Fill The Bars With Worthy Women

I want to be the woman sitting at the bar who is enticing and inviting. No, not necessarily seductive, but welcoming and warm. I want to be the woman sitting at the bar who decorates her body with a miraculous medal and pearls, like a palace so glorious your eyes are caught in wonder of it’s beauty. But if the palace was stripped of it’s color and decorations, it would be just as striking inside and out. I want to be the woman who doesn’t hide behind make-up but rather accentuates her face with bobbi brown and golden eye shadow. I want to be the woman sitting at the bar who doesn’t show too much or too little of her heart or her body. I want to be the woman at the bar sipping on a blue moon, not falling over a chair after her tenth shot of vodka. I want to be the woman sitting at the bar who knows how to be in the world, not of the world. Always in control of how much she is drinking: responsible, confident, fun, and free. I want to be a safe place in the world for men and women to be themselves. Men won’t have to put on a show in order to get my attention. Women can be relieved that I am not another threat in the room; there is no competition, rather we can celebrate each other’s beauty, passing along advice on where to get those high heels or how to curl your hair in such a way that it doesn’t fall out. I want to be the same girl sitting at the bar that is kneeling in the pew the next day for mass with nothing to hide from the Lord. I won’t have any regrets because I remained myself and in control; aware of His presence wherever I went. I want to be the kind of woman that my future husband would be looking for. Not eager to take me home the night of but eager to wait for me at the end of the aisle on our wedding day. I may not be her yet but I’m getting there!

Proverbs 31

 

I’m going to Belize!

You heard me! My brother and I are going to Belize to teach High School students about the Lord this March.

“This mission focuses on bringing Christ to students in middle and high schools of villages and cities. The ministry includes using Theology of the Body to teach the students how to live out their faith, how to practice chastity and how to build each other up as the body of Christ while collaborating with SOLT (Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity) priests at Mt. Carmel High School in Benque.”

If you feel inclined to help us out, there are three things you can do for us:

1. PRAY! We are going to need a whole lot of prayers.
2. DONATE! Here is a link if you are feeling generous 😉 Just be sure to click on Belize mission in the dropdown box.
3. Message me any prayers requests you have that I can take with while I’m there.

Bless up!

Grabbing at Love

My sweet Maggie Himp and I spent our whole “friend day” delving into the reality of vocations, the fall, womanhood, etc. Her response to our heart-to-heart today is too good not to share:

“Isn’t it crazy that the first fall of woman was her failure to receive? Eve grabbed at the fruit and did not trust that goodness would come to her. And man’s first fall was that he did not provide. Adam did not provide the comfort, protection, and gentle hold his woman needed when she needed him. Our culture today seems to be echoing the same fall of our first parents. Men seem to be doing the receiving and women the providing.”

BELONGING

Thank you Rape.

Thank you Rape, for revealing to me my own strength. Thank you Rape, for introducing this warrior to the world whom I didn’t know existed before you. Thank you Rape, for creating this confident, independent, brave advocate against you. You should be so afraid Rape, because the little girl you thought you silenced has grown into a woman louder than you will ever be. I feel bad for you Rape, because you will only ever be capable of taking what isn’t yours to take. You will never be able to freely give or receive true, authentic love. YOU WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT THAT IS. You only know how to steal, kill, and destroy and YOU DID for a while there… you did steal my innocence, you did kill my happiness, you did destroy me. But wherever there is scorched land, there is new life ready to rise up from the ashes. No really Rape. Can you smell the flowers blooming from the ground you thought you sterilized from beauty and strength? Did you expect, Rape, for me to stay down and hidden forever? Did you see me coming? Did you think I was yours to keep? What a sad and miserable existence you are Rape. You are the complete absence of freedom. And because you will never know freedom Rape, I pity you more than anything. I pity that you had to latch onto him. You fed on his insecurity and arrogance and you convinced him to sip on the beauty, strength, truth and goodness in me until I was dried out. I will give you this Rape, you are patient and meticulous. You are very strategic Rape. You lured me in. You didn’t take everything at once. Oh no you didn’t… You took my heart way before you took my body. You breathed in the smoke from the light you blew out and then you exchanged all my color for grey. I thought I was lost, but I wasn’t lost because you were the one keeping me. You were the one holding me hostage. This whole time, you were the one forcing me to stay in the mud you pushed me in when I was 15. I was never lost, but you thought I was yours Rape. You thought I was yours Evil One. You thought I was yours Father of lies. I never belonged to you. I have always belonged to a Savior much brighter, louder, and stronger than you Rape. I have always belonged to myself and I decide who changes me from now on. And I have always belonged in the sweet, gentle, protective arms of my future husband. And he will be the complete opposite of you Rape. He will not have to rob me because I will simply give myself to him. By now Rape, I hope you see that you are not victorious. You didn’t win. Your glory burns out quickly, but the glory of my Lord burns forever. And there are many other voices rising up and waging against you Rape. Men and women joining together with me to silence you. You are finished. (John 19:30)

 

ENCOUNTERED: why didn’t I sleep with your brother?

I’M ABOUT TO EXPLODE!

Here’s what I do know… hook-ups and one-night stands don’t feel that awesome the next morning. Scrambling for a cup of coffee, hungover, feeling pretty awkward; trying to figure out what the HELL happened last night; wanting to sit in the shower for hours not only to wash off the make-up you slept in but to get rid of the tangible, dirty feeling the guy from the night before left on your skin. That was my only motivation for chastity the last ten years. I knew that I didn’t like feeling regret, trapped, lonely, used, bruised, and thrown away. Although I wasn’t any good at it, I was aware of what to avoid but I didn’t really know what I was striving for. I thought that chastity would leave me lonely in my bed at night, wishing someone was laying beside me. I thought looking at all my friends in happy and lively relationships was going to leave me longing and aching for love and affection. I thought I would be full of sexual frustration, like a boiling pot of water about to overflow onto the stove. What I wish I would’ve known is that chastity is not forcing down your desires until you explode, rather, it is the key to pure and unadulterated freedom! I never associated freedom with chastity until I was living in the light of Christ for an extended period of time. Truly anything is possible with Him who strengthens us, even chastity. I never thought I would be the girl who turned down hot guys, joyfully and willingly. I never thought I would crown myself with chastity proudly. I never thought I would be free from the ball-and-chain the culture we live in ties to our ankles. Chastity to me is no longer a burden, rather a catalyst to release my true self in Christ. It is no longer a long-sequence of ‘no’s’ rather a greater YES or I DO on my wedding day to the love of my life.

Hurry Up Future Husband

It’s no secret that chastity is HARD. Especially if you have been in love… or are currently letting your heart take flight into the unknown of falling in love, which is terrifying but also pretty exhilarating at the same time. When your heart is being drawn to that person you feel like you were made for, it feels almost impossible to pull on the reigns of your heart and restrain yourself in the pursuit of chastity. And for us single ladies, waiting and longing for our knight in shining armor to raise his sword (or a Blue Moon… maybe even a glass of whiskey) to find us can be so exhausting. The impatience can lead us to mistakes, settling for artificial glimpses of what it would feel like to be loved instead of holding out for the real deal.
I am still seeking out the perfect formula to help me finally get this whole chastity thing right but I still find myself falling into the same repeated sin. I’ve studied all the ins-and-outs of what the Church teaches about dignity, sexuality, purity, you name it but why isn’t this enough sometimes? I was starting to think it was unattainable (which it is without Christ) to be pure and chaste. Recently, something just clicked that has helped me immensely in this wait for my future partner in crime: I started to live for the man of my dreams now…. whoever that may be, I decided to commit to him now. To be loyal and faithful to him now. To pray for him now. To sacrifice for him now. Your future ‘someone’ does exist! He is out there! He has a heartbeat. He has struggles, wants, and desires too. It feels like I am already living out my vocation (my calling if you will) as we speak. I have found a sense of purpose and satisfaction in living out what I was made for and who I was made for even before I know his name. It does get hard watching my friends find their ‘happily ever after’ while I am just sitting here trying to remind myself to shower more than a few times a week and feed myself something other than ramen and beer! Luckily I have my little kitty (Schmidt) to cuddle with in place of my future husband for the time being. But until then, I will try to live for him now in prayer, patience, joy, and chastity.

God Meets Us in the Ache

http://www.ransomedheart.com/daily-reading/god-meets-us-ache

HELP ME

Right when I think I finally have my shit together, I am kicked in the back of the legs and brought to my knees begging God to just GET ME THROUGH THE DAY. I feel this gravity pulling against me, a resistance forcing me off my path. I can’t visibly see it or make sense of it, all I can do is keep going. I keep fighting my suffering. I keep resenting my brokenness. I keep trying to force strength upon my weaknesses. I keep trying to present myself as an upright, Christian woman who practices what she preaches perfectly without fail. I keep drowning myself in what I think will make me holy. The truth of the matter is… I am not happy. I have lost my joy. I am not man made fully alive, as a matter of fact I feel like I am just trying to keep afloat most of the time.

I”ll be honest, I am frustrated with the cards that I have been dealt. I am bitter with the wounds and the struggles that have shaped me and haunted me everyday. I do take pride in the glory God has revealed through my pain but that doesn’t mean that I don’t continue to hurt.

As many of you know, I struggle with severe anxiety and depression. I usually throw my hands in the air out of frustration for this inconvenience and burden keeping me in a constant state of misery and fear. I am so quick to despair and hopelessness, and very seldom do I maintain a state of true peace and joy.

My friend Maggie brought to me this brilliant little phrase that briefly unbound my angry, clenched fists: “Befriend your Brokenness”. Treat your brokenness the way you treat your loved ones. Care for your brokenness, forgive your brokenness, unconditionally love your brokenness, and most of all thank your brokenness for being a place in your heart where Jesus can reveal his healing and intimacy all the more. Sounds pretty poetic right? But what does this actually look like?

Throughout my college career, I have also been trying to make sense of the “little way” of St. Therese, which you would think sounds pretty easy and simple, but IT IS NOT. She was so confident that God loved her, not despite of her weakness, brokenness, and poverty but precisely because of it. I never knew what she was talking about, but I think I caught a glimpse of her message in April of this year when I was hospitalized for my mental illness. Yup. To say I was frustrated with God was an understatement. The only prayer I could utter was,

“Help me.”

And, the only question I had for God was,

“Why did you make me this way?”

Once I finally caught my breath and ran out of tears, I closed my eyes and remembered what Mary told us in the apparitions of Our Lady of All Nations… Jesus is carrying his cross all alone. He is inviting us to walk along side him but we keep turning away and leave him literally hanging there on the cross by himself. My immediate response when I heard this was anguish for my sweet Jesus and zeal to accept his invitation. Then I realized that the only way I can accompany Jesus up the hill of Calvary was by accepting my own crosses… not by creating more in an attempt to be “holy” and “pious”. To stop fighting these struggles and to face them head on with acceptance and confidence.

Matthew 16:24 says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” If I really do love him, I will take up my OWN cross and FOLLOW HIM up that hill. Yes, small sacrifices and acts of charity are so needed and oh so good for us, but there is something heroic about merely surviving our afflictions, smiling through the pain, saying thank you for the things we don’t get and being grateful for the things we are given that we don’t necessarily want. There is something honorable about getting up in the morning when my anxiety tells me to surrender to the day even though I just opened my eyes. Honestly, I think I have been making it harder on myself by fighting this current and storm of sacrificial love.

I was watching my new favorite Disney movie, Moana (don’t judge me), and for those of you who haven’t seen it, I will give you the run-down. Moana takes off on this heroic pursuit to save her homeland. The ocean called her out to sea to get to where she was going. Then a huge storm knocked her off her boat and wrecked her onto a little island. She immediately got so frustrated with the ocean for letting her get caught up in a huge storm. But then she looked up and realized she was exactly where she was heading the whole time… Sometimes storms and shipwrecks get us to where we are heading, even though it may not be ideal, and YES, it is painful. It is hard to be tossed about the waves but it is much easier to ride them out than to fight against the current. 1 Peter 5:10 says, “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” After we have suffered just a little, God brings us safely to shore where we can finally lay on the sand and catch our breaths, much stronger than we were before.