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I know what failure feels like. But I also want to experience you, God, to hear you speak in that fire and flame, to remove my shoes in awe, and leave your presence ready to change the world. Please call me forward, Lord, to where you are, be it desert loneliness or barren wilderness. I am at the foot of the desolate mountain, wandering around, killing time, awkwardly groping for you. And as you summon me, make me know in my depths that even while I ran from my guilt, you were already waiting for me in the desert. 

Are you feeling restless? Do you thirst for God? Do you long to develop a deeper more meaningful relationship with Christ? Try looking into the faces of the people you meet each day. They are God’s instruments, holy messengers of God’s truth and compassion. They will teach you what it means to be a follower of Christ. Through them you will come to understand the beautiful relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Dear Lord Jesus, help me to be more attentive to you in my life. Forgive me for the times I have neglected to listen to you speaking to my heart. Help me to make a more concerted effort to be prayerful. Please help me to be mindful about my responsibility in leading others to you and away from sin. Thank you for the gift of my guardian angel whom I desire to pray to more often.

God resists our evil and conquers it with good. Think about that. God shocks and stuns us into love. God does not love us if we change, God loves us so that we can change. Only love effects true inner transformation, not duress, guilt, shunning, or social pressure. Love is not love unless it is totally free. Grace is not grace unless it is totally free.

Mary can help you to find and attach to a solid, loving mother figure on the natural level. If you ask her, she will guide you to them. Perhaps she is a mentor, older friend, or consecrated religious. We can find that motherly love in many people. No matter what you lack from your childhood, it can be recovered with the Blessed Virgin’s help. Mary is the answer. 

As the initial rush of love becomes something deeper and more lasting, it becomes easy to take the other person for granted, losing our spirit of understanding and our will to serve with love. Every day we need to seek God’s guidance in our lives. Every day we must pray for the wisdom and strength to overcome temptation and make the right decisions. Every day we must recommit ourselves to love.

We all live in danger of believing the lie that we are not enough like God as we are and that something other than God will give us what we need to feel full and free. But we also live ever compelled back to God by our Eden instincts, remembering who we once were when we lived naked and unashamed. So we are ever fighting to come out of hiding and stand before our God when he comes after us, looking for us even in our sin and shame.

Our Lady said that the rosary can stop wars, and can bring world peace. We have to do what she said, and live good lives. There’s no other plan from heaven that’s so specific, for what we’re going through now. The Blessed Mother spelled it out. Prayer, penance, the First Saturdays’ devotion—and live a good, holy life. That’s the answer.