Reason To Believe

   Court Appointed Special Advocates.  Another non-profit contributing to the tragedy of our society...  It claims to be advocating for the children, but in reality if you don't get to know the parents and you are not pro-family, you are not advocating for the children you are advocating for the foster society we have become. My personal experience with CASA is quite negative.  It is advertised as volunteer based organization, yet the people I have happened to encounter got paid.  They are not eager to make any connection with the parents or the family of the child, they are foster family oriented and they advocate for separation without having any personal engagement or knowledge of the family they are advocating against.  You will not see them reach out to you until the Judge considers Monitored Return.  This Organisation feels emboldened by their Court Appointed status to operate above the moral conduct of a human being forgetting that the best...

Either you believe or do not believe in God, I recommend that you, with the open mind, sign up for Our Daily Bread Ministries devotional emails for a daily doze of wisdom, encouragement and food for thought. I am a true believer that we are all children of this world.  Either you call it Universe, God, Nature or Alien, but all of us have some sort of idea of creation.  Whatever that idea is if we strictly use the experiences we actually have, we have to admit that to reach the mind of a child and to speak to the child effectively we have to get to the child's level and learn to speak that child's language: we get down on the floor to be on the same level, we let the child be in charge of the conversation or a play, we figure out the way to say what we want without actually saying it, or better have that child come up with the conclusions we have already established for ourselves by playing and setting them up for success with the scavenger hunt, putting clues throughout the ga...

 If there is only one message to take away from the Bible let it be this one:  1 Corinthians 13:4-8 "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends." Prior to that message there are 3 statements: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." "And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." "If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." Love is something we sing about, ache for and search for our entire lives.  We admire the people that stay toget...

 Intense, constant, inescapable pain... Some people know the feeling of pain as a constant solid.  My husband is disabled and he has been trying to explain that feeling to me for as long as we have been together, but some things are hard to explain, you have to feel and experience them in order to understand.  Now...that I have this pain...I understand... I never thought that pain could feel as a "solid", a foreign object in my chest that I cannot move or escape from.  Something you live with, wake up,  eat with and it never goes away.  Even with the temporary relief, the relief is temporary and the pain comes right back the minute your mind is free from life's everyday commotion.  I could dis-attach and let the Universe absorb it, but it appears that I bring it back myself because there is something inside that pain that I constantly feel .... a connection to the pain of my children.  I feel like I am carrying this solid "brick" of the pain in my...

In my 20's I read a book called "YOGA Discipline of Freedom".  There is a passage in that book that captured my attention and deepened my understanding of biological - natural connections: "Seeing rare beauty, hearing lovely sounds, even a happy man becomes strangely uneasy... perhaps he remembers, without knowing why, loves of another life buried deep in his being." You can take a child from the parent, you can take a parent from the child but you cannot ever erase the biological natural connection between that parent and a child... Today I was thinking about this "brick" of a pain I have sitting in my chest and the "freedom".  There is a reason that yogi say that freedom requires discipline.  I am a free being, but I am not.   My children are free beings, but they are not...  We are all free spiritually, yet our bodies are governed by society and the law.  If we would truly be free in both the body and the spirit we would be together right ...

Here is a powerful message that is hard to understand unless you are close to the inevitable misfortune.  Bible,  Matthew 26:39: "And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." This brings me back to the thought that since we, humans, can not see the big picture of the reality and truth, we don't really know what is good for us, and for the evolution of kindness and conscious understanding of the particles of our soul to happen pain is necessary.  When we burn ourselves with the hot object we learn not to touch hot, when we are cold we learn the importance of shelter and clothing, pain is the main molder of our character and sharing that pain is the teaching moment for the soul.  If nothing would hurt we would do everything: good, bad, average.... there wouldn't be any difference if nothing hurts, no one dies, no one is mistreated.  So pai...

There is a misconception in this world that if you suffer it may be a form of some sort of punishment from the Universe or God.  But what about all the good people that also suffer?  We say that Jesus didn't have to be crucified for sins but to give us salvation.  Yet we are still suffering in either sin or selfishness, or both... Sometimes I think we suffer due to the ugliness of envious spirits.  What makes one destroy everything someone else built?  What makes one pretend to be a friend to do evil?  Go out of their way to deceive and to badger when it's all but a moment and gone... I always had plans for the future, I built everything I have for my children, I acquired property and moved things around just to get more room so I can eventually invite them all in and have room for more.  Now... Sitting in the semi empty house if not for the crickets I'd feel very empty.  When was the last time you listened to the nature?  The crickets, the w...

 Wars around the world in so many places.  People losing loved ones forever on the every day basis.  And here in the time of peace we are also at war.  We are at war with each other and at war with ourselves.  It is hard to empathize with something you have never felt.  The loss of a loved one...forever...  I couldn't even imagine the pain of a loss of the child at war, but I understand the pain of a loss, and my heart goes out to all of those for whom that loss is irreversible.  In the devotional emails I get from "Our Daily Bread Ministry" they future a quote of the day, and the other day when the fear of the long term loss was getting the best of me this quote came in: Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?   Mark 4:40 I have faith that I am strong enough to handle what's to come, I just don't know if my children are.  They are too young to understand... they are too fragile... too far... I am also afraid that if my childr...

My new personal milestone: thirteen and a half years.  That is how long I have to wait for my youngest daughter to be 18 and have the freedom to come home.  I devote this milestone to her, because for the next 13 and a half years I will be reaching for her with the same passion that she is aching for me throughout these years to come.  As a polite county attorney highlighted I have nowhere to go and nowhere to be, I have all the time in the world and she insisted that the people take from me what I care for the most: my children.  She insisted that my parental rights have to be terminated, because my children are "afraid" of me and I cannot protect them. Let's talk about this fear for a minute... Do I think my children are afraid of me?  I believe my older children are ashamed.  They are afraid of seeing in my eyes the reflection of who they are becoming.  Many of us when faced with the disappointments of our mistakes hide from our creators: our mother...

 "Who told you, that you were naked?" Genesis 3:11 The first recorded mention of shame is in the Bible.  Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and realized they were naked.  Shame overwhelmed their awakened consciousness and they started to look for clothing to cover their nakedness.  It is explained by different interpretations that they did that because they realized that they have sinned, but what does that really have to do with clothing?  We are all born naked.  In the beginning of our lives it doesn't make us feel one way or another.  I'm sure we look for clothing not just due to our awakened consciousness but simply because we are cold, we don't want to get bit by the bugs, we don't care to have sand all over our bodies and many other valid reasons.  Shame on the other hand is something quite different.   Once we understand the beginning of the shame we can theorize that we are ashamed of who we are.  Or is it who we have beco...

 When I was little I was taught: don't take candy from strangers.  When I moved to US the idea of Halloween completely blew me away.  It was something completely different from what I thought would be the right thing to do.  And till this day I am no fan of Halloween.  I didn't feel like teaching the children to take candy from strangers is something I should promote.  But I have my own experience of strangers with candy - DFPS case workers, Investigators and Caretakers use candy and presents as a way to your child's heart.  They gave my children so many toys with no heart, so much candy to lure them away, to distract them from what they are really doing - taking them away from their family. It reminds me of the story of Hansel and Gretel.  But does upsetting a child and having them feel angry and sad will do any good if you tell them what really is going on?  I doubt so.  When someone is determinant to do you wrong they will find the wa...

The woman that has never been to my house called it a "house of horrors".  I call it my "little paradise".  The man that has never been invited to my house calls it a "compound".   These are all just words, but from where I am sitting right now, my house is one of the five great things I have going for me right this second: it's peaceful, I hear occasional car passing down the street, birds exchanging their greetings to each other, I hear the wind, I see tall trees, and - life in the distance - there is construction, people sometimes, just far enough for my house to still remain peaceful.  I feel inside and outside at the same time, the screen doors are open, it's sunny and just so green and beautiful.  They don't like our fence.  That is another thing I am grateful for.  I do not stare at the fence, the fence keeps us somewhat protected from the wild life, stray dogs and the good people that do not feel like climbing over the fence.  We live...

What I am about to share here was not written by me.  I found this man by accident.  I was researching some herbs and natural medicine when I came across Herbal Academy and I believe somehow more I was researching and roaming around in some of the emails and information that kept popping up though out that journey of mine I found this man's blog.  I saw many of the videos with him and all of them I found extremely educational and uplifting.  And today in my time of sorrow he sent me this: ____________________________________________________________________________ Hi Marina, Mother Teresa once said,  "Be happy in the moment; that's enough. Each moment is all we need, not more." It isn't always easy to live that way though. Our minds often lurch here and there, and sometimes they don't feel like our friends. If left unchecked, my own inner critic can turn on me. Does that ever happen to you? Yet there are times when the beauty of a sunset stops me in my tracks ...

 Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing"... My older daughter is going to Church now with her father.  Today she learned that she needs to run away from the sin and towards God and keep running without looking around from what I gathered from our short conversation.  When I asked her: "Why are you running?" Her young still molding mind did not understand what I meant.  I had to ask her: "Why are you running, can you not be standing?  Can you not find God if you are standing?" She explained to me that she has to be running in order to run away from the sin.  I further wondered: "Do you know where you are running?"  She said: "Towards God."  I said: "Where is he?" she couldn't think of the answer right away but then somehow we came to "everywhere".  So I asked her again: "So do you think you have to run to find God?"  She said:" I have to run away from the sin....

What is the purpose of therapy?  It's not to investigate, it is to heal, to get a deeper understanding of who you are, your desires, your passions, your purpose... I like psychology.  I mentioned it before that I am really good with people in one on one off the record setting.  I understand their struggle, I try not to judge, I try to relate and emphasize no matter what it is they are going through and no matter who they are.   When I was little I contemplated the possibility of the profession where I'd be helping people talk their emotions and struggles through to help them lift their spirit and let go of anything that may be holding them back.  But it takes a long time to get to know a person, it takes time to gain their trust, and in Ukraine it was not considered to be a profession.  It was a backup plan as the majority of the theories are hypothetical and are subject to interpretation, so anyone with the desire could pass the test.   Ther...

In Court they said they could not break through my facade, they believe I am not truthful and I do not recognize my faults.  They said that I am a "good faker".  They actually asked me what I think about that.  I answered: "If I would be a "good faker" you would not know I am faking".   I told them: "A lot of this gets lost in translation... interpretation of the questions and answers by me and others involved." They didn't ask me what I thought about the "breaking through the facade"...  I wish they would.  For those who don't know what that means, it means revealing the true nature and reality of someone.  If they would ask me I would have told them: "I don't hide who I am and they are just unwilling to listen and pay attention. " I am a good person.  I live my life lead by kindness in my heart not desire to know everything, not desire to be rich, not desire to possess; but the desire to live and love and share t...

Today is the first time in my baby girl's life that the People kept her away for more than 14 days without seeing her parents.  This is not the first time this has happened to me and this never gets any easier.   In 2017 my ex accused me of a crime and DFPS used all the power they had not to let me see my two older children and kept them away from me for over 6 months.  Having me have that pain of separation they used my children to try to force me to plead to a crime I did not commit.  It was excruciating pain.  It was senseless and cruel and my older children didn't know if I am dead or alive, didn't hear my voice, didn't know what happened to mom.   I waited, I trusted God, I prayed, I read the Bible from core to core, as that was the only book I had while waiting in jail for the outcome of that journey.  This was the time I got very close to God...  I got my own understanding of the Bible, I got my own interpretations of the Word, I ...