holy worth in living in itself. I want to believe that it's sacred to be alive and that I can open my heart to it. May God bless us all and may the goodness of God be so visible to us all around, that everything else pales in comparison and is less important. May we feel God's glory regardless of the circumstances! 🌠💛🌟🙏🏼

the prevalence of the term 'unhinged' in modern times is actually an indicator of a society which can only be redeemed by the work of someone who can re-hinge people; in other words, a master carpenter; in other words, Jesus - in this essay i will

I have no idea what I am doing for Lent. I feel overwhelmed with so many "self-improvement" things right now related to my health and lifestyle (that I am trying so hard at and yet still failing) that adding one more thing I am "supposed to do" seems like the straw that will break my back. it sucks because Lent isn't supposed to be about a checklist, but then again it is.

I am so exhausted. All this week, each day the Emergency Department has been ALL mental health kids, screaming, attacking staff, being held down and sedated, restrained...I can still hear it ringing in my ears. But tonight I'm supposed to clean my apartment and pack for the retreat I leave on tomorrow, and I literally can't get myself to move right now.

I relate to the exhaustion a lot and my heart breaks for how mental health is treated in our society still. Imagine people screaming for love and all we know to do is sedate them. There is a lot to talk about things like these but I just wanted to say that I very much understand the exhaustion and I feel like this Lent will be a bit different because I also can't and won't force anything onto myself in addition to all the stuff I have to deal with. So I've thought about giving up something for Lent that isn't being kind to myself. To give up something that I've been forcing onto myself in an unkind manner.

But I have to admit that this comment by @lilacandpearblossoms on the matter is the most beautiful thing I have read in a long, long time and I think it sums it up the absolute best in those few words. 🥲

I've been pondering a question. A question that I'm asking myself but also as a teacher I see kids and teenagers asking me this in the future.

If God loves me so very much and His love is unconditional, how do I know?

Practically, I mean. How can I know that He really does love me so much, that He loves me unconditionally?

Taking my example, I cannot really know it through my experiences. I've been hurt badly, I've been bullied, I've been neglected, I've been abandoned, most of my family has died in the past 5 years, I'm severely impacted by all this, my health is really not good, those who I've asked for help have kicked me down harder and the people I've called my friends have 90% gone on with their lives without me even though I've tried almost every nice thing I could think of.

That is pretty devastating. There are of course very loving things that I've experienced and I don't mean to discredit any of this. Among other things, I love my boy cat very much, he was born last year. ❤🐈 He's the best boi and I wanted to adopt him so much and I'm so thankful that it was possible even though there was so much trouble at first.

Now anyways, this is a very beautiful experience and there are many, many experiences that are beyond awful. But my main point is that through our experiences we can get to know God and seek to understand His mystery but I don't think we can know His love for us this way. I don't think any of my experiences make me feel or understand if He really truly loves me with all His heart. Does anybody have a thought about this? Is there a cool medieval scholar that has already pondered this question 8 centuries ago? 😯🤔😉

I'm really asking myself and God these questions and I know that when I'm able to teach as I want to, I will have lovely kids coming up to me with questions like these and I'm trying to find ideas for answers. Through worldly things, I don't think we can really know our true identity, which is Gods infinite love for us. A very big thing to think about. 🙂🧚🏼‍♀️💜