Holiday Tragedy

Christmas is approaching and it is coming rather quickly, especially if you have done any shopping at all. Yet, during the holidays we all tend to focus on the hustle and bustle of the season. The buying, wrapping of gifts and some even focus on the true meaning of Christmas which is the birth of Jesus. But what would you do if something terrible happened to you or your loved one during this time of year?

All of a sudden the shopping and hustle and bustle seems to fade. Then we stop and reflect upon our family more, we stop and take the time to cherish every person in our life and what they bring to us. It is in these moments near the holidays and tragedy happens that we want to run and hide. We can run, but it won't change what has happened to that individual. All we can do is be there for support and love them. Yet, we are able to do so much more.

We can PRAY! Prayer is able to change all things. When the doctor's are saying there is little to no hope or that it is a bleak situation we can run to God. We pour out our prayers to Jesus, and ask His hands to heal the situation and the person. Then we wait, we wait for the miracle to happen. We believe that God is near and that He loves all His children. He would not want us to suffer or be afraid in the times of tragedy. It is in those very moments we cry out and His arms are open wide.

We pray, and pray some more. We then seek out all the prayer warriors that we know to pray for what is going on. We have extreme faith in those moments of need, yet, the rest of time we believe just not as strongly as when we may want something from God. This indeed is a sad statement, we run to God only when we are afraid, and need Him to do a miracle! The rest of the year we travel through the days, weeks, months, and go about our day without a second thought of what God wants from us or wants us to be doing in our life.

If we pray through the good times and thank God for all that we have no matter how small, He will be willing to give us so much more. If we run to Him when things are only sideways and expect Him to show up, then ignore Him the rest of the year, what kind of Children are we? Are we the type of people that only call a friend when we are in need, or want something? Or we call to say Hello and check in to see how their life is going, to share with them the good and the bad. God, is there and is always near. He sits and waits daily for you to talk to Him. He is there tugging at your heart as we go through the days and the hustle of preparing for Christmas.

The question is if something was to happen, would you call out to God for healing, guidance or would you rely on the what the doctors are saying and wait to see what will happen. If we reach out and continue to reach out and know that God's hands are near, holding all close to His heart, that His angels are all around all the time would you act or say the same things, knowing God is sitting in the room with you?

God performs miracles and Shows his Healing power on a daily basis. He is there in the ICU with the patient on the vent, the one struggling to hang onto life as we know it. He is there in the middle of it all, the question is are you willing to let Him be a part of all that is going on or do we handle it all on our own? His healing power is near, and praying, talking to God works, I know first hand. I've seen God heal when they shouldn't have lived through the night. He is a Big God and He is near. Reach out and take the hand of the one who came to earth to love and heal you!

Sea of Love

Love is a mighty splendid thing. It is a wonderful emotion that is vital to our very existence. It is the thing that keeps us going when times get hard, it is that thing that gives us warm fuzzies inside when it happens. When we fall into that sea of love it tends to overtake all that we are, and occupies us to a whole new level. Love is that very thing we draw to when we have feeling have been hurt or someone / something has wounded our heart. Love lives within us. It is there and we chose who and when to display that love to others. Amazingly there are different kinds of love, there is the loves we have for our spouse, our children, friends, family members, church family, out priests or pastors, the teachers that our children love, or hate because they are a little tough on them to help them achieve their full potential in the classroom. Yet, we don't really think about Love that way, we know the thoughts and feeling of love, and we seem to run with it when it happens.

Yet, there is so much more to love then the simple emotion. There are the actions of love as well. That someone thinks of you often helps you when you are down because they care for you and about you. Love is there in the daycare, where you leave the children for 8 to 10 hours a day. Love is present in the nursing homes where the elderly are left and no one come to visit. The staff is there to talk to them, hold their hands, listen to their stories, and simply share life with them when they are feeling blue. Love is there in the ER when the doctors and nurses are running around to save or help the one that you love feel better, or if one passes they are there to help you grieve, bring you resource to help you deal with the death of a loved one that is unexpected, they listen, they care for you and all that has just happened. They are there because not only do they love to help others, but they are also a source of support and a listening ear when things go wrong. There is love that is happening in rehab home as those who are there are struggling to learn or relearn skills. The staff are there to rejoice with them when small steps are going right and there is an improvement, it may be a small one that is easily overlooked, but to the individual it is amazing, and staff understand that and rejoice with them.

There is love in the supermarkets, the Target stores, the Wal-Marts, Kohls and any other business that one may go to on a daily basis for work. There is a sense of family that is able to develop around you with co-workers. We start to develop friendships at work. There are people we like to talk to when things go wrong, others we can tell anything too, and some we like to shop with or go out with at the end of the night. In it all there is a friendship that forms and binds us to one another and at the center of it is Love. Love is there when we worry about a co-worker is not coming to work, and we are not sure what has happened to them. We have a bond with those individuals that tend to go a little deeper then just a person we work with, when essential we come to care and love them as a part of a extended family. We may not celebrate holidays with them but yet we care for them and worry about them if something is going wrong in their lives and all seems to be crashing down around them.

Although, at the center of all love is God. He is love, he shows us His love by dying on the cross and taking all the sins that we have ever committed or could ever conceive of committing and wipes our slate clean. He loves us with an love that there is no other love that is able to compare to it. It is a love that is always present in us, we know that God cares and loves us on a daily basis, and that there is no way we can earn that love. Rather, His love is freely give to all those who are willing to accept Him and walk with Him, talk to Him through prayer. We are able to run to Him in our times of need and never, ever will He call us needy, or childish! He is there waiting and wanting to shower us with His love is we go to Him. We are able to learn about Him through reading and worshiping Him in our homes, along with attending mass / church on Sunday morning. If we are truly lucky we are able to attend church or mass more so we are able to commune with Him on a more intimate level. By growing in God and in His Love we are able to reach out to other and show them the Love of Christ through our action, our words and by just being a Child of God in these hard times. We have the opportunity to love and be loved by the Father in Heaven, why not accept the free gift that he offers us and walk in His love daily.