GrowHoly.com

When you are in a relationship, you have a great opportunity to let the other person teach you how to love. You will watch them, talk to them, spend time with them, eat, sleep, have fun together and share everything on your journey of life.

And they will teach you how to love them. Because they love you. And soon you will realise how far you still need to go, just by seeing them love you.

On the other hand, you are also an opportunity for the other person to learn how to love. Everything you do, your own way of showing love, all that will be mirrored by them, and they will try to express their love always a bit better.

You are both growing – make sure that every day on this journey counts, that every moment you spend together brings you closer to the real Love.

It’s terrible to realise that you’ve again spent a few days without prayer, without going to the nature or without a deeper meeting with a friend.  It’s sad to find out that again you’ve been neglecting that real meaning of life – love. How can I live a happy life when I don’t invest into my relationship with God, with my friends, and with myself?

What a day is it, when I don’t even look at the sky? How can I love when I don’t put time into realising how much I am being loved?

It is crucial to most of us. Are you in a relationship? Are you married?

What if you’re a 27 year old girl who still isn’t dating anyone? Nobody wants you? Nobody is interested in you? Does it matter that you’re not worth anyone’s love? Are you worse when any other girl?

Once I was walking with my then boyfriend in the park and we passed by a couple where the girl was really ugly. Fat, greasy hair, wearing a tracksuit. And they were holding hands. And kissing.

Then I told myself – if she’s able to find love, then everybody must be.

So how is it in reality? Why do I know so many girls who are, in their over-25’s, still single? Is it bad luck? Is it lack of effort? Is it lack of their interest?

“Ask Mary to lead you to Jesus and you will know what it is to live by his side.”

It’s funny, but it felt quite awkward when I was putting this thought to my twitter. It certainly doesn’t express my own thinking and setup. I love to pray the Rosary, but my relationship with Mary? I don’t know, and, Mary, I’m sure You understand, since You also see into my heart, but I am simply not getting it – I can clearly feel One God, and don’t always see Mary as a part of this spiritual setup.

I might be well wrong, and also I might regret this sentences in future, but this is what I feel at the moment. Having said that, when praying Rosary, I can feel Her motherly hand being with me. And maybe it’s You, who caresses for me all the time.

Anyway, yesterday I made another mistake – when talking to my friends who run a prayergroup where I stopped going to, because I felt it was more important that I stay at home with my husband in the evenings. Well, without knowing what they are doing with the group, I started to give them my advice, and to manipulate the prayer group into my own picture. Rubbish.

Lord, please, correct my attitudes, correct my thinking, correct my relationships and my prayer. Please, let me start some serious work on myself – I read about Your Ignatius of Loyola, and after He converted, He started to work eagerly on every aspect of His personality, so that He could be Holy.

Please, make me Holy.

“In your relationship with God, your conscience is sufficient, but with other people, you also need wisdom because their eyes do not see your conscience.”

Yesterday I started to read a biography of St Ignatius of Loyola. An amazing life, probably as many other lives lived here by many men and women. However, I like Ignatius and his way of doing things, as far as I know him. And I think we have one thing similar – a ceaseless desire for glory, and a neverending imagination and visualising ourselves as saving other people, or doing great deeds.

When I was young, I used to imagine millions of times how I am saving my classmates from a catastrophy, or doing anything really great, so that others would admire me. Not sure whether this was the main motiff – probably the biggest trigger was just the desire to do something really great.

Now I still want to shine in the limelight, and I am involved in lots of various projects, so that one day I might end up doing something really big.

However, is this the key? Would it be possible to transform this my desire for greater glory, to a sincere wish to serve God – as Ignatius used to say - to the Greater Glory of God?

“If you are faced with ungrateful people who have betrayed you and falsely accused you, what hurts you most is irrational malice which pours forth from those who you least expected to act thus. Your reaction in such circumstances should be: to forgive right from the heart, to beg forgiveness for one’s enemies, to pray with love for them to be converted, and then in this way you will not need to rely on the consolation of the world.”

Yes, today somebody told me: “I keep telling you to do this again and again, and you seem not to do anything about it.” And this hurted me, because that person had actually never mentioned that particular thing before, and also the fact that I had been doing my best for that person at that time.

Well, not that I would deserve something more, nor that I would be perfect, I was just thinking that maybe I could either improve on what I am doing, so that the person is really happy (this is what I want, anyway), or then there is an issue with our communication.

Maybe they just didn’t mean it in the way to upset me. Maybe they just wanted to make a joke. Maybe they wanted to point out something. Maybe I’m being wrong and maybe they really told me 2000 times and I didn’t catch up on that…

So what should I do? Talk to them and make sure we’re on track. Ask them not to talk to me in this way and explain that it hurts me?

And you know what? Maybe it’s not really important at all.

I was in the park in the evening and, being there on my own, a completely quiet place, I just looked up in the sky and saw how small I was. How unimportant, how subtle. And that my relationship with this person must not be in the way of the unity of the rest of the world, it cannot be different from the relationship between individual elements of the nature…

And I realised how much I love that person and how much more I could do for them if I maybe removed my ego from our discussions. If I was able to always be aware of how small I am. To realise how life is beautiful.

Imagine, just yourself on your own, in the dark park, looking into the sky, and feeling God’s love.

“You ask, when do you have to commence to live this interior life? You have to commence it from this very moment and you have to recommence it each and every day.”

During lent, we often start anew, we make various resolutions and commitments. So do I. Today is the third day of lent, and while everything was ok on the Ash Wednesday, yesterday I dropped the ball.

How will I go to the park tonight and look into sky? What will I say to God? Sorry, but I was trying to be perfect, but in the end, ended up doing things that not even animals would do?

Is it enough to say “sorry”?!

What will He reply – will He smile again, as He always had?

I did those things almost immediately after I finished my deepest dialogue with Him.

He gives me only the best things, the best fruit to eat, He gives me success at work and in relationships, He makes me do well – and I do not keep my word. I do not listen to Him, I do not obey Him.

Yesterday I broke our relationship, yesterday I didn’t keep the contract. He cannot now rely on me any more, He cannot trust me.

There’s the river flowing. Lots of water, every second. Now. And I feel the river as His breath, as a sign of His everlasting Presence. Now. Now. Now.

And He is quiet. He will wait and give me another chance. He knows what I will do, how I will follow Him. He knows.

“Shout for all you are worth.” Yes, I will shout, I will go and learn how to obey You next time.

“Are you a person who says “yes” to everything? Which road will you take? Do you say “yes” to many gods? Do you say “yes” to many religions? Do you say “yes” to many varieties of moral standards? Do you have a flexible conscience which can fit in with any situation and say “yes” to its values?”

Hey, but I don’t want to limit my beliefs to only what I know already – shouldn’t I be open to new things? As so far, I was quite narrow-minded and maybe closed myself to ideas that could help me.

Where is the right balance, how should I know to what I can say yes and to what I should not say yes?

There are people who will argue with you just to convince you that they are right, that their view of life is the best. Ok, it certainly is. For them. For me, it is different. My God is different to yours, as I see, hear and feel Him totally differently than you. And yet for both of us He is great, He is the source of Life and Joy – He is Love.

So I can say yes and still remain rooted in my God – and maybe enrich my view of Him and my relationship to Him. But it’s important not to lose the good things I have already.

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“The saints are fools for Christ (Cor. 4:10). The making of saints is far beyond the scope of the wisdom of the world.”

Yes, but how far should I go? Should I speak of God to my friends? Should I mention Him at business meetings? Should I make everybody go to church on Sunday?

Hopefully not. I admire people who live sincere lives, maybe in quietness, but live fully, help others, serve greatly, are happy and smile, and they’re joyful. I admire people who don’t boast with their achievements, even though they are so great.

It’s been said that companies should do good and speak about it. But “your left hand shouldn’t know of the good deeds of your right hand“. So wouldn’t it be better to really do good and shut up – believe me, people will get it, anyway – and then the message will be much stronger.

Coming back to the “craziness” – when I sometimes (not really often) get involved in a conversation about God and religion – it is so difficult to disclose my belief in Eucharistia – the bread that is meant to really be the body of Jesus. And if I, by any chance, get it out of my mouth – afterwards I feel so silly – for people will give me one or two arguments why it cannot be true – and there you go – I am speechless.

So what do I really believe in and – do I truly believe? Is it because my grandma told me and I was too lazy to really think about it and it was easier to agree with everything? I know I got my emotions involved quite a lot and I don’t know yet, whether it’s a good thing in relationship with God.

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Have you watched StoryOfStuff.org?

It is an excellent explanation of why we should stop and think about the way we live. It has that environmental appeal but one thing there struck me:

That there is a “Golden Arrow” that points us towards more shopping, more consumption and then more working to earn money for shopping… And the weirdest thing is, that within six months, 99% of all things that we buy is dumped.

So what is our life about? Are we strong enough to resist the calling of that “Golden Arrow” and ignore the recent trends, don’t buy widgets for ourselves that bring us unnecessary comfort, luxury and fashion? Which actually makes us work more – rather than LIVE more?

The Satan, who wants refrain “good people” from doing good and serve God, in one story said that if people become occupied with more activities, they will not have time for relationships – with other people, with God and with themselves. And when we work more and more hours, doesn’t it make us preoccupied and we don’t care about others and about God?

So think what your priorities are, what you can do with the time you have got, and how you can grow in relationships with your dearest. Now.

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