PRAY for LIFE

If you're reading this right now, chances are that you're wishing you were in D.C. at the March for Life right now. I know that's what I'm doing. I keep seeing everyone's tweets, Facebook posts, and photos on Instagram of the beautiful masses, the huge crowds of pro-lifers, and inspiring quotes. It definitely makes me wish that I was there.

But. There's always a but... You and I — the people sitting at home, at school, at work, or anywhere — play a HUGE part in the March for Life, too.

Nothing great is ever achieved without prayer. Lots and lots of prayer. And that is our job — to just COVER those wonderful people at the March with our prayers. Especially today, they need our prayers more than ever. But along with the March for Lifers, there are quite a few other people we need to pray for:

-For women who are considering having an abortion, that they can see the beauty in the precious life they hold within them.

-For those babies, that they will have the chance to live extraordinary lives.

-For our country's leaders, that they might have a conversion of heart, leading them to respect and protect all forms of life.

They need our prayers in this fight for life. And we have to remember that conversion of hearts happens on a personal level. Our country can't change right at once. It will take us reaching out to individuals, showing them that we care about them, showing them that every life is worth fighting for. And prayer is the first way that we can do that.

I'd like to leave you with this wonderful quote from Jared Cheek:
"I think God chooses a few people to support the rest, and it is a mystery to me how the whole prayer things works, all I know is that it does. I would be NOWHERE if people hadn't prayed for me."

Somehow, the whole prayer thing works. And that's why everything works. Because nothing great is ever achieved without prayer.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Unborn, PRAY FOR US. 

Pushing on a Pull Door

The Christian band of two Australian brothers, for KING & COUNTRY, sings this amazing song called "Pushing on a Pull Door." If you haven't heard it, you're missing out big time. So check it out on youtube real quick. This song recently changed my life in a big way.

The refrain to this song goes like this:


"Upside down, then you see it all.
Everything's the wrong way around, but clearer than before.
When you're upside down, then you see it all.
That you spend all your time pushing on a pull door."

Those words could not be any more accurate. Everything we do in this life, whether we realize it or not, we do to make us happy. How many times do we try to change our lives, to make us happier, and totally go about it in wrong way... We look for love in places and people that won't satisfy our ultimate thirst for God's love. We try to better our prayer lives with methods of prayer that might work for others but don't work for us. We try to PUSH our way through, when what we should do is PULL.

Sometimes it takes us doing the wrong thing to find out what the right move is. It's like those times when you don't realize that it's a pull door so you push it. Then you have that awkward moment when you look left and look right, and hope that nobody saw you struggle with the door... Guess what? Christ knows when we try to push the pull door. But He's the one whispering to us, "Pssssst, try the other way..." He's on our side. Thank goodness.

God uses different ways to point out to us that we need to try it a different way. Sometimes He tells us through other people. Sometimes it's through something we read. Sometimes it's in a song. And that's why the song "Pushing on a Pull Door"means so much to me. Hearing for KING & COUNTRY sing that song live hit me hard. There's a line in the song that says, "Don't you hear me coming? I'm your wake up call." That right there, hearing them sing those words, was my wake up call. It made me realize that I've been trying to strengthen my relationship with Christ is the wrong ways. And that for KING & COUNTRY concert was the first step in starting to pull this door open instead of push it.

Maybe that song will do the same for you. Maybe reading this is your wake up call. Maybe you've already heard your wake up call. Wherever you're at, just remember, sometimes that door that we've always tried to push might actually need to be pulled open instead.

Push or pull, Christ is whispering which way to open that next door in your life.

FEARLESS 2013

Oh, how I love LifeTeen. I'm gonna be completely honest here — I have a slight obsession with the blogs on LifeTeen.com. I check back at least once a day to read the newest ones. But it's alright. Reading those blogs helps me try to be the best-version-of-myself everyday.

So while I was doing my daily website check the other day, I scrolled down the page to find a glorious blog post about LifeTeen's new theme for 2013: FEARLESS. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard the word a gazillion times. It's thrown around a lot, and I'm pretty sure it's even the name of one of T-Swift's albums. But for some reason when I read that blog post, it struck a different chord in me. It got me excited. It got me fired up. I felt like I could go take on a pack of vicious Ligers, okay maybe not.

But I felt a new strength. There are so many quotes and phrases out there about being fearless, and they were all running through my mind. A few of my favorites:

"Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence." -JP2


Sometimes the world seems like a crazy place with absolutely no hope for humanity. But Blessed John Paul II, who lived on this earth while we were here and was a total champ, is telling us that "all is very, very well." Not just well, or very well, but very VERY well. I believe him. Fear is not necessary. All is very, very well.

“Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity.” -JP2

I love this so much. Honestly, it's pretty easy to be mediocre. It's not difficult to let life happen to us, to get just-okay grades, to have surface level relationships with people, and to go through the motions. But it takes some guts and some serious faith to actually MAKE LIFE HAPPEN, to go deeper, to take some chances, to make some new friends, to love like crazy, and to really be the best-version-of-ourselves. It takes a FEARLESS attitude to make that happen. And yet again, this is what we're called to.

"Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!" —Mark 6:50

This is perfect. Even the disciples had some issues being fearless. They saw Jesus Christ himself walking on the water, and they were scared. They so terrified because they thought He was a ghost. When are times that we can see Christ so near to us, but we are afraid? Is He asking something of us? Are we saying yes to Him? Whatever it might be, take courage. Jesus is telling YOU: "Do not be afraid." It's time to be fearless. Because after Jesus said this to his disciples, He got in the boat with them and the wind died. Jesus is with you, too. He'll never abandon you. But we've gotta trust him.


2013 is a new start. Time to start being FEARLESS.