MY Plan is NOT GOD'S Plan

Tonight was one of those nights where I was super tired. I was out late last night, I moved today, by all reason and logic I should be exhausted, and should have crashed, which was my full intention. Then, I curled up in my bed with netflix, all ready to go night-night... and next thing I knew I was wide awake... So I decided it was a good night for some blogging. My night has now turned into what is actually one of my favorite nights. I ate some popcorn, made some tea and started playing my 'Come Thou Fount' pandora station (I think everyone should have this station).

A couple weeks ago I was at the Steubenville Youth Conference as a chaperon with the youth group I've helped with for the past year. The last time I was at a Steubenville Conference was 5 years ago. I was going into my junior year of high school. I had just finished RCIA and was preparing my heart and body to receive the sacraments in September. The last time I was at a Steubenville Conference I was dating this guy who I thought was the bees knees. I was 16. Being back on the campus of Franciscan University for this conference, and not being where I thought I would be was very surreal.

Five years ago I thought I would be married to my "high school sweetheart", living in a house he built in the woods with one or two kids. Though we were young, we took our relationship very serious. So what I'm getting at is that today I am not anywhere near where I thought my life was going to take me 5 years ago. And this thought has been recurring a lot to me over the last week or so as I continue to reflect on my life.

After going on this conference I started praying every day, on my own.. without anyone encouraging me or really directing me. I read scripture and prayed a decade of the rosary. Shortly after (very shortly), the guy calls me one morning to tell me well - we aren't supposed to be together anymore. And I was... well... the short version is a hot mess.. so we'll leave it at that.

BUT so. much. goodness... so much goodness came from this. As heartbroken and devastated as I was, I know this was a good thing. I kept turning to God. It was quite the battle for me to heal from the hurt, after consuming myself with this relationship, but the goodness came in that the good Lord was able to fill the void left from the ending of this relationship. It took me a long time to heal, and slowly but surely I began drawing closer to God and allowing him to heal me..

Today - I'm single, but in love with the Lord, and satisfied by him (most days... nobody's perfect..). I'm in

nursing school. I have an amazing group of friends. I know there's a lot I still need to learn. I know I still need to grow in virtue, in selfless sacrificial love. I'm not where I planned my life out to be 5 years ago. I'm not where I thought I would be, but I would not want to be anywhere else.

Today, one of my best friends got engaged. She is my sister. She knows my heart, my struggles, and I know hers. She is beautiful. And watching this relationship unfold, has been a beautiful gift, and a beautiful testament to God's plan not being our plans for ourselves. This part of her journey in her life helped me to see God's infinitely perfect timing. Her now fiance came into her life at the right time, with where she was at with school. Their budding friendship started just before her final year of school, almost exactly a year ago. And with all she's told me about this relationship, it was so clearly God's will. So much peace came with it.

So the lesson of the week, my plan is not God's plan, but God's plan is infinitely greater than what I could plan for myself.

Seek Jesus in the Eucharist

My CYSC small group

So y'all haven't heard from me in a while, and I'd been posting on a pretty regular basis so you might be wondering what happened to me. Well, I finished my summer semester of classes, vegged out for a few days, and took off for 9 days of service to middle school and high school youth. The first 6 days I was gone I was at CYSC (read more about here). I was in charge of a small group of 8 middle school girls - mine were going into 7th and 8th grade. It was a beautiful, challenging, grace-filled week of growth in love, here). Which was a more relaxed weekend, filled with lots of Jesus love. There is so much I could tell you about all these days I spent away from the normal grind of life... and I'm sure it will continue to come out.
specifically self-less love. Then I went straight from camp to meet up with the high school youth group I serve with at a Steubenville Conference (read more about them

Let's see - on Friday of camp - when we send our campers home and Mason (a fellow counselor) and I headed to Steubenville, OH about 3 hours from camp. I had begun losing my voice - and it continued to go out all weekend. So come Sunday, I was pretty raw for a voice, but had convinced myself I wasn't getting sick.. Well, my voice didn't get better and by Wednesday it was starting to feel more like a cold. Come Thursday night I was pretty miserable. I'd gotten my voice back at this point, but I was hacking like it was job. Friday morning I woke up more miserable than I'd felt in a long time, so I crawled out of bed and headed straight to the local minute clinic, which wasn't going to have a physician present, so I called my doctors office and they squeezed me in that morning. I was very thankful. So I call my mom to kill time waiting to go to the drs office, and am crying for my mom to make me feel better because at that point I was in a lot of pain, in my head, in my ear, and had grossed myself out with the mucous coming out of my body. I go to my appt and after an hour of waiting finally see the doc. Where she progresses to look at me, get a second doctor's opinion on what medication to put me on - they put me on the strong stuff and send me home with some wonderful cough syrup and antibiotics. So I got home and put myself to bed where I proceeded to sleep from noon on Friday until about 2 Saturday afternoon. I may have been awake an hour or two here or there, but that was about it. And Saturday afternoon I still took it easy, just laying in bed watching movies.... but I was getting sick of television at this point too.. Okay - so I was sick and miserable and whiny and mucous-ey, and gross... what does this have to do with Jesus in the Eucharist...

It all started back in February. I was on a retreat and we had adoration that afternoon, and I just had this increased desire for Jesus in the Eucharist. So for lent this year my prayer 'add' was to go to mass or adoration everyday. Well since then, I've continued this practice, not necessarily everyday intentionally, but I tend to make a point to go to daily mass if it fits with my schedule. For the time I was at CYSC and Steubenville I went to mass everyday for 8 of the 9 days I was gone, and was able to adore Jesus in the Eucharist via Eucharistic Adoration at least 4 times. So coming back from my adventures I continued going to daily mass where I could and adoration and sometimes doing both because I have the time right now so I might as well take advantage of the time I have to grow in the grace of Christ. Well, from Thursday through Saturday I wasn't able to go to mass or adoration, or even spend time praying in the way I normally do - reading and reflecting on scripture, but was just stuck offering up my suffering for others when I was awake enough to do so.. yeah... I was pretty pathetic.. I clearly don't handle being sick well... but an ear infection and sinus infection consecutively makes for a lot of head pain..


Anyway, I was so excited to go to mass today! I was finally able to leave the house. I got dressed in clothes that weren't jammies... I smelled good, I looked good, I was feeling good - but best of all I finally got to seek Jesus in the Eucharist..

My friends, Jesus is everything. He is all we need. He is our source, our summit, our strength, our courage, our energy, our healer, our redeemer, our friend, our rock. He wants us. He seeks in each moment, and we should seek to receive him. Here a few quotes I found from saints on seeking the Eucharist, that really encompass all I wanted to get across in this post.

Happy is the soul that knows how to find Jesus in the Eucharist, and in the Eucharist all things! St. Peter Julian Eymard

I urge you with all the strength of my soul to approach the Eucharistic Table as often as possible. Pierre Giorgio Frassati

It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than without holy mass Padre Pio

There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more precious he would have given it to us. St. John Marie Vianney

If we only knew how God regards this sacrifice, we would risk our lives to be present at a single mass. Padre Pio

Jesus is everything we need, and he comes to us in the form of bread, to nourish our souls. May we seek him with all we have, may we risk our lives to seek him in his truest form. 

Rosary Runs + Hats

I bought a hat today. I don't wear hats. I've never worn hats, and never really liked wearing hats, but I bought a hat because I needed something to keep the sun out of my eyes when I run. It's been quite toasty this summer, and I have early starts to my morning, so a morning run hasn't been an option, so I've had to wait for evening to run, but often when I was on my way home the sun is just always hitting me in the eyes. Therefore, I bought a hat. I used it today. It was a good purchase - well worth the $2.88 (thanks walmart).

So I ran tonight because, clearly, I had to test out my hat. That's not actually true. I ran tonight because I just needed to. I needed to do a prayer run. I needed to clear my head, to think, to pray. There seems to be so much going on in my head and nothing all at the same time. It's quite bizarre. 'Round here we've seemed to

have the relationship bug, but I realized earlier this week that I needed to stay focused on where I'm at in my life, and keep my eyes fixed on Jesus. Well - I'm not perfect at that, but I'm working on it.

Because I was feeling all bleh about relationships, and my realizations this week, and needing to come to a concrete resolution, I needed a rosary run. My best revelations come during my rosary runs. I love rosary runs because you're doing something active, and you're praying, and it's hard - so you can push yourself when your hard, but pushing yourself is hard, but you can do it as a prayer - so it becomes doing something greater than yourself. I do my rosary by offering each decade for different intentions. My intentions today were for help in keeping my eyes and heart fixed on Jesus, and doing all for his glory, for my small group girls that I will care for at CYSC (learn more about it here) this upcoming week, for my future spouse (and all the holy men I know who could potentially be that man) for their purity, courage, clarity, and lastly for conversion of all those in my life who do not know Christ. So there are different moments in my run where I'm getting sore, or breathing is getting hard, but in order to keep praying I have to keep running. Anyway, I didn't have any revelations, or profound thoughts during my rosary.

Once I finished today I started walking because I was just feeling really tired, and I could think I a little better that way too. And I just started praying, asking the Lord to help me to see what he wanted to teach me, what he wanted me to do - he was trying to tell me something, but I wasn't listening very well.

One of my favorite quotes came to mind: Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent. St. John of the Cross. 
And I realized that I was frustrated. I was not pleased with having to wait, with having to patient, and I really wasn't pleased with this idea that the guy I might particularly like may not come to be more than a good friendship, and I was holding onto that frustration. Once I recalled this quote a great peace washed over me, and I was reminded of the Lord's great love for me.

In the Boat with Jesus

This post is actually just a copy of the magnifcat reflection from yesterday's readings. I read it last night and was super convicted. I've been having a lot of conversations about the future, and different desires many of my single sisters have for a relationship, for marriage and a family - basically it boils down to we've all had a bad case of spring fever, so when I read this reflection last night I realized that Jesus has us where we are right now for a particular reason. He is about a great work in our hearts and lives, even if don't see it now, and he is preparing us for whatever the future has in store for us. We simply need to be present to where we are right now, and he will work with us and his plan will come to fruition in due time.

In the Boat with Jesus – Padre Pio

Whatever can I say in order to stop the multitude of your thoughts? Don’t try, excessively, to heal your heart, as your efforts would only make it more infirm. Don’t make too great an effort to overcome your temptations, as this violence would only make them stronger. Despise them and don’t dwell on them too much.

Keep Jesus Crucified present to your imagination; in your arms and on your breast, and, kissing his side, say a thousand times: “This is my hope, the living source of my happiness; this is the heart of my soul nothing will ever separate me from his love. I possess him and will not leave him, until he places me in a safe place.

Often say to him: “What can I have on earth, or what can I expect in heaven, if not you, oh my Jesus? You are the God of my heart and the inheritance I desire for all eternity.”

Whom should we fear, therefore? Listen to our Lord who says to Abraham and to you also: “Do not fear, I am your protector.” Therefore, be steadfast in your resolutions. Stay in the boat in which he has placed you, and let the storm come. Long live Jesus!; you will not perish. He may sleep, but at the opportune time he will awaken to restore your calm.

Comparison: The Thief of Joy

I went to confession about 2 weeks ago, and one of the sins I took was that of jealousy. The priest gave a few pointers after I was done confessing the rest of my sins, but one of the things he really honed in on was the importance of not comparing ourselves, our lives to others - I never realized how much I was doing this, and how much it was affecting my life until it was pointed out to me by this priest.

It's so easy to compare ourselves, and our lives to others. I'm just going to share some of the ways I've seen it affect me.

Body image/size - I'm a runner. I run half marathons. I just recently trained for and ran a half marathon, and I was expecting to lose weight when I trained... I ran, and I ate like I always do, I don't think I really even ate more, but I didn't notice a change in my size.. Then I find myself comparing my body to other women who may be skinnier than I am, but don't work out and eat less healthy - not that I'm overweight in the slightest... but I still would feel discouraged.

Running - my speed. I ran in high school, took 2 years off, and picked up running again.. Well in the 2 years that I was off running I slowed down quite a bit. I used to run 8-9:30 minute miles, now I run on average 10-11 minute miles. Yet other people run so much faster than me, and maybe if I trained differently, and ran with people who would push I would run faster, I'm not really sure... but I feel insecure when I run 10:30 minute miles on average because I'm not running fast enough, as fast as other people.

Relationships - okay, you knew this one was coming.. Some of my best friends are in relationships and they are people who I am purely happy for, there has not once been a hint of jealousy that I have experienced because I'm just so happy for all people involved. But then there are other of my friends who are in relationships where I'm like - I just want that.. I want someone to love and to be loved by, I want to share and grow in the selfless love - I ultimately want to be a wife and mother - and my dreams don't go much beyond that. Yes, I love nursing, I absolutely want to do it, but more so than anything else I want to be a wife and mother.

The past - I think we often sit in the present and say "I just wish things could go back to the way they used to be." I know I say this sometimes. We compare our current tough situations to past good/easy situations..

So these are just a few of the ways I saw where comparison has caused me to experience less joy. The question is what to do about it?

1. Pray - pray pray pray pray pray.. we must, must pray. Ask the Lord to help you see the good in your life. Also, pray for those who may be the cause of your jealousy.

2. Gratitude - okay, this is my soap box - but give thanks. Keep a gratitude list. It helps you see the light in the darkness.

3. Distance yourself from the situation if possible.. If there's a friend in a relationship who you are jealous of, keep your distance, or tell your friend that you don't want to talk about the relationship because it's hard on you.

4. Focus on the now. If you're dwelling in the past - look for the good in the situation, and remember the good times, but there is work being done now. Perhaps the Lord is trying to teach you something - look for what he might be teaching you.

5. Scripture - the Lord speaks to us in the silence of our hearts, he speaks to us through scripture. He pours his mercy and love upon us. If you are struggling with body image - turn to the word of God. Find verses that remind you how you are fearfully and wonderfully made, that you are beautiful and there is no blemish within you.

6. Accountability - find an accountability partner. Jesus didn't do things alone, we aren't supposed to go through this life alone either. Talk to a close friend (of the same gender-they'll relate better, I promise), and tell them you're struggling with comparison in area x - work together to come up with a plan to help you stop comparing the situation. Ask them to help you - have them check in on you, ask them to ask you how this particular trial is going.

I lastly want to say - the Lord made each of uniquely us. He made us individuals. He made us in his image and likeness, but he made each of us our own person. He also gave us our free will - to choose him, to choose joy, to choose love. So when it comes to comparison - there is never going to be something inherently good that comes from it. Yes, we can learn lessons from others, we can grow in different ways - but ultimately, comparison in the sense I am addressing, causes us to not see our own beauty, and see with the love with which God created us.

Hard to Love

I have my last day of class for my summer semester today. I still have final exams and such, but we're done with class!! AHH!!!! 8 weeks have just flown by, I made it through, I'm passing everything so far - a year ago it felt like I would never be here, and look at me now! In honor of it being my last day, I jammed out on my drive into school - and the radio was spot on with some of my favorite country songs. I also want to preface by saying that many of my conversations with friends have recently revolved around relationships.

I was singing along to Hard to Love by Lee Brice - click here to listen to the song. Here's the chorus:

I'm hard to love, hard to love,
Oh, I don't make it easy,
Well I couldn't do it if I stood where you stood,
I'm hard to love, hard to love,
And you say that you need me,
Well I don't deserve it but I love that you love me good,

And I started thinking about line "I'm hard to love". Yesterday I had coffee with one of my dear friends, and they were talking to me about the relationship they're in, and how they just need to be patient with their significant other, and I'm also good friends with the significant other, and they have said the same thing to me as well - I just need to be patient with him/her.

"I'm hard to love, hard to love, Oh, I don't make it easy.."
We are all hard to love. Relationships are hard. They require work. They require commitment. They require time. They require patience. They require compromise. They require openness - openness to the idea that anything we have been planning for our lives may not be what God has in store for us.

When we're used to living for ourselves, when we're used to allowing our lives to revolve more or less around ourselves, and not having to be concerned with someone else, it's easy.  Then we have relationships where there is tension that we have to work through.

I had have a really good friend, we've been friends for oh 6 years, she's one of my best friends. And we had turmoil in our relationship. We had year long "break" in our friendship. God was working powerfully in our lives, and transforming us into the women we are today, but in our transformation process we were in different places that created tension in our relationship. We realized we needed space, we learned a lot from acting on our emotions, and the negative effects of that. Then, this past year we lived together. We shared life together. We became an integral part in each other's lives. We apologized and accepted apologies that may have been over due, but they happened - and many times, in a broken relationship, we don't even get that.

What I'm getting at - God gives us friends of the same gender to learn from, to learn how to be in relationship with, to learn where are weaknesses are, and what we may need to do to grow.

We're all human, and thus, imperfect in nature. We're stubborn, and set in our ways. We've lived life for ourselves almost as long as most of us have been alive.. So I'm hard to love, I don't make it easy. I'm blind to my own imperfections, but God willing, someone will learn to look past the faults I have. And this isn't a desperate cry of my desire for a relationship, no - this is a realization that as wonderful as I think I am, I am still hard to love. And each person, each friend, each sister, each brother we have is hard to love.

Evangelization: A Skewed Perspective?

The word evangelize, to me, provokes a particular image - there's me (envangelizer) who knows Jesus and wants to help other people know Jesus, and then there's this other person who doesn't believe in God or has never been introduced to the idea of God - or for whatever reason, in whatever way, a person does not know God. SO in order to evangelize I have to help this person encounter the living God, right? 

Well, kind of. 

I think there is more to evangelization than just helping someone encounter Christ. What about beyond that encounter, when one begins working on that relationship with God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What about when it gets hard? When we don't want to work on our relationship with God, when we don't want to pray, when we don't want to fight temptation.. 

I had a really good conversation with my roommates about this topic - about how when we share our prayer lives with those around, when we ask how things are going, we are evangelizing. In our conversations, one of the girls had been wanting to go to adoration more frequently but was having a hard time going on a regular basis, so I told her that what I did when I went to adoration/mass for lent, I wasn't allowed to go home until I had gone because I knew that once I got home I wouldn't want to leave. And she had another issue, so we came up with a simple, practical solution - working together to call each other on in holiness. And then my other roommate has been dating someone for a little over a year now, so I like to check in and ask her how things are going? It ended up being a really experience asking her different questions and seeing what her thoughts were on different matters, and seeing a dating relationship at work. And so after we got done catching up about our lives, our discussion moved to one around evangelization. 

In our community, we see a closed-minded idea as to what evangelization is, but in our discussions we came to a conclusion, that loving the people around us is a work of evangelization. You don't have to serve on a youth group leadership team, you don't have to be a student missionary, you don't have to be a mission leader, you don't have serve at the soup kitchen every Saturday in order to serve the Lord, in order to evangelize. 

In the vocation of student we can evangelize simply by being a joyful and peaceful presence in the classroom (or clinical setting for me). In the vocation of marriage husband and wife evangelize to each other. In parenthood, parents evangelize to their children by teaching them about God, by teaching them his love. 

I know I've carried a skewed perspective of evangelization. I came from more or less know faith, to being a fully practicing and very actively involved Catholic because someone who knew God brought me to know Him. And then I had a hard time seeing my purpose, and seeing a way for me to help others come to know God. SO I felt I had to be a student missionary or serve on a core for a youth group, but really I don't. 

This summer semester God has taught me a lot about evangelization. In the first week of class I found out some of my classmates were Catholic, and one girl said something about wanting to start going to mass again, but she had a hard time going to her home parish because of the population. And in that conversation I realized God has placed me there for a reason. He placed a mission in front of me. 

Perhaps you are called to serve in a very particular way, such as student missionary, mission leader, mission director, youth minister, youth ministry volunteer, etc. But just because you aren't called to serve in one of those ways does not mean that you are not called to serve, to evangelize, to be the light of Christ to the nations. Bloom where you are planted. Be where your feet are. Love with all you've got. Never give up.