On your mark, get set, go!  We run from the minute we get up till the minute we lay down.  Even then our mind still races.  We have a one-track mind that doesn’t stop; too much to remember, think about, plan for.  (Also, we have all those worries to worry about!)  Life comes at us fast and furious; we definitely are on the fast track.

Do you have a good race going?  What side of the track are you running on?

Some days it is wearisome to remain on the right side of the track.  Living out our lives takes its toll and how can we keep going at the same pace as yesterday.  We tire easily.  The track of life is full of obstacles, potholes, mountains, twists, and turns.  Plus for good measure add some luck and fate to the picture.  Easy to slide off the track or worst yet take a bad turn that has no return.  It becomes difficult to stay focused on our race let alone make good time.

St. Paul of the New Testament talks about a race.  He has a way of pointing out just how important it is to finish the race of life.  His message “I have done my best in the race, I have run the full distance, and I have kept the faith” is a worthy footstep for all to follow.

So do your best to keep your faith alive and well.  If you trip over your own two feet call on faith to help get you back up and moving.  Mountains look a little high let faith carry you up.  Lose your footing in the twist and turns bank on faith to make way for a straight path.

A strong finish requires strong faith.

Go the distance; run your race; keep the faith.  Good luck and God be with you!

The human heart is an amazing object.  It does so much more than pump blood to keep us alive.  Whatever situation we encounter our heart is right there in the thick with us.  We humans are known for wearing our hearts out on our sleeves.  No matter how hard we try we can’t seem to keep our heart separate from our daily life.

So many times we are at a lost trying to figure out our heart’s desire.  The local drug store has no remedy for heart aches.  Band aids can’t heal broken hearts.  Bleeding hearts continue to overflow regardless of the plugs we shove in.  For sure we know that we can’t live without the constant beat of our heart.

To better understand the human heart we need to probe deep inside.  God is somewhere in there.  He is there alongside all our aches and pains talking to us; wanting to cure what ails.  All we have to do is search within to hear His voice and follow His commandments.

Those with the strongest hearts have been entrusted to God.  A complete trust that gives way to unrelenting confidence in Him.  With undeniable faith in God no longer are we at a lost trying to figure out the beating of our heart.  Stay loyal and faithful to God.  Get a big black permanent marker and put His sign on your heart for all to see.

Don’t miss a beat.  As Psalm 37:4 suggests “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

I’m blessed to be the daughter of a mother who built up a prayer life that withstands the storms of life.  Whenever problems arose prayer took over.

Somebody sick call mom she’ll pray for them.  Natural disaster strikes; you can be sure she opened up her prayer line to God.  Anxious and nervous; we learned prayer calms.  Need something; prayer will provide.  Her prayers increased and were constant throughout our lives.  (My sixth sense tells me that I am where I am because of some of her prayers.)

I loved sitting around the kitchen table listening to her tell me about her faith or a certain bible verse.  Those were the afternoons when we both let our guards down and she opened herself up to any and all questions on faith.

One of those glorious afternoons she must have thought it was important and wanted to know if I knew that just saying “God Help Me” is a real prayer.  I suppose I sort of thought of it as a prayer; kind of a quick way to get a self centered prayer sent up to God.  It wasn’t till many years later and the crystal clear vision that hindsight provides did I really realize what a powerful prayer those three words are.

It has become my mantra in life.  Frightened to walk into a situation; I take a deep breath and pray “God Help Me”.  Phone rings from doctor’s office with lab results; “God Help Me”.  Have to break bad news to a loved one; couple deep breaths and “God Help Me”.   Things not going as planned….”God Help Me”.  Lost a twenty dollar bill….”God Help Me”.  Lost and confused in the kitchen with dinner time fast approaching…..”God Help Me”!

Take it from someone who knows best.  “God Help Me” is a real prayer; a very powerful prayer; a lifelong prayer.

(Thanks Mom!  Love YOU.  Happy Mother’s Day.)

These are the days of our lives.  Wondering how you are living your days out?  Everything going smoothly?  Need a guideline to follow?

“Live well; Laugh often; Love much.”

Well, starting with “live well” I propose that would mean taking care of one’s body.  Easy to say to give up smoking; stop drinking too much; put down all other drug induced addictions; and fix your diet so you can lose those extra pounds unless that is you fall into one of these traps.  Then easy is the last word to say.  Moderation may be the key here; if nothing else it is a small step in the right direction.  We should try to live well within our means.  Meaning no one knows us better than ourselves.  We know what we can and can’t handle; what we can and can’t do; but mostly we know better.

Everyone has a sense of humor.  Mine requires me to laugh often.  Certain commercials that are so stupid they are hilarious; signs I read that make me wonder who wrote that; watching kids do ordinary things in a funny way; tripping over my own two feet while trying so hard to be graceful…things like that crack me up.  Funny that it doesn’t take much to get us laughing; a small dose of humor will do wonders for your body.  Laughter has been called the best medicine out there!

Finally how can you not love much?  That’s like asking a singing bird not to sing or a lion not to roar.  Love is grand and great and magnificent, and rich, and superb, and awe-inspiring.  Need I continue?  Birds sing, lions roar that much we know.  Do we know and realize just how much is given to us in love by a God who is Love.  In fact I believe He is Grand and Great and Magnificent and Rich and Superb and Awe-Inspiring.

There is so much to love in life.  Life is funny; go ahead and laugh out loud.  We know how to live and these are the days of our lives so hope all is well.

Have a great day.  “Live well; Laugh often; Love much.”

Even the best storytellers of the world sometimes miss their point.  I’ve been trapped countless times listening to someone ramble on and nearly half asleep wondering what is the point.  That is about as bad as being told to do something without any reason whatsoever.

I read this clever little caption the other day:

“Life without God is like an unsharpened pencil – what’s the point.”

Wasted time; pointless gossip; forfeiting good cause is not how I want to spend my days.  I’ve got to have a little reason in my life.  I need stability.  I desire order.  I want a purpose.  With God I find all of these things.

God gives me the reason to live.  In Him I find stability that is unshakeable; peace that brings order; purpose that fulfills my heart and satisfies my mind.

Get sharp and point yourself in the right direction.  Get God.

That’s what the point is all about!

Work, work, work.  How we love to hate work.  Weather we get up and go to the office; clock in at the factory; jump on the tractor; pick up the dust rag; or take roll call in a class room every day we have tasks to do.  Our days involve responsibilities; jobs to start; projects to head up; work to be done.

Until we no longer have to sing our part in the chorus of “I owe; I owe; off to work I go”  we must work.  What if we brought faith into our work would things change?  Would the heavy labor that one has to endure ease up; the menial, dreary tasks bring on new meaning?  Could faith work to not leave us exhausted at the end of our work day?

Faith is having trust in a person or thing; a belief not based on proof.  The religious definition is even stronger.  Faith is a belief in God.  So if we packed a little faith in the old lunch pail and went to work we would really be bringing God along with us.  The answers to the above questions change dramatically.  With God and our fellow coworker the toil of hard manual labor may just seem a little easier.  You know the saying two hands are better than one.  God at our side can make the most monotonous tasks seem exciting because He is nearby.

Make do with whatever work you must do.  Work some faith into your day.  Faith………works in mysterious ways.

Have a great day (at work)!

With today’s technology it is hard to make excuses about being late or not knowing certain dates or scheduled meetings.  All our gadgets can be set up to remind us of any event and even help us with directions to get there.

I belong to a wonderful parish; which has wonderful Priests; who in turn give wonderful, awesome, inspiring sermons.  On a recent Sunday Mass our Priest started his sermon off telling us how he has a GPS and recently entered a destination and unable or unsure how to clear it is stuck every time he gets in his vehicle and ventures somewhere having a voice telling him to turn around ….recalculating.   (My thoughts at where his sermon was taking us were not far off.)

It made me think about my own destination.  I have had God in my life many times telling me to turn around; recalculate; take the narrow gate.  No short cuts; go right not left; turn down the unbeaten path.  I heard the message, but my ego and all knowing ways headed somewhere different.  Just this once I’ll cut through the field; maybe no one will notice; back alley is a lot shorter; who cares; take the bridge it will be easier.  Then I found out the field was full of stones; the back alley was not safe; the bridge went to nowhere.  God turned on His GPS to my heart and recalculated my path; gave me the chance to make a few u-turns; got me on the right path again.

The message of recalculating is to repent.  Turn around. Turn to God.

The God who loves and cares for you.

Set your GPS to GOD….destination Heaven.

God loves us; each and everyone.  Yes.  You’re special.  You’re unique.  God loves YOU.  But do you know God loves you just the way you are?

By the way how are you?  Full of yourself; causing problems again; can’t quite get that perfection thing down.  Don’t fret; He still loves you.  He loves the forsaken; the forgotten; the downtrodden; the oppressed; the homeless; the poor; the lost; the lonely hearts wandering aimlessly.  Just the same as He loves the saints; the Holy ones; the humble; the righteous beings roaming planet earth.

God loves us all.  I’m pretty sure that when Jesus said “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” He was talking about the same love God has for us.  Makes for interesting conversation; so how are you doing out there?  Do you love the unlovable?  Easy to love a saint (plus as an added bonus they may be of help to us on our upward journey).  Too difficult to view never mind thinking about loving just look the other way at the homeless walking the streets; and as far as the poor go it might just be their own fault we worked hard for what we got.  How we love to be up close to the Holy ones; the pillars of our church community; they make us feel loved!

I’m quite certain Jesus is telling us to love each other “Just the Way You Are”.  Don’t discriminate. Don’t pick and choose.  Don’t look the other way.  When it comes to love don’t fall short.

Just love. 

Usually the sound of music is soothing and joyous to me.  There are times when this is not the case.  I’m talking about the detested tooting of one’s own horn.

Nothing hurts the ears as much as listening to those hollow notes.  When I’m the guilty musician I cringe at the thought of what nonsense I played; feeling so foolish up on that high pedestal belting out off key notes.  You would think one would have sense to stop; but no usually once started on the band wagon the song is played till the bitter end.   These are the times when I wish I could walk backwards and erase what just happened.

I envy the people who walk to the beat of their own drum.  Who have no desire or need to pick up their horn and toot just to be heard.  They have a song to sing but it is different from the horn blowers.  Their song is soothing and joyous.  It is an inner song that doesn’t cause racket just harmony.  These are the real musicians in life.

Proverbs 27:2 states “Let other people praise you-even strangers; never do it yourself”.  With that being recorded and without further ado maybe it is time to face the music.  Release the hold of the loud senseless noise that interferes with the soft melody within our soul.

Set the tone; find the rhythm of life; and play your part. Harmony has a nice ring.

Praise be to God!

Oh to be a cat and have nine lives. Mess up on your first life move on to the second.  Things aren’t looking good jump forward to life number three.  Not quite perfect leap towards number four.  Mishaps; errors; problems; they often play into my one life to live.  I definitely would be living on borrowed time.

This is what society today seems to shout out to me as I go about my life.  The one life I’m supposed to enjoy; live to the fullest; find the meaning of.    “Live it up.  Go ahead live like there is no tomorrow.  You only live once.  Think of yourself.   Take care of the one and only you.”  Our culture makes it seem so easy and inviting.

God tells me differently.  He speaks to me in my thoughts and prayers.  When I wish I could change the past He reminds me it is just that past; gone; done with.  He has no hang ups with it; wants me to move forward; has forgiven and forgotten.  All about me, me, me; no, no, no my soul tells me.  He wants me to be His hands and help my neighbor; shows me how to use my feet to go the extra mile spreading peace and happiness.  He asks me to boldly open up my heart to give and receive love.  This is His idea of living it up.  I’m also reminded in prayer that there is a tomorrow and He wants to spend it with me.  Yes we do only live once, but how we live will dictate where we live.  I choose Him.  He is the master of the universe and my puny brain can’t begin to comprehend what a beautiful heaven He has created.  Think of myself; no not anymore; I’m going out on a limb to care for and care about others.  Through Him I find the real meaning of life.  It doesn’t sound easy, but oh so very inviting.  He speaks the true language of love.  He promises so much.

I have so much to gain with one life to live; one God to love.