God rewards our smallest efforts!

God just blessed me so much and reminded me how immensely He blesses and rewards us for even our smallest efforts for love of Him. I missed Mass this morning at our parish, so I decided to round up the kids and take them to the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs- which really is a blessing in itself. This is the place where St. Isaac Jogues and other Jesuits were martyred for their faith. I do not enjoy taking my kids there as well as our own parish for several reasons but mostly because the chapel there is quite small and I worry about the children distracting the other people there. Thanks to God's grace and the intercession of Our Lady, the children were pretty well behaved today. Anyway, on to the many blessings that God rewarded me with for my small effort to go to Mass today. First, after mass, the priests blessed each one of us with the relics of Blessed Kateri and I think St. Isaac Jogues or maybe another saint. I was a little confused for a moment and didn't catch the name of the second saint. The priest also blessed the children. What a blessing! I also was able to have my new rosary ring blessed, which was much sooner than I expected! (My old rosary ring was chipping and getting pretty sad looking- it cost less than a dollar, so Matthew got me a nice, new one for my birthday).
On top of all this, I met a Passionist sister from Pittsburgh and her companion who runs a Catholic bookstore there. Both of these women were very kind and friendly. The sister somehow thought to ask if I would be homeschooling (probably because I look like the type that would homeschool- haha!) and when I said yes, they were very excited. The woman who runs a bookstore told me to call her with any questions and that she would give me a big discount, hehe!  The sister or nun (I looked up the Passionists in Pittsburgh and it looks like they might be cloistered, I'm not sure though) talked to Mary about becoming a nun or a sister. She said to her, "Mary, are you going to become a sister? a nun?" among some other things. What a blessing and wonderful early exposure for Mary to the consecrated life. One thing I am very sad about is the lack of good Catholic schools taught by religious sisters- especially in our diocese. I talked about this with the women I met today too. It is very sad, because our children will not have the opportunity to see consecrated sisters teaching in their schools and being a good influence and example of being a consecrated religious. So, I  feel so blessed to have met this sister or nun and that she planted the idea of becoming a sister or nun in her little head! Of course Mary is still young, but hopefully she will remember this kind woman and it will affect her. I am very grateful for sure. We are planning to go to the National Homeschool Conference next year which I believe is in Pittsburgh, so I hope I will get to meet them and talk to them again!