Today is the second day of finals week at my school. I haven't had a test yet, but I'm pretty anxious about one in particular. It's amazing how one thing can be the focus of so much worry and anxiety.

This week I have been reflecting a lot on the sources of my anxieties. This was mainly to discover what the sources are and - God willing - eliminate them. During my reflections I became aware that at some point in the last year or so, I began to shut God out. Not in the sense of discontinuing daily prayers or regular Confession, but in the sense of ceasing to rely on God for all things. At some point I started to rely on myself instead. I became so caught up in the things around me that I decided that I just didn't have time to surrender my troubles to God. After all, I reasoned, I could handle this, so why trouble God about it? How foolish I have been!

The most astounding thing is that I didn't even realize that I was doing it. It didn't become clear to me until yesterday, when I was feeling particularly down about something, I tried to turn to God about it through writing in my journal and I realized that I hardly knew how to tell Him about all that was going on in my heart. Of course, I know that he already knows everything that goes on in my heart, but at some point I just let that be enough and stopped working at talking to God about what I was going through.

I was asking for graces, praising His name, requesting favors, praying for friends, and that sort of thing, but I was no longer talking to Him as the lover of my soul and my friend. I let myself become distant and I wasn't letting Him fully into my heart. So now I know that I have a lot of work to do, or rather, a lot of catching up to do.

The thing is, I miss it. I didn't realize it until I tried it yesterday, but I really miss pouring my heart out to Christ and just letting Him love and care for me. I don't know how I ever let myself move away from it. His love is so amazing. When I contemplate all that I know of God, I am awestruck. Even I, who always has so much to say, am speechless when faced with His awesome love.

I have many things on my heart right now. Some are very exciting, some are a bit terrifying, and some are sad. Please pray that I will know what to do will all of them and that I may lean on God unceasingly.

...and we go on and on

So, the Easter Triduum is about to begin. Now is the time to ready our hearts for one of the greatest celebrations of all time, the Wedding Feast of Christ to His bride, the Church. Get excited!

At times like these, I am inclined to be particularly reflective about myself. Where am I going? What should I be doing? What lies ahead? Am I doing this right?

Some pretty big changes have taken place this semester. I've had a lot of adjusting to do. Change, which scares me, was a part of this semester that I was resisting pretty strongly. Well, that's about to stop. The time has come for me to move ahead. Bring on the changes! I'm letting go of the past a bit more this Easter. I'm going to start afresh and leave the old beginnings behind me. Hopefully I'll do it better this time. =)


P.S. Don't forget to start the Divine Mercy Novena on Good Friday.

The Way To Tomorrow

Long ago, mankind was created by Love for love. We were created for love. It is written on the hearts of all human beings, whether they be Christian, Jew, Atheist, Hindu, Muslim, or any other belief. We need human interaction. We need to give of ourselves in love. We need to touch the lives of others. It is the deepest longing of every human soul to love and be loved.

"It is not good for man to be alone,"(Gen 2:18) so we have been sent out to learn, live, and love during our time on earth. Since our creation, we have been struggling to achieve this purpose, but our fallen natures provide a great barrier.

Loving is hard. Sometimes loving people involves letting them go, giving up your way, sacrificing your own happiness, staying up too late to take care of them, helping them purchase things they need, and just letting them know how special they are. There are so many ways to love others. Most of them are not easy. Some of them are so difficult that they make me want to cry. This is the most worthwhile form of love, the kind that requires a great deal of sacrifice. If we offer that sacrifice up to the Lord for the sake of those whom we love, then we add to the good we can do for those people.

We cannot give up, because we yearn to love. We are like wolves, we need the pack. Praise God for that beautiful need! I ask for prayers that I might love better and more selflessly. Thank you!

P.S. I really want to domesticate a wolf like this. Clearly, I read to many novels. =)

Something New

Lent is a time for freedom. Since this wonderful season has begun, I've been hearing that from a lot of people. This is a time to break free from our sins and let Christ begin something completely new in us. We, with our simple human intellects, cannot comprehend God's plan for us, because it is something that is always different from anything else we have ever experienced. He is in control and as our pastor said, "If you sneak a peak at the last page of the Bible, He wins!"

So, now is the time to let go of the things that are keeping us from Christ. Now is the time to really take a long hard look at ourselves and determine what it is that Christ is asking us to change. We are all called to be saints. It is not acceptable if our spiritual lives do not have the same intensity as those of the saints. God understands our weakness, of course, but that is no excuse to get comfortable where we are at. As the saying goes, God loves us just as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us that way. We must search our hearts and listen to the truth about where we are on our spiritual journey. We must not get discouraged by our own shortcomings because He is in control. His strength will support us. As we recognize our failures, we must humbly submit them to His care and joyfully open ourselves to a great transformation.

You and I are called to extraordinary greatness. We must not settle for mediocrity. This time has come to let fall our chains and move forward. The pain, the misunderstandings, the fears, the failures, and our plans of the past must be abandoned. We must blindly trust in His plan. Let him free us from our spiritual paralysis. He, the healer and lover of our souls, will not spurn our feeble efforts. Rather, He will strengthen and enrich us for the journey. Let's walk ahead! Let us together experience this new glory that Christ is offering.

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

When I was a little girl, I loved the book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day". I felt so bad for poor Alexander as seemingly everything went wrong. His day is so bad that he repeatedly says that he just wants to move to Australia. It seemed a silly story to me as a kid, but now as I am having a rough day of my own, I find myself remembering this book.

Everyone has bad days. That's a simple enough truth. Well these past few weeks, I've had them in spades. They just keep coming and coming. Last week I got my feelings hurt and spent the rest of the week reeling from it as I tried to adjust to a new schedule that made room for my new job, committee meetings for a few organizations, social time, schoolwork, and sleep. I spent much of last week playing catch up and was determined not to have a repeat.

That plan was an epic failure. With two days that I used have free for whatever I wanted now promised to my babysitting job, I am finding the adjustment to be a lot more difficult than I expected - a lot more difficult than it should be. I spent this entire week being behind on my schedule. A good bit of that is my fault. It's always hard for me to give up time with my friends for schoolwork and so I procrastinate on the schoolwork. The result is a stressed and frazzled self scrambling to finish the work in time.

Last night is an excellent example of this. I had to write a paper, which required some research, and the first draft was due this morning. I've know the topic for a week. I didn't really start on any aspect of the paper, including the research, until yesterday morning. Needless to say, I should have started much earlier. Because I didn't, I ended up staying up until one o'clock in the morning working on it and reading the assigned reading for the class. Two years ago, or even one year ago, if I told you that I was in bed by 1 a.m. that would mean that I got to bed at a "decent" time. Oh for the days when I could get by on five hours of sleep! Now I need eight hours. Well, I set my alarm, but forgot to turn it on and I missed my first two classes.

I feel so angry with myself. Any illusions I had of being an in control, hard working student have been completely stripped away. I am so discouraged. There is so much that I have to do, to improve myself and to get back on top of things. No matter how hard I try, though, I just can't seem to push myself past the laziness.

Maybe that's the point. Perhaps I can't do it and I'm not meant to. My strength will never be enough to make me successful at anything. I feel as if God is stripping away everything I love about myself and my life. Things and people that I treasure and cling to so much are slipping away. Deep inside me there is a voice that invites me to stop leaning on myself or others and lean solely on God. Still, I'm frightened to let go of the people and things that I love. I don't want to lose them. I'm not good at letting go. I know that I mustn't resist, but I want to very badly. I want to reach out to someone, any of my closest friends, but something stops me because I sense that I must deal with this alone.

I don't want to. I'm like a spoiled child resisting the will of her parents because she doesn't understand and because to a certain extent, doesn't want to. My fallen self resists what I am confident is God's hand working in my life. I hate growing pains. They make me ache all over. Like my fictional friend, Alexander, from the book, I want to run away. Maybe not to Australia, but to any place where I won't have to face this confusion, this pain, this loss, and my very self. Right now, when I look in the mirror, I don't like what I see - and I am not talking about body image. I am learning very tough truths about myself and how I live my life and I'm terrified to face them. To anyone who still reads this blog, please, please pray for me!'