Retracing my steps

Sometimes you have to go back to a time and place when you began to try...to try to better yourself and turn away from everything that was getting you down. After giving the world a fair shot, you just realized that it hurt too much to live the way most people were because deep down inside you knew you were called to something greater.

So many times had I made the attempt to get back on my feet but it wasn't until I took His hand that I was able to stay up long enough to make any real progress.

I had to make the journey again...driving out to St. John Vianney in Hacienda Heights for Confession and Mass just so I could remember what it was like to approach Him with that much humility...knowing that I really wasn't as okay as I thought I was...understanding that He needed to be the one to change me and that I couldn't ever do it by myself.

Other people will see me and say that I look fine, but I know better. I know when I'm trying to distract myself from answering God's call to give Him every single aspect of my life. I did it before, years ago, but I guess you could say I was definitely in the "honeymoon phase" of my faith. Everything came easy because I was so in love with Him. Now that it's no longer based on good feelings, I need to make the conscious choice to love Him in the struggle. That's when He'll really know. That's when I can really prove it.

And that would be now.

We all have those moments when we need to rewind and remember where we came from. Eileen called me the other day from up north saying that she had one of those moments in church and she thought of the memories we shared here at home just talking about God and our personal walks with Him.

On the way to church, I also popped in a cd that I made for my first 6th grade class, and the songs triggered so much within me that I couldn't help but be thankful for every step of the path He has set me on.

It may be a place. It may be a person, or it may be a song. God can speak to us in so many different ways, and He's always calling us back. It's just up to us to make that drive or that phone call to encounter Him again...to experience His healing, His comfort, and His love.

And if anything, He's always there Himself - Jesus in the Eucharist, waiting for us to visit and just say hi.

Yes, sometimes you have to retrace your steps in order to get back on track.

It might be scary at first because you don't know what to expect...but you can trust that God will be there...and that He'll be absolutely overjoyed that you decided to come home.

Remember what it was like to know His joy and His peace...to pray with all your heart, knowing in faith that He heard your requests...to rest in His arms and trust in His protection...to leave your sinful past behind you and start over "as if nothing ever happened".

That's so beautiful.

I don't know who I'm writing this to...perhaps it's just a reminder for myself so I can read it again someday...but if there is someone out there who happens to come across this entry needing to recommit their lives to Christ, then please know that I will be praying for you.

As we celebrate the feasts of All Saints and All Souls, the mystical body of Christ joins together to remember who we are...whose side we're fighting for...and that it is a battle we fight every day to establish the kingdom of God here on earth.

We are a pilgrim people, moving through this life in order to help Him get more people into the next.

Our destination: HEAVEN

To lose sight of that would mean to lose our very souls. May God grant His pardon to us for forgetting when we do, and may His mercy be the doorway through which we always return.