Be Strong & Take Heart

Christmas break is quite delightful! I have been able to get about 12 hours of sleep a night, eat lots of food, spend lots of time with family, go to daily mass, and take extra time for prayer. I have a boom that I've been reading for pleasure, and am catching up on all my television watching. But I wanted to share today about my prayer that I had this evening.

This past semester was pretty rough. I had headaches almost daily for the second half of the semester and some form of migraine or tension headache about twice a week. I would say that I truly experienced suffering this last semester, and continue to experience it. Even with break I've had quite a few headaches and experienced quite a bit of pain. But I keep offering it up. I know The Lord has asked me to suffer in this way, though I am going to doctors I see what they can do for me because my pain knocks me down some days to a point of not functioning.

Today's inspiration came from psalm 31 and Matt. 10:17-22.

Today's gospel was kind of funny to me today. If you think about Christmas, it's a time of rejoicing in the gift of our Savior. Yet today's gospel says "you will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved."

Those who choose to follow Jesus will be hated and despised. They will face many challenges and have a life where they will endure much suffering, but they will be rewarded, and they will beat the cross, the trials with the grace of God.

The gospel today also says " do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say for it will not be you who speak but the spirit of your Father speaking through you." He tells us not to worry. Know, and be aware that it will be hard but the Lord will speak through you, work through you - you will be His hands and feet, upon choosing to belong to him, to follow him.

Then the psalm says " I will rejoice and be glad in your love, once you have seen my misery, observed my distress. You will not abandon me into enemy hands..." The Lord knows our misery, he sees our pain, our distress - he even monitors it and won't give us more than we can handle. (I know the Lord won't give me more than I can handle, but sometimes I wish he didn't trust me so much -Mother Teresa) Therefore, we know we can rejoice and be glad in the love of the Lord. He is our source of joy, and will ease the burdens and suffering in our lives.

Lastly, it says "Be strong and take heart all you who hope in The Lord." May The Lord be our strength! May we seek him as our source of joy. When we grow weary may we seek our King to reign in our hearts, may we permit him to lead us.

"Do not be afraid, your prayer had been heard" Luke 1:13
May we be strong in our Father in heaven and never fear that he will not provide for us - knowing that he has heard our prayer and will answer!

Praise be to God, may we rejoice in the gift of our savior, as he has been born and come to us in the innocent form of a child!

God bless!

Tuesday Memo

Well, seems that the holidays, and coming of Jesus, and Christmas break too threw off my Monday Memo, so it's Tuesday Memo this week. Praise be to God! Glory to Him in the highest, for the greatest gift has been given to us this day, the gift of our Savior Jesus! And this weeks quote was sent to me today, in honor of Christmas, from a friend! 

"God is so great that he can become small. God is so powerful that he can make himself vulnerable and come to us as a defenseless child, so that we can love him."
 -Pope Benedict XVI

Amen! The little Lord Jesus comes as a child so that we can love him. This year my family was blessed to have a newborn baby around for Christmas, and let me tell you, it is so easy to love a child. Their innocence makes them beautiful. May we come to love our Savior as a child, and rejoice in the gift of the little Lord Jesus for our salvation!

I Just Want...

I just want peace
I just want joy
I just want love
I just want to know
I just want things to be easy
I just want the pain to I away
I just want comforted
I just want to be loved
I just want to be cared for
I just want it to be easy to smile again
I just want justice
I just want strength
I just want...
I just want...
I just want...

Lately, in prayer I find myself saying things like what I wrote above. Asking for all these things, and as I was sitting in adoration the other I realized something - I don't want all these...I just want Jesus. Shouldn't that be our prayer? With each suffering, with each trial, with each moment of distress, in each moment of hurt, each time we feel rejected and just want to know we're loved shouldn't we call on the name of our savior? Jesus.

One of the most powerful prayers is simply calling on the name Jesus. Jesus I need you. Jesus I want you. All those things I listed above our fruits of just knowing Jesus and calling on him when in need.

I just want Jesus. He's the satisfaction of my heart, my soul. He is my everything. Amen? Amen!

Fall Semester 2012: Life as a Student Missionary

I am now about one week into winter break, praise Jesus! That felt like the longest semester ever, and I'm sure as graduation grows closer (don't worry I still have 6 more semesters) it will feel the same way each semester (that it'll never end, of course).  But today I want to tell you a little about what I did, and a little about what I learned, through out the semester.

What I did:

1. Quit panera - it was actually really hard to quit a job, and a part of me felt a little bad, since I was a closing manager, but it was unnecessary stress, that wouldn't help me as a nurse, and impaired my education some.

2. Started a bible study at Capital

3. Learned about the human body - and how cool it is.

4. Attended various meetings

5. Hung out with Jesus in mass and adoration just about every week (at least for the first half)

6. Experienced severe migraines, and chronic headaches.

7. Stayed up way too late eating chocolate with a sister (probably more than once)

8. Hugged people - a lot.

9. Made new friends

10. Lived off of coffee.

What I Learned:

1. Jesus is my source of contentment, of joy, of peace, of strength (I'm still learning this, but learned more than I knew before!)

2. I like giving gifts, and writing letters - a lot.

3. How to say no (this one's still a work in progress, baby steps..)

4. the reality of nursing school, and it's difficulty.

5. Getting up really early in the morning when you haven't done so since you were 16 is really hard.

6. How to love and live with 6 different women (work in progress!)

7. How to function with a headache (this one isn't easy, and made for a grumpy Amber)

8. To find joy amidst suffering, and in offering suffering to Christ.

9. I can eat a single frozen pizza in one sitting, by myself

10. I actually enjoy wearing dresses!

So Fall Semester 2012 - it was a little crazy. I did a lot. I learned a lot, and a lot that I learned cannot be turned into words. I was blessed to be able to start a bible study. I was blessed to build relationships with women in major, and in my community. I was blessed to be able to go to mass, and adoration, to have fruitful prayer. I was blessed to know the depth of my mother's love. The past semester was a challenge, but if there's one thing God has been teaching me in the week I've had of break so far, it's that His grace is enough. Amen? Amen!

God bless!

Happy Advent!

To Love with His Love

This was just something I wrote recently, and wanted to share :)

I pray for God to lead
for patience as I wait for you to know
for peace in the plan God has, in the decision made
for guidance from the Holy Spirit in my heart and yours
for love and sacrifice, for the well-being of one another
for mercy, the ability to forgive the hurts
for knowledge to know where God is leading
for wisdom to love with His love
for grace to love with His love
for understanding of His plan, and of His love. 

Monday Memo

"What really maters in life is that we are loved by Christ and that we love Him in return. In comparison to the love of Jesus, everything else is secondary. And, without the love of Jesus, everything is useless." Bl. John Paul II

Monday Memo

"Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent."
-St. John of the Cross

Nursing School's Influence on the Gift of Life

In the past, I've never been a huge pro-life advocate. I knew it was wrong, but didn't fully understand why, and typically I would just keep quiet when the topic came up because I didn't know what to say. This semester I am in a Human Growth in Development class, where we learned about conception, babies, and all stages of life. I'm also in Human Anatomy and Physiology. Currently, we are learning about the brain, and brain development. So I'm sitting here reading about the development of a brain in a fetus - and thinking about other various things I've learned this past semester - and I find myself growing ever more passionately distraught by the pro-choice movement, and by the existence of abortion.

When this first started to strike me I was sitting in my human growth class in the first month of the semester, I believe it was the second week to be exact. Our topic of the day was prenatal development and birth, and the first section of the chapter is Conception and Genetics. I distinctly remember my professor saying "conception is a miracle" Each and every time a woman gets pregnant it is a miracle. Everything has to be so perfect. The body needs to be the right temperature, there is only a few days window where a woman can even get pregnant, the sperm has to travel through the womanly organs and attach with the egg properly, and then it has to properly implant in the woman's uterus... There are so many things that have to be just right - that it truly is a miracle for a child to be conceived. It is truly a miracle for a child to be born.

That then started to cross my mind from time to time throughout the semester, especially as I would here people talking about abortion, and birth control, etc. And all I could think to myself was, is - that child that you're killing, or preventing for your own pleasure is a miracle, and it is miraculous that everything between your body, and your significant other's body was so perfect that a life was able to be conceived.

Then, today I'm reading about the brain and the best way to learn about the brain is starting from the beginning- with the developing brain in a fetus. "By the fourth week, the human brain begins to form as an expansion of the neural tube" Each fetus has a neural tube which begins to form the central nervous system, and this is formed very early in development, but by the fourth week the brain is starting to form, with the brain we function. That is how we think, eat, breathe, walk, talk, grasp a fork, kick, etc. The central location for all functionality is already present and forming by the fourth week of a pregnancy, yet many seem to believe it's not a life yet? This I don't understand.

I see a baby, and I can't help but smile. I see a pregnant woman, and she is all aglow, even in the early months when they may be feeling sick. I don't normally post very controversial topics because I don't really want to have arguments, and I simply want people to come to know Jesus, and His love, and help them get there by words that I feel compelled to share - but I think one thing we need to realize is that each human life is a precious gift. I never understood the miracle of each life until this year. There was a point when if someone asked my opinion on abortion/contraceptives I would have told them it's not for me, but it's okay that they exist. Now, with a better understanding of the gift of life and the miracle that each conception, each child is -I hope, and pray that one day each person in this world would realize the gift of each life, and choose to embrace the gift, the miracle of a child.