God is big, we are small.

I have been listening to a lot of music...and the same thread that comes out of a lot of my music is the hugeness of God, and how small and weak we are in comparison. Let me give you a couple examples:

"My strength is almost gone how can I carry on if I can't find You
and as the thunder rolls I barely hear You whisper through the rain
'I'm with you'"
~Casting Crowns, Praise You in this Storm

"I'm giving my life to the only One who makes the moon reflect the sun...
I'm giving my life to the only Son who was, and is, and yet to come."
~Chris August, Starry Night

"Indescribable, uncontainable, You place the stars in the sky and You know them by name...
All-Powerful, untameable, awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim,
You are amazing, God!"
~Chris Tomlin, Indescribable

"He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane and I am a tree,
bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy."
~David Crowder Band, How He Loves

"Savior, He can move the mountains. Our God is mighty to save...
Forever, Author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave; Jesus conquered the grave!"
~Jeremy Camp/Michael W. Smith/Hillsong United, Mighty to Save

"Would you dare, would you dare to believe that you still have a reason to sing?
'Cause the pain that you been feeling can't compare to the joy thats coming...its just the dark before the morning."
~Josh Wilson, Before the Morning

"I've seen faith that moves the mountains, hope that doesn't ever end, even when the sky is falling.
I've seen miracles just happen, silent prayers get answered, broken hearts become brand new...that's what faith can do."
~Kutless, What Faith can do

"When my world is shaking, Heaven stands.
When my heart is breaking, I never leave Your hands."
~JJ Heller, Your Hands

"How beautiful, the sound of all Your people in love with Something so much greater than themselves!"
~Matt Maher, Shine like the Son

"You alone have done great things, I can't boast of anything.
Mighty one, King of Kings, Jesus!"
~Matt Maher, Great Things

"Even when the rain falls, even when the flood starts rising, even when the storm comes,
 I am washed by the water."
~NeedtoBreathe, Washed by the Water

"Like the wind that moves the leaves
Lord, You move me to my knees
I believe in something way beyond myself."
~Newsboys, Way Beyond Myself

"Above all powers, above all kings, above all nature and all created things,
above all wisdom and all the ways of man,
You were here before the world began."
~Rebecca St. James, Above All

"Breathe, just breathe.
Take the world off your shoulders, and put it on Me."
~Ryan Star, Breathe

"He'll break open the skies to save those who cry out His name.
The One the wind and waves obey is strong enough to save you."
~Tenth Avenue North, Strong Enough to Save

"Could the Maker of the stars hear the sound of my breaking heart?
One life, thats all I am, right now I can barely stand,
if You're everything You say You are, would You come close and hold my heart?"
~Tenth Avenue North, Hold My Heart

Wow. God's pretty big...how does He show you His power?
Peace and grace to you! 

I'm thankful for...

So, considering its Thanksgiving day and all...it would be expected that I provide a long list of things and people I'm thankful for. And I suppose I'll shelve my spontaneity for a day and do so...but first I have to say 2 things. 1) My holiday this year was different because my family celebrated last night instead of today, so some of my list will probably be weird, and 2) Last year my sister asked my brother (who was stationed overseas) if they celebrated Thanksgiving in Hungary...gotta love her. ;)

1. Sara Gudde...for being a woman of God and setting this world and my world on fire...and I've only had the pleasure of knowing her for 6 months.
2. Emily "Louie" Kopff...for having inexhaustible joy and peace that suffocates any worry or stress I have. She is wise, graceful, humble, hilarious, an excellent example and testament of Christ to others. She has done more for me in our friendship than she knows.
3. Blankets, coats, and gloves
4. Hand lotion-it really hurts when my hands dry out in the winter!
5. The Mass-I have not made it to daily Mass all week, and it makes me sad. But the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is something to be thankful for no matter the holiday.
6. Music-I just watched 4 episodes of Glee, and made 2 car trips in the last week. Music is an amazing way to experience life.
7. Family. Of course. That includes those I am related to by blood, marriage, and kindred spirits. I could attempt to do justice to my gratitude for family/friends/framily in about 3,950,398,092,349,283 blog posts...but it wouldn't be enough. :)
8. Long-ish hair. It keeps my neck warm.
9. Having a job.
10. Mama Mary. She's taken care of me, She has listened to me and come to my aid when I have needed Her most. She is working miracles in my life...and has been since long before I even noticed She was there. Thanks a lot, Mama.

Though, its a secular holiday, the whole idea of Thanksgiving really seems like a memorial to being a Christian. A day is set aside for the joyful, gracious, loving spirit of humanity to rein. Our lives are to be a response to the many gifts and graces God has bestowed upon us. We go out and make God's good world better because we thank Him for all He has done, and our actions show that. So Thanksgiving is, really, a day for everyone to appreciate and embrace the spirit that Christians adopt daily. Yesssss.
Good and gracious God, we praise You and thank You, for the holiday of Thanksgiving. Amen.

Fluffy Poets

‎"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." -- Robert Frost

 Ok, so I absolutely dig quotes. I found this quote on a random blog that I accidentally clicked on, and immediately had those gooey, fuzzy, head-rush happy feelings you get when you hear something cheesy...those instances where EVERY girl shamelessly (and guys in their head shamefully, I know it) says "AWWWWWWW...." etc. I posted it on facebook, wrote it down in several places and have gone out of my way to quote it to 6 people. At first glance, most of poets' work is based on that intense appeal to emotion; sorry, poetry-lovers/writers, but its true. However, I find that the quotes/poems I dig the most are the ones that proclaim the truth in a particularly eloquent way, one that makes you think about a certain truth a little differently. This one totally roundhouse-kicked my emotional brain though, and initially, I neglected to think about what it really says. There is an element of truth to it...but, and forgive me for critiquing Mr. Frost, its not said correctly.

Silly Robert Frost...love is not a feeling, its not even a strong desire. (As I've already stumbled through discoursing desires, check out 2 posts ago.) Love is a choice, a conscious action....a complete self-gift. I will agree with Bobby Frost; we all have "an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." Duh. Its...kinda what landed Adam with Eve in the garden. Its only the deepest longing of our hearts...to be loved. Its a wish for what we already know is real: that God jealously desires our hearts for His own. But Love is not that "irresisitable desire to be irresistibly desired." Love is our response to that "irresistible desire." So, props to you, Mr. Frost, but don't be so confusing next time... 

Peace and grace to you!

"No, really April. I got this!"

I cannot recall any brilliant theological, philosophical or intellectual insights that I pondered from this last week or so...so I'm just going to talk about my fabulous weekend, and what I think about it...

Well, it was SUPPOSED to start with a trip to pray/protest at Planned Parenthood on Saturday morning, followed by a 3-hr service project that involved 8 people in my CLC. Next, I was going to sneak over to K-State and visit some friends, who would remain completely ignorant of my presence in their midst until about 9:30 that evening...I knew that somehow my hostess and I would devise some deviously genius plot to dupe them all...
However, God had other things in mind. And we ALL know what happens when He gets ideas...Hawks for Life ended up not going to Planned Parenthood, my 3-hour, 8-man service project became a 1 1/2-hour, 4-man service project. And as for my devious surprise? Heh. Yeah...In hindsight, it may not have been the best idea to hide me from my Catholic friends in the 7 Dolors adoration chapel...but really, who could have guessed that the Holy Spirit would work through my friend's Pandora station, encouraging him to visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in the same span of 45 minutes that I was there? If that wasn't divine Providence, then God doesn't exist...
So, major theme of the weekend: God's plans, especially the surprise ones, always are cooler than mine...I can promise you that telling His story about my friend ruining his own surprise is much funnier than my story about jumping out from around the corner shouting "surprise!" at RC McGraws. God's plans always seem to work out more smoothly too...and that baffles me. I put a lot of work into my plans...must be something to do with His all-powerful, divine omnipotence...

But more seriously. How awesome is it, to be someone who professes faith in a Being that is truly, All-powerful? SomeOne who controls every miniscule detail of our lives? How awesome is it to know that there is a beautifully perfect design in this seemingly chaotic existence that we continue to misunderstand, day after day?
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are My ways above your ways and My thoughts above your thoughts."
~Isaiah 55:8-9
 Coming from someone who left this weekend with several hilarious stories about pretty eyes, engineering jokes and caroling adventures with brownies, I'd say pretty darn awesome. :)

Peace and grace to you!

Desire...Good or Bad?

"You called, and shouted, and burst my deafness.
You flashed and shone, and scattered my blindness.
You breathed odors and I drew in breath—and I pant for You.
I tasted, and I hunger and thirst.
You touched me, and I burned for Your peace."
~St. Augustine, Confessions

What does it mean to truly desire something? To me, desire means feeling almost irrevocably drawn to something or someone. Some of us desire the opportunity for service: to be able to make this world a little better by our actions. College students often desire a vision for their lives. It would save us a lot of trouble if we simply had a career path laid out for us to follow, without this silly discernmet process that can really be quite a headache. A lot of us females desire a family, having kids, being married, sometimes we even just desire having a boyfriend. But in reality, I think that the desires we have for things here on earth are really products of our misguided search for God and His purpose in our lives. Earlier in IConfessions, St. Augustine talks about being distracted by and desiring things which "if they were not in [God] were not at all." He describes God calling and shouting, opening our eyes and ears in order to find Him, through the things of this world. Doesn't it make sense that God plants in our hearts a desire for Him and His will, since He knows what is best for us and what will make us happiest?

When people desire anything to an excessive degree, they immediately lose their peace of soul."
~Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

My friend has told me about some recurring feelings she has for a mutual friend of ours. He is a good young man, a solid Christian keeper. But she doesn't understand why they won't go away, because she doesn't want to act on them and claims to not be at a stage in her life where dating/courtship is prudent. So are these desires of her heart wrong? While thinking about this, I remembered a question Father Jarrod Lies asked us once in a homily. He asked: "Where are your desires leading you?" And I think that is the more appropriate question.

In harmony with St. Augustine and Thomas A Kempis' words, I would say that genuine desires are not necessarily good or bad; they are simply the motivation of our hearts toward finding the presence of God. We look for love and peace wherever possible, and the multitude of broken hearts and unplanned pregnancies in this world result from trying to find it in the wrong places. The desire for love is not of itself good or bad; it is where we allow that desire to take us and what means we use to achieve the end of love that determines our "peace of soul." We might desire food when we're hungry, growth in a new friendship, a good grade on a test. We might find ourselves overwhelmed with desires for material things, for wordly success, for lust. But if we offer these desires up to God, He will lead us through them, because He knows that these things we seem to want are part of our search for His love. He knows that He is what we really desire.

Peace and grace to you!
April :)

PS-Comment please!

Fall Break 2010 re-cap

My fall break was in a word, interesting. I spent the the first half of it alone at school because I had to work. College campuses are completely different places when they're filled with students! I won't lie, Tuesday night I was in bed by 9:45 because I wasn't sure what to do with myself. Naturally, I was not productive and even though I could have started two papers, I instead spent two nights at school fighting small bouts of boredom with sidewalk chalk, Glee and two half-hearted attempts at working out. But soon enough, Friday came and I headed to Lawrence to visit my beautiful friend whom I hadn't seen in a loooong time. After that, I headed in the direction of home...although the direction of home became an unintended detour that led me through the side streets and homecoming parades of Topeka, KS. After that wildly exhilarating adventure, I surrounded myself with family, friends, and of course, FRAMILY. I left Wichita at about 10pm Sunday night, refreshed spiritually and exhausted physically and here I am. I waited to post until after I got back because I had the feeling that divine inspiration was going to hit, and the Man Upstairs never disappoints. I have two disjoint, random thoughts to share:

1. I am gonna brag about this just a little because it's really cool...I went to adoration Thursday, Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday this weekend! WHOA! I'm excited that God led me back to His Son so many times, but I wonder if He's not tired of me...
Anyways, I went to see my friend at KU on Friday, and it was so incredible because I visited on the one day a week that St. Lawrence does Mass, I visited on the one day a month and in the 3-hour time span when they do adoration. You can't even call that a coincidence. That's a God-incident! But I digress...Of the two hours I spent in Lawrence with my good friend, half of it was spent in silence. Normally, I would be disappointed that I didn't get to spend those solid two hours catching up on her life, but now that I think back, who's to say I didn't? I spent an entire hour with her and our mutual Best Friend, just resting in their presence, and I don't think that should be dismissed so lightly. It honestly feels like I spent much longer there, because I was able to communicate spiritually, if not vocally. If this makes no sense, think about it for a moment. If you go to adoration regularly or even irregularly and you sit in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament with a stranger, how easy is it to greet them and exchange pleasantries? When True Love is in your midst, how can you not make some kind of bond with all those present?

2. Saturday night, I went out with a group of friends who were as usual, an unfamiliar mix. The TEC family in Wichita is so big and growing so fast that its just about impossible to get the exact same small group together twice (it doesn't help that so many of us are in college). This is a small curse, because it slows the growth of individual friendships during the school year, but it is also a HUGE blessing. Every TEC gathering I find myself at is unique; different age groups and people from different walks of life enjoy fellowship and grow to love each other and God more deeply. You can always count on laughter, references to candidate weekends and inside jokes, and some kind of prayer. But what binds all these awesome gatherings together is the Person who's always present. How incredibly blessed are we, that no matter how diverse and different each encounter with TEC people is, the same God is ALWAYS there?

Like I said. Laughter, craziness, a HUGE family, and God. Can't ya see Him there?

Anyways, this post was almost exhaustively long, so I'll leave you with some lyrics by Michael W. Smith:
"Friends are friends forever
if the Lord's the Lord of them
and a friend will not say 'never'
 'cause the welcome will not end
though its hard to let you go
in the Father's hands we know
that a lifetime's not too long to live as friends."

Grace, Love and Peace to you!

Ok, here we go...

Hmmm...well I've never been into blogging (I mean c'mon, its a weird word) but some people's online musings are just awesome. And from time to time I have a thought that sounds pretty cool that would be too interesting to hide away in my journal but that is too long-winded and one-sided for a real conversation. This seems like a good compromise. So, hopefully enjoy, and God bless!

My first soliloquy addresses something I heard someone say in CLC last night. For the record, Christian Life Communities are small prayer groups at Jesuit universities. They're student led and meet once a week to pray, reflect and discuss the "highs," "lows," and "moments closest" to Christ during each member's lives. Anyways, while talking last night about how busy we all are and what it means for our prayer lives, one of my fellow members talked about how we use our down time, and what that says about us. She said that what we do when we're not busy is who we are.

Uh-oh. I have spent the first three hours of my fall break on Facebook. Who am I? Though I would like to believe that social online networking is not necessarily detrimental to my character, I am now thinking of all the things I could have done instead...read, work out, write some more letters, pray. Something to keep my mind on in the future...even if I don't waste time with Facebook, is what I'm doing really who I want to be? Am I the servant of Jesus Christ, working to build up the Kingdom? And how exactly do I do that anyway? Hmmm...

To piggy-back off of what my CLC member said, here's a tasty tidbit from Thomas Merton, who would probably have much to say on the idea of free time:

"A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire."