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God is with Us

Whom shall I fear, the Lord is near.

 

Sometimes we don’t speak it enough but I love that God is with us.

 

On a retreat I heard the phrase

 

“God is good all the time.  All the time God is good.”

 

Sometimes moments are good, sometimes they are filled with sorrow and grief.  My days look like school and family time and normal day to day stuff, singing and music but sometimes they look like sadness and sickness and worry. Sometimes I fall short of the glory of God. Sometimes I fall into the trap of unforgiveness and sorrow.  But what a beauty it is to be alive and live for God. What a joy it is to love others.

 

I think of that For King and Country Song, “For God is with Us.”  It’s true.  God is with us.  Jesus means Emmanuel.  What does that mean?  It means I can depend on Him and that God came in human form to save the world.  It means we can trust Him when we feel like we have nothing and no one else to turn to.

 

I heard it said that the devil tries to make us feel alone, lonely, and forgotten.  But my friend God is there with you.  All you need to say is Jesus, I love you and this is what I am going through.  First and foremost God is a God so we need to offer Him praise, glory, and respect.  But He is also my friend.  My brother when I need Him. My strength, my shield.

 

I urge you to grow your relationship with Christ. Get to know Him. How do we get to know Him better? We spend time with Him. Especially when we are suffering, it is vital to get to know God.  It is such a gift to have the God of the universe with us.  He is everything and we are nothing.

 

Listen to songs about Him, read the bible, read books about Him, go to Mass and receive Him in the Eucharist, pray the rosary. There are so many different ways to pray. Relax in His presence.  Go to adoration and just sit in His presence.  What a mystery that the God of the universe is present in the Eucharist and we can just go and sit and talk to Him.  What a beautiful friend He is.

 

I want you to imagine Jesus with me. I have found contemplative prayer to be amazing. I don’t do it enough but just sit and close your eyes and imagine Jesus. Imagine you are at a peaceful lake or in nature and you imagine Jesus with His beautiful kind eyes sitting beside you.  “How are you my child?” He gently asks. And then You open up your heart to Him.

Hey Jesus, I have been dealing with this.

 

Better yet, when you receive Holy Communion you can do this.  And you just share everything.  Then listen for what He whispers back to you.

 

I was reading this book about life after death the other day, the near death experiences that people had and how they came back. All of them reported to seeing Jesus. They said that they felt this immense love and that He was there to meet them.  I find that so amazing. You see, Jesus is the one who will be waiting for us when we die.  Are we living with that in mind?

 

There is no greater a man who died for others and who was completely sinless, yet took on the punishment of sin for all humanity. And that was because of love.  Love can do amazing things.  Love saved you and it saved me.  And when we spend time with Jesus, acknowledging His presence with us, we become more like Him, like Love.

 

He is your shepherd, waiting for you to bring Him closer to His Sacred Heart. Friend all it takes is a little of your time.

 

You may be hurting. Jesus is the perfect person to run to.

 

So in this season and the next, when there are millions of things vying for your attention. Relax. Be at peace. And spend the next couple of minutes meditating on His great gift of love.  I can’t even imagine what you have been through, we all have our trials.  But with Jesus we can get through everything and everything.

 

What an amazing gift we have.

 

God is with us.

A Life Well Lived

My Grandad was an amazing man.

He was very close to God. He went through many hard times in his lifetime yet he decided to uplift others.  He was my father’s father and he never failed to show me that he loved me.  He was faithful to God even when he wasn’t feeling well at the end. He was a genius because he was an entrepreneur.  He was Polish and came from a strong Catholic family.  He served his country and became a banker then later founded Healing Rooms in his state.

I admire my grandfather because he loved my grandmother well.

He had a great sense of humor and had a quiet and gentle spirit.  He made me smile and he loved desserts.  I was sad to see my grandad die in 2019 but what a beautiful life he lived.  I sometimes see my dad in my grandad because of genetics.  And I smile because he never gave up.

We can learn so much from this man.

Number one to stay faithful to what God has given us to do.  He was faithful to his jobs and providing for his family. He was faithful to his friends and to his church that he faithfully served.  He and my grandmother always sent cards for Christmas and birthdays without fail.  And number three, he put God as a priority in his life always.  He pursued the things he felt God calling him to do.  He continued to help others and really got to know people.

A life well lived.

I love looking back at the lives others have lived.  Our lives are like big books and matter so much to God and to others.

Never forget that your life matters.

Enjoy life and live your purpose. What is your purpose? For starters it’s staying faithful to the responsibilities God has given you to do. I love how St. Therese tells us to live simply and follow the little path to holiness.  She is one of the holiest saints because she was faithful to what God had for her.

I love how my Grandad served his family, friends, and church well.  See these things are not so small in the eyes of God. God gave us our lives.

We do not need to do big things, rather small things with great love.

And never forget your worth. See you are worth so much because God made you in his image and you were worth dying for.  My Grandad made others feel loved by his service and kind words.  Sometimes we need to reflect on the life we are living.  Every now and then we need to look to our Heavenly Father and say “How am I doing God?”  See it is good to examine our conscience and let others know we love them.

In short, let’s live our lives keeping the end of our lives in mind and at the same time, you are doing a great job! God sees how hard you work, how many times you have shown kindness, how you put others before yourself.  Yes, my Grandad was amazing man but you are too!

I hope to graduate from Liberty University soon with a Commercial Music degree.  My dream has always been to use my art and voice to bring others close to God.

I hope I can do the little things with great love as well as some of the bigger things God put on my heart.

Sadie Robertson says in her book “Who Are You Following” that it is the private moments that prepares us for the public moments. My grandfather privately prayed and served others daily.  It is in these moments that we prepare for what God is calling us to do.

Who are you when no one else is around, when no one else is watching?

Maybe we need to spend more time with God, talk to Him.  We need prayer like we need air. Praying isn’t for God, it’s for you!  For real, sometimes we may be tempted to procrastinate and do other things other than spending time with God.  But the more time you spend with Him, the more you crave the Lord, and the closer you become to Him.  God deserves all praise.  It is like a relationship. People who are in love spend time with each other, long to be with one another. Be sure you are spending time with Him.

 

I hope you enjoyed learning from my Grandad.  Pursue those dreams in your heart.  Spend time with God.  Fall in love with Him each and every day.  Love the people you are around every day.  And take the time to get to know people.

I learned from Terri Savelle this simple thing:

What do you want to be remembered for?

Again, no pressure you don’t need to do huge things.  Maybe it’s the little things that will matter most of all.  How well you loved, how were you faithful to the small things, how you followed the path God called you to.

 

I encourage you! Spend time thinking over this question!

 

I am cheering for you!  I really am in your corner! You are in my prayers!

 

Grace

I Will Trust in Your Love

I Will Trust in Your Love

God I can’t make it through another night.

Will everything be okay?

These are the thoughts that trickled into my mind as I tried to fall asleep.

I was worrying about this or that, stuck in the past, but actually terrified to take any steps forward.

Should I get up?  What am I avoiding?

Sometimes, I would feel anxiety at night. It would come and try to make itself home in my head, plant lies like weeds in my heart.

But then morning would come, and everything would feel fresh.

“What was I so worried about?” I wondered.

See my perspective had shifted while I was sleeping.  The daunting night had actually given light to a new day.  Sunlight streamed into my heart.

A popular Christian song sometimes plays in my mind.  I hum the lyrics,

When You don’t move the mountains
I’m needing You to move
When You don’t part the waters
I wish I could walk through
When You don’t give the answers
As I cry out to You
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in You

God doesn’t always answer my prayers the way I want Him to.

It’s tragic, sometimes I just don’t know what to think about the things that hurt. That sting.  How did those situations help me again God?

But it is in those beautiful places that flowers blossom.

Blossoms of change, of purpose, of compassion.

I grow and seasons change.

In fact, I have grown so much from having depression.  From feeling comparison.  From feeling hopelessness.

God had a plan for me all along.

But in those hard moments, I couldn’t see it.  I didn’t understand it.  That is what is so beautiful and mysterious about God.  He uses the good and the bad times to teach us, to produce fruit in our lives.

If you are in a rock and a hard place, turn to God.  Ask Him in and

Don’t worry.

Beautiful things happen when we trust Him and His love.

Remember, He loves you.

“And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Colossians 3:14

 

 

 

Who is God

Who is God?

I talk a lot about trusting God, talking to God, depending on God.

But if you weren’t raised in a Christian home, you may be wondering just who God is.

Is God even real and how does He relate to me?

Is it too good to be true that we have a Creator who cares deeply for us?

I don’t claim to have all the answers but this is what I truly believe.

First and foremost, God is our Creator.  In the first book of the bible, we see that “God said, ‘Let there be light and there was light’.”  He created the heavens and the earth, including the stars, the planets, the seas, the angels–He created it all.  Before God, there was nothing but Him.

Then, “God created mankind in His own image.”  (Genesis 1:27)

I bet I threw you a curve ball there.  We, God’s creatures were made in His image and likeness.  Also, God knows us in and out because it was He who created us.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

Secondly, it is important to know God is love.  Here is where a lot of people get it wrong. God is not an angry, judgmental, harsh God.  Yes, God does judge us for the bad things we do, He is just.  Yet, wherever you are in life, God loves you and He always will. In fact, God is the very expression of love.  God shows kindness to all His creatures.

God’s greatest act of love was giving His son Jesus to die on the cross for us,

 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Jesus did some pretty amazing things while He was on the earth.  He healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind, miraculously fed thousands with a few loaves and fishes.  Yet, the most amazing thing was the miracle of Him dying, and being raised from the dead.

He walked on water, beckoning His followers to come to Him, to have faith, just like he is beckoning you and me.

Satan tries to steal this from us. See there was an evil presence introduced into  the world by Satan.  Satan tempted Adam and Eve,  the first people to live on this earth (the people made in God’s image), to disobey God.  Once they did, they forever were left with the mark of original sin, essentially separated from God.

Yet God, sent His only Son Jesus to give us a chance at eternal life, life with Him forever in heaven.

Despite our sin, Jesus, both divine and man, came to this earth to redeem us in God’s eyes. He came to bear the weight of all mankind’s sin, defeating the powers of darkness.  That’s pretty powerful.

God is powerful.

He is in control of all Creation.  Without Him, all would cease to exist.  He grants us our prayers, He heals the sick, He provides.

All’s we are called to do is believe.

I would ask you to get to know God.

Listen to sermons online, go to a local church, message me on social media with your questions.

See, we were created to love God, and to be loved by God.

Trust in Him.

Talk to Him.

If you don’t know what to say, start with honesty.

Tell Him that you were just introduced to Him.  Tell Him about all that is on your heart and mind.  If you have questions, tell Him that.  Ask Him for peace for your heart.  You are forgiven.  All you have to do is ask.

God wants a relationship with all His children.  He loves us so much.

I imagine that image of Jesus on the water, walking toward us.

Come to me.

Come home.