John

I decided on John and the reason is because of John 1:29.
(Look it up if you would like, but I will get to that at a later date.)

The Bible I have is actually one of my Grandma's, The New American Bible. She was quite the lady. My Grandma read the Bible (as noted from all of the highlights and notes in this book) and she prayed more than anyone I know.

A few weeks ago in church Fr. Tony had mentioned in his sermon that Jesus did not ask us to sit in our rooms and pray, no, he asked us to go forth and be his hands and feet and do the work that he had not yet finished. We are to take our talents and do the work of God with it.

Well my grandma's talent WAS praying, and contrary to what Fr. Tony said I do believe that for some their talent may be just that, PRAY. I believe she did her job serving the Lord, by keeping vigil over the prayers and scripture reading and praying the rosary. She did this all with hopes of keeping her family safe and SAVED.

I love my Grandma. She died January 2008 and I know that she made her Heavenly Father proud in her life, even though the last 10 years or so she had suffered with dimentia/depression and really what I believe was grieving the loss of my Grandpa. She was ready to go "home", as she told us on many occasions. She wanted to be with my grandpa and her infant child Marie who had preceded her, but the one she loved the most was Jesus! She had a love for Jesus like no other I have seen.

Back to John
What my G-ma has highlighted is

John 1:12
Any who did accept him
he empowered to become children of
God.

So this can be a confusing concept as many people say they accept him, but still live sinful lives and don't make attempts to improve. I guess the way I understand it is that any person that really and truly accepts Him will automatically live their lives for him......... because to truly accept Him and his gift of Grace, then it seems that we would do all we could to live perfect lives that would reflect the love we have for Jesus and God. The hard part is that we still are humans and living in a world that is going in the wrong direction. I guess I need to work on going against the grain and doing what I know is right, instead of what feels right for the moment. The important thing I get out of this is that if we accept GOD, we are empowered. To me it means the potential is there we have to choose to use it or not. Remember we all have free-will. We are not programmed to love God , we have to choose to and I am thankful for the choice. It makes the love that much more powerful.

John 1:17-18
For while the law was given through Moses, this enduring love came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, ever at the Father's side, who has revealed him.

All I have to say is just the words "enduring love" make me smile. Only Jesus could provide such a gift to us. Thank you God for this gift.

Until next time!
PS , sorry about all the run-ons:)

Church

Well I got my buns to church last night! Sometimes that is a pretty big deal for a mom with one kid taking a late nap (would have been ugly if I woke him up!) and another that didn't want to go.......... so I went all by myself. Sometimes I get frustrated that my husband isn't more excited to round the troops and go to church (but that is a whole different story). We go together on most Sundays at least.

Although, when I do get to go to church on my own I get to REALLY LISTEN. Listening can be hard with the family surrounding you. So I enjoyed my Ash Wed. Mass all by myself. The message I got was that in the catholic religion we have sacraments (7 of them to be exact) and in simple terms, sacraments are outward signs of something deeper that is happening inside of us. Ash Wed. Mass is not a sacrament but another outward sign of something much deeper.

Ash Wed. is the day that we receive an outward sign of a very important thing that is happening inside of us. We receive a cross of ashes on our forehead to basically show that we are sinners we are dirty with sin (aren't we all?).
Actually all churches did this until the Reformation in the 16th century(I didn't actually learn that in church but in a little book I am reading).

I like the practice because it puts us all in the same boat, we ARE all sinners! Sad but true. I looked around church a little embarrassed because I probably looked funny......... but I realized I wasn't the only one. We all had the cross of ashes on our forehead. I realized that from this point until Easter I need to really focus and become closer to God. I plan to do that.

The ashes actually come from the burned palm leaves from Palm Sunday , last year............... kind of cool, I think.

Then I come home to my family kind of feeling ready to start this journey and Kaila says,
"What is that on your forehead?"
So I tell her the what and why..........

Caden says "Mom you have something on your forehead, what is that?" So I tell him....... in the best way I can tell a 3 year old. He says he doesn't want that on him (he has always been a little bit of a clean freak).

So my kids learn something from me and maybe next year they will decide to come along with me and realize that we are sinners together and what we all really want is to work on becoming closer to Jesus our Savior.

I think we all want to become closer to God, but we have to tune out some of the chaos and noise in order to do that.

Stay tuned for my Bible studies, more to come this weekend!
Peace and Love!

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday.

I am Catholic although I feel more comfortable saying I am Christian.
I guess because Christ is who I follow......... and the word Christian better describes that in my mind.

I am going to be giving up my little Facebook addiction for 40 days, so that I can spend the time getting to know Christ better. Hey what better way to make sure I am following through than starting a blog to keep track of my studies. I will be choosing a few chapters from the Bible over the next day or 2 and will read some each day. I hope to gain a closer relationship with God.

I never really felt like I had much to offer in terms of insightful information until this last year. If others can read and interpret the Bible, then I can do the same. So that is what I plan to do, hopefully others can follow along add comments, and gain some knowledge, gain some Faith, and gain some Hope.
Because, right now in these times, don't we all just need some HOPE??