accountability

Oh the joy in having someone or something hold you accountable. It's something I think most of us can not manage without. We need community because we need accountability. Good ol' checks and balances.

I have made a few resolutions through much prayer of ways that I can sacrifice and stay continually in God's peace, light, joy, and new life. However, sacrifice is not an easy thing to be diligent and disciplined in. Hence, the need for accountability. My dear friend Joy has agreed to provide such a service for me and I will try my best to do the same for her.

I'm excited about this journey, not because I have high hopes that I will not mess up (as I already have!) but because I'm choosing to go on a journey instead of falling backwards thinking I can just be stagnant and complacent for the rest of my life. I'm choosing to try. I'm willing to take a risk, and every time I get discouraged, to continue journeying.

This past week was not the best in sacrifices and prayer time, but the beautiful thing about a Monday is that you have a whole new week ahead of you to surrender even greater than last week. What I must remember is that the "Lord will fight for me." (Exodus 14:14)

For those of you who are lacking community and accountability, I encourage you to find one person in your life who can call you on to greatness and vice versa, and ask them if it's something they will pray about as Joy did for me. Then just see what happens from there. Accountability begins with a choice to go on a journey and to desire more than a mediocre life. After all, Christ came that we may have life and have it abundantly! (John 10:10).

Christ's peace.

spring into new life

spring

It is the second Tuesday of Easter and I'm still rejoicing. Easter and Spring conjure up words like new life, resurrection, joy, peace, light, hope, beauty, colorful, warm, refreshing, rejuvenating, zeal, energy, encouragement, fervor, excitement, happiness, bloom, growth, birth, motivation, so on and so forth.

I feel like I am blooming, through every Lent and Holy Week, I put to death my flesh, and out of the dust and ashes emerges a resurrected Marie, a new creation in Christ. This Holy Thursday, suffering through Christ's passion was the worst and the best. Worst because Christ brought me along and gave me a sliver of His pain, His abandoment, His weakness, His humility, His darkness, His rejection, His sadness, His desolation. And best because it was being lived through Him via Holy Week. I suffered alongside Him.

Then as I waited upon His Resurrection, I found myself waiting upon my own resurrection. "Bring me up from this dry and weary place Lord. Give me new life. Let me start again, anew," became my cry, my patient plea. As the lights illuminated the Church and trumpets sounded as we celebrated on Easter Vigil, Saturday evening, we remembered the Faithful Father calling His Son from the dead and fulfilling His covenant, and just as promised He granted me new life, and all was joy and peace, light and life. I had been made a new creation once again in Him, the Love of my life. The peace was something I have not known for a long time and the joy is always refreshing my soul and lifting me out of the fog.

Of course, I am still a human being living on Earth, and until I've been called Home to God, I will always be walking through the darkness in a sense. However, I've been given a greater determination and motivation to call on the Saints and Angels. To pray and abide in the Lord. To give Him my morning and when I have failed to do that to give Him my failure and then offer up the moment I do have with Him. We can not waste a moment wallowing in what "could have been" or "what we should have done". We do not have the past, we do not have the future and why do we want them anyway because Christ does not reside there! He is only Here, right now, in this moment. The moment is a gift and we must cherish it.


I have been able to reflect more daily on all that I am grateful for. This has been a tremendous blessing. I bought a little journal a while back on clearance at Meijer. It said "Gratitude" on the cover and I thought, "...something I probably need more of in my life," and so purchased it and I have enjoyed putting it to good use! I will share the quote from one of my favorite authors which is on the inside of the journal when you open it:

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." - G. K. Chesterton


I do not ever want to go back to that same place, that dark place, where the weight of gratifying my flesh came tumbling down on me. Though I am the reason my Love was nailed to a Tree and murdered, in His great mercy He lead me to that Tree and His Blood and Water gushed forth and cleansed this poor sinner's soul. He wants us to put to death our fleshly desires (i.e. - selfishness, pride, lust, etc.) not to make us miserable and to despair but in order that we may have "life and have it to the full" (John 10:10). I want to live in the Resurrection He offers NOW. I want to live constantly in joy and peace always rejoicing in His infinite mercy, giving thanks to Him who gives us all of our deepest longings and desires, if only we just ask.

"O blood and water, which gushed forth from the heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy for us, I trust in you. Amen." - Divine Mercy Prayer

I shall leave you with some more pictures I found to reflect this new life Christ has offered me and is offering you!