Brand New Piggy Banks

The title of this post will make sense in a moment I promise!
I was talking to my friend Jenn about life and she came up with this analogy.

We are like a piggy bank and all our treasures are the money the bank.
God gives us our treasures and He wants us to leave them on the table so He can get to them easier but we, being stubborn, put the money back into the bank so we can keep it safe and sound. Then He has to break the bank in order to get the money out which hurts a lot. After much pain and heartache He gets all the money back on the table and says "okay I want you to leave this here on the table so I can use them." So we say "okay God, you can use my coins." Then a few minutes later we see one coin that we really want to keep "just for me". So we think "Oh it doesn't matter, it's just one little coin. What could it really be used for? I think I'll just take it for myself." We do that again and again until all the coins are in the bank again. Then He has to break the bank again and this is an on going cycle for many of us.
When you are given a brand new piggy bank don't make Him break it again. Leave your coins on the table and truly let Him use you!

JMJ+

Totus tuus Maria! Let's see what the good God wills.

...oh

I've been having a really rough time lately and have just been feeling all around blah. Tonight my mom got a call from the person who is in charge of making sure there are adores in our perpetual Adoration chapel and he needed a sub for the eight to nine holy hour. I really didn't want to go because I had to walk to the church and I really just wanted to stay home and be blah but I decided to go because he really needed someone. I was really frustrated with life and feeling very warn out and tired from the fighting and I was venting to God and He stopped me mid vent and said "you're complaining that the cross I've chosen to give you is to hard and you're to tired and can't seem to find the strength to keep fighting but you never take the time to just be with me? I made you a human being not a human doing! It doesn't have to be a Holy Hour, you don't need to be in Adoration and it doesn't even have to be an hour but take time every day to just BE with me. No talking, no set prayers, just BE!"

My God,
I want to let you have my whole life. I don't want to hold anything back any more.
I'm tired of always fighting you and hanging on to my life. I so badly want to let go and I know that if I do you will catch me but I'm scared. Lord I'm so scared to let go. I want to give everything to you. I feel so exhausted from fighting and I honestly don't want to be afraid because I know you are here but something inside me is still hanging on and I can't make it let go. I feel so weak and tired all the time and I don't want to feel like that any more. I hate feeling like this all the time yet I don't know how to not feel like this. I have felt like this for so long that I don't know how to be any different. Lord please help me change! I can't do this on my own, I need your help. Help me to trust more and more in you. I love you so much and I long to be able to truly say that I have given you everything but I can't do this alone. I need you my God!

I tell you that I love you every day
In the sunsets, in the blue skies, in the green trees
They all whisper of my love for you.
How is it that you don't see my love?
I tell you that I love you every day.
In the smile of a stranger, in a hug from a friend, in the bond of family
They all whisper of my love for you.
How can you not see that I love you?
I tell you that I love you every day
In the music, in the sounds of laughter and in the tears you've shed
They all whisper of my love for you

Prayer to Fall in Love with Christ Crucified.

My Lord,

I long to see the beauty of your cross. My heart desires to be able to look on you crucified and see not just the outward pain and suffering but also the inward beauty that others claim they see. I long to fall in love with you crucified. Lord, if it be in accordance to your Holy Will I ask that you grant me these desires and if it not be in accordance with your Holy Will I ask that you would give me the grace to accept that and the assurance of something even better for me. I ask this to Jesus, through Mary and with Joseph

Amen.

=*(

I have been a part of Lifeteen at my parish since I started eighth grade. In truth I started going to LT kicking and screaming because I did not want to go to LT where I knew nobody I wanted to go to youth group at a different church where all my siblings had gone and where I knew everybody. I was shy, uncomfortable around people that loud, didn't know anyone, and felt very awkward. But then one day that changed. I was sitting in a chair in the corner and Katie came and sat on the arm of the chair and started talking to me. In the course 0f the conversation she managed to fall from the arm of the chair into my lap. And the rest is history...
In June of 2007 I had the chance to go to the Youth Leadership Camp and it changed my life.
At DYLC I went to confession for the first time in three and a half years. I remember it so clearly. On Wednesday of camp the day was started with the stations of the cross. I don't remember anything about how the stations were done but I remember exactly what went through my heart. I was so convicted that I just started sobbing. It was quite probably the hardest I've ever cried in my life before or since. In the evening they had confessions and, only by the grace of God, I made myself go. It was the most intense confession and also the best confession of my life. I was the first person to go to confession and also the first person done so afterward I was alone in the chapel with the Blessed Sacrament. I was laying prostrate in front of the Tabernacle. When I sat up I looked at the Tabernacle and it hit me "Oh my gosh!! That's Jesus, I mean I've always known that that's Jesus but that's really Jesus...and He wants me to marry Him!?!?" Ever since then I've been continually falling in love with Him.
Coming home from Nov. retreat with the Sisters was probably one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do. I had spent the last two and a half months preparing to get my application papers in Nov. and then I had to come home and tell people that it didn't happen. What made it so much easier was that I came home and went right to LT. Everyone was so supportive of me and loved me so much even though I was really upset about everything. The same thing happened when I found out I wasn't accepted to NET. Honestly I can't imagine how I would have gotten through this year if it hadn't been for LT.
Not only has LT helped me get through my tough times but it has also given me a place to reach out to others and share about my faith and why it's so important to me. This has happened in many different ways. Whether it was being on a committee that put together the meetings for Sunday nights or helping out with spring retreats it's been a wonderful way for me to share and, I can only hope, set others on fire for Christ.
Which brings me to spring retreats. Honestly I'm not even sure what to say about spring retreats. My first spring retreat was in '08 and the topic was the Mass. The one thing that I remember from this retreat was talking to my small group leader Kelsey after one of the meals about my discernment and she gave me the best advice ever about any choice in life. She said to me "Betsy, if you really believe that God is calling you to this then pursue it! If He isn't then He will let you know before you take final vows and if He is then there you go" Even if I haven't always followed that advice I've never forgotten it.
In '09 the topic was All in the Family. I don't really remember much about this one.
This years spring retreat however I don't think I will ever forget.
My church has always planned and put on spring retreats with Saint James but this spring we invited Saint Martha's to plan with us as well. The theme was the trinity and we had the retreat broken up into four sections: Father, Son, Spirit and summery. My planing team was myself, Jim, Corey, Jen and Joe. I was very blessed to be able to get to know Jim better. I'm not even sure how to express what our friendship means. It's just to hard to put into words so I'll cease trying to do so.
The Saint Martha's group had planned Sunday morning and I just have one thing to say about it.
Spiritual cupcakes. End of story.
Ok not really I do have more to say about Sunday morning. It was on Sunday morning the Brian gave his witness talk. He spoke about his discernment to apply to seminary and how trying the past year had been. Even though our stories are completely different a lot of what he said resonated with what I've been through in the past year. After he was done speaking I went up to him and asked if we could talk after retreat was done and he said yes. When we were talking I really talked about what had happened in Nov. with the Sisters and in Feb. with NET. It was the first time I'd talked about it like that to anyone. That was the start of the wonderful amazing very blessed gift that God has given of our friendship.
There is so much more I could say about Lifeteen but honestly I'm getting stumped trying to put it into words so I guess I'll just be done with this post.

JMJ+
~Betsy

Totus tuus Maria! Let's see what the good God wills.

Changes

As you can see there have been some changes in my blog. This is because there have been many changes in my life in the past week. As I said the other day I'm trying to think about my vocation to religious life less and my vocation to life as an eighteen year old college student more. Instead of blogging about my discernment in regards to my vocation to religious life this blog is going to be more about my life as a passionately Catholic young woman in a very non-Catholic world. Not that I won't blog about my discernment again but I am trying to focus on the here and now as opposed to living in the future so much. I choose the picture of the path as a new heading for my blog to express the fact that I am on a journey and I can't see where the path is going but I know that I don't walk this journey alone. I have God with me at all times walking the path ahead of and with me so I don't have to worry.

JMJ+

Totus tuus Maria! Let's see what the good God wills.