the Sacrifice.

If you asked just about any woman on the face of the planet if she wants passion in her romantic relationships I am willing to bet that nearly all of them would say YES!  Who doesn't want passion in their relationship?  A passionless relationship sounds pretty darn boring to me.  We all want that fire in a relationship, the kind that lifts you up, gives you butterflies and ignites our souls.  What I've come to realize in the last few days is that you can't have passion without sacrifice.

There is a quote I love that goes something like this, "it is not moments of unleashed passion that prove our love, but the countless hours of commitment spent between."  Brilliant quote and I've never been able to track down who wrote it or said it, but I'd like to edit their words just a bit, "It is not moments of unleashed passion that prove our love but the countless hours of sacrifice and commitment spent between."  You simply can't have passion without sacrifice.  If relationships were all about passion then there would be no stopping people from being passionate with people with whom they are not in relationship with.  It takes sacrifice to reserve that passion for the one you are in a relationship with. 

For months in this blog I went on about how a MAN should be, the kind of characteristics he should have, the kind of leader he should be, so on and so forth.  Maybe I wrote it and maybe I didn't, but a real man will sacrifice his own desires for passion for the sake of protecting you and your heart.  I touched on this idea in just A Kiss, that we don't throw ourselves into the fire of love.  A man sees where that line is in your relationship where the passion becomes too much and starts leading the both of you down a road of no return, and if he is a man, a true man, he will sacrifice his desire (and probably yours as well) to keep you both from going down that road of no return.  He will choose sacrifice over passion, especially if you are not yet married.  The choice is never really an easy one to make, that road is far too tempting at times, but if the relationship is going to continue to grow it is a sacrifice that must be made.  Better yet, if he is the best kind of man out there he will daily choose to sacrifice that desire by not engaging in any kind of activity that even opens the door to the road of no return.  That door is opened by different things for different people in different relationships.  For some it means no kissing at all, for some it means nothing more than pecking, for others it means no making out.  The line is something that is determined together but that discussion, I believe, is prompted by sacrifice and by choosing sacrifice and guarding the other persons's heart over the desire for unleashed passion.  I'll say it again: you can't have passion without sacrifice.  Want to know how I know that?  I look at Him:

The Passion = The Sacrifice of His Life.  We are called to imitate Him in all things and so we find that we can't have passion without sacrifice.  The two are linked and bound up so tightly in each other that they simply cannot be separated.  There is no passion without sacrifice.  To love is to sacrifice for the good of another.  He showed us how.  The only thing that remains is for us to follow in His example.

a thousand Years.

After much debate I decided to go back to an old favorite series but with a new twist!  I'm going to call this series "Rock or Knock" and I'll feature different songs that I (or you) love or dislike, hence the "knock" part.  I'm going to try to provide a nice little balance between awesome songs/artists and songs/artists you should generally avoid if you actually like it when your eardrums don't bleed.  The songs will probably be themed around love or lack thereof (the "knock" songs will probably fall into the second category as I have a few in mind that are a perversion of love), though I can't always promise a theme to the songs.  That being said, as always, I'm quite open to song suggestions or artists to check out!  Please leave suggestions!

Rock or Knock: ROCK.
Song: A Thousand Years
Artist: Christina Perri
Lyrics:
Heart beats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave
How can I love when I'm afraid to fall
But watching you stand alone
All of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow

One step closer

[Chorus:]
I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling don't be afraid I have loved you
For a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

Time stands still
Beauty in all she is
I will be brave
I will not let anything take away
What's standing in front of me
Every breath
Every hour has come to this

One step closer

[Chorus: (x2)]
I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling don't be afraid I have loved you
For a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

And all along I believed I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me
I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

One step closer
One step closer

Words can hardly express how much I've fallen in love with this song, which is exactly why it has been on repeat for days now.  Despite the fact that this song was in a Twilight movie (which I usually ignore) I just can't get over the beauty of it! 

Oh, the glorious feeling of your heart beating fast, and thanks be to God that it doesn't just happen when you see that oh-so-cute someone!  Then, as we know all too well, the fear sets in and we find ourselves asking how can we brave, where is that strength within us?  Our pasts and the hurt from long-since-gone relationships threatens to overtake us and we begin to wonder how we can possibly love again when we are so darn afraid to fall.  Suddenly, in a majestical moment of clarity and divine intervention (at least when love is right) we see that person and somehow, some way, the doubt and the fear disappear and vanish into thin air.  For me it is kind of like incense rising up in prayer, it is beautiful to behold and I love to watch it vanish, which is the same way I feel about those fears and doubts that seek to overtake us.  Let them disappear like incense.

One step closer...I love this lyric perhaps the most.  Ok, that's not true, I don't know if I could pick my favorite if you made me but this one definitely ranks pretty high up there.  It reminds me a lot of not Myself (which was actually the first song I ever featured on this blog, fittingly enough).  Each day, each moment, each step we get one step closer to the person we are supposed to be and to the person that God intends us to spend the rest of our days with.  One step at a time.  It may be a slow and potentially painful process but if we take it one step at a time, taking time to enjoy the little moments along the way then the beauty of it all can shine forth. 

I could go on about this song forever and I just might.  The chorus!  "I have died every day waiting for you..." sounds a bit depressing, right?  Not at all!  It is not so much that I have died because you aren't here, it is that I have died to my desire for you to be here, right now, on my timeline.  I have died to that desire because I know it hasn't been time yet, but I also know that when it is time it will be glorious and I know that in the meantime my love for you only grows day by day, even if I don't yet know your face or your name, add one more day to the thousand years I've already loved you.  "Darling, don't be afraid I have loved you for a thousand years..." to some that might sound creepy.  To my hopelessly romantic heart it sounds amazing.  I remember when Mr. Irish and I first got together and we talked about how some people (most people, in fact) wait a certain amount of time before dropping the "L" bomb.  Some people are afraid of it, some people fear that it may change the dynamics of a relationship and not always in a good way.  We said it pretty early on, at least by most people's standards, and I can tell you that there was absolutely nothing scary about it.  In fact, it was one of the most beautiful moments in my entire life.  I have loved you for a thousand years and I'll love you for a thousand more...I hear that and I can't help but think of the love that God has for us and how He has loved us since the beginning of time and will never cease loving us.  One day in His courts are better than a thousand elsewhere, so what would a thousand years of His love be like?  Unimaginably beautiful. 

I will be brave.  I will not let anything take away what's standing in front of me, this is a true pledge of love.  Love, as I said earlier this week, motivates us to be more, it gives us the courage and the grace to be brave, to stand up in the face of anything - financial woes, job offers out of state, in-laws, etc. - and still choose love.  Love fills our hearts and drives our choices.  And just as each step has brought us closer, every breath, every hour has come to this, to love, to standing up against any and every other force in the universe and declaring your love, whether it be for your future spouse or for God or both, every second has come to this, to the defining moment of sharing that love or hiding it under a bushel basket, of saying yes or walking away.  It comes to this, it all comes to love. 

All along I believed I would find you, yet another beautiful declaration and pledge of love.  If you've read my blog at all before August of 2011 you'll know that in my heart I've always believed that love would come, that in time (God's, not mine!) Mr. Wonderful, Mr. Soulmate and I would meet.  How wonderful to be able to tell that person someday that you always believed you would find them.  How wonderful also to tell God that all along you knew you would find Him and once you get to Heaven to tell Him how much you've been waiting to see Him in all His glory.  "Time has brought your heart to me..." time, God, fate, destiny, call it what you will, the forces at work in the universe (I'm gonna go ahead and give God the credit on this one) have brought your heart to me and my heart to you.  I love that image...God giving my heart to my soulmate and Him giving me my soulmate's heart to guard, to keep, to cherish and to love.  Time and God have brought your heart to me, what a beautiful exchange of Love for love as we keep God in the middle of all that we are. 

One step closer...

**update**
One step closer to the person you are to become doesn't just apply to the time that we wait for our soulmates to come into our lives, it applies also to every day of the rest of our lives as we get one step closer to the saints we are all called to be. The relationships we enter in to are meant to continue moving us one step closer to perfection and to paradise.

One step closer...

meant to Change.

I heard a homily once about how God loves us too much to simply leave us where we are.  I've been thinking about that a lot the last few days, not only how God loves us too much to leave us where we are but how love is meant to change us.

Love of all kinds - be it family, romantic or divine - is meant to change us, to move us beyond who we are towards who we are to become, towards Saints.  Love, it is often said, is the most powerful force in all the world.  It can wake a sleeping beauty, it motivates people to fight wars to protect those they love, it lifts us up, encourages us, fills us with hope and so much more.  Love isn't just about the big things - going off to war, waking the sleeping beauty - it is about what it does to and for us each and every day.

I recently told Mr. Irish that love works when people have the other person's best interests and happiness at heart, that way neither one of the people in that relationship have to be selfish.  What I failed to realize is that I didn't have his best interests at heart.  It took a nice big metaphorical slap to the face to realize that my love for him wasn't as true as it should have been or could have been.  My love wasn't moving me to become a better person, it had become an excuse to demand and require things of our relationship.  I won't lie to you, it wasn't pretty and I'm not proud of the person I had become.  What I've come to realize in the days following that metaphorical slap to the face is that love is supposed to change us, it doesn't just leave us where we are.  My love for Mr. Irish changes me and it changes me for the better.  It changes me into a person who is less selfish and more other-focused.  The love we have for each other changes us, it allows us to grow together, to lean on each other and to become the best versions of ourselves that we can be.  For a long time I thought that this love would come along and we would just magically meet up and go on down the yellow brick road of life together.  What I'm coming to realize, however painfully beautiful it may be, is that it isn't always that easy.  This love, wonderful as it is, has come along and is challenging me to change, to grow, to evolve and to be a holier person.  I can walk away and not accept the challenge or I can take the good (the love) with the bad (the diffculity of being challenged and changing).  I can also recognize that what I perceive as bad - because I can be so stubborn - can really be a good thing, especially if it gets me closer to Heaven.  The choice is mine to make.

The same is true (as it all too often is) with our relationship with God.  The love I have for God changes me, and it changes me for the better.  It challenges me to see the sin in my life and to work to become a better, holier person.  Love works with God when I learn to become Him-centered, and believe you me, that is no easy task.  God is Love and therefore is always other-focused.  He always has my best interests and happiness at heart and our relationship flourishes when I strive to please Him and it flounders when I become self-centered.  The love that flows between God and I allows me to grow, to lean on Him more and to become the best version of myself.  God, in His infinite perfection, does not need to grow or lean on me and He already is the best version of Himself. 

Love, in all of its forms, is meant to change us.  The only question that remains is whether or not we will let it.

welcome to my Confessional.

I don't even know how many times I've said it before, but it never ceases to be true: sometimes writing a blog is a bit like going to confession for the whole world to hear.  Today as I sat down to write the blog I felt pretty confident about the topic - I've had it in my mind since the middle of last week.  It sounded great...until I sat down to write it and realized how personal it is, how revealing it is and how much I'd rather write about something less personal and less revealing.  However, even though it may be a bit personal and a bit revealing and might not paint me in the brightest of lights, I'm going to blog about it anyway because I think the point of it is worth it.  Here goes nothing...bless me bloggers, for I have sinned...


Last week I had a friend from college visit me.  It was awesome because she had never been to Colorado and I hadn't seen her in a year so it was great to catch up and show her around my home state and introduce her to "real" mountains as I kept calling them.  On the down side it meant that I had less time to talk to, much less spend with Mr. Irish.  Yes, some time apart is good every now and then, but the fact that we only spent a few minutes talking each night got to me.  It was nice to talk to him but I wanted more than just a conversation about how nice the weather was that day, I wanted to know what was going on in his heart.

Then it hit me.  That is exactly how I get with God sometimes.  I pray for a few minutes before falling asleep and I have a nice, quick conversation about how today was a fine day or whatever and then I crash.  He wants from me the same thing I want from Mr. Irish - more than just a few minutes of empty conversation.  He is happy I talk to Him, I have no doubt, but that doesn't mean that He doesn't want more.  He wants to know my heart, He wants me to tell Him about what is going on in my heart, what I think of what is going on in my life.  He wants to truly know me.  He'll take my short conversations at the end of the day but He wants more from me - He wants my heart, all of it.  He doesn't want me to hold back and there is no sense in thinking that I can protect Him from whatever I'm going through.  There is no lying to Him, no faking it, He knows better and because I love Him, He deserves more.  He deserves more than empty conversations filled with empty words, He deserves my heart, all of my fears, all of my worries, and every thing that I am going through.  My love for Him moves me to share all of my heart with Him, even if it doesn't make Him the proudest Father ever.  My love for Him moves me to share my heart with Him even if I fear how He will react and even if I fear making Him ashamed or disappointed in me.  I trust that He will still love me, otherwise I shouldn't even bother pretending to have a relationship with Him in the first place.  Lying to Him, telling Him half-truths, or holding out on Him because I somehow think I am protecting Him from my feelings - however scary or painful or hurtful they may be - does neither of us any good.  A relationship - with humans or with God - can only grow if honesty abounds within it's walls.  Love, if it is true and real, has the ability to move us beyond fear to a place of total honesty and trust. 

The question then becomes, do I love God enough to give Him more than just a few empty minutes at the end of my day, or do I not?  If not, then who am I trying to fool?  God is no fool, He already knows my heart, so who am I deceiving in this relationship?  It is time to come out of the confessional, call a spade a spade and be real with God, or else I risk losing Him altogether, not because He doesn't love me enough, but because I don't love Him with all that I am.

snoozing it Up.

Before I begin with the *last* of my "Lenten" blog series I want to say that I have really enjoyed writing something Lenten every week, it helped keep me focused on Lent and on Christ's struggles.  That being said, I figured I would wrap up this series with a few final thoughts on my Lenten sacrifice and what it means to be in the Easter season.  Also, I am taking suggestions (comment below!) for the theme of this Wednesday series from here on out.  I know I have a few series that I've done before and I'm okay with picking up one of those again but I'd love to hear from you as to what you would like to read!  Comment away!

Oh Easter, how I love that you have brought my snooze button back to me.  Giving up my snooze button (as I've said before) taught me that sleeping in wasn't the only thing I was "sleeping" on.  There are times that there seems to be so much to do in a day that I wonder how I'm ever going to get it all done.  Then I look at the days and weeks ahead and simply want to get to a time where my life isn't so chaotic.  I realized a few days ago that once again I've double or even triple booked myself because there seems to be so much to do that I struggle to remember it all.  It is humbling to remember that I can't be in two or three places at once and it is in those moments of humility that I wake up to what is really important in life.  The tasks at my job are important but they aren't, at the end of the day, what truly matters to me.  What matters most are people, relationships, and, of course, God.  What matters most are the people I think of in my waking moments and the memories I recall as I close my eyes to sleep.  What matters most is family, loved ones and the beauty of the created world.  Everything else is just details.

So, as I've gone back to pushing my snooze button - not as frequently, I might add - I still try to take time to be awake.  Some mornings I push the snooze button and then lay there and say a few extra prayers for those people who first crossed my mind as I awoke.  Sometimes being awake means that I don't doodle during staff meetings.  Sometimes being awake means putting in the extra effort to talk to a friend even if I'm tired and worn out.  My point is that there are different ways of being awake and while I am certainly glad I get to push my snooze button on my alarm clock again, I'm praying that this Lent taught me to not push the snooze button on life anymore - it goes by too fast and it is far too easy to miss the beauty of life for the finite details of it all.  May we all be fully awake and may we never miss the beauty of life in all its glorious splendor, not for anything.

Just a little funny for you on this Easter Wednesday:

twas the night Before...

...Easter, and I couldn't sleep.

Welcome back happy Easter people!  I pray that your Holy Week, Triduum and Easter were full of blessings, joy and love!  I must say, I actually kind of enjoyed the break from blogging - its the first ever break I've taken from blogging since I started the blog and it was refreshing but I'm glad to be back!

Anyway...it was the night before Easter and I couldn't sleep.  It felt, in a lot of ways, like the night before Christmas felt when I was a child.  All I could think as I was laying there praying to fall asleep (I had to be up at 4am so I could be at the church in time for sound check before Mass) was that all over the world the sun was coming up and that the Son was coming up.  The sun was rising and bringing the Good News that the Son had also arisen.  As I laid wide awake I simply couldn't get over this notion that literally all over the world people were beginning to celebrate the joy of His Resurrection!  I so badly didn't want to be in my bed waiting for morning to come, I wanted to fly to where ever they were and celebrate with them the most joyous feast of our faith!

Then, slowly, the hour finally came (and believe you me, when my alarm went off at 4am I really wanted to press that snooze button, but more on that later) when it was time to get up and head to the church.  Finally!  The sun rose during Mass as we celebrated the Son rising!  What a beautiful scene to be sure!  At the end of the day, worn out and tired from all of the fantastic festivities, one simple though ran through my brain: I have to blog tomorrow.  Well, that and one other thought, which I will leave you with as I dip my toes back into blogging: Easter isn't a feast, it isn't just one Sunday, it isn't just the Easter bunny coming to leave you with lots of candy to rot out your teeth, it is a season, and it has just begun.  Jesus has yet to ascend to His heavenly Father so let us celebrate, let the joy reign in our hearts this Easter season, for He has conquered sin and death and I for one can think of no greater reason to rejoice!

"Do not abandon yourselves to despair.  We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song!" - Blessed Pope John Paul II


***nerdy theological tid-bit: the word "hallelujah" comes from the Hebrew words "hallel" and "YHWH".  "Hallel" means to praise and "YHWH" is the Jewish name for God so the word "hallelujah" or its Greek counterpart, "alleluia" literally means Praise God!***