Care

Today's post is dedicated to my most avid readers, my Grandpa Joe and my Grandma Vicki, who incidentally also inspired today's word!  The word "care" is so common; caregivers, caretakers, "I don't care," carebears, and even a new nanny website called something like "care.com".  It is ironic to me that when things surround us in such a strong way, it is sometimes so easy to totally for get the meaning or weight of it. Care is something that is so powerful; it is saying to someone, "I will do what is best for you because your happiness will make things better for me, too."  I am blessed to be surrounded by people who care about one another in a big way.  My roommate and I have been talking for months about what incredible gifts from God our family and friends are because we know that they would do anything for us, and we would do likewise without hesitation.  This is care in its truest form, wanting the best for people you love just because you know they deserve it as God's own.

Lately, I have been trying to have an inner peace and be aware of all of the positive things going on in my life.  When my grandparents text messaged me today and told me that they missed my thoughts on this blog, it was like God showing me a huge beam of sunlight, revealing His awesome care through them.  I am inspired to let the people that I care about know that I care about them the way my grandparents did for me today.

(I love you both!)

Growth

After a long summer of busy plans and sunny days, I have returned.  As I enter my third year of college, I cannot believe how much I have grown and learned in just the past two years; really even the past twenty.  It's astounding to me how much knowledge we can acquire, and how real thought is even though it is totally intangible.  I find myself really often looking back on things that I have learned, and stretching my head forward to see what I will one day learn, and today I started to think about how much I am capable of growth right where I am.  In fact, I am wondering if maybe all of the change happening around me while I am seemingly standing still is actually making me grow more as a person, where it counts.  There is such a world of a difference to grow up in the world, and to grow up within yourself.  While I am learning how to calculate statistics, I am also learning certain things who I am and what it means to live up to that title.  I always have been told that every experience is opportunity to make a choice, and I think that these moments I am learning and living through are becoming some of the most defining moments.

Blessings

This week, I picked up my devotional book again. I hadn't been reading it for some time, mostly just because I had forgotten about it. The whole message I got all week was to open my eyes to God working in my life. At first, I sort of blew it off because I know that God is working in my life; I can already see it. But through the week, I realized that knowing and recognizing are two different things. My eyes were opened to so many blessings this week, so I decided this week to make an effort to do two things: 1. I would talk to God before anyone else about things I was happy about or that were upsetting me, and 2. I would try and find the blessing in every situation. It was tough at first, but by the end of the week, it was simple. God's blessings and His love are so abundant that it was no trouble at all to want to thank Him for all He has done; in fact, I was bursting with it!

The things that really changed my heart to being open was this: Earlier this week, our church youth group went on a float trip. I am an adult chaperone, so I drove three teenage girls down. Among many funny topics that they discussed in the back seat (why is your reflection upside down, how fun is it to repeat the word "viscosity" after you have just learned it, how many people do we all know who have our same name), one of the younger girls said with a bit of frustration, "You know, I remember when the toughest decision that I had to make was what color crayon I wanted to use." I thought to myself, you are younger than I am, and I don't even have that rough of a life, what could possibly be your toughest decision?  It was not very compassionate of me, but I was put in my place as she continued, saying, "It's just that, I want to be able to enjoy this part of my life, but I don't know how to all the time. But then I wake up every morning. And I remember, that I was born in a great country, into a wonderful community and a loving family. We are just so blessed. All of us are just so blessed."

We all have different blessings, but the way that she not only knew them as fact, but recognized them as gifts in her tone of adoration, was inspirational to me. My prayer for this week is to see the world through God's eyes.

Solitude

Hello again. Today is the first sunny day in a while; it has been quite the spring as far as storms go. So I am sitting here, back in college-town for a few days, at the window of our Newman Center. One of my traveling companions is at work, the other at a park with her boyfriend. We have been together for 4 days straight now, because as traveling companions (and close friends) we share things like the key to the apartment we are staying in, the food we are eating, and the car we travel in.  Now that they are both away, I am having the first time by myself since Monday.  I like being busy, and I like using every moment of the day from the moment I wake to the one that I fall asleep, so I hardly ever stop to enjoy these moments of solitude.

I remember when I was in high school, my mom suggested at the time that I take a few days for some "soul searching" to figure out what it was that I really wanted and the life choices I really wanted to be making.  At the time, 17 year old me was pretty apathetic to the idea, but did it regardless and I actually did learn things. Now I love spending this time alone because I hardly ever spend time with myself - how many of us actually do? I think there is a huge difference between being alone on the internet, watching TV, or reading and actually spending time with ourselves. I have been talking to a lot of my friends lately that tell me they don't know what they want. I'm not claiming to have the answer to this problem, just suggesting that when I take the time to know myself, it is easy for me personally to see what I really want or like or have a talent for.

Anyway, nothing too earth-shattering here, just meditating on the beauty of solitude!

Home

When I was 5 or 6, I had a computer game featuring the little girl Madeline (blue dress, yellow hat, walked in a line with 11 other girls) and Madeline sang songs according to whatever you clicked on. One of the songs she sang went something like, "Home is where the heart is, the heart is, the heart is....Home is where the heart is, if your heart is there, yes, home!"  It was pretty catchy because years later, I still remember it, and not only that, but it still pops into my head at the most relevant times. When I come back in town for breaks, I say I am going "home" and when I return back to school after a long time away from my friends there, I say I am happy to be "home". Coming back to my house after a long year away at school, I think a lot about home, and what it actually means.  I thought for a really long time that your heart very obviously was with your family in your house, because that is the only constant for a lot of us, but the older I get, the more I understand Madeline's song.

Today, I spent the day with my friend Shannon, whose family is living in an apartment because the tornado made their house uninhabitable.  Even though her physical house is broken, her home is pulling together to fix things. By home, I mean her community of people and love.  I am learning with every passing day that your heart can dwell in many places, most of which aren't even locations, but in the hands and hearts of other people, and that "home" is nearly undefinable. Maybe home is another word for "pillar" or "comfort".  Something stable in the midst of chaos; something that we can always come back to; something intangible that brings us peace.  I know that I have a home in Heaven, a home in the Eucharist, but I also find home in my parish family here and my Newman community away at school.  Of course, my house with my mom and my dad and my younger sister will always be my most stable home on this Earth.  I will leave you with this Bible verse about our hearts, and so, too, our homes, by today's logic, I suppose:

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." - Matthew 6:21

Change

It's the end of the school year and in six days, I will be moving back home for the summer, so I guess it makes sense that change would be on the brain.  I am a person who loves being where she is when she is, and I love change. I love a change of scenery - I won't stay in the same building for longer than two hours in a day unless I am sleeping. I love a change of pace - mostly, I like going to places with a slow pace because everything at the university is fast-paced to me.  I love a change of decoration - rearranging my room as often as I can, if I can. And if I can't? Then I throw things out and move the remaining stuff around into a new pattern. I think that part of the reason I love change is because I trust God to keep providing me with the things I need. He is this great conductor who orchestrates everyone around one another keeping perfect time.  But another reason is that up until now, even in change there has been certainty. Leaving high school was a "change" but college was the stable next step.  Likewise, in all other changes, there was a sure next step. As I wrap up the end of my second year of college, I am realizing that I have two years to decide my own next step. I already know a number of things that will change between this year and next, and I have a number of things that I am pretty certain will change, and now I don't know what the next step will be. Perhaps a more logical word word for today would have been "trust" but I am going to stick with "change" and see where it leads me!

Girasole

This is my favorite word currently.  It is Italian, and it means, "sunflower." Literally translated, "gira" means "turn" and "sole" means "sun".  So it is like some beautiful advice to "turn to the sun." This word has been on my heart for a while now, and I have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it.  This past weekend perfectly encompasses the entirety of what this word means to me.  A bad storm hit my city on Good Friday (an EF4 tornado) and left a lot of people without electricity, roofs, and even homes.  Streets were shut down due to live power lines down across lanes of traffic and other entire subdivisions (like my own) were barricaded by the police for safety reasons.  The damages are still being calculated four days later, but the most certain fact is that no one was hurt.  It is being classified as a miracle, and I have no doubt it was. There is story after story of people who were not home due to random happenstances, or who happened to be in the right room in their home at the right time and just missed being hit.  The storms passed that night, but it rained for the rest of Easter weekend.  However, the rain and cold did not deter the community in the slightest from beginning clean-up.  It was an incredible message of hope, and that to me is the epitome of the whole idea about turning to the sun.  To turn our heads towards the sky and like my friend Von says sometimes, "Spend a little more time looking up." We can look up to know that our God is here with us and trust that He is the one who protected every single person from these storms, just like He is the one who will continue providing for everyone.  We can turn to the sun in hopes that all of these storms will pass, which sounds so cliche, but is also completely true. One of my favorite songs is a Casting Crown with a lyric that totally sums it all up: "I will praise you in this storm."  I think all of us just need something like this to hold onto, and for me, that is girasole.