I haven’t had too many thoughts lately. Being rather sick lately with what appears to be a mid-summer flu, I’ve spent most of my efforts recovering more than anything. I haven’t been this sick since high school, which is when I first started to delve into the depths of Catholicism thanks to my friend.

There were a lot of old feelings that came up. A lot of pain from not being happy, as well as not having God in my life. Its amazing how when I look back at it, it all just seems…dark. Everything now is bright, which would make sense seeing as that I now have the Light of Christ within me.

I’m starting to think that I got this sick as a reminder of where I came from. Having no religious views at the time (although I was very conservative) I slowly came to realize that the Catholic Church had all of the answers. They accepted me as I was, and started to teach me the exact reasons why Christ approved or disproved of ways to live life.

The most amazing thing that I usually forget is that even when I was told of what was right, I was still given the time to pray about it. There was no force or coercion done to make me change my mind. I sat in prayer with the Lord and thought things through. I read scripture. I read writings on the subject. It made sense, and I was able to say “Lord, you are right and I think I can embrace this new teaching”.

Granted, it is not new, but to me it was. Several of the tougher ones for me that I can remember would have to be the stance on birth control, children, prayer life, and the death penalty to name a few.

If one is to keep an open mind and an open heart to Sacred Scripture, Tradition, as well as all other types of Church Teaching, one can find the Truth. What makes this process difficult, is that in our fallen human nature, we don’t want to live by God’s Will, but by our own. We must overcome this temptation, and surrender ourselves to God.

We must always ask God what He wants from us, and when we hear Him speak, we must respond with “Your Will be done.” When we are serving the Lord with all our heart, we will find a great joy in that. We were made to do this, and our souls shout for joy when we do.