Goodness, my husband has been busy while I’ve been at work! Hope you all waded through all that code–I confess it looks like Martian to me.

Here is today’s real 356 photo:

This is the icon given to us by our koumbari (wedding sponsors) Geoff and Jennifer McKeown for our wedding. It was placed on the altar during the ceremony, and it was placed on a different altar, along with our wedding crowns, for the week between our wedding and when we had the “Removal of the Crowns” service the following Sunday. It is of Saints Joachim and Anna, the parents blessed in their old age to be the parents of the Theotokos, or Virgin Mary, who in turn was the vessel used by God to bring salvation into the world. Ss. Joachim and Anna are known especially to be intercessors for marriage (and are most often shown as in this icon, embracing one another) and also of mothers. Women struggling with fertility often ask for St. Anna’s prayers, as she was barren for most of her life. St. Anna has become a very special saint to me during this time of very quickly becoming a wife and soon after a mother. I ask her to pray for me often.

We sometimes attend evening services at a beautiful old Russian church downtown that has an icon of St. Anna that “weeps”–it will miraculously stream fragrant myrrh from her eyes for weeks at a time, so much that it is gathered in cotton balls at the bottom of the icon. When we first moved here, I would often go to this icon and ask St. Anna to pray that I would fulfil my vocation as a wife well, and that I would be blessed to be a mother in due time. I believe she faithfully prays for those who ask.

I don’t think I’ll stick with only morning photos for this project, but so far, all my ideas have been in the morning. This photo was from just after morning prayers, when it was still very dark out.