Copied from Jen's blog.  Feeling so convicted to empty out my water jar!

THE PRAYER OF THE EMPTY WATER JAR.

Jesus, I come to the warmth of your Presence
knowing that You are
the very emptiness of God.
I come before You
holding the water jar of my life.
Your eyes meet mine
and I know what I'd rather not know.

I came to be filled
but I am already full.
I am too full.
This is my sickness
I am full of things
that crowd out
Your healing Presence.

A holy knowing steals inside my heart
and I see the painful truth.
I don't need more
I need less
I am too full.

I am full of things that block out
Your golden grace.
I am smothered by gods of my own creation
I am lost in the forest of my false self
I am full of my own opinions and narrow attitudes
full of fear, resentment, control (bitterness, anger)
full of self pity, and arrogance.
Slowly this terrible truth pierces my heart,
I am so full, there is no room for You.

Contemplatively, and with compassion,
You ask me to reach into my water jar.
One by one, Jesus, you enable me
to lift out the things
that are a hindrance to my wholeness.
I take each one to my heart,
I hear You asking me
" Why is this so important to you ? "

Like the murmur of a gentle stream
I hear You calling,
" Let go, let go, let go! "
I pray with each obstacle
tasting the bitterness and grief
it has caused.

Finally
I sit with my empty water jar
I hear you whisper
You have become a space for God
Now there is hope
Now you are ready to be a channel of Life.
You have given up your own agenda
There is nothing left but God.


Macrina Wiederkehr OSB. ( Prayer inspired by John 4 : 28 )

Faith is 1!  This past year seems to have just flown by.  She is getting to be such a big girl now.  She still isn't crawling, but cruises quite confidently.  She has stood by herself for at least 2 seconds, before realising that we weren't holding on to her anymore.  Last night, it was so cute, she was standing at a window and could see her reflection.  She got so excited and was bouncing up and down and laughing at herself.  She is usually a very content, smiling baby, but we are already seeing glimpses of a very determined little girl.  When we put her in her chair to eat, we'll usually start off feeding her with a spoon.  When she's tired of that, she turns her head away from the spoon and starts pointing to the tray.  She's ready for some finger food!  Lately, she's taken it a step further and is wanting the spoon to feed herself.  She doesn't know what to do with it, aside from dipping it into her bowl, but then typically taps it out on her tray or over the side onto the floor.  The other night she refused to eat unless she had a spoon.  So, Scott let her hold a spoon, then fed her with his spoon!  Another night, she absolutely would not eat anything.  I tried letting her do it, putting it on her tray for her to pick it up and eat it, and then gave up and got her out.  She promptly pointed at my fork and ate every bit of her dinner from my fork!  She is a cheeky little monkey.

She is really started to verbalize a lot now.  She says ma ma and da da and ba for bath and ba ba for bye-bye.  I've taught her where her belly button is, so when I ask, she looks down at her tummy.  We've had to start telling her No, as she gets more adventurous moving around the house.  She just stops what she's doing and gives us this serious stare, then turns right around and keeps doing whatever she was doing.  We'll have to work on that one.

Faith adores Lily, and her face lights up whenever her sister comes into the room.  She also gets excited when I say it's time to go get Lily from school.  Whenever anyone is singing or if music is on, Faith bobs her head along with the music and starts clapping.  When we sing grace before dinner, Faith always looks so excited.  I think she thinks we're singing just for her!

We had a lovely party for her the day before her actual birthday.  She was a little overwhelmed when we sang Happy Birthday, and started crying, but calmed down enough to be curious about her birthday cake.  At first she wasn't sure what to do with it and just poked it with her fingers.  Once she got a taste of the frosting, she was a little more keen, but it wasn't until Scott gave her a spoon (of course!) that she really got into it.  She ate most of her little cake and didn't make too big of a mess either.  On her actual birthday, I got Krispy Kreme donuts for us to have for dessert, and she plowed right through that with no problem!  (Thanks to Papa for the practice during their visit!:)

So, my baby is one, and growing and changing so much.  This is such a fun age to watch her exploring and playing and trying new things, with many more milestones to come.  We are so grateful for our sweet Faithy!