Emulate the Greatest Love

LOVE!

Songs have been written about it, poems have tried to fully express it.  Plays have been written, movies have been made.  Cards exchanged, gifts given, and hearts shared.  All done just to try to fully express what is true real love.

What is true love? People have been wondering this question for ages, and we as a society are getting away from what is close to real.  The greatest love stories are the ones that get the closest to the real love, the truest love that we as humans could ever possibly know.  

What is this true love? The love that God has for His Son and the love that He has for us.  We are sinners and yet, he came to this earth to show us that despite all of the sin in the world, that we are worth fighting for.  We are worth every effort that he gives us.  We don't deserve a love like the love that he has shown us, but that is the point.  That deep of a love, we don't ever deserve it,  but that is what makes this love story so great. 

Our love.  People might say that it is impossible to even try to emulate this love.  And on one hand I would have to agree with them.  We will never be able to come close to this type of love, and we will never be able to surpass this love.  We are humans, and He is God, it is impossible to love more than He does.  But we can strive for that greatness.  We can work to have the greatest love story that strives to come close to this love that God gives us each and every day.

We all have this great love story to see what real love is.  We don't need to look to the world to learn what love is, because we have the greatest love story to strive for.  Don't worry about the ways that the world tells us to love.  

Our love stories will be something of greatness if we just strive to come close to the greatest love story that we have been given to emulate. :-)

The Horizon coming closer

The second week of school has started and I have been looking at my class syllabus, looking to see what  this semester is going to entail. Then it hit me. Four pieces of paper is all that stands between me and graduation.

Four calenders, four professors, four room, five textbooks (lucky me one class has two...), four groups, and such.

Those little numbers make it daunting.  Daunting in a good way. It is just so weird to think that four years ago I was just thinking about graduating from High School, and now I am in my senior year at school and looking forward to the future.  How crazy awesome life can be.

Enjoy the moments that you have.  Cherish each second.  Love to the tips of your fingers, and strive to your highers potential. :-)

My 2011

What a year 2011 has been for me.  How can even describe it?  There are just sot has happened me  may ways in which I can be thankful for in these past 12 months.

I didn't think that it would end up this well, but I know that I can be thankful for what I have been given.  

There are too many things that have happened to me this year that I can't even try to list them all, I just know that I have been blessed over this past year, and I have God to thank for that.

So 2011, thanks for a great year.  2012 you have much to live up to. :-) Until Next year!

Better than I used to be

New favorite song is by Tim McGraw - Better Than I used to be (YouTube Video). I think that it shows what true love really is.

Love isn't perfect.  You don't go into a relationship and never change, love makes you a better person. Love is something that makes you want to become a better person.  Sometimes it takes someone else to make you see that you can become that person.

True love isn't something that Hollywood can show you.  True love is something that is shown through the love that God has given all of us.  He shows us what true love really is.  It isn't something that demands something else from the other person.  True love is the opening up and loving that person unconditionally.

Humans are not perfect, sin is in the world and usually that is the road that sounds easier and more pleasing at the time.  But that pleasure is fleeting and it doesn't last.  If we open our hearts up to God and have him guide our paths, a truer and deeper love is in store.

Listen to God and he will guide you to true love, love that makes you better than you used to be :-)

when new feels old and old feels new

Sometimes you are reminded on how lucky you are in your own life.   There are those moments where something that is new feels like it has been around forever, but then there are also those moments where something old feels alive and fresh again.

What a great way to live, because I think that it makes you appreciate what you have more, and helps you realize all that you have been given in life.  If it a friendship that has come back around, when you didn't think it was there anymore.  Or if it is a relationship just beginning that feels as if it has been longer than what it really has been.

Keeping things fresh, like a bouquet of flowers.  By having the old feel new and the new feel old it is like you are replacing the dying flowers with new ones, and also adding to the arrangement.  So by the end of the day you are left with a fresh bouquet that smells beautiful.

So here's to keeping the bouquet of life fresh!

Looking at Forgiveness

Today I was reminded about a part of the Our Father.  At my church's penance service we said the Our Father together. There I was being forgiven of my sins, and a part from a retreat that I had attended recently and Fr. David Mary said a part of the Our Father that really hit home. he said: "...Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against..."

What is this saying someone might ask.  I think that sometimes we say this prayer and we just hear the first part: "forgive us our trespasses." and we don't listen out for the second half.  How can we ask for forgiveness when we don't forgive others or ourselves.

I am reminded about a part in a book I read about something like this. I wish I remembered the book that it was in because it was a really powerful little excerpt.  about 3ish years ago I was having trouble forgiving myself, but it was easy to forgive others who had done me wrong.  In this book it talked about reconciliation and forgiveness.  I knew that God had forgiven me, but somehow it was still in the back of my mind always.  But this book talked about how if we know that we have been forgiven, we need to get off of out pedestals that  we have placed ourselves upon.

God is all powerful, God is merciful, God is our Father who wants nothing better from us, then our very best.  He sets our bar high, but not too high that we will never be able to reach it.  If God is the master of the universe, and we know that he has forgiven us for our past sins; saying that we can't forgive ourselves is almost like saying that we are better than God and that we should hold ourselves to a better standard.  But that isn't the case, Jesus gave us Reconciliation to make us stronger.

The retreat I recently went to I was the leader of a small group, and one of the students in the small group said something great about reconciliation and forgiveness.  "In Reconciliation, our slates aren't just washed clean. In reconciliation our slates are made stronger so that next time it will be harder to make an imprint upon them."

Forgiveness is not easy, but forgiving ourselves, and others is the only way that we can wash our slates clean, so we can make them stronger.  The battle has already been won, we just have to choose what side we want to be on.