Spring Awakening

This spring has truly been a renewal for me. As my friend Lucy says, we are a Eucharistic people "broken and blessed, broken and blessed." I have felt so many things at once going on in my soul that it is hard to put them into words. Holy Spirit, ahem, I need you again. Ya know, I really keep up this whole blog thing for myself. I love reading through what I've been through. Heh, my mom just walked into the room and told me the Austrailian chef I like (the tall, blonde one) is thirty five. The reason I bring this very necessary bit of information up is that I am now living at home (with my mum and pup) at the ripe old age of twenty-three. It as a severe cross for me when I first started living here. I moved into the "far away" room (a few feet further from the dining room than my old room) and endured it, even though its 20 degrees colder than the rest of the house and I can hear BOTH television sets blaring below me. The inner monk in me was in agony. Not to mention, I was searching for a way out. I had no job, no path, and no hope. I was a lost soul and felt really broken. God in his beautiful way led me to become friends with a wonderful priest of Divine Mercy, and he told me about a mission school in Rome called the Emmanuel School of Mission. Hearing about this school really lifted my soul--it was God's way of telling me--do not worry! I still want to make your heart burn! At this point, I really have no clue what God is doing with me. I feel content where I am. I'll be honest, sometimes I yearn to go explore Russia or live in a beautiful little French village or live in a retreat house in the Swiss Alps. I yearn for the simple life. I yearn for the romance of Europe. I yearn for the ancient, old ways of times long ago. But, I am learning that my greatest yearning is to be united mystically to Jesus. It's the most romantic desire of all. God wants to empty me of these good, even innocent desires of my heart, so that I can allow the greatest desire of all to enter more fully--and in fact completely consume all other desires. HE is everything. Until we can understand how much He yearns to be ONE with us (He wants to marry us one day eternally in His Kingdom!) we will always be chasing pipe dreams and illusions. I want the real life--which is Jesus. I don't care if I have to live in Lincoln the rest of my life working in a cubicle--if I am mystically united to Jesus, then I will have all.

                     The best part about this picture is that my dad put the angel in the tree before I took it.
Lately, I've had angels on my mind. I just told this tidbit to my dad and he said, "Well, when don't you?!" And truly, not that often. I think of God a lot...and Heaven...and saints, but angels? No, I kind of left them out of the Kingdom. Angels are suhweet. I actually was just praying at church and a magazine caught my eye entitled "Angels." I started to flip through it and it was stories about people seeing angels and how they've helped them. One story in particular caught my eye--it was a story about a woman who prayed for her husband while he was working for the Coast Guard on dangerous missions. She took him to the dock with their two kids late on a cold, windy night. As she was watching him board his boat from her car, she noticed a young girl on the dock sitting serenely and kind of just chilling. She had a plaid shirt and jeans on, and had golden hair. She assumed it was a girlfriend or wife of one of the crew. The girl didn't flinch or move even though her car was ten feet away from her. Right when she drove away, she got the strangest sense that the girl was here for her husband. Days later, her husband came back and said everything went very smoothly, and his wife also felt a sense of deep calm while he was gone. She mentioned the young girl to him, and her husband said there was no girl--even though his wife pointed her out to him the night she saw her! The wife was insistent and then asked the crew if anyone had seen this girl and no one had seen her. She felt a peace from God telling her that this young girl was the angel appointed to protect that boat, the Caternary. Angels are appointed by God to protect individuals, families, and even countries! There is an angel for everything that is important to God--because they provide us protection. I love that the angel looked like a hippie. I imagine my angel to be a hippie...who kind of just sings next to me and tries to point out the beauty when I don't see it. She encourages me when I'm lonely or sad, pointing out the hope and joy God wills for me. I know she's there--and I want to start talking to her more. And--angels totally have personalities. Pray to God to reveal your angel(s) personalities! They were picked to be your life's companion for a reason.