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It is Jesus that you seek

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I want to preface this blog post that I wrote back at the beginning of August by dedicating it to my lovely Grandmother, Arlene, who passed away at the end of August. She was a big proponent of making sure you are living life to the full, loving those around you and having fun and she was an amazing person to grow up around. She encouraged me to write- my mom used to print out my blog posts and give them to her to read. She even told me that I should write a book and maybe someday I will. I know this might have just been her being a proud Grandma, but I am happy that I made her proud. I was also grateful that I was able to have this post below read to her during her last few days in the hospital before she passed. As a woman who encouraged us to live and always love I think she would agree with my reflection here about life and “our plans”. My reflection, when I wrote it in May, focussed on my college running career instead of a specific thing that all of this quarantine stuff wrecked,
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Loving Others

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Today I felt pretty mopey as I sat cooped up putting together a presentation for work. Jon dragged me out of the house insisting that a walk would be good-- fresh air and such. We walked to this little park down the street from his house. As we walked down the path and up the hill we saw what looked like a small cemetery. We stooped down to read the inscriptions on the grave stones.  “He always loved his neighbor.”  “She was pure of heart.” “He loved others better than he loved himself.”  As I reflected on these words-- the words left in the memory of these lives gone by-- I couldn't help but ponder what I will be remembered by. I thought it was pretty cool that all of these inscriptions described how these people treated others. None of the stones remarked about how much money the people had, or the job title they held. “He drove the best car” “He published a paper in Nature ” “She had the best hair and nicest skin”.  Beyond the quotes I mentioned above,
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Cry Out to Jesus

For the last few years I’ve felt relatively close to the Lord and was very much in touch with my faith. This is so easy to get used to and take for granted. Having feelings of consolation consistently is awesome. Feeling the presence and grace of God in the day to day is great. It is easy to have faith in these kinds of periods of life. In these circumstances, we grow accustomed to having God around and having this joy that transcends all things- all situations and all stresses. But we all inevitably have periods of desolation. These are harder times where faith is more difficult and God’s love for you is a little less tangible. The stressful things get the best of you and any little thing that goes wrong can ruin your day at the drop of a hat. For the last few months I have been feeling this way. It didn't come on at one time, but there was a slow creep into the desolation. Even when I prayed and went to daily mass it was hard to feel close to Him. When we get into times like
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"Do you believe that I can do this?"

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The success of a company often relies on the formulation of a business goal and the ability to stick to it. This same premise is also important in our lives. No one can do all things or be good everything; we don’t have an infinite amount of time, energy or resources. Therefore, it is important to do the things that align with our goals or we will get caught up and be entirely too busy to be good at anything. We’ll never reach our goal if we are too distracted. I have heard this before about different companies and airlines like Spirit of Frontier to make sense of their no frills type approach (if the business plan is to be cheap why add consumer luxuries that increase the prices). But this idea as it applies to my life and call to think on it was really brought on by an episode of the Blessed is She podcast, “The Gathering Place”. The episode is called “Stake your life on this” and I would definitely recommend everyone give it a listen. The women in this episode prompted m
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Putting Faith into Perspective

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The other week on Instagram a friend shared something about how he finds it admirable when people share lessons learned from certain life experiences so that others may benefit when they’re facing similar circumstances. Being a rather humble person, it took a lot to speak about myself. But after enduring some significant life changes in the past 5 months, I’ve felt God put it on my heart to share what I’ve learned with the hope that it may change even just one person’s perspective on life. You might pass a judgement, say I’m looking for people to feel bad for me, or maybe even worse [for 2018] feel like unfollowing me. GASP! Truth is I’m just speaking from the heart because why the heck not.. And if your first reaction was one of those things I just mentioned then I encourage you to  keep reading. Anyway... keeping it concise, I endured some pretty good heartbreak with someone I saw as my best friend in the entire world.  I was advised by others to "keep myself busy" and &quo
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Trusting God: My First Lesson in 17th Grade

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I have trust issues. When it comes to God, I struggle with trust. There are some days when I’m good at trusting and there are others when I am bad at trusting him, but in general, I struggle. But why do I struggle? He’s so amazing and he wants to give us the greatest things and he loves me so much more than I can ever imagine. And I believe all that. I believe that even though I don’t deserve one iota of the amazing love he offers me, he loves me anyway. So basically, he is the one I should be able to trust the most. I should be able to trust him with my life, heart and future more so than anything or anyone else. So then why don’t I? About two months ago, I followed where God was calling my heart to a place called Chapel Hill. As a homebody that love being close to my family this was a big deal for me. In the last two months God has taught me so much about trust. He has shown me a little of why I struggle with trusting him. But even more so, I have learned the importance of tr
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Inspiring Faith

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There are many facets of being a woman after Mary’s heart. Mary is the perfect form of a woman. Through her, Jesus came into the world so that we may be saved. She humbles herself to be the handmaid of the Lord and submits to whatever the Lord wills for her. Mary the Queen of heaven was sinless in the face of all the hardships and sorrow she faced, most notably watching her so son die a painful death on the cross. Another important aspect of Mary and her example is how she inspires the faith of others. At the wedding feast of Cana, she plays an important role in the miracle that Jesus does and she displays her faith. She says to Jesus, “They have no wine” as if to say it’s time and I believe in what you can do. Mary then turns to the servants and tells them to “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:3-5). These simple statements and her calmness and knowing show her faith in what Jesus will do. She shows Jesus her faith in him and then shares that with servants. Because of her fait
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