I still felt clueless about successfully coping with anxiety but I was steadily on the road to recovery. I was still depressed and still suicidal but, as I held my nephew, I realized the many successes of choosing life again and again that had brought me to this moment of meeting him. So I whispered a soft “Thank you” to him because deep down I knew I wanted to live for God and I’d been searching for a meaningful way of doing so.
Read MoreOur Lord took this hardened heart of mine, this heart that had kept people and Him at a safe arm’s length away, and softened and molded it into a new creation. Day by day, the Lord helped me recognize and receive love. At first in the smallest of things: a friend doing my dishes after a dinner party I hosted, a coworker buying lunch for me, a stranger leaving an encouraging note on my desk.
Read MoreSome days after the conversation with Sr. Hope, though, sitting before Jesus in the Adoration chapel and still mulling over the job offer, I asked a different question: “Lord, what would bring You joy? How do You want me to serve?”
He didn’t answer by saying ,”You’ll bring me joy when you have a Ph.D.”; or, “You’ll delight me when you become a professor.” Instead, He whispered, ever so gently, “You bring me joy when you use the gifts I have given you, right here and now. You delight me already.”
Read MoreIn the past, I thought suffering was something to be avoided at all costs. Now I know that when suffering comes, I can offer it as a gift to God on behalf of my brothers and sisters in Christ. While it might not take the pain away, I trust that God uses my humble gift to add seeds of grace and light and peace to a world that desperately needs it. We all suffer in some way, whether it is physically, emotionally, or a combination of both. Sister, I want you to know that God can make your pain beautiful if you let Him.
Read MoreI am 32 and single again after an over-2-year long relationship which ended last May. Throughout all my adult years, I made marriage and having kids my idol. I had this feeling that the lack of my own family made me a worse woman.
Read More
