Challenge # 1: Daily Prayer Time

Do you have a best friend? Someone you love talking to...someone you could talk to for hours and hours....they know you almost better than you know yourself? I have several friends like that and talking to them really makes my day better every time I see them.

But then there are people whom I see around a lot, but never find time to talk to them and hang out. I definitely don't know them as well and probably wouldn't talk to them about everything going on in my life. Lastly, there are the people whom I've never talked to in my life. Why? the opportunity just never presented itself.

What is the point of all this? Well, what I want to know is, is Jesus one of your best friends? Is he someone you can talk to all the time about anything? If he's not, why not? If he is, good job, keep up the good work. Jesus is the only person who knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our hearts so well since he created them. He is interested in hearing about your life - the good, the bad, and the ugly ;) Will you tell him about it?

Practically speaking, how do we get to know Jesus? After all, he lives in heaven and it's not like we can go have coffee with him. Well, we get creative. Do you know what the five love languages are? Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gift Giving, and Physical Touch. Jesus wants to love us in all these ways.

Quality time is the easiest and perhaps one of the most important ones. How can we get to know Jesus if we don't spend time with him? Go to the chapel and just sit and listen. Or grab a journal and write to him. If you don't have access to a chapel, then find a spot in your room or somewhere that you won't get interrrupted.

Words of Affirmation. When we listen to what God has to tell us, he will often whisper that he loves us. We can also affirm God by thanking him for what he has given us in life.

Acts of Service. Well the Cross for starters. That was the biggest sacrifice ever made. I'd say that counts. We can serve Christ by serving those around us and seeing Christ in them.

Gift Giving. This one's a little trickier, but I usually think of it as giving God your time, or writing him letters/journaling....hmm I'll have to think more on this one.

Physical Touch. This is another tough one, but receiving him in the Eucharist is what comes to my mind.

Be creative! Jesus wants a personal relationship with each one of us. He knows our hearts and how we best love others, so let him love you the way you receive love, and learn to love him the way you love others.

Start small. 5-10 minutes a day is okay to start with....something I've discovered is that the more you get to know Jesus, the more time you want to spend with him. If you start praying but have nothing to say, then just listen. Or read the Bible. Or just sit and look at the Tabernacle in awe. It takes time, but it's worth it in the end. He wants to spend time with us.

Lent is a Time for Growth

It's Lent!!! But of course, you probably already knew that since it started on Ash Wednesday, and here we are at Sunday. I wanted to blog sooner about this, but did not get the opportunity as last week was crazy-busy for me!

Lent. A time of reflection. A time of sacrifice. A time of growth. Growing up, Lent has always been something that I immensely disliked. I won't say hated, but it was pretty close. I hate seafood, I love dessert, and I'm not very good at fasting. This combination of things have made Fridays in Lent my least favorite days of the year. My negative feelings about Lent have been going on since I was probably at least 10, if not before. I realized this year for the first time, just how negatively I feel about it - and I decided that something needs to change.

The season of lent is, after all, something that the Church teaches, and Christ was in the dessert desert (lol) for 40 days, so there's gotta be something to this whole fasting and praying thing. Soo my main goal this lent is to learn to love lent and see the beauty in it. A daunting task, yes, but entirely possible since God loves to do the impossible. :)

How am I going to do this? Well, I have several things I"m doing. First, I have decided not to give up dessert since it has been more distracting and frustrating than fruitful. But obviously I still can not eat meat on Fridays and I still have to fast. Sooo I am working on learning more about fasting as well as finding other sources of protein besides seafood (because even though God can do the impossible, I'm totally fine with my dislike of seafood never changing....sorry for everyone who grew up along the ocean front). That's my first goal.

The second thing I'm doing, is trying to really put my life in order. This whole semester (and we've only been here like a month!) I've been stressed out and not sleeping well, and I really just haven't been very disciplined with my time (aka, I'm writing this blog post now rather than studying spanish :P) Anyway, so goal number two is to work on discipline in my life with studies. I am also striving to have a daily prayer time of at least 15-20minutes. I've been working toward this for a long time and last semester was the first time I've really been successful so I'm going to keep working at it this lent.

Third, I'm going to do some hard-core spring cleaning in my life. I love clothes. I love music. I love movies. I love a lot of material things, which is not bad - provided that these things are building me up, not tearing me down; helping my soul rather than hurting it. I tend to dress modestly and listen to clean music/watch good movies...meaning that there is nothing in my closet or on my shelf that is explictly bad. However, it's often the things that fall in that "gray area" that need to be re-looked at.

Just a funny spring-cleaning quote to make you smile

Sooo this lent, I will be spring-cleaning my movies, music, clothes, and more. I will be issuing a weekly challenge on my blog (possibly posting it on Mondays...depending on my schedule). This challenge will be in part to remind me why I'm doing what I'm doing, but also to encourage all of you to join me as well. It will be hard, but soo worth it in the end.

Challenge accepted.

Are you up for the challenge? Let this lent be one of the best ones you've experienced - be ready to purify your heart, mind, and soul by letting God work in your life.