Who do you think Jesus is? Really? 

This weekend's Gospel reading is a familiar one, yet important.  Christ asked the apostles who people were saying He was.  The apostles said that some thought Christ was resurrected prophet, Elijah back from the dead, or even John the Baptist.  Which is weird, because they knew both of these men, and they were alive at the same time.

Peter then reveals who he believes Jesus is: the Son of God. While this is the true answer, is it true for you?  Do you really believe Jesus Christ is the true Son of God, and Savior of the world?  If you say you do, does your life reflect that proclamation?  

Christ wants you to follow Him now - deny yourself, pick up your cross and go.  Not after you get out of highschool, after you graduate from college, or when you settle down in a career.  He wants you now!  The way isn't going to be easy, but the rewards are out of this world.  

We're called to action in whatever area of life we are in now.  Maybe your a highschool student who can be an example of Catholic life in among your peers.  Or your a college student who can live their faith on campus.  Perhaps your married and can be Christ's light to your spouse and/or children.  God can use you if you just give yourself up to His will.

Live your life out loud, and don't be afraid to follow God...NOW.

God bless,

Chloe M. 

(From a scene at bloggers anonymous) "Hello, my name is Chloe."  "Hi, Chloe." "I am a neglectant blogger. I've not posted in many days and my readers must be sick and tired of logging on to the same screen every time they pull up my blog."

Sorry guys!  As Frank Sinatra said, "That's life!" I have been busier than a one eyed cat watching two mouseholes.  No exaggeration here at all.   Okay, maybe a bit of exaggeration - and I've always wanted to use a weird phrase like that.  

But, in all seriousness, I have been crazy busy.    Stick with me - I do have a couple great posts in mind, so keep an eye out for blog updates.

Also, on a side note, I love finding out how you found my blog!  Do you know me personally?  Did you run across my site from a different blogger?  Let me know in the comments - or, if your in a hurry, just click one of the poll options on the side of the blog!

Have a great Sunday everyone - best laid plans, I will post something this afternoon when I get back from Church and errands.

God bless!

Chloe M.  

Dealing with Dejection

Today, when I got home from work, a package was waiting for me.  The return address was an company I had applied for a scholarship with.  So, as you can imagine I was pretty excited and hopeful.  I opened the package, and my hopes fell as quickly as they had come.  Dejection, the dreaded "We regret to inform you" line that sends dream down the drain.  Ok, that was pretty dramatic. 

Point being: I'm so tired of being turned down.  There have been a lot of these instances, especially in my college journey.  The "No" from the Catholic College that was my number one choice.  The "No" from federal aid when I was expecting more than I had been granted.  The "Try again next time" from the scholarship after scholarship after scholarship that I've applied for.  So, I wallowed in self-pity for a couple of minutes and then I had to stop.  Because feeling sorry for myself will get me absolutely no where.

Would this scholarship have made covering school costs easier? You bet.  Would it have been nice to be selected for something that I really poured my time and heart into? Sure.  But I'll still be able to go to school without it.  It'll be a challenge, but nothing good comes easy. 

As I'm pouring my heart out to God this afternoon, it hit me.  If I needed this scholarship, I would have gotten it.  God's taking care of me, and if He saw that it was going to be best for me to get this money, He would have worked it out.  Yet I wasn't selected, and deep down, I'm going to be okay.  God has a plan, and it's SO much better than what I have in mind.  This college path for me has been such an opportunity to give up what I want and let God take over.  Pardon the cliché, but when God closes a door, He'll open a window.  He's got it covered, all I have to do is trust.

God bless you all,

Chloe   

What is "Future Wife" Material Look Like?

Most girls have either in their possession, or stored away somewhere special, a list of what their ideal man would look like.  He has to be tall, handsome, similarly matched to you in spiritual and mental levels, and love you even on the days that you look like a train wreck   Am I right?  Yet when you ask guys what they would like in a future bride, they throw out the phrases "A Godly woman," or "Someone I could take home to my mom."  Which leaves us girls scratching our heads in wonder of what that even means.  What does future bride material even look like these days?  Let's take a stab at trying to unravel this mystery.

Step 1:  Why do you even want to know?  Do you want to know what future bride material looks like so you can change your ways and be incredibly attractive to guys?  Or, do you want to know so you can work to be the best you can be for your husband?  In the words of Elizabeth Botkin, "Do you want to know because you want to help a man?  Or because we want to catch one?"  To want to get married is a good want - one put in your heart by God.  Yet some girls think that the man she's going to marry is going to be the answers to all her problems.  Unfortunately, although it would be pretty wonderful, your future husband is not going to ensure that you are never lonely, always feel pretty, and won't ever feel sad again.  Why?  Because that is what God does for us.  And if you go into a marriage expecting that is what a guy is going to do for your life, I really am pitying that poor, poor guy.  

Step two: Don't act out of character.
Let's say you bring a wonderful, Godly man home for dinner one night.  You, of course, put on your best face for him.  Your wanting to let him see how great your family is and how absolutely wonderful you are.  So you hug your siblings and pick up after dinner, and laugh at all your brother's corny jokes.  It's so picture perfect.  Until the brother whose comedic routine you usually ridicule calls you out, saying, "Boy, you should bring this guy over more often.  You NEVER usually treat us this way."  Ouch.  Learn from this mistake.  You should be working on becoming a girl after God's own heart because God loves you.  Not because it'll look good when a guy comes over.  Help your parents out around the house because your love them.  Not because you love the idea of how impressed a guy would be.  Goof around with your siblings, and don't tear them down because you value your vocation as their sister - NOT because you can't wait to show off your siblings skills to then next guy who comes along.  In the end it boils down to this:  If you didn't end up getting married, would a solid and love-based relationship with your family be that bad of a thing to have?  Hint, the answer is no.  

Step Three: Who are you REALLY trying to impress? 
Are you going to morning Mass because you are hoping to catch a great marriage prospect's eye on the way up to Communion?  Or are you going because you love the amazing things God has done for you already?  You also have to look at the effects this facade is going to have on your future marriage.  Is putting on a mask in efforts to catch a great husband really going to benefit your relationship?  What's going to happen when the mask strings fall off and he's left with a girl who is completely different than the one he thought you were?  Solve the problem before it occurs by just not putting on a mask.  Your future husband is going to be much more blessed by a girl who is genuinely trying to pursue God with her whole heart, despite her flaws, than a "perfect" girl putting on a show.   

Step Four: Working on your side of the deal
While our lists go on and on about how a guy must look, talk, act, pray, think, and walk, we also make sure to include that he must love and value us, even when we don't care about our appearance and walk around all day in sweats.  Hold the phone...what? Talk about unfair - for the guy!  If such a wonderful guy walked in the room, tall dark and handsome and lookin' for a bride, would he even take a second glance at you?  Perhaps we would do ourselves justice if we would stop worrying about what a great guy this future groom of ours must be and start looking at our own heart and trying to get all of our own stuff in order.  The point is that we don't really want to guy that we probably deserve.  We always will want better, so we should focus on improving our own lives instead of mapping out what he should be doing.  We're human, which (thanks Adam and Eve!) also means we are sinners.  We're not naturally wonderful and desirable.  We can be pretty rotten, actually.  If we're doing the right things for the wrong reasons, it's like pasting modest clothes on a barbie doll and hoping that guy won't see past our facade and get down on one knee.  

To sum it all up: As young women, we shouldn't be trying to live such a life that would make us incredibly desirable by our future husband.  What we should be doing is living a life that is "worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Col. 1:10).  

God bless!

Chloe M. 

Holding Treasure in Clay Vessels

Today at Mass, we learned that a priest in our archdiocese violated his vow of chastity, and has resigned from his parish and gone into spiritual counseling and therapy.  It hit like a ton of bricks.  And while still being a tough subject, it holds within it many lessons.

Two Corinthians 4:7 says "But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us."  What a reminder.  All of us are sinners, yet when someone we hold in such high regard falls so far, it can be hard to think it is even possible.  Especially our priests - the men who stand in the stead of Christ on earth, and whom we look to for help to get to Heaven.  Yet this position does not make them untouchable by the devil.  On the contrary, it makes them bigger targets. 

Today's readings speak of David.  There he was, a man after God's own heart, at rock bottom.  The prophet speaks of David's sins - he had not only committed adultery with a woman, but he also killed the woman's husband in order to hide his guilt.  Seeing the error of his ways, he comes to God for forgiveness and, because God loves him, he is forgiven.  Because this is God - loving father.  I know from experience that the worse thing to experience from my Dad is disappointment.  When he knows I can do better and I chose worse.  This surely is how God feels all the time.  We constantly are saying "No" to Him by sinning, and how disappointing it must be to look at how much good we could be doing if we only would see His amazing plan.

We all stumble.  We all fall.  Most importantly, we all can be forgiven.  There is no sin to big for God's incredible mercy.  All we have to do is receive His forgiveness is come with a contrite heart and a desire to sin no more.  The biggest repair job comes when we have to ask forgiveness from those who we hurt, and be able to forgive ourselves.

It's a long process and a hard recovery.  Was it in God's plans? Is sin ever what God wants?  No - but I can't wait to see the amazing beauty that He'll bring out of our mistakes.  He's pretty good at that, you know.

God bless,

Chloe M.  

This. Is. Beautiful

The couple in this photo above is a couple you may have seen in the internet before.  Their names are Josh and Bre Curtas, married last year, whose pre-wedding photo has gone viral.

Bre shared that her groom had wanted to talk to her before their wedding.  Nervous, since she wasn't completely ready, she sat down, and he reached his hand around the corner for her's. He wanted to pray with her before their wedding.

Since I like to know the back story  I went and found Bre's blog. In it, she shares something that makes this story even more touching and real.  Bre says, "There I stood wearing my pure white wedding dress, ready to walk down the aisle to my Prince Charming.  See, he is not only my prince charming because of his incredibly handsome looks, or wonderful humor, or the fact that we have so much in common.  He is my Prince Charming because he helped me protect the most precious gift that I own.  My purity.  Soon after we had started dating, I nervously told my Prince Charming that I was a virgin and planned to be until the night of my wedding, to which he replied he would have it no other way."

Guys.  This is awesome....and makes the above photo so much more meaningful.

If you are saving yourself for your future spouse, don't stop.  Don't give up because it's hard.  Saving this gift is one that you won't regret, and how incredible will it be to say to your future groom/bride that you saved EVERYTHING.  Even when it hurt, even when it was hard.  

And, since I can't resist, here are some more photos of the couple.  

God bless and have a wonderful weekend!

Chloe M. 

                                                    

How To Meet Someone Awesome

For my fellow life teen readers, you may already know this amazing woman.  Jackie Francois is amazing.  She has a beautiful story about how she met her soon to be future husband, Bobby Angel.  You can read about it all on their blog, www.bobbyandjackie.com - and I really recommend it. 

The reason that I want to talk about Jackie is because I read an article that she had written in the National Catholic Register this last weekend.  It really hit home with some things that I've been struggling with lately, so I have to share pieces of the article and my thoughts about them.

The article itself is entitled "How to Know You've Found Your True Love."  In it, Jackie talks about how making it through the dating/mate-finding part of life for young Catholic adults seems to be getting harder and harder.  She speaks about how, as humans, we are created in the image of God.  And, since God is love, we inherently have a desire to love and be loved - to give ourselves completely to someone as God has given Himself completely to us.  As Catholic young adults progress into the age where they are eligible for marriage, this desire becomes deeper and deeper.  For some, it seems unfair and hard to watch friends date, marry, and even have kids before they have even received so much as a invitation to a movie. 

This leaves the Catholic single girl in a stage where she starts viewing every single Catholic guy in her life as a potential.  What is so funny about this is that I've been struggling with this issue myself.  I have found it really hard to look at guys in my life as brothers in Christ instead of as potential future mates.  Like Jane Austen said, "A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment."  Yet we aren't going to marry every cute Catholic single guy that we are introduced to.  We only need one.

This is where the challenge comes in.  At this point, there are probably many guys in the world who I could be completely content with marrying.  There are also a lot of guys who wouldn't quite work out.  So, this brings up the challenge of finding out if the guy is the guy.  Jackie had a couple of suggestions/steps to follow that helped lead her to her current engagement status.

Step one: You finally have peace and joy.  Have you ever been a situation that you are really torn in?  You probably know what I mean when you have that nasty feeling in your stomach when you know something just isn't right.  If you have this deep anxiety about your relationship with a guy, then this is probably an indicator that it just isn't right.  Jackie points out that if you are constantly justifying either of your actions, then there is something wrong.  On the other hand, you know that your relationship is on the right track when you don't have to make excuse for either your or their actions. 

Step two: The relationship is life-giving.  A marriage works best when you are equally yoked.  The big point of this is being equally yoked in religious beliefs, but also on levels of intelligence, and matters of spiritual, emotional, and physical health.  When you aren't "evenly matched" it can feel as if you are either pulling your partner along, or you are being dragged behind a racing horse.  Not that I speak from experience, but I'm guessing neither of those are good feelings.  Even in a friendship, we look for people who we know can relate to us.  When you are looking for someone to share the rest of your life with - and help along in all levels of life, this is pretty important.  Especially when you look at the fact that both of you are supposed to get each other to Heaven. 

Step three: You can just be yourself.  To me, this was the most important step.  Does anyone remember that Full House episode when the teenager daughter was interested in a guy who liked cars?  Instead of saying that she didn't really know a lot about cars, but would still be interested in learning about cars with him, she told him she knew everything about cars.  Then she ran home and poured over car magazines for the whole day before her date with him.  This isn't true love!  This is putting on a fake mask to impress.  Masks are pretty hard to keep up all the time....eventually they'll fall off.  Jackie points out that, "Your spouse is someone who will see you at your best and at your worst - and will love you all the more, despite your faults and weaknesses."  So the key to knowing you found the right girl/guy is when you aren't afraid to be yourself.  They know you don't like sports, or can't stand horror movies.  They don't mind that you don't talk a lot, or are more of a night owl than a morning bird.  The key here is this: Your spouse is who you can be with and not be afraid of trying to disguise the person God created you to be.

Finding your spouse is a pretty daunting task if you try to do it by yourself.  The stress and load of it all shrinks dramatically when you lay the whole burden on Christ's shoulders.  Let God write your love story.  He knows your heart's desire better than even you do.  To top it all off, He created you, loves you, and knows what is the best for you.  Trust Him...He's just waiting to help.

God bless!

Chloe M.   

Happy, God?  Really?

Today's Gospel readings are ones that we have heard over and over again.  The Beatitudes   Did you know that the word "blessed" translated back into context means "happy?"  Yet does it really seem like Jesus is giving us the golden ticket to happiness in the Gospel today?  I didn't think so...at first.

Christ says that the poor, meek, humble, hungry, thirsty, and despised people are happy.  Happy!  This is a pretty radical idea.  To be happy in God's way, we have to be seemingly miserable in the world's view.  Yet think about it.  Perhaps you know a seminarian.  In the world's view, these young men have nothing.  In the seminarian's case, he has given up everything the world holds dear.  He says "No" to power, riches, and sex.  To the world, that makes him a miserable man.  But I'm pretty sure you would agree with me that the average seminarian is just the opposite of miserable.  

Or in the case of the world, a young woman cannot be truly "happy" or "fulfilled" until she gives herself physically away to a guy.  It doesn't even have to be a man she claims to love.  It can be any guy, as long as it gets rid of that dread virginity, that horrible purity.  Yet when you look at the young woman who is so broken after giving pieces of herself away to men to feel satisfied, that doesn't look like a picture of happiness to me.  Going in the opposite direction, sometimes it is the girl whose heart is still whole who is the happiest.  She who has saved herself for one man - her husband - finds complete contentment.  

Yet those who shun the world's view of happiness, and find their love and completeness in God, are hated by the world.  They are the ones who are "Persecuted for righteousness' sake."  This is what Christ means by being "blessed" and "happy."  It's not the outside, artificial, smiling in all the photos happy.  It's the persevering, even when it hurts, unpopular, but oh-so-rewarding happy that isn't just exterior.  It penetrates your very soul, and lights you up from the inside.  It makes you different, special and desirable to those who are desperately seeking that true joy.

Find that joy, that blessedness in Christ.  Then turn around and help other's find it. That's true happiness.

God bless,

Chloe M.  

Sometimes Life Stinks

There are days when nothing seems to be going right.  Perhaps you are able to relate to this - perhaps you have felt like the woman in the Gospel this weekend.  Christ is walking down the road and hears a funeral procession heading towards him. There, by the coffin of young man, was the deceased's mother.  Christ is moved with pity, and walks up to the dead man.  Turning to the man's friends and family, Christ tells them not to cry.  Everyone is surprised at what happens next (except Jesus....well, because He's God.).  Christ turns to the young man and says, "Young Man, I say to, arise!"  And guess what?  He does.

What is the key word in today's Gospel?  Pity.  Christ was moved with pity.  Pity for a young man who God still had a plan for.  Pity for a mother who had lost her son, perhaps because Christ knew that His own mother was going to go through that anguish in the not-so-far future.  Whatever the case may be, Christ was moved none the less.  This is an incredibly significant feeling.

Christ was moved with pity for this young man.  We have a Lord and God who can relate to us.  He knows what hurts, and how it feels.  More importantly, He wants to do something about it.  So when are day is just going completely down hill, we can turn to Christ and tell Him about it.  Hebrews 4:15 says "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin."  He loves us.  He cares.  He is always ready to help.  Turn to Him, place your trust in Him and give Him everything.

God bless,

Chloe M. 

Painting The Mural

I heard this great analogy on Monday about life.  The author in a book I'm reading with Mom said that your life is like a mural being painted.  We watch the mural being formed as our life goes on.  Each part of our life is represented in our lives, and each mural looks different.  Sometimes, we have a very limited view of what the mural is going to look like.  It's like spending the whole time at the art gallery with your nose pressed to a Van Gogh.  Not only are you going to get in some major trouble with the security guard, you also won't ever be able to appreciate the beauty of the painting.

The same goes with life: If you focus on a single area of your life, you won't ever be able to see the beauty of your life as a whole.  For instance, I find myself thinking way too much about my future possible vocation as a wife and mother.  This isn't a bad thing....in moderation.  Yet when I sit there and stare at this part of my mural and see that it is pretty bare, I start to question what God is doing.  My prayers vary from bugging God, "Hey, don't you think some romance would look good over here?  It's pretty bare right now!"  to begging God "Please Lord, just a hint of the knowledge that some guy at least thinks I'm kind of attractive.  Just a little, you know, I've never been asked out.  I don't know why I chose not to date if I never have to explain why to some guy." So while I sit there and bug and beg, I'm missing out.  I'm missing out on the beautiful painting God is creating with my family, friends, work, school, faith, etc. I'm just staring with my nose pressed to one section of the mural.


This situation could now turn a couple of ways.  I can continue with the focused look on my romance life, and not take any joy in the time of singleness God has blessed me with.  I could take a step back and see the beauty of life as a whole.  I could even take the paintbrush away from God and scribble in my own romance life.  Only the option where I trust everything to God is going to work out the best.  God's ways are far from my ways, and His plan is so incredible, I couldn't even imagine where He'll start.  Is it tough?  You bet.  But generally nothing worth waiting for is ever easy.  

Take a step back, look at the beauty God is creating around you and thank Him today for it.

God bless,

Chloe M.