Forever His Friday || Week One

Several weeks ago I went on a week long retreat with my family at a place called Catholic Familyland. Throughout the week when we broke up into age groups, I was with the young adults (the college age group) and one of the days someone share an awesome prayer with us. I loved the prayer, but to my great dismay I didn't have anything to write on at the time and I couldn't remember the name of the prayer or who had wrote it by the time I came home and tried to look it up.

Fast forward to a few days ago when a girl shared a link on fb to a blog post and to my excitement the blogger and shared the very prayer I couldn't find, in her post!! And it was exactly what I needed to pray that day.

Here's the prayer:

Be Satisfied with Me – Saint Anthony of Padua

Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone,
To have a deep soul relationship with another,
To be loved thoroughly and exclusively.

But to a Christian, God says, “No, not until you are satisfied,
Fulfilled and content with being loved by me alone,
With giving yourself totally and unreservedly to me.
With having an intensely personal and unique relationship with me alone.

Discovering that only in me is your satisfaction to be found,
Will you be capable of the perfect human relationship,
That I have planned for you.
You will never be united to another
Until you are united with me.
Exclusive of anyone or anything else.
Exclusive of any other desires or longings.
I want you to stop planning, to stop wishing, and allow me to give you
The most thrilling plan existing . . . one you cannot imagine.
I want you to have the best. Please allow me to bring it to you.

You just keep watching me, expecting the greatest things.
Keep experiencing the satisfaction that I am.
Keep listening and learning the things that I tell you.
Just wait, that’s all. Don’t be anxious, don’t worry
Don’t look around at things others have gotten
Or that I have given them
Don’t look around at the things you think you want,
Just keep looking off and away up to me,
Or you’ll miss what I want to show you.
And then, when you’re ready, I’ll surprise you with a love
Far more wonderful than you could dream of.

You see, until you are ready, and until the one I have for you is ready,
I am working even at this moment
To have both of you ready at the same time.
Until you are both satisfied exclusively with me.

I've been inspired recently by several things to take the time to appreciate the different ways God has blessed and touched me each day and I thought it would be really neat to put together a special kind of link-up called Forever His Friday.

<center> <a href="http://www.thisisjustmytemporaryhome.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="hello world" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5442/9593408486_f7f2ed4d30_m.jpg"/></a></center>

Every other Friday I'll share the different ways God touched my life in the past two weeks. These can be as simple as being grateful for little things in life I often take for granted, or as big as getting to see someone I love and haven't seen in awhile. Sometimes the way God touches our lives is through a song, a Bible passage, or something someone else said. And I would love to see how God touched your life too!

Simply put, this is a chance for us to take the time to see how God is moving in our lives and share it with others.

-----------------------

If you link up please add the button above to you post so others can come link-up too! 

-mk

A Beacon in the Night

{A call to LEAD}

Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.

St. Francis of Assisi

In my last post I mentioned that I had had the opportunity to go on three incredible retreats this summer. The most amazing by far, was a week long retreat called, LEAD, in Steubenville, Ohio at the college I'l be attending starting next year. 

L. E. A. D.

Leadership. Evangelization And. Discipleship. 

What drew me to LEAD was the fact that it was 100% focused on strengthening your personal relationship with Christ so that we become so deeply rooted in Christ that the world must first find Christ in order to find us. 

But we can't do this on our own. We must rely on the strength and grace of God through a strong, steady daily prayer life and (for the Catholics), frequent reception of the Sacraments. 

And God wants us to have a strong spiritual community to turn to, filled with people who will pray for you, uphold you and encourage you. One of the biggest blessings of the internet and technology is the fact that you can be a part of a rich spiritual community filled with with people spread across the corners of the Earth. 

I know I want to be a beacon in the perpetual dark of night this world revolves in. 

Do you? 

-mk

A Fresh Start

Despite being out of school and not yet having an "official" job (besides my photography), I've somehow managed to be incredibly busy these past few months. I've been meaning to get back into the swing of blogging for awhile, but I just never seemed to have time to sit down and write. That is, until I found these awesome free printables that gave me the motivational push I needed. And for the first time since entering the blogging world 5 years ago, I'm making a blog schedule and I *will* stick to it. (Well, hopefully).



My plan is to blog at least three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I used to blog when I had pictures to show, stories to tell, or tutorials to share; basically I blogged when I felt like it and my posts were kind of...well fluffy.

Maybe it's because of the {three} incredible, life changing retreats I was blessed to attend this summer that have given me a new perspective, maybe it's reading fewer "photography" blogs and more "faith-centered" blogs, maybe it's a strong desire to live more meaningfully, to write with more depth, to inspire, encourage and enlighten instead of just writing about my life.

In all honesty, it's probably an accumulation of all the above, with some definite inspiration from the one line in Hawk Nelson's song "Words" that says "...I don't want to say a word, unless it points the world back to You", that has given me a new vision and dream for this little corner of the internet I call mine.

I debated for awhile on a new blog title and finally settled on "hello world", which seemed fitting for the new focus I have for this blog, combined with the fact that I just graduated high school and am stepping out into the adult world that awaits. And so this little blog of mine is growing and changing and maturing along with me and will be the place where I share what I learn and discover, and what I ponder and what I treasure.

And I would love if you decided to come along with me on this great adventure called life.

-mary kate