Prayer

Looking at myself I have chosen this Lenten season to focus my energy on prayer.  I am working on adding additional time to my day to pray.  Finding ways to slow down the fast pace of my life, and take the time to enjoy all of the blessings that I have around me.

I am praying for so many things, but the focus is the strength to continue to work out and change my life.  This is a change that is much needed and very hard to do.  While the basic end result will be losing weight and getting to a weight that I am comfortable with, I am also looking to focus on something more.  I am using this focus on helping me be able to push though all of the difficult parts and times in my life, and use the power of prayer to focus on the strength that I need to achieve any goals that I have that will be difficult.

I have seen that when you are going through a tough time and turn away from God it makes everything more difficult.  I have taken a different approach, and that is to do something completely different and that is to focus on prayer and turning to God when things are starting to become more difficult in my life.  I have found when I take the time to focus and allow God to be there with me and help guide me something amazing happens, I find that I feel stronger and that I can make it through.

Prayer is an amazing part of my life and I have recently seen all of the most difficult tasks, when I pray become more bearable.  That does not mean that they become easier, they are just more bearable for me to deal with.  I have figured out for me that opening up myself, not setting expectations, and realizing that God will be there and help you, when you open up your life to prayer.  This was the most difficult lesson that I had to learn!

I am taking the time to find the different ways to open my heart, mind and soul to prayer.  Finding different times during the day to stop and pray.  Not only during the wonderful times, but also the difficult times.  I am finding ways to thank God for the wonderful gifts around me and ask God for help when the situation gets tough.  Recently I am also praying for his guidance and to allow the Holy Spirit to come and help bless me with the wonderful gift of Patience.  This is one gift that I need the most help with.

I have found in my life, opening up my life to prayer is one of the most difficult and yet the single most rewarding experience that I have ever had.

Lent

I have been thinking about my faith alot lately.  With so many big changes in my life, I have just reciently looked back and found that there has been one constant, and a constant that I have to admit that I have been ignoring, and that is God!  

God has been there to hold my hand through all that I did not understand.  God has been there to help me understand that things happen so that I was not making the bad choices, and help to make me strong to realise that the right choices were not the easy choices, they were the difficult choices.

With the upcoming lent I have been praying alot.  As a catechist I have always taught my class that they needed to give up something for lent, or do something to improve their lives.  I have seen many differnet posts about people giving up candy and Facebook and other social media for lent.

I then started to think about what I wanted to do.  I could give up a food, that would be easy, however, how would that make me closer to God?  I could give up Facebook, but then I realised that for that to be truely effective, I would need to replace that time that I was on the computer with something else, but what.

I have noticed through my class that so many of us take the easy way out, we refuse to challenge ourselves, and stop relying on God when things stop going our way.  Those are the times that we need to stop relying on other things and start relying on God more!

That is when I decided that giving up candy or chocolate was not the right answer for me.  I also realised that giving up Facebook was not the answer, but I had no clue what was the answer, until last night.  

I am a catechist of a confirmation class.  This is a difficult year, especially since these students are trying to grow up in so many ways, and now we are forcing them to do what we feel is right, and many of them just do it because that is what is expected, not because they want to be in the class.  Every year we go to a retreat, before confirmation.  At the retreat 2 high school students come to talk.

In the talk, one of the students made me realise that we have so much that we need to be thankful for.  Just because we don't have the best of everything does not mean anything.  She spoke of going and getting to know the homeless and feeding them, and said one thing that shocked me, they have more than we do.  They have a strong beilef in God, something that so many of us who are fortunate do not have.

That is why I have decided that I am not going to give up anything for lent.  This year I am going to do somethign new.  I am going to start praying more.  I am going to start relying on God more.  I am going to start talking to God more.  I always believed that he knows all so he knows what is going on in my life, but I am going to start telling him like he is a friend.

This year I am going to open my heart and my head as far as I can to talk to God and listen.  I am going to pray that his spirit can help guide me in the difficult times.  I am going to believe that God is there for me and is going to continue to bless me, though everything.  Knowing that there are times that might be hard, but that is so that I can learn to love and rely on him more.

I am going to challenge my students to do the same thing.  Giving up something for lent is great, but asking for help is better.  I have decided that the one gift of the spirit that I need more is patience, and I am going to ask that God can help bless me and guide me so that I can be open to patience that he has to help me out!