Do you hear that knocking?

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." -Revelations 3:20

This passage really defines my journey in faith towards my goals. God has never left my life, he has been with me the whole time, knocking at my front door. He has patiently waited when I chose to ignore him or was too busy to answer his call. He did not grow impatient, and waited until I was ready; ready to answer the door and let him fully into my life. He was not angry for the time I left him waiting in the cold, but happy that I had finally chosen to let him into my life as fully as I should have.

Life in general can be a real distraction from my faith. Sometimes I get so caught up in my own needs and desires, that I forget the real reason I am here: to serve the Lord and do his will. I have found little ways to remind myself of my calling, like wearing the ring my grandmother gave me that says "Faith" on it. Seeing this ring on my finger all day constantly reminds me of the expectations I have for myself and what I must live up to throughout the day. Thank you to all those who have read or followed my blog for the past 5 weeks. It has been a wonderful and inspiring journey and I cannot wait to continue on in this journey in faith.

Back in Step

It is good to be back from spring break! I wish I could say I worked hard at my goals over break, but that would not be entirely true. I did think about my spiritual wellness from time to time, but I was not nearly as focused on accomplishing my goals as I am at school. The only real time I focused on strengthening my spiritual wellness was when I visited my grandparents. They are very religious and shared some of their wisdom and tips with me. I really enjoyed listening to their advice and encouragement.

I was then faced with a decision, I could either go out with my friends that night or stay and visit with my grandparents. I rarely get time to sit down and talk, just me and my grandparents, and I knew they were so happy to have me visiting that I couldn't leave. I stayed for a good portion of the night and helped my Grandma make dinner and listened to stories about "the war" from my Grandpa.

Though I  would have liked to have gone out with my friends, part of my goal involves having my actions reflect my faith. By staying with my grandparents, I put their thoughts and feelings before my own, and making them happy makes me feel happy.

Now that I am back from spring break, I am ready to get back in step with my goals, and work hard to make sure I succeed in accomplishing them on time!

The season of Lent begins!

Well as you may know, Lent officially began on Wednesday. Lent is a time of personal sacrifice and abstinence that leads up to Easter and commemorates Jesus' 40 day period of fasting in the desert.

Lent has many traditions and rituals that must be performed during the 40 days. I made a goal for Lent that will hopefully bring me closer to my goal of strengthening my faith. Over Lent, I want to really focus on the meaning behind the rituals. For example, during Lent, Christians are supposed to give up an item or action in order to try to share in the sacrifices Jesus made over his 40 days in the wilderness. I gave up Bagels for Lent, which may not seem like a big deal, but I LOVE BAGELS and eat one almost every morning. On Ash Wednesday, I walked into Wag for breakfast and smelled the bagels...I wanted one...BAD, but then I thought of the commitment it must have taken for Jesus to give up all food for 40 days. That is a truly incredible feat.

Making sacrifices helps bring me closer to Jesus by reminding me of the huge sacrifice he made and the suffering he endured for me. Whenever I feel weak or like I do not have the will power to keep up my Lenten sacrifice, I pray to Jesus and he gives me strength.

What a weekend!

This weekend was full of spirituality for me! It was great! Friday our High Level Wellness class attended a yoga class. The meditation and breathing techniques were so relaxing and made me feel a real connection between my mind, body, and spirit. The class helped me to focus more on my internal state of being.

Saturday morning I attended a retreat with my church to the beach. We started with an early morning prayer, then sat, alone, on the beach for one hour. This gave us time to think, reflect, and pray. The breathing techniques from yoga class helped me center myself and took the focus off the outside world. I was able to tune the rest of the world out and pray deeply. I left the beach retreat feeling so close to God, it was amazing. As I've said before, sometimes to hear God, we must tune the rest of the world out and take time to be alone.

Today, one of the girls from our church received her first communion. For those of you who are not Christian, this is a very important sacrament and takes much spiritual preparation. We celebrated this accomplishment after class with a church meal. The sense of community between myself and my church has grown so much in a short week!

These weekend activities were big steps in my journey towards stronger faith. I'm really proud of the effort I have put into achieving this goal, and the positive results I'm seeing.

Giving Back

It has been a couple days since I last blogged, and I am proud to say I have been moving in the right direction towards achieving my wellness goals!

Tuesday I attended breakfast at the church. This was awesome because it gave me a chance to really interact with the priest and meet the whole church community. I felt like I was more a part of the church after being introduced to everyone and spending the morning with them.

Yesterday, I started working on the harder part of my goal: making my actions reflect the strengthening of my faith. Though I have been working to improve this in my everyday interpersonal relations, I also knew that to achieve this goal, I would have to figure out new ways to help others. There is a Catholic health clinic downtown, at St. Mary's Church, that offers care to those who can not afford health insurance or a visit to a normal doctors office. I went to the clinic from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. last night and helped patients check in, took their blood pressures, and helped them fill out their paper work. Also, being a possible pre-med student, they let me shadow the doctor as he worked with the patients, which I thought was AWESOME! Some of the people at the clinic were homeless or living in extreme poverty, so it felt great to be able to do community service where I could tangibly see the good I was doing.

I can't wait for my next volunteer session at the clinic on Monday! Here is a link for more information about St. Mary's medical clinic and other services the church provides for the poor and needy, in case anyone is interested in getting involed :)
http://www.thestmaryparish.org/needy_frame.htm

Is it a house or a church?!

Today being Sunday, the Sabbath, the holiest day of the week, I thought it would be a great idea to better my spiritual wellness by going to church. The church I went to back home was very small and close knit. It was a community of people who knew and cared for each other, and I was comfortable there. The idea of going to a new church was kind of intimidating and just generally unappealing to me, but a bunch a people from my dorm go to a church on campus so I decided to try it.

The church is run by the Catholic Campus Ministry out of a small house really close to campus. At first I did not know how to feel about attending a mass in a house. I went inside and there was a dog running around and people not wearing shoes. At this point, I was ready to write this church off as not a good fit for me, but I still stayed for mass.

Before the mass started we were asked to greet our neighbors, and all the people were really friendly. I noticed during the opening hymn that every single person in the room was singing. I started to relax and let myself enjoy the mass. I really liked how the homily was directed towards college students, since we are the majority of the congregation. Everyone said their intentions aloud during prayer, and we prayed with each other as a community of faith. The quality of the service and the general friendliness of the members of the church pleasantly surprised me. Sister Rose, one of the leaders and coordinators of the church, invited me to come to a community breakfast on Tuesday, which I am gladly attending. I can say my first opinion of the church changed drastically over the course of an hour, and I am really excited to have found a church with such a great community feel.

My new "church"

Finding Time for Myself

Do you ever feel like you are never alone? If you are a college student then the answer is most certainly yes!!! We live in a room the size of a shoe box with another person whom we have to constantly share space with. If we walk outside our rooms, there are people in the common area, people in the bathroom, people outside, so basically we are surrounded by people.

Today, for the first time in awhile, I took some time to be alone. This was actually rather difficult for me because I am a very social person and take comfort in the presence of others. After going to the gym, the weather was so gorgeous outside I decided to take a walk along some of the emptier sidewalks of campus. I used this time to thank God for little delights in life like wonderful weather. I even sat on a bench and said a few prayers. I was so happy that on this hectic Friday I could find some time to be alone with the Lord.

"Happy moments, praise God.
Difficult moments, seek God.
Quiet moments, worship God.
Painful moments, trust God.
Every moment, thank God."

-Anonymous