Imperfect Does Not Mean Worthless

Let me paint a mental picture of my current surroundings for you: I'm sitting here on my living room floor with a half-functioning laptop, tons of homework that needs to be done, a blanket that smells like dog, and a cup of cold hot chocolate. I'm staring out my window at the rain gushing out of our too-full gutters, and a gray cloudy sky of emptiness.

Let me paint you God's mental picture of my current surroundings:I'm sitting here in my favorite pair of sweats and FFA hoodie, contemplating/writing because I'm visiting KSU tomorrow,so I have no homework. I'm sitting on my favorite homemade rubber ducky blanket, and drinking my first cup of hot chocolate of the year. I'm looking out my window at the much-needed blessing of rain, and a sky full of wonder and beauty.

Little bit of a difference, eh? Just like the difference between what we see in ourselves and others, and what God sees in us all. Today, I got a nice little Holy-Spirit drop kick on the way to school when this popped into my brain:Imperfect does not mean worthless. Let me repeat that for you:

Imperfect does NOT mean worthless.

I am so sick of seeing those around me focus only on imperfections, and not true worth. "My mom won't stop nagging me!" "I'm not good enough to ever have a boyfriend/girlfriend." "I'm not pretty enough to wear that dress." "I'm not smart enough for that class." "There's nothing I can do." Really? REALLY?

I know it's hard-believe me I do. I struggle with true worth about as much as anyone else does. This world teaches us to strive for perfection...in the wrong areas. We're supposed to have the perfect body, the perfect date, the perfect job, and the perfect life. But what's that worth? If we achieve every single one of those things, we'll be worth a billion dollars. After death. Then, will it matter?

We have a God who loves us. He loves us enough to send His only son down to die for us, so that we might have a chance to live in the fullness of His Love forever. He loves us enough to send His Spirit down to guide us always. He loves us enough to give himself again every time the mass is said; to be on display 24 hours a day all over the world for us to go and spend time with the one who loves us most. He loved us enough to CREATE us!

If you were the most magnificent artist that ever walked this planet, would you make something useless with the clay you were given? Geez....you'd make something beautiful. Not perfect, but beautiful. You would make something to call your own. Something worthwhile.

Just as God sees beyond the dog smell of my blanket and the lack of heat in my cup of hot chocolate, he sees past our imperfections. He sees past our fear, doubt, frizzy hair, and smelly feet...and you know what? He sees WORTH. He sees a beautiful heart and a soul full of potential. We will never be perfect. We are human. But you know what? We're worth something. Every single detail of our heart,mind,body,and soul was carefully crafted with a Love beyond anything we could ever imagine.

IMPERFECT DOES NOT MEAN WORTHLESS.

May you continue to strive for perfection in the eyes of our Creator, and never stop letting Him Love you.

Criss-Cross-Applesauce Love

Ahhh....love. What a wonderful wonderful weekend it's been already! And there's still most of my favorite day to go, too! :) Love.......love.....love. God loves us so unbelievably much.

Yesterday was our region CYM rally, our county 4H achievement night, and my sister's basketball game-all of which I had helped plan/made promises to little sisters to be at. Well I've been blessed with the ability to multi-task with the best of 'em. If there is a possible way to be in two places at once, I would have figured it out by now! The timing was perfect so that I could get to all three and do what I needed to do-whether that was cheer on my little sister for the first time all season, set up a pumpkin obstacle course for our rally, or change into a skirt and practice the script for an awards banquet. Isn't God good? I drove to Derby, back to Udall for awards, back to Derby for clean-up, and finally home. Driving + Praying = Happiness! I also had enough time to swing by the new St. Mary's Parish and go to confession-something I don't make time for near enough. It was even with a priest I'm not familiar with, which means I got new advice/a different penance. OHHHHH YEAAAAAH (just act like I said that in a sweet kool-aid man voice ;)). Along with all of this, I even got the opportunity to spend some much-needed extra time with Christ.

St. Michael's in Mulvane has one of my favorite adoration chapels ever. In fact, I borrowed the lock code from a friend of mine a couple of years ago, and I still use it whenever I go through Mulvane. I love that chapel because it reminds me of a bedroom. It's so comfortable, with blankets, couches, and books strewn on random kneelers/chairs. It's awesome. (Ok, I do admit I may have a slight obsession with perpetual adoration chapels....but I blame it on the fact that we only have adoration once a week). Anywho, in Mulvane there's this wonderful home-like feel. Then at the front is Jesus-beautiful, holy, and completely present. On either side of Him are two statues of archangels, bent down protecting their king. Amazing, much? Basically the whole chapel makes me feel like I'm at home, and nothing can tear me away from Christ. So last night, I stopped by on my way home from Derby at about 9:45. I had a wonderful conversation with a lady that I met, and she decided she was gonna head out and leave me to have some "peaceful time alone" before her replacement came. For the next 15 minutes I sat criss-cross-applesauce on the floor of my favorite adoration chapel in the world, listening to Jesus tell me He loved me, and inviting me to come to Him :)

Moral of that long rambling story: Next time you get the chance, go sit criss-cross-applesauce and look up at the person who loves you more than anyone else.

Christ loves us. Despite everything we do or don't do for Him. He loves us.

May you never forget that infinite Love, and continue to spread it throughout your life. Peace!

Without Ceasing...The Sequel!

Oh boy, has it been a crazy couple of weeks! I've had a million little ups and downs myself, but more importantly I've witnessed a lot of those ups and downs with my peers. I've been there through (and sometimes joined in) the laughing, crying, jumping, screaming, confusion, hurting, chaos, and peace of those around me. I mean, I've always done this with those close to me, but I'm usually a pretty private person (I know, I know, shocking!). However, I've been realizing how much I've been missing. There has been so much going on in the lives of others around me, and I never even noticed, nor did I care. Thank you Lord, for opening my eyes.

The main thing I've been thinking about lately is hurt. This world is horribly, horribly broken. There are people everywhere who see their situation as hopeless. I'm pretty sure I've prayed harder and more fervently for others in the past two or three weeks than I ever have in my entire life. It's a beautiful thing, prayer is! But that's all I've been doing-praying. Not that praying isn't ridiculously amazing and powerful-because it is. But I've been saying rosaries, chaplets, and throwing in some other favorite prayers of mine here and there. I've been physically praying, but I haven't really been praying through my actions. One of my favorite verses is this one- I know I put it on my last blog, but I'd like to explain a but more. It's from 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

"Pray without ceasing."

Ceasing...as in stopping. So, never stopping? Right. No reason to lock ourselves in our house and do nothing but pray. There's no reason to cancel all our plans and avoid daily life so we can pray for this world. Prayer through action is a crazy powerful thing. Take the long way home so you can say a couple of extra prayers for the girl who's too scared to break up with her abusive boyfriend. Instead of pigging out on cookies or birthday cake you really don't need, eat some fruit or some yogurt for those kids down the street who don't know what to do because they really have no parents anymore. Joyfully bear the crosses of your daily life, so that those who have lost hope may begin to see the dawn breaking before them. We don't heal the brokenness of this world by hiding from it. We step out in faith, knowing that He has conquered the things of this world once, and He will do it again.

Peace!

Without Ceasing

I'm not even going to begin to write about my week write now, because I am beyond exhausted in every aspect-physically, mentally, emotionally, and most of all spiritually. These last few days-because of the hurt I've been witnessing in others around me-I have continually been reminded of the importance of what 1 Thessalonians 5: 17 tells us:

"Pray without ceasing."

There will probably be a long ramble later about hurting and battling, but until I can come up with the strength to do that, I'll leave you with this:

Never cease to pray-through every thought, every word, every action. There is so much suffering in this world, and so many looking for something more. We must always remember we are warriors in the greatest war that will ever be fought. Pray, in order that others may consider joining.

May Christ lead you and Mary hold you always.

Gentle Strength

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing so gentle as real strength." ~St. Francis de Sales

Proud To Be A Wildcat!

Boy, oh boy! Where do I even begin? God constantly showers us with blessings; but today, I felt like I got caught in the middle of a hurricane. Hurricane Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to be exact. Ah.....:)

I've been contemplating this whole college thing a lot this week. Now, you see, I am an insanely stubborn person. So naturally, I tend to push this whole future thing to the back of my mind, because it's something I'm not sure about school-wise. But ever since my U of A visit last Friday, next year has been on my mind a lot. There are things I love about Arkansas, and things I love about KSU. There are also a list of things I don't like about both. I'll spare you the boring details, but basically I've been thinking all week that I'll end up at K-State next year. I have two major reasons: my faith and my people. These are the two things that mean more to me than just about anything else-no matter where I'm at or what I'm doing.

My faith: I'm Catholic. The U of A is in Arkansas. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that-Arkansas might possibly be my favorite state ever! Still....I'm a little new to this whole serious level of faith thing, and I feel like that would be asking a bit much of my spiritual warfare skills. I know God could handle it, but it's just a little scary for me. I've also been telling myself for the past year or so that the town I go to school in will have perpetual adoration. I've been really looking forward to it, and it's something that makes my soul smile just to think about. More alone time with Jesus, baby! :)

My people: I absolutely LOVE people. I have a passion for others that I don't have for anything else in my life. I get incredible joy out of serving others-and over the past few months, I've realized I love doing those acts of service in the small, unseen things. Whether it's spending 10 minutes I don't feel I have in adoration for a struggling friend, or talking to that "weird" kid in the hallway (who's really just scared of being hurt again), it feels good to know I'm serving those around me. I realize that at both places, there are great people, and people who are interested in the same things I am. At either school I could make a difference through these small, unseen things. But that's just it: Fayetteville is in the south-the land of amazingly hospitable, incredibly open people. I am not one of those people. I love talking to people, and I love getting to know them. But I am a pretty reserved person (alright, you can stop laughing now and let me finish ;)). What I mean by that (for those of you that still don't believe me), is that I keep to myself. I thrououghly enjoy listening to others, and once we hit it off, I may give you a little bit of info about my own life; but until I've gotten to know you on a deeper level, I don't reveal much. I've always loved Arkansas (I should right? I'm from there, after all!). There are some GREAT people down there among the beautiful landscape. It isn't meant for me, though.

Whew.....I promise I didn't mean to ramble that long! If you made it this far, remind me to give you a gold star next time I see you! And if you want to know what funny "God moment" that confirmed this decision, just ask me about a package I got in the mail-icing on top of my "perfect day" cake. Thanks for listening (reading, whatever), and being amazing, and all that good stuff. For those of you who care: I can officially say I'm proud to be a future Wildcat!

Stay gentle, stay strong, stay His.

Every Moment

I've been writing all day: papers for school, letters to friends, random to-do lists/quotes to myself, and just about anything else you can think of. So I really feel the need to write something sort of semi-meaningful. Just a warning I have no real thoughts prepared. So feel free to hit the pretty little red x in the upper right hand corner of your screen at any time ;)

For the past year or so, I pretty much have one giant headache. I consider myself a pretty pain-tolerant person, and I normally don't say anything when I feel bad-I just kind of roll with it. But apparently I wasn't very good at hiding the pain from my face, so after a few months of my mom acting like she believed the "I'm fine" lies, she finally made me go to the doctor. Now I HATE the doctor's office....seriously. They ran a million tests, and found a couple of minor things that could be causing the constant headache. A few months later and some random medications later, I still get headaches pretty frequently. I'm currently in a knock-down dragout fight with my mother about going to some kind of doctor again, so we'll see how this goes. In the meantime, I shall continue to pay the salaries of all the Excedrin-related workers by my purchases alone. (You think I'm kidding, but sadly I'm probably not that far off.....) Now why would I bore you with my random headache story, you ask? Well to be honest, I'm not a hundred percent sure myself. But I know it's been one crazy weekend, and it feels good to just ramble. Anywho....point: I let that small headache affect me waaaay too much this weekend.

I had the opportunity to tour the U of A campus-a beautiful school, and one that I'm very much considering for next year. Because of some family and friend connections, I was able to meet up with a couple of girls who are currently going there that I had met briefly before. They showed me around, answered my questions, and took me to eat at an adorable little sandwich place. They talked, asked about my interests, tried to find places I would be interested in seeing, and tried to get to know more about me. So what did I do? Well, I answered every question as quickly as I could, shut up, and looked out the window or stared at a tree. My head felt like it was about to explode-and that was all that mattered to me. Forget the amazing stories about Katie's summer in Africa or Hayley's book suggestions; all I wanted was the pain to be gone. It was still a good day, but it could have been a great one. Those girls are two that I look up to for their service more than they will ever know. And I totally blew off the opportunity to connect with them because of a stupid headache.

Really, think about it: How often do we fail to take advantage of an opportunity because it may be uncomfortable? We may have to speak in front of someone we don't know, we may have to research a topic we aren't interested in,we may have to work with someone we don't necessarily want to. But what could we be missing out on? We could gain speaking skills that could help us get a job we want, we could discover a passion for something new, or we could make a new, unexpected friend. Why should we hold ourselves back because something hurts a little?

Our vocation is to love above all else; to love above fear, above doubt, above confusion, above pain. Our Creator sent His only son to be born as one of us. He endured more pain in the time he was here then most of us will ever endure in our lifetime. And you know what? He LOVED-without any kind of reservation. Not a single one of us is deserving of it-yet it keeps coming. Love is great, isn't He?

God is providing in abundance. Stop worrying about the painful things that may be going on in this life-we only get closer to beauty every day! Every moment is an opportunity to live out our vocation. Every moment is a call to Love. When do we decide to answer? Well, that's our own choice.

Peace!