Life's a Journey. Walk with God.

LET ME STAY ON THE JOURNEY

"Lord, help me to stay on the journey in search of you.
Help me when I am tired. Help me when I've lost my way.
Help me when the destination is not clear.
Help me when discouraging voices crowd out my hope.

Lord, help me to stay on the journey with the sure knowledge

that you wait for me and are my final destination. Amen."

I realized after much contemplation of late that my viewpoints have changed over time. What matters most to me now, in the present, is no longer a desire for an "endlessly changing horizon" or "each day to have a new and different sun", but rather to have an attitude of gratitude, to live out the simple daily life of contentment and inner peace, and to serve God and others with humility. It's a blessing to be able to live such a life.

All the travels and life experiences that I've had were gifts from God for me to open my heart so that I could, in due time, 'SEE' what is the ultimate truth in life and humanity and our purpose in this world. When we scrape away the false fronts that mask our insecurities, we are left with nothing but the naked and yet oh-so-beautiful truth that our being, our very source, comes from God. He is the truth. When we deny ourselves of our egos, vanity and pride, we transform ourselves to live a life that is authentic, honest and joyful. No longer will we need to put on a fake persona and live a double life - in other words, true freedom.

By our faith in Jesus, we will experience God's amazing love and mercy for each one of us. His plans are a mystery. To be able to discern His will, we need to be aware of His presence - in the people around us, and in our environments. He speaks to us in mysterious ways.

We are all creatures of habit. We need to be diligent in our prayers and scripture readings to grow our faith and be close to God. There are many distractions and temptations in life that can pull us away from our calling and destroy our relationship with God and one another. Be aware of such evil deceit and trickery and fight it with faith, hope and love - the most important of which, is always LOVE. Sins can make us become ashamed and unforgiving of ourselves. But know this, God loves us SO MUCH. He wants us to be happy - all of us are deserving of God's love. It's okay if we have fallen. If we pick ourselves up and return to God, He will welcome us with open arms and embrace us with warmth and LOVE.

Love takes precedence. With love comes respect, trust, openness to change and acceptance of the truth. Love heals all old wounds. So love yourself, your neighbor and most important of all, love God.

A priest once told me a story about an evil woman who died and went to Hell. Seeing the woman's torment in Hell, her guardian angel persuaded God to save the woman. The guardian angel told God that the woman had done one good deed in her life - she had given a poor and hungry person a carrot to eat. Because of this one good deed, God agreed to save the woman. He told the guardian angel to descend into Hell and use the carrot to pull the woman up from the burning abyss. When the evil woman saw the carrot, she grabbed it and her guardian angel used it to pull her up to Heaven. As she was being pulled upwards, some souls in the abyss saw that she was going to be saved so they grabbed her legs and were being pulled upwards as well. When the evil woman saw what happened, she looked down at them and bitterly said, "No one's going to get a free ride out of me! I deserve this because of my own good work!" So she started to kick and shake loose those who were clinging onto her. As soon as she did that, her carrot broke and she fell back down into the fiery Hell. The moral of the story is this: "When we save others, we save ourselves too." So let us walk in the truth, in the way of love and compassion.

I'm not perfect and I don't mean to imply that I'm better than others. I merely choose to live in HOPE because I believe and TRUST in the Lord Jesus Christ. May we open our hearts to peace, forgiveness and LOVE, and may we use the gifts that we've been given to honor and serve God and others. PAX & AGAPE.