Thinking & Driving

As I was driving home this morning from Mass and the library, I turned my radio off and just let my mind wander. Usually I have no idea how my thoughts transition from one topic to the next, but it tends to be a pretty interesting experiment. I went from thinking about phone calls I had to make to classes I need to take to trips I want to go on to things to get at the grocery store to blog post ideas to friends I would like to catch up with (and about a million other things in between but those were the more important ones). It was no shock that I eventually ended up on friends. The topic has been on my mind a lot the past year or so, as is evident by almost every post I write... Anyway, I started off thinking about how much I miss certain friends. You know, the ones you can sit and talk to literally for hours. The ones who never seem to run out of advice or stories or laughter or wisdom. The ones who challenge you to pick yourself up when you're down instead of letting you wallow in your perceived injustices. The ones who celebrate your accomplishments even more than you do. The ones who make time for you no matter how busy their schedules are. The ones who know your heart.

I miss seeing those friends. Yes, it's nice to be able to talk on the phone, text, Skype, and send emails, but it's not the same. Obviously I'm grateful for those means of communication since I wouldn't have any contact at all without them, but we all know that nothing beats a face-to-face meeting. (Plus with my shoddy cell reception, I end up missing a quarter of what the person on the other line ends up saying to me and try to make up for it by saying a lot of "uh huhs" and awkward laughter....) It reminds me of the quote toward the end of Shawshank Redemption when Red says "I guess I just miss my friend." Couldn't have said it better myself, Red.

But then another thought started to develop. Amidst the sadness came an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. Yes, I miss my friends. But that means that I have friends to miss. I'm incredibly blessed and grateful to have these types of friends in my life, because that hasn't always been the case for me. I grew up with the idea that friends were just people you complained to about your siblings, played sports with, or went to the movies with. And because I didn't know anything else, I didn't desire anything else. I thought that's what friendships were. It didn't occur to me that friends could be something other than boredom-chaser-away-ers (yes, that's a word). A couple months after I made my first "real" friend, we were sitting outside on her patio talking and she asked me something along the lines of "didn't you ever talk about this kind of stuff with your friends growing up?" When I replied with an awkward no..., she questioned what we did talk about. The only things I could come up with were movies, sports, and homework. Not a lot of growing going on there. And not much joy either.

That's not to say that I only want friends who are going to be joyful all of the time and committed to helping me grow every time we talk. That seems like an absurd and unattainable desire. We all have rough days where we just need our friends to listen to us complain for a little bit, but that shouldn't be the norm. I've had friendships like that before, and they're draining. It's hard to be positive around someone who's consistently down. But that's a discussion for another post. I'd rather focus on current friends, like M. M & I have spent this semester reading The Simple Path by Mother Teresa and Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. Now we're starting Crossing the Threshold of Hope by Blessed (SOON TO BE SAINT!!!) John Paul II! I'm so excited to get into it. If you're looking for a way to keep in touch with a friend, I definitely recommend doing something like this! Anyway, we read a certain number of chapters each week and then talk about them over Skype. Usually we have so much to say to teach other that we end up talking for more than 2 hours! It was without a doubt one of the highlights of my week. Every single week. Mostly because I couldn't wait to hear what M had to say. That woman is a living saint, and she just has a way of saying the most beautiful things. I love it :) And she's just one of the women I've had the pleasure of getting to know better this winter/spring.

So the fact that I now have friends like the ones I described up there helps me be okay with missing them. Because I'd rather be missing them than hanging out with the alternative.


"O God, let me know you and love you so that I may find my joy in you; and if I cannot do so fully in this life, let me at least make some progress every day, until at last that knowledge, love and joy come to me in all their plenitude...On Earth then I shall have great joy in hope, and in heaven complete joy in the fulfillment of my hope" ~~St. Anselm 

For the moms :)

As I was replying to a comment left on an earlier post this morning, it struck me how truly blessed I am at this point in my life. Lately I've spent a lot of time complaining about loneliness and friend problems and lack of community at home, but when I really take the time to reflect on my life, I see that I have nothing to complain about. I have a roof over my head (which I don’t have to pay for). I have clothes to eat (I was going to correct this error, but I figured you’d all enjoy a good laugh. Hahaha). Yes, clothes to eat ;) Anyway…I have clothes to wear and food to eat. I have friends and family who love me. I have a running car and a job that starts in January. But most importantly, I have a relationship with Jesus, and I have the opportunity to work on it each and every day. My open schedule allows me to attend mass each day, spend time in prayer, read good books (like True Devotion to Mary!), and watch episode upon episode of the Catholicism series. There are so many people I know who would love to have the amount of free time I have. All of this reminds me of an experience I had this summer.

From the end of May to the end of June, the Newman center at U of I turns into a training center for FOCUS. Hundreds of missionaries gather in the dorm to spend five weeks learning how to evangelize on college campuses. A plethora of priests, brothers, and sisters join the scene at various times throughout the weeks to offer spiritual direction or teach a class. Anyway, many of the missionaries have started families that they don’t want to be away from for more than a month, so Newman becomes the temporary home for loads of babies and toddlers! And since young children don’t make the best class companions, FOCUS hires babysitters for the families. I was lucky enough to be recommended by one of my missionary friends to be a sitter, and I couldn’t have been happier. For five or six weeks, I spent 14ish hours of my day bouncing from one family to the next every few hours while the parents attended class (or in some cases, taught a class). I became pretty good friends with all the parents, which may have been helped by the fact that we were all around the same age! Unlike some of the sitters who babysat for the same family all day every day, I was just an on-call watcher of babies who could be utilized by anyone. This meant that I got to spend time with ALL the beautiful kids at one point or another!! It was fantastic J. Okay, by now you’re probably wondering what the point of this whole post is. Well, get ready ‘cause here it comes.

During the middle of training, I was introduced to a mom with two youngins under 2. Her husband was one of the missionaries in charge of everything so he was gone pretty much allllll day. She hadn’t brought her own babysitter with her, and for a reason I can’t remember now, she hadn’t called upon any of us on the list for a little help every now and again. By the time I met her, she really needed a break. As you can imagine, it’s not easy entertaining little ones all the livelong day when you’re living in a college dorm room…Anyway, we clicked pretty much right away, and I started stopping by every day just to see if she needed an extra pair of hands. She was always so grateful, and at one point she told me that she really appreciated all of the help because she hadn’t been able to make it to a chapel to pray since her first daughter was born…two years ago! It began to dawn on me how much sacrifice it takes to be a mom. There’s no such thing as a “sick day” for stay at home moms—rain or shine, the kids need you. And as much as you love your kids, it’s gotta be lonely just having the company of a baby or toddler during the day until your husband gets home. I realized then how much I was taking my situation for granted; as a young, single, and fairly unemployed woman, I had no (good) excuse for why I wasn’t devoting more time to my relationship with Jesus. I had nothing taking time away from me or really requiring my attention. While I’d like to think that my lack of effort was due to the fact that I just wasn’t really reflecting on what I was (or wasn’t) doing, it’s more likely that I was just being lazy, ungrateful, or unaware of the blessings God was giving me.

I’ve been thinking about that encounter a lot lately, probably due to the fact that I read so many amazing mom blogs. And once again, I see how good God is and how much He longs for us. He gives us exactly what we need, and for me, at this point in my life, it’s time. Time for building my relationship with Him and His Mother. Time for figuring out who I really am and what is important in my life. Time for counting my blessings.

So this week I’ve decided to offer up all my masses for all the moms I know. I only had a very small taste of the sacrifices you make each day for your children, but if your situation is anything like that of the women I met this summer, I’m sure you’ll appreciate the extra prayers J And if any of you live in Illinois and ever need a babysitter, you know where to find me ;)

Just can't contain my joy!

So I had a whole other post started and almost finished, but I decided it was too complain-y, and after my drive home, I just wanted to sing praises to God for how amazing my weekend was (too much? Well too bad 'cause that's how I felt. And please excuse the run-on nature of that sentence).

Did the weekend go exactly as planned? Of course not. They rarely do. But ladies (I assume only women are reading these rather feminine posts), I can't even explain the joy I felt as I was driving home. I had soooooo many wonderful conversations with some of the best friends a girl could ask for. I got to let out all of the things that have been eating away at me the past few weeks but also reminisce about all the great things that God has been putting in my life (e.g. all you fine women reading this :) ). I received advice on things I've been struggling with (like how to start forming a relationship with our Blessed Mother), and I basked in the gloriousness of beautiful friendships. Honestly, I don't even know what the highlight was, but one of them was definitely having the opportunity for so much prayer. I had so much time to reflect on things as they were happening (or at the very least, right after) instead of months after the fact. And I finally started coming to terms with the fact that I don't have to be 2 minutes away from my friends in order to keep up a good friendship, which was something I just couldn't seem to grasp with all this dang free time on my hands to sit and obsess about how much I miss them and how much it feels like I've been relegated to the "out of sight, out of mind" category. But that's obviously not true, and I guess it just took a wise friend to tell me so before I would believe it. Better luck next time, devil. Oh! And another big highlight was seeing two shooting stars on my way home tonight! A friend likes to think of them as winks from God ;)

I guess the point of this little post is just to express my amazement once again over how quickly God pours out His graces after just a small act of faith from us. Making time for prayer and attending mass seem like such small gestures to me (despite the fact that I still struggle to do them on a daily basis...), but this weekend has taught me (or at least re-instilled in me) how much God yearns for us and how much He desires to show us that He loves us, if we would only let Him. I'm still processing everything that's going on, so if this seems like just one big rambling, I apologize. I just needed to start the reflection process, and blogging seems to be a good outlet for me to do that. I feel so blessed to have friends who challenge me to become a better version of myself (props to Matthew Kelly for that phrase). I can't thank them enough for the constant support they give me and the changes they've caused in my life. They just have a way of getting me to think about things I normally wouldn't think about, and they invite me to do small things (like praying night prayer) that wind up having big consequences (like wanting to develop a better prayer life). And the best part about it is that everything is done over a cup of coffee. They just make having a relationship with Jesus seem so effortless and it makes me want to do everything I can to reach that point. So I ask them how they do it and find new ways to continue to grow.

Okay, I really am just rambling now because I just can't stop smiling and thinking about all the happy things this weekend contained. I hope all of you had weekends as astounding as mine! And if you didn't, that's what I'll be praying for this week. Have a great night :)

P.s. I finally got the new Mumford and Sons CD (along with some Audrey Assad and JJ Heller). AND THEY'RE ALL SO GOOD! I heart music.