My Faith

Someone asked me today why I write and speak so much about my Catholic faith. They asked why I don't just talk about God. I sat there for a moment and one mistake that I did was walk away from the conversation when I should have let that person know why exactly I speak about my Catholic Faith. This person said to me (not in exact words) "When you get to the gates of Heaven God is going to ask you why you spoke so much about religion (the Catholic faith) and not just about him." My heart started to hurt after I heard that sentence. Heres why:

First I don't believe my God would ask me that question, but if he did this would be my answer. "My God I am in awe of who You are and I am in awe of what You are about. When I would read about You and Your journey in Your book I can't stop thinking about all the beautiful lessons you wanted to teach Your people and all the beautiful gifts that were given through You. My Catholic faith taught me to loves those people that You held close and to love the gifts that you gave. Lord, I can't tell you how amazing it is to receive you every Sunday with the Holy Eucharist. I can't tell you how much I love the gift of confession I can't tell you how much I love Adoration. I can't tell you how much I love each and every Sacrament that You gave us. You see and feel my heart. You see how much of this amazing Faith has brought me sooooo much closer to You. I wanted others to feel that. I never pressured anyone to come directly to the Catholic Church. They have to feel it inside their hearts and that's what I feel. I cry because of how beautiful the faith is and how much I love the faith because of how it brought me closer to You. My heart is for You. My love is for You. I am Your Hands, Your Ears, Your Eyes and Your Feet. I work for You. I give because You want me to give. I love because You want me to show Your love. I cry because You want me to Shed my tears. But Lord, I love the Catholic Church because I see You. I feel You. I cry for You. I am touched By You, and I can't keep something so beautiful away from people. If I kept it away my heart would hurt."

I think He would be happy with my answer :)

Have you ever wondered what your answer would be?

In need of prayer

I decided to start my blog of a little different today.  If you haven't noticed I always start my blog off with "Have you ever wondered...." but today I need prayer.  It's nothing serious, but feel a little down and thought that maybe if I wrote a blog about it I could feel God speaking to me.  Lets see if it works.

Have you ever wondered if the power of prayer really works?  I know my last post I spoke about forgiveness and not let the devil win, yet somehow today I feel as though I need prayer to help make me stronger.  I feel disrespected by a couple of people.  I know I shouldn't let them get to me but when it's someone that you care about it's hard not to.  I know in the past when I had people praying over me I felt so lifted.  Have you ever felt that way?  When someone laid their hands on you and prayed for you did you feel amazing afterwards?  What about if someone prayed for you but they were not there laying their hands on you,  they just did in in private?  Did you still feel that power?  Hmmm I am curious as to what you have to say.

As I think back, I know that Jesus was disrespected TONS of times yet kept so strong.  He is still disrespected and loves every person that disrespected Him.  He loves them no less but more every day.  How does He do that?  I pray that God can mold me into a person that Loves like Him.

I'll end with a song!  I love this song!  Strong Enough-Matthew West

Don't let Satan Win!

Have you ever wonder if you are really forgiven?  It took me a while to understand weather or not I felt like God really forgave me for my sins.  I then realized i really wasn't wondering if God forgave me, it was more if I forgave myself or the person that I may have harmed forgave me.  I kept wondering why I didn't allow myself to forgive myself or maybe even wondered why the person that I harmed couldn't forgive me.  God had forgiven me already, but I still felt awful.  That was Satan.  It was Satan that kept making me feel that way.  It was Satan that made me feel like I wasn't forgiven.  It was Satan that was hovering over the person I harmed and making that person not able to forgive me.  But I was truly, honestly deep down inside sorry for my sin.  We have to understand that Satan is real and he tries everything for you or I to feel awful, because if we were happy we would be praising God.  Satan doesn't want our Father to win.  I am sure he is clinching his teeth as I type this blog.  He's mad because I am spreading his secrets.  Well Satan, you loose and my God wins.  

One of the greatest things that I love about the Catholic Faith is confession.  You laugh?  It's so true!  I love confession.  I am so thankful that we have it.  People who are not Catholic always ask me why I feel the need to confess to a Priest when I can go straight to God.  I tell them that I do go straight to God and when I go to confession and Hear that I am resolved of my sins makes me feel deep down inside that I am acutely forgiven and it's coming straight from God.  To hear those words are truly amazing.  YOU.  ARE.  RESOLVED.  OF.  YOUR.  SINS.  It's then that God works through the Priest, hears your cry, hears your sorriness,  sees you pain and forgives you.  There were times that I would ask God to forgive me while not going to confession, and I felt different from when I was in confession.  Something seemed to have been missing.  It was this:

James 5:16 

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

So don't let Satan win!  Learn to forgive, and be forgiven.  

Hey!  Do me a favor and spread this blog around!  I need followers! :) Thanks in advance, E     

Do you pray wrong?

Have you ever wondered why your prayers may not be answered?  I had to realize sometime unanswered prayers are a blessing.  The last couple of weeks I have sat down and thought about my life.  I was thanking God for the answered and not answered prayers.  I have to say that I have been so blessed.  I had a running list of things I asked God for and didn't receive.  I now thank him for those unanswered prayers. I may have been young, stubborn, or maybe selfish at the time but I can honestly say that I am so happy that He gave me the gift of something else. I used to pray to ask God for things that I wanted.  One day I went to confession and explained to the priest that I was really frustrated and felt like God wasn't listening to me.  I told him that my prayers were not being answered for certain things like a great job that I interviewed for or the perfect house that I wanted.  He told me that I was praying wrong.  I never believed that someone could ever pray wrong until he told me this: (PAY ATTENTION TO MY NEXT SENTENCE)    Stop praying for what you want for yourself and start praying for what God wants for you. Is this how you pray?  Try it.  You will be amazed.  I tried it and I can't tell you how amazing it feels to receive a blessing that I know God wanted me to have.   I leave you with this, one of my favorite verses: Jeremiah 33:3 New International Version (NIV) 3 ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’

Have you seen Jesus?

Have you ever wondered how many times you have ran into Jesus and didn’t even know?  This has been very heavy on my mind for about a week now.  The thought popped up when I was driving and I saw a man on the side of the road pushing his basket.  I don’t know why he was so heavy on my mind but I felt guilty that I didn’t stop and give him some food or something.  Then I wondered if maybe that was Jesus and didn’t even know.  May sound funny at first but it’s so true.  How many times have you ever ran into a situation like that, seen someone crying or upset, sick, or even having trouble?  Did you take the time to help that person that you didn’t even know?  That could have been Jesus.  As I was praying the other night I then thought about the day I would meet him.  I thought about how if maybe he would ask me if I took care of his people.  Did I cloth the naked and feed the hungry?  I can just hear him say, “Did you know that was me?”  Would my heart drop because I didn’t or would it beat with excitement because I took care of him? 

Matthew 25 35‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40“The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ 41“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44“Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a   stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45“Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46“These will go away into eternal   punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” The last time in this verse is very important.  “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life”  If I do nothing for the thirsty, the poor, the naked, the sick, and the lonely I will not have Eternal life with my Lord.  Just writing this made my hurt heart.  So for me, I think that I need to do a better job for those that are less fortunate.  I may not have all the money in the world but I do have an amazing heart and extra hands to help the needy. I leave with this note.  You may not think you can do everything to help out others as much as you wish you could, but if you are unable for some reason say a prayer that God may open up someone’s ears to that they can hear your helping prayer.