Hope Through Mary

I've been praying the rosary more than I used to - those things that bring you to your knees often remind you how much you need God's help.  Well, out of character, the DSHS has granted me an interview for Food and Cash Assistance, and since I have just started PT in recovery from my fall and am still fighting bronchitis, getting a job is not going to happen in the next week.  God willing, I might actually get some help, but knowing our family's luck I have as much success in getting government aid as Blackbeard does of ice skating in hell.  But, for Mary - God would hear my prayer.  So I entrust this cause to her as I cannot afford to lose the opportunity for my family's sake.  By her prayer, God willing, my father will get this one-year contracting job with a local engineering company he used to work for when we first moved to Washington state.  I read recently of a friend of mine's experience with Mary in her life - how blessed she was to be touched by her, especially as a Methodist.  I often think of my relationship with her...Mary I mean.  At 17 joining the convent, we Catholics are taught that nuns are the spiritual brides of Christ.  Very prayerful and eager, I was a little overconfident in my approach as not her daughter by virtue of the universal brotherhood of mankind to Christ Jesus but as a Carmelite nun in training, her daughter-in-law, so to speak.  Well, I have to admit that my prayers in the convent were always heard and I always got clear answers to my prayers.  When I found myself in PTSD at the end of six and a half years of being in the convent with no alternative to save my sanity but to leave, my confidence slackened to almost nil.  If it weren't for the faint hope I had in Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of all Americans (north, central, and southern), I doubt I would have stayed Catholic.  It was the darkest hour of my faith.  However, I am finding that the more I pray the rosary, the more help I get in all my needs and that my prayers are answered faster with much more blessings than I ever expected.  You can't go wrong to pray the rosary!  The older I get, the more I want to do for my Mother, the Mother of all mankind and of my brother, Jesus.  Despite all odds and setbacks, I think of that dream that St. Francis had of his brothers reaching heaven by climbing the rosary ladder...and I hope that's how I'll meet her in the end.  Though my mother prayed non-stop to Mary for my safe delivery into this world and consecrated/entrusted me to her maternal care, and all the signs that followed in my childhood, it has been choices of my own that have kept me near her, in spite of all evil.  Hail Mary, full of grace!