So Much Noise

Driving back to school after a break filled with lots of food and sleep, I had the windows rolled down and the radio blasting, naturally. There was a lot of noise. Noise from the semi's. Noise from the wind. Noise from the radio being turned up super loud. 'By Your Side' by Tenth Avenue North was playing, one of my favorite songs, and in the song when it goes: .

Cause I, I love you

I want you to know

That I, I love you

I'll never let you go

As the words "I love you" are practically being shouted out over all the noise (like I said my radio was turned up), I realized how often God, our Father in heaven, who loves us so much is constantly trying to shout over all the noise in our lives I love you

The past couple weeks, I've been in a dry spell in my prayer. Whenever this happens, it causes me to question my faith, and makes living my life so much more challenging. I often feel as if the Lord is saying to me: "I love you, is that not enough?"

We allow noise to distract. Everything in life is a choice and sometimes we make poor choices, for example: instead of praying, I'm going to go watch this movie, that will influence me to sin because it's filled with sex, alcohol, and partying. I'm not saying all movies are bad. I'm not saying watching movies is a bad activity. There are very good movies out there. What I'm getting at is the when there are times when we know we need to pray, but that takes effort because prayer hasn't been fruitful, and living a Christian life hasn't been easy - and then, in the struggle we choose the easier option, to lay and watch a movie until we fall asleep, ignoring our struggle & our pain, when maybe we should be talking to God and trying to sort out the problem.

So what am I even getting at here? Well, I suppose it's that we need less noise. We are so busy, and there is much noise. I look at my life and every night of the week I typically have something, of some form going whether it's a meeting, work, homework or dinner with a friend - my life is in a constant 'go' state. There is a lot of noise - especially when I need times of silence, I typically fill it with noise. Like my 20 minute drive to work - this could easily be time used for praying a rosary, but I typically fill the silence with music blasting away trying to forget my stresses of school.

Therefore, I encourage you, my dear friends to embrace silence, to take advantage of opportunities to be silent. I desire for all of us to be living for the Kingdom of God, loving each person exactly where they are at for who they are (that will be continued in another post). I want all of us to know the love of God, and to be able to live in peace & love.

"Pray, hope, and don't worry" -Padre Pio

God bless!

GO! GO! GO!

I'm training for a half marathon. I'm crazy, I know, this has been established. Actually, I really enjoy running. However, I tend to be injury prone. Sprained ankles, stress fractures, and the like. We were supposed to run 6 miles today...I didn't finish my 6 miles. This was really hard for me. I was running, chugging along at my own little pace, and pain started shooting through my leg. I tried to push through, but couldn't, I knew I was injured. 


So - I had a 2 mile walk back to my car...and I had to walk slow. Thus I took time to contemplate.(I was actually really annoyed at first because it was just another thing to add to the list of bad things happening)


The trail we run is alongside a river. I began to contemplate this and came to the realization that God's grace is like the river, it's slow, steady constant. When there's a disruption (sin, distraction) the river flows differently, and seemingly faster. I applied this to God's grace -when we are struggling God's grace is poured out more fervently. 


This struck me in a profound way because the past two days have been filled with suffering for me, and I was beginning to feel frustrated and overwhelmed. Then I realized - God is with me, in this moment, in this trial His grace is being poured in great abundance unto my soul, and he is strengthening me.


 After realizing this, it started snowing. This was a wet, cold snow. It caused my sweatshirt to be damp. But I ended up looking at the snow as God's grace. The snow was a literal, physical, tangible (metaphorically) representation of God's grace. 
In the time of suffering I was gifted today, I was able to grow by contemplating God's grace. If I hadn't been forced to stop, I never would have taken the time to think about God's grace in my life. 


As a college student my life is a constant go, go, go. Work. Class. Homework. Meeting. Social event. Coffee date. Home. Prayer. Mass. go. go. go. There's little time to stop. There's little time to contemplate. It's easy to overlook the little blessings in day to day life. 


As I reflected on my time being forced to stop and slow down, I am thankful.
In addition, I realized how we need to stop more in our lives. Life is filled with little blessings. Will we keep overlooking them or will we stop to notice the way God's grace is a constant presence in our life? Will we stop so we can find the grace to remain joyful?


God speaks to us in the silence of our hearts. May seek quiet moments in our lives, so we may contemplate God's grace. 


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


What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God with our appetite and with our tongue, for the language he best hears is silent love. 
-St John of the Cross

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

-Mother Teresa