A Summer of Hidden Blessings with God
Summer 2022 went by so fast. I remember publishing the last post as if it had been last week, but the last time something was posted was back in May! After reflecting on God’s presence these past few months, I have seen the many blessings I’ve received; I invite you to do the same.
I felt like I hadn’t accomplished anything today and was wasting my life. It is a scary feeling. The words worthless, lazy, and wasteful kept replaying in my head. I felt gross. There was no way out of that negative thinking, or so I thought. The enemy wasted no time, and I soon felt sorry for myself and continued putting myself down. I left out a gentle cry for help that said, “come, Holy Spirit.”
It took a couple of tries, but soon I felt the tension in my body escape. And I hear God saying, “I am always with you.” Flashbacks started coming back of all the times God showed me His love and mercy these last few months. My distress was blurring out the team efforts God and I had been through. I felt out of place because I had been trying to see where I had succeeded while neglecting God’s presence. It was never about what I had accomplished because God was the one who paved the way for those fruits to flourish. Without God, all my summer endeavors would’ve been in vain. I wanted recognition and to feel proud of doing things on my own.
Broken Desires
An evil voice was causing a war with my soul that seeks the Lord and my broken desire to seek self-gratification. I was pushing away God and giving the place of honor to my pride. I should know by now that the devil never stops chipping away at our God-given armor of Grace. He found my lastest weakness and used it full force. As my spiritual director always reminds me, the enemy will not lure me with drugs or murder because my faith is strong enough to ignore those temptations, so he will go after the flaws I’ve failed to hand over to God for redemption.
In this case, it was charity and mercy. I had the opportunity to love my “neighbor” with something as minor as giving my undivided attention. Instead, I walked away because I had “better” things to worry about. But what is more important than being a helping hand to another human being? On another occasion, I spoke ill about someone who’d wrong me when I could’ve held my tongue and taken that time to offer a prayer in that person’s name. There were times in the spur of the summer when I spent hours planning for my future when I felt the Lord calling me to spend a few times with Him in silence. I grabbed my headphones and tried to block out that call with music.
You’ve probably guessed it: I was growing warry. The Holy Spirit was trying to help me grow in virtue, but I wasted those opportunities looking for an easy and immediate solution. And one thing is for sure: being virtuous takes time. I can’t help but think of the Blessed Virgin and her desire to live in virtue. I wrote about it last January, and after revisiting that post, I realized I am still struggling with the virtue I had chosen over a year ago.
But Perseverance is key!
I will use this to motivate me to seek that heavenly help from God and His saints in this journey to Eternal Salvation. I chose to imitate Mary’s ardent charity after praying about it and asking God to show me where I needed to grow spiritually. That is my much-needed daily reminder: ALWAYS PRAY FIRST.
Now that my heart has settled and my soul is ready to hear the voice of God, I can easily see all the moments God’s helping hand was nearby.
With His help, this summer, I was able to:
- Get clarity on my vocation!
- Get a new job that I love!
- Grow closer to my family
- Take that final step to start the Broken Prayers Shop (Check It Out)!!
- Become more assertive
- Publish my first activity book!
- Be fearless about my faith.
- Take baby steps and say Yes to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
These are all amazing things that I am grateful for, but as I said earlier, I have a hard time seeing them as they are happening, or I am too quick at forgetting all of my blessings. I ask you to be my accountability partner and hold me liable for being a faithful catholic.
I know I’ll be back soon to talk about the different ways I’ve failed God, so I ask for your prayers in this journey. Please know that I am doing the same for you.
I encourage you to reach out with your prayer intentions, but most importantly, I ask that you take some time to speak with Jesus one-on-one. He wants to be your best friend. Only Jesu can fulfill the void in your heart. So open up that Bible and let the Word of God engulf your soul.
Here are some questions to help you continue the conversation that the Father has been longing to start:
- What is something that made you feel happy this summer? How about the past week? And what about today?
- Where was God is that moment? Did you feel His love at that moment? Did you stop to give thanks?
- How would that moment change if you had been more aware of God’s presence?
- What is God saying to you right now? Is He asking for something? Does He want your help or just your undivided attention?
- How much time are you willing to give God daily from now on?
- What is something you need from God now?
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