Forming Your Foundation

So, I'm always telling you prayer is important and we need to pray, etc. etc. Where do you start though? For me, I started with scripture and the Rosary. You can access daily mass readings at http://www.usccb.org/nab, with that you can reflect on the readings or I'm sure you can find various 30 days of scripture type things to get you started; however, I highly recommend you read the daily readings since they are given out by the church.
How do I meditate on scripture?
First off, start your prayer time by asking the Holy Spirit to come into your heart, and ask that He help you to quiet your heart and mind in order to be able to clearly know what the Lord has to speak to you that night. Then, read the passage once through. After your first reading, read again a second time, slower though, and maybe underline or highlight lines that stand out to you and see how they tie into your life. God will do the work if you give him the time and He will be soooo pleased that you are taking time out of your day to give to him. So don't hesitate to start!
 What do I do after meditation?
Well, it all depends. Sometimes I like to sit in silence and just let the Lord speak to my heart. If you're just getting started I would recommend a decade of the rosary or pray a divine mercy chaplet. Neither one takes long and they, of course, are both great ways of prayer! You can also look up prayers (I'll suggest a few at the end) to say. Also, you can just speak to God saying little lines like "Jesus I love you" "Jesus I trust you" "All I am is your Lord" or whatever comes to mind. It's all about letting the Holy Spirit guide you!

One of my favorite websites from when I first started praying and getting into my faith is: http://christmyhope.com/id17.html. They have many great prayers and sweet photos. It is a website I knwo you will love going to!

And now some prayers to say after meditation!

Anima Christi
Soul of Christ, make me holy.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, fill me with love.
Water from Christ's side, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
Good Jesus, hear me.
Within your wounds, hide me.
 Never let me be parted from you.
From the evil enemy, protect me.
At the hour of my death, call me.
And tell me to come to you.
That with your saints I may praise you.
Through  all eternity. Amen.

Hail, Holy Queen
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve: to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then,most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus, O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary! Pray for us O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen.


St. Francis Prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.


If you feel meditation is too much then start even smaller. Start by saying a morning offering prayer such as this:
O Jesus, through the immaculate heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world. I offer them for all the intentions of your Sacred Heart: the salvation of souls, reparation for sin, the reunion of all Christians. I offer them for the intentions of our bishops and of all the apostles of prayer, and in particular for those recommended by our Holy Father this month. Amen.

You'll build up once you start small. Don't allow yourself to become content where you are, but push yourself to seek holiness more and more and strive to constantly be growing closer to Christ. Bring the Lord to every task of your day. Stand on the sure, true, firm foundation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll be sure to be caught if you fall. You'll be sure to be helped when you fall.

May God bless you!
Keep praying!

In Jesus&Mary,
amber

Answering the Call Part 1

My last blog talked about how God calls us to do great things, big and small, the question and problem is: how to answer the call... With prayer of course! But there's more than that!

Prayer is important because we get to know our Lord by spending time with him and the only way to spend time with the Lord is in prayer so we must pray to be able to discern what BIG or little thing God is calling us to do.

Today we're going to start with the little things.
What little things are important in your life?
For me, I find prayer and house chores rather important.
Prayer is important because it sets the foundation for the rest of your life, and for each day. You have to make time to spend with God each day so He can give you the grace you need to fight your battle that day.
House chores: why are the little things such as cleaning your room, the bathroom, laundry, dishes, etc. important? By doing them you build a habit of doing them rather than procrastinating and putting them off until it takes you two hours to complete a task when you could just give 5-10 minutes a day or week depending on the task. 

My advice: be diligent in the little things, doing so will form good habits for your future.


My challenge: pick a "little" thing you struggle with and strive to improve it...I suggest making a schedule for each day and sticking to it like glue.


My suggestion:Plan out each day or each week the night or week before so you know exactly what is going on when and can make time for prayer and the little way you want to improve your life in order to prepare you to do something big.

God bless!
Keep praying!

In Jesus&Mary,
amber

The Call

The Lord calls us all to great things, to serve Him, to trust Him with our lives and to put aside our fear of failure and to completely surrender to His will, however, this is extremely hard. Our human fears often interfere with God's great plan for us. I know I'm afraid to be judged by others because of my faith, and afraid to be rejected and persecuted because of Jesus, "Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reweard will be great in heaven..." Mt. 5:11-12 This verse reminds us that we belong to Jesus, and only to Jesus. He will always provide for us. And so we need to come out of our comfort zone and turn to Christ, relying on Him as our strength, and well, completely surrender to him as he is our King, Father, and Savior. He has a divine will for us and the only way we can truly fulfill his will Divine will is by giving him everything that is within us!

Now this is easier said than done, so how do we start? Where do we go from deciding it's time to raise the standards and do something more with our lives?

We pray! Start small and build your way up. Pick somewhere you want to start. A great way is by doing a consecration to Jesus through Mary, Pope John Paul II made one based off of St. Louis Marie de Montfort's original. It's a good foundation for prayer because it has 33 days where you read scripture, meditate on it, say prayers for the part you are on, and make a resolution to improve wherever God is calling you to improve in your life. You can also find in either the front or back of your bible ways to read the bible in 2 years, or something like that and so you can do it that way. You can start with a chaplet of divine mercy, a decade of the rosary, a morning offering prayer, or whatever else floats you boat. Just be sure to take that quiet time in your day to give to the Lord and get to know Him and spend time with him because prayer will need to be the foundation for your earthly journey.

God bless!
Keep praying!

In Jesus&Mary,
amber

P.S. if you need prayer sources feel free to contact me via email: amberrose521@hotmail.com, or facebook or comment on here. I'd be more than happy to help you get started on your path to holiness. I promise it'll be a decision you never regret making!

"Do Hard Things"

This evening my youth minister gave me a novel to read for inspiration as I'm going to work with one of my friends to serve the Lord and help bring knowledge of His great love for us to the youth of the world, "Do Hard Things" by Alex&Brett Harris. Alex & Brett are two teens who chose to begin challenging the youth of the world to raise their expectations. In reading 15 pages I am already inspired to be a greater self gift to those around me. I want to cook dinner for my family once a week, unload dishes, clean and be of service to my mom without being asked. I want to be a self gift. I refuse to settle for less than my best, so why am I telling you this? Well, I want you to join with me on this journey! Challenge yourself! How can you be a greater self gift? And I don't mean a literal gift, I mean a gift of your service, of your time, of your hard work? How can you better spend your time? Volunteer at a local nursing home or hospital. Help your parents around the house, complain less and sacrifice that television time for your friends, family or even a stranger. I want to challenge others, you included, to do harder things. Strive to be your best and settle for nothing less! From there we'll grow with our faith as well. Service is part of being a christian, so serve then do something fun, go see a movie, open your time of service in prayer, find those friends who are going to push you to take the next level, get involved with a church youth group. Seek to challenge yourself and take the road less travelled. Seek the good Lord, our God and Savior in all that you do. Raise you expectations!

I challenge you to be a self gift in your service to the other people in this world!

God bless!
Keep praying.

In Jesus&Mary,
amber 

By the Grace of God

This weekend I had a retreat for the servants/leadership team in my youth group. It was a wonderful experience to be able to open up to the Lord and recommit my life to Him over again, as it is important to continually give our lives over to Him. Giving ourselves to the Lord isn’t a one time thing. We started Saturday morning with mass and finished the day with confession and adoration. For me, adoration was amazing, as I’m sure it was for everyone else. Lately, I have really been struggling to see the beauty within me and to see myself as Jesus sees me so I praying all week and starting Friday night in our communal prayer asking Christ to show me myself in His eyes. He kept giving me the verse Song of Songs 4:7 “You are all beautiful, my beloved, there is no blemish within you”. So I was just giving myself to the Lord telling Him I give everything that is mine and completely emptying myself so that He may fulfill my every need and become the strength I need to keep pressing on, but also to spread the word of God and share His glory with others. After our Holy Hour everyone wanted to be crazy and play ridiculous games, but I knew the Lord wasn’t done speaking to my heart. I really wanted to bond and grow in fellowship with my brothers and sisters, but I knew God was calling me to Himself to speak to me in a more intimate way.

You see, during adoration I ended up just sitting with my arms open and completely opened myself up asking the Lord to come into my heart. Now He wanted to speak to me. First I started by reading An Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales to help me come back to my quiet place. That night we also began our consecration to Jesus through Mary done by St. Francis de Montfort, so I began by reflecting more on the day one readings and journaling what had been on my mind during my meditation.

Following this I began to read from my Volume II Conversations with the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus written by Anne the lay apostle(http://www.directionforourtimes.org/). The passage I came to was about something we had heard in one of the talks earlier that day. Jesus was reminding us to examine our intentions of our actions to be sure we are acting from our heart as Jesus desires. He was also reminding us to not become discouraged when things don’t go as we suspect or hope which goes around to trusting in His divine will and that whatever happens must be a part of His will which was nice for me to hear since this year I will be having life changing decisions to make. So finding that passage God was reminding me to be His servant and strive to serve Him with the purest of intentions.

With this I still felt God more to say and He did. I started flipping through my bible hoping the Holy Spirit would guide my pages and surely enough He did. I came to few passages I’d read before, but one really hit home, and it was a new one. The Lord showed me 1 Corinthians 15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them-yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” This verse, I felt, described me perfectly. Having converted to the Catholic faith many tell me that I am amazing and what I’ve done is amazing, but it was not I who did this. It was not I who nagged at my heart to the point where I could no longer resist, but Jesus. Only by the grace of God am I here! If it weren’t for God placing certain people in my life when He did I wouldn’t even be alive today of this I’m sure. If he hadn’t placed Jaime and Tim in my life I would have never been introduced to the faith. Therefore, it is only by the grace of God that I am where I am. Were it not for His divine will, his mercy, and his glorious grace, where would I be? Where would you be?




If it were not for the grace of God where would you be today?

Keep praying!
God bless!

In Jesus&Mary,
amber

Growing "Old" or Up rather

Remember the days when wearing Hollister Co. jeans made you B.A. and you thought you were the shiznit if you owned a pair? Do I ever! Remember the bad hair(perms/color), bold crazy make-up, ridiculous fights over silly boys you never ended up dating and found out that dating isn't all it's cracked up to be, unless of course you have the right person? If not for those days, we wouldn't be who we are today.

This evening I began looking through all my old photos from my middle school days, and freshman too...even back to last year actually and it truly amazes me how quickly we grow and change. To refer to a specific grade I'll pick 8th because I have the most photos from it. Compared to how we all look now our faces were still chubby with "baby" fat and we all had weird body shapes, poor make-up experiments, bad outfits, crazy moments of boredom with poor judgement. There is just so much growing and changing that we have done in 4 years. We've all matured at least a little, some more than others. We've grown into our bodies, our clothes aren't quite as bad and when it comes to girls and make-up we either don't wear it or have it mostly under control. I think the best part though has to be looking at the pictures of the guys who we've watched grow over the years. They hadn't had their growth spurts yet so they're the size of all us girls and it's crazy to look at when most of them are close to 6' if not over these days. It's funny, really, how we all ended up turning out so far.

We, the seniors of 2011 have more year left together. To enjoy each other, to laugh at each other, but also to grow together, to make life changing decisions. We've been together, some of us since we were in diapers, lets make it a good one, full of memories that will last a lifetime! So as we're filling out college applications, becoming frustrated and not wanting to grow up, to move on, to move forward and start the rest of our lives, we'll remember the good times and then remember there are so many more great memories to be made!
And to finish off, a few photos for old times sake!

Days: Good & Bad

As human beings we should not be expected to be perfect, to be cheerful, to be joyful all the time, but so often it seems we are. So what do we do? We put on a mask and try to hide from the world that nothing is right, everything is wrong and we feel as if we're falling apart, nothing is holding us together and we are weak. But our masks, oh our masks! They hide that. People who don't know you well will buy right into the lie. "how are you?" "Oh...I'm good. how are you?" this would be how a conversation would go, but the oh and ... hint to something more. Something so much more that says my life sucks and I feel so lost. However, from most people this feeling can be hidden and the mask works. When it doesn't work you break down. You start crying, falling apart, crumbling because this person who knew you were not okay is someone who knows you so well to know that you weren't okay.

Truly, it is amazing to me how quickly everything can change. Yesterday, I had my picture perfect day. It was quiet, I had time to think, time to pray, time to read, and simply took a lot of time and gave it to God. It was wonderful and I couldn't have asked for a better day. Then the internet acted up and I just wanted to start applying for colleges like I'm supposed to and so I became frustrated very quickly turning mood all around. I was questioning if I did the right thing in one situation, and extremely agitated. It all went downhill from there. Should I have told this guy or just let it run it's course and pan out? Will I go to college? Why do I feel so alone? I feel so lost! I don't know what to do, my head spinning in circles a millions times a second! Endless thought after thought.

And so, we have good days and we have bad days. That's a fact of life. Today I want to challenge you, don't expect people to be perfect and don't judge them when they fall. Help them up, love them and be their friend because when people fall, when people fail, that's what they need: a loving friend to help them up again. So even in their imperfections love the people in your life.
God bless!

In Jesus&Mary,
Amber

Intercession of saints & Mystery of the Rosary

My parish priest recently showed me a great way to explain why we, as catholics, ask for the intercession of Mary and the saints. Jesus in fact did this! He spoke with the dead, that's the transfiguration! The verse is Matt. 17:1 (Matt 17:1-4 After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with)  and there's a great way to remember this. Now, it's easier to see with a picture, so bear with me as I try to explain it. 7 is the number to remember in the bible and represents Jesus, so first remember 7. Now, the transfiguration was when 2 guys, Elijah and Moses spoke with Jesus from heaven. So you have one guy on each side of Jesus (1 7 1) which when written out you can see how it makes an M to remember Matt or you can also make it to represent Mary, who we ask to intercede for us often. In the Bible Jesus talks to dead people, in essence, therefore,  we can too. Now, why do we also ask for Mary's intercession to frequently? Well, she was obviously special, she carried Jesus in her womb, God chose her to be the mother of Christ, they literally shared everything for 9 months while Christ grew within her. So we ask Mary's intercession because she knew Christ so well and He will listen to His mother, so why wouldn't we. Mary is beautiful! And it's not like we are worshipping her as many would say, but rather we are seeking her help. I read once, and often say, Mary will draw us close to the Sacred Heart of her Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, which is where our true home is. Which is why we pray the rosary.

Today is Tuesday which means we pray the Sorrowful Mysteries. There are 5 mysteries within the Sorrowful mysteries.
1. Agony in the Garden
2. Scourging of the side of Christ
3. The Crowning of Thorns
4. The Carrying of the Cross
5. The Crucifixion

http://www.rosary-center.org/sorrow.htm


-The Agony in the Garden Luke 22:44-45 "In His anguish He prayed with all the greater intensity, and His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground. Then He rose from prayer and came to His disciples, only to find them exhausted with grief"
What great pain Jesus suffered through this agony in the garden. He was in such agony in prayer, knowing what was coming, but also He had only asked 1 hour of time for prayer of His disciples and they could not give that one hour, for they fell asleep. I want to challenge you to spend one hour a day in prayer. If you can, make it one continuous hour, but if your day does not allow, spread it out throughout the day, but make time for Jesus in prayer.
-The Scourging"The chief priests with the elders and the scribes held a council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, had Jesus scourged and handed him over to be crucified." (Mk 15:1-16) The physical suffering Christ went through with the the scourging is obvious. This is just one of the numerous times His blood is shed for the salvation of our souls. Blood and water poured out of His side for this!
-The Crowning with Thorns"They stripped off his clothes and threw a scarlet military cloak about him. Weaving a crown out of thorns, they placed it on his head, and a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" (Mt 27:27-31)
This shows great suffering. Humiliation first off, and physical pain as well. Imagine being stripped nude in front of a community, being given a crown made thorns that is placed on your head, causing blood to run down your face that begins to mix with sweat and drip into your eyes for you are unable to wipe your face. The great mockery as well. So, when you have been mocked at school for one reason or another, or any other place remember the crowning with thorns and the great pain Christ suffered, remember He was mocked and unite your suffering to His.
-The Carrying of the Cross "Jesus, weak from being beaten, was unable to carry His cross to Golgotha alone. Simon, a Cyrenian, helped him." (Mk 15:20-22)
How weak our Lord was! He suffered so greatly for us, and we're not finished yet. Christ fell three times and was mocked the entire time Simon helped him to carry His cross. This is one way to show why friendship is so important in our earthly lives, Christ, first of all had His disciples always with him, helping him, but even as He carried His cross He had the assistance of another because He was physically too weak to carry His cross, so we must make Christ our strength for we too are too weak to carry our cross.
-The Crucifixion "When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him and the criminals there, one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." (Lk 23:33-46)
Our Lord knew what He was doing on the Cross. What great love He has for us, that He would die and suffer so severely in order to give us eternal life! There is also found,during the time of the crucifixion, another reason to turn to our Blessed Mother Mary, seeking her intercession. "Woman, behold your Son. Son, behold your Mother." Jesus says this to Mary. He cared so dearly for His Mother, but He also tells us Mary is the Mother of us, His people. Which is why we seek her intercession.

To conclude: Keep praying. Never give up. Seek the intercession of Mary and the saints. Challenge: work at building your prayer life to spending a full hour with Jesus each day, just like He asked of His disciples in the first sorrowful mystery. Dear children of God, keep pressing on!
God bless!

In Jesus&Mary,
amber

A Million Thoughts. one mind.

The past 24 hours in essence have been slow and boring, which is nice sometimes to have these lazy days where I can sleep until noon and not have a care in the world. However in my head I have been miserable. It's been one of those times where my head can't stop spinning. I'm trying to just trust in God and let Him lead, but I keep freaking out. I keep panicking. How am I going to tell my parents if God calls me to NET? Where am I going to go to college? What will I be like? Why does it seem that when I make a decision to not date any guys this year and truly mean it that there are countless being seemingly thrown at me, in essence? You see, God works in mysterious ways. First he brought me to this wonderful guy who brought me to the church, I fell in love with him and wanted to be with him the rest of my life, but that's not what God had in store. I was devastated and a complete mess for almost a year, however this summer God showed me it's okay to love with one person. Then the Lord showed me a few others to say, hey there are good guys out there, but He's now saying don't worry about dating. To me, there is not a point in dating in high school because dating is to discern marriage and if you are called to marry a certain person, and I'm not ready for that yet, which is why I'm taking this year to focus on friendship and only view the guys I meet, the guys I know as brothers in Christ, and nothing more. However, the problem: this is becoming more of a challenge than I ever thought it would be. I now have a great guy who really likes me, but I know we're not ready to date yet. He needs time to grow with Christ and mature, and I need to begin to figure out what my life is going to look like, even though I'll never really know, but a general idea would be nice. Plus my grandpa is ill and I need to be here for my family and focus on friendship, continuing to grow in sisterhood with my wonderful friends who have helped me, with Christ, to put the pieces that make me who I am together again. I also have to make HUGE decisions this year pertaining to my future. For me, having a boyfriend, a guy by my side to support me and help me and push me sounds great, but I know it won't be what I need because the only person I really need at my side is Christ and He will always be there. And so I guess tonight I don't have much insight for you all, but rather am trying to sort out what to do because I feel so torn in my heart at what to do. Well, I guess I'll just keep praying and keep trusting in Christ and allowing Him to reign in my heart, to lead me and to guide me, imploring the intercession of the saints and angels and hope that whatever happens is God's will and I won't interfere. Again tonight I would like to remind you all that prayer is crucial to our lives, most especially when we have life changing decisions to make, but all the time because it's how we know Christ!

God bless!

In Jesus&Mary,
Amber

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St5tz4Pxdhs

Ooh Confusion + Trusting Christ

The earthly life we have, we live, is most confusing at times. I so often wish God would come down on a cloud and tell me each step of my life. However, that is not the case and there are so many worldly things to distract us from the will of God that it makes it 10,000 times harder to know His will. All we can do is continue to pray and sometimes that seems to be the hardest thing. I know I always want to give up, to give in, to quit. I so often wish I could just die and go to heaven, but my time here on earth must not be done. I haven't accomplished what God needs of me yet, so I must persevere; therefore, I will. You may be wondering where this might be coming from...on top of the whole having no idea what my future looks like, whether I'll be in college or serving on NET is all up to Christ, but I also fell again with this same thing I'm struggling with. I wish there was a new way to magically make this go away because I always beat myself up and feel so guilty when I fall into the memories of my past relationship and am too weak to suppress my thoughts. It so often seems I'm afraid to be weak. I'm always telling myself to be strong, but really, Christ is our strength, our support. He is our rock on which we must stand firm. So when you get down, don't be afraid to be weak, to be a little lamb. Let Christ be your Shepard. Make Christ your strength and everything will be okay in the end because so long as Christ is in control and you are seeking to do His will it will all be fantastic in the end.
God bless!

In Jesus & Mary,
Amber
P.S. I wanted to share what Fr. told us at mass today.

M-Mary, mother of Christ
A- Assumption of Mary
R-Reincarnation(Immaculate Conception)
Y-Yesum(sp) The Latin name for Jesus

My Journey to the Catholic Faith

On September 27th, 2009 I was baptized, confirmed, and received first communion, therefore being an official catholic; however, I had been practicing on my own, unable to recieve communion for 9 months! Each weekend I went to mass how I wished I could receive Jesus! I knew how glorious it would be, what great strength I would get from it. Oh and how glorious that day was, but that story is for another time. How did I come from hardly believing in God to becoming Catholic? Well, all by the grace of God of course! :) It was through youth ministry provided by Dan DeMatte, Jaime Eblin, and Tim Vines. Every Christmas Dan's youth group does a mission trip and my friend Jaime invited me to go one year where I met Tim. I went and had a blast. A year later I decided to go again, however things went differently afterwards. I had a strong tug on my heart that could only come from God. I had also fallen in love with a boy who was a strong and faithful Catholic. Every Sunday he went to mass with his family and shortly into our relationship he also had me going. He taught me the rosary and if you think of it like a metaphor I was a baby and he was the father of this baby to the faith and raised me until I could walk on my own. However, when the time came to walk on my own I didn't like it. I liked just being lead and was content with being with Tim as well. I loved him with all my heart and truly wanted to marry him, however this was not what God had in store. We broke up three months prior to my baptism and at first it made me question why I was even becoming Catholic. It made me strong too. So we broke up three months prior to my baptism which really did make me question what I was doing, one could only question though and have a panic moment especially when the main reason for the decision was because your boyfriend has been leading you and then he leaves you, which was only God's will, but that's not how it felt. I was heartbroken and lost, I had no idea what to do or where to go, luckily I had wonderful girls who took me into their hearts and "nursed" me back to normal and were able to get me way beyond. I fell in love with someone so much better than Tim, though nothing is wrong with him, Jesus is just like 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times better than any human ever could be, it's just a known fact! My friends edged me along the way encouraging me to keep praying. They showed me new ways to pray and guided me along the way. They helped me up when I fell and "slapped" me when necessary. Something I learned through this that really hit me hard recently is that attitude is everything. As I was struggling to move forward with my life I had the attitude that I was unable to overcome this and it was impossible, basically very negative. However, if I had carried the attitude that everything will be okay because it's God's will and God knows what's best for me it would have been so much easier. Lessons I learned through this: Carry a positive attitude and everything will be better. If you think that you can't do something, change your attitude and remember that no matter what happens or where you end up it will be okay because God is in control and He knows us better than we know ourselves. Lesson number two: Never ever ever give up and always keep praying! Praying is talking to God and spending time with Him. Talking to people and spending time with them is how we get to know people. Therefore, prayer is important because it's how we get to know God so we are better able to recognize Him.

God bless!
In Jesus & Mary,
Amber

Trusting God

So often lately I seem to speaking with friends about the future. Going into my Senior year this fall I have absolutely no idea what my future will look like. I have so many options, which is such a beautiful thing and I am so very excited to see what God has in store, but it's also one of the most challenging times of my life. I've decided I'm not going to date this year unless I strongly feel like God wants me to and even then I really want to work as a servant of God only through friendship. My options for my future: NET ministries, college. Now, that looks like a short list, but believe me, it's a lot longer than it seems, remember that looks can be deceiving. My college options seem to be endless in my mind because I keep thinking of places to look at in order to keep all of my options open, though I have three I really want to apply to. Franciscan University of Steubenville, Capital University and Ohio State University.  I want to go for nursing because it gives me the most options for my future and I feel like God is calling me to that career path. However, I have no idea where else He is calling me except to be a student and His daughter. Therefore, I am going to take this life one day at a time and trust in God, knowing that He will provide because He always provides for His children. A friend told me to think of it this way: Don't be so concerned with the future because no matter what God is control and He will not allow anything terrible to happen because though times may become tough and rough-going God is always with us and it is a part of His will, so we just have to trust Him and be joyful with any circumstance because God is in control and each event is a part of His will, down to the finest detail. Therefore, I am resolving to live as a joyful person and trust in God because that is all we can do.

God is the only true constant in our lives. As humans, we are all imperfect and we will all fall short of expectations and fail any given person at any given time because that is the nature of imperfection. Therefore, PRAYER is EXTREMELY CRUCIAL in our lives because no matter what, God will always be there for us. He always wants to comfort. This morning in my morning prayer time I was crying due to some things going on in my life and Jesus spoke to my heart telling me it'll all be okay, just trust me and continue to pray, he will take care of me for I am his child.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11



God Bless.
 
In Jesus & Mary,
Amber