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