The Star in the Night Sky

In a way, the North Star is like God. You can always find the North Star when you are lost because it never moves and it will help you find your way back. We can always find God within our hearts because we love Him so much. With God in our hearts, we will never be lost or alone. Here is a prayer to the North Star.

Oh Star that never moves,
please let me find you.
Oh Star that may not shine the brightest,
please lead me onto the right path with all your kindness.
Oh Star so far away,
do not ever leave me because, the way I see it, we are closer than ever before today.

Amen

A Prayer for Selflessness

O Dearly beloved Word of God, teach me to be generous, to serve Thee as Thou dost deserve, to give without counting the cost, to fight without fretting at my wounds, to labor without seeking rest, to spend myself without looking for any reward other than that of knowing that I do Thy holy will. Amen.

I found this prayer online. It is a prayer for selflessness. I was learning about the 10 Commandments in my religion class, and several of the examples they gave of what the commandments were asking us to do were related to selflessness. I am a very lucky person so I think that this prayer is appropriate for me. I am asking God to help me to help others who have less than I do, and to not mind doing it. I think this prayer is really appropriate for anyone preparing to do service. It is simple and brief, but it says so much, and that is a really great thing.

From: www.catholic.org

A Time for Learning...A Prayer for Acceptance

A friend of mine from school has been very sick this past week. He was discharged from the hospital, but we are waiting for test results. We have been constantly praying for him, but this feeling of concern, and the knowledge that we cannot guarantee he will be fine, have made my friends and I feel helpless at times. However, it has also helped me feel a lot of gratitude that in my own life, I am very healthy. It made me grateful for my health, and the health of those I love. It made me appreciate that I have insurance, and good doctors, and people who love me and want me to feel better when I am ill. It made me recognize how lucky my friend is to have so many people who care about him and want him to be healthy.

It is also important to recognize that we all have out part to play. God gives us all our burdens to bear, and the best we can do is to bear them willingly and happily. Compared to the suffering Jesus endured for us, these little things we have to deal with are trivial. It must be a part of God's plan for my friend to be ill, though I do not understand it now. But I still pray to God that he will feel better, and I pray that God will help me, and him, and his family and friends, to understand why he has been chosen to bear this burden of illness.

So here is my prayer:

Dear Lord,

Please help me to be strong when I am weak
To accept the things that I have no control over
To conquer that greatest challenge - myself.

Help me to support my family and friends
To help them with their burdens
And to bear my own cheerfully.

Help me to see illness not as a time of pain
But as an opportunity to be healed
A chance to rely on You and grow closer to You.

And please bless all those who are ill
All those who care about them
And all those who have no one to care for them.

Amen.

Keep Your True Friends Close

This past Sunday I spent about 6 hours with some of my best friends in the world. I moved away this past year, and I've missed these people so much. And I realized, at some point during the day, that this was truly love. I knew I would be there for these people at any time for absolutely anything, and I knew they'd be there for me as well. I also realized that I would be so utterly lost and lonely without them in my life. I gave thanks to God for being fortunate enough to meeting such wonderful people in my life, and was inspired to write a prayer about it.
Lord,
Thank you for blessing me with such amazing people as best friends. Please bless them in whatever they do. Give them peace when they are worried, comfort when they are scared, and show them Your love when they are upset. Protect them Lord, because they are some of the best people I know, and they deserve it. Lord, please show Your love to those who are not as fortunate as me. Find friends for those without good friends, Lord, because everyone deserves a true friend to love and care about them.
Amen.

In Light of the Looming Hurricane...

...I thought it might be a good idea to write something about it. I have experienced several hurricanes, although I have never been very close to the coast. For the most part, it is a lot of strong winds and rain. But it can be scary. And so we pray...

Lord,

Help me understand that You allow these serious storms. But You must have a reason. I know You would never cause me harm. You know what You are doing. But I don't, Lord. Help me to understand that I may not know what will happen in the future. But I trust You to guide me and protect me. Please protect me from the danger of the storm that is approaching. And please help me to trust in You and Your divine plan.

Amen.

Stress and the Bible, and Ways to Cope

Hello new school year! And hello stress and the constant feeling of sleep deprivation. As the new school year begins, we all begin to feel a little run-down already. With adjusting to getting up at 6 again, to making amnends to our schedules, to getting used to the pressures that the new school year always brings, everyone feels the wear on them soon. I find myself wanting to move on from this year already, when it's only just begun! I figured I'm not the only one feeling the stress of school, so i decided to look up what the Bible says about stress and relaxation: "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. (John 4.1)" Jesus calmly assures us that we need only to believe in God and Him to find peace in our lives. For nothing can compare to the peace the Lord Himself can give to us. "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)" God gives us many examples in the Bible all basically instructing the same thing: go to Him, love Him, believe in Him, and you shall find peace. In addition, to believing in God, coping strategies couldn't hurt. :] One suggestion I found, other than the obvious ones like stay healthy, excercise, and learn to manage your time well, is to try to find lots of humor in your everyday life. Laughing is not only healthy, but good for the soul. Good luck putting some of these strategies into use! And on a final note, remember, the Lord says, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. (John 14:27)"

There is a reason why God made smiling a lot easier than frowning.....he wants us to be happy. God wants us to laugh and enjoy life. He wants us to smile every day to show that nothing can bring us down. Smiling is the best way to spread happiness because it makes the sun shine on a rainy day, and just one smile can make the pain go away. Yes there are days of sadness and days to mourn, but God will help us every step of the way to bring that smile back as long as we have faith.

Let us pray that there will be more smiles each day,
That happiness will spread throughout the world.
And let us pray that our happiness will never fade away.

Amen.

An Old Irish Blessing

I received this prayer card from a Catholic high school. It has this really nice old Irish blessing on it. I thought I would post it as my prayer this week, because it is definitely something for which I pray. I also wrote my own prayer in reaction - it is similar, but not identical. I guess you could say it is "inspired" by the blessing that I received in the mail.

Here is the original:

Give me a few friends
who will love me for what I am

And keep ever burning before my vagrant steps
the kindly light of hope

And though I come not within sight of the castle of the dreams
teach me to be thankful for life
and for times olden memories that are good and sweet

And may the evening's twilight find me gentle still.


Now here is my reaction:

Lord,

Grant me the love of friends who appreciate me for who I am
And help me to love and appreciate them.

Though I wander from your path, help me to hope
and to find my way home.

Though I may never achieve all that I wish,
Help me to achieve what you have planned for me.

Teach me to be thankful for your blessings
For the life that I am lucky to live
And for time and the wonderful memories I have created with the ones I love

And when I die, let me be satisfied with my life
a life of goodness and love.

Amen.

Baby Birds, Life, and God

Today I was outside doing yard work with my Mom, when one of my three little brothers runs over and announces, frantically, "A baby bird from the nest in the front yard! It's dead! It fell out of the tree!" My mom and I went to the front yard, and, sure enough, a dead baby robin was on the ground beneath the small tree. I looked up, and observed a sizeable hole in the bottom of the nest, in which I could see part of the only remaining baby bird poking out. We took the dead bird, and buried it in a hole in the woods, and my brothers went inside. I looked in distress at the baby bird who would surely meet the same fate soon, as long as the hole remained. I'd just worked for an hour and a half in the sun, hadn't eaten lunch yet, and was thirsty enough to drink an entire water bottle all on my own, yet something compelled me to try to help the remaining bird. I looked at my mom and she understood, and went to get a ladder, as I craned my neck to see the bird, making sure I would catch it if it fell. She came back with a ladder, and a piece of a cloth surgical mask. The cloth was big enough that I could slip it under the baby bird, to close up the hole, but then what was to stop it from falling down as soon as I took my hand away? I maneuvered as much as I could while on the ladder to find a suitable stick act like a bar and put across the cloth. This led to having to find something to secure the sticks, which tuned out to be rubber bands. At the end of the endeavor, I was sweating and panting with concentration in the heat of the day. When I was finally satisfied with my handiwork, and as I walked into my house, I wondered why I felt like I needed to do that. I'm currently planning for a party this Saturday, and have a thousand other things to do. Why did I feel the need to save one baby robin? As I wondered about this, I though about a book I recently read: "The Five People You Meet In Heaven," by Mitch Albom. It was a very thought-provoking and inspirational book, and I thought of a particular chapter, about life and death, and why people were so unerringly drawn to babies and funerals. The book said, "It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed." Now, the author wasn't talking specifically about baby birds, but the basic idea reminded me of the unexplainable desire to help the bird. It was helpless, innocent. And I had the power to save it, or at least to exert a little effort to try. The simple truth is, if we all took the time to give in to that little helpful desire, there'd be a few more baby birds alive in the world. And if more people applied that mindset to everyday situations, there'd be a few more tender hearts, too.

Thank You

My God,

Thank You for the air that I breathe,
for it gives me the ability to sing and bring music to those around me.

Thank You for the food and water you give me each day,
for it gives me energy and strength to wake up and enjoy a new day.

Thank you for the roof above my head and the clothes on my body,
for they both protect me and keep me warm.

And Thank You for Your kindness,
for You are the reason why I am alive.

Amen.

There are so many things to be thankful for such as presents, friends, a family, or even simple things like air. We never realize how lucky we are until we lose everything. Be thankful for what you have because you cannot have everything in the world. Everything you have right now is more than enough to live with.

Summer

Dear God,

Thank you for summer. For time to relax and sleep in. For time to spend with friends. For time to play sports. For time to laze around and watch TV. For time to learn something new. For time to play games. For time to do absolutely nothing. Thank you for the time that is summer. Help me to appreciate it, and to use it to its fullest. But also, please help me to spend time just relaxing and doing nothing, because sometimes, the ability to do that is the best part of summer.

Thank you.

Amen.

Summer is almost half over. I can't believe it. My summer was lazy and relaxing and pleasant at the beginning. Now it is full of things to do. Then it will be relaxing again...but only a short time after, it will be over, and I will be returning to school. I think its important to take a break to appreciate it.

Patience

This week I've been finding more than anything that I need to learn to be more patient. Though this has certainly not been the only week I've wished for more patience, its something I figure everyone needs to think a little more about trying to use and get better at sometimes. I once heard a quote- I regret to say I dont know from where-that went something like, "When we ask for patience, God doesnt just give us patience. He puts us in situations in which we need to demonstrate patience. That way we learn." I thought it was very wise, and it sort of got me thinking about patience in general. So, I wrote this prayer.

Lord,

Please help me to have the strength to demonstrate patience when I'm in the hardest situations, along with the smallest, everyday situations we face each and every day. Please give me the patience to deal with others; not only the strangers on the street, the kids at school, or even with my friends, but with my family most of all. Give me the wisdom to have patience with time, nature, and my lot in life; when i feel like things aren't going my way, and even when I feel like everything is right in my life. Also teach me to have patience with myself, as I learn and grow and mature in Your light, oh God.

Amen.

I Will Never

My God,

I will Never let the rain ruin my day
I will Never let the wind blow You away.
I will Never let a sickness keep me down
I will Never let a smile turn into a frown.
I will Never abandon my family or friends
I will Never see the world come to an end.

But most of all,
I will Never stop believing in You because
I love You with all my heart.
I go to You when I am happy
I go to You when I am sad.
I go to You when I am worried
I go to You when I am mad.
You are always there to help no matter what my mood is
And I am most grateful that You have patience to even listen to me.
Kneeling at Your presence I pray especially to Never take advantage of your kindness
for there is no greater gift in the world that could bring peace and harmony.

Amen.

Beauty

Dear God,

You are beautiful beyond belief
You made me in Your image
Help me to see that I am beautiful

Help me to see beauty in others
Beauty in the poor
Beauty in the angry
Beauty in the sad
Beauty in the joyful
Beauty in the merciful
Beauty in the merciless

Help me to be beautiful
Beautiful in my works
Beautiful in my words
Beautiful in my relationships
With my family
My friends
And You

Thank you for making me beautiful
Thank you for showing me beauty
Thank you for helping me know that I am beautiful

Amen.



Earlier this week, I saw a show, and they were talking about how beauty comes from within. I think that that is an important thing. I know it is a little bit cliche, perhaps, but I think it is true, and I am glad that people try to take the media image of beautiful and replace it with a beautiful image that is real and believable. I think that when you carry yourself with dignity and you are comfortable in your own skin, people will find you beautiful. That is what I find beautiful in people, that self-confidence and pride. And I think that God is the perfect person to ask for help to achieve that self-confidence and to be able to see yourself and others as beautiful and dignified.

Friendship Prayer

Dear God,

As we walk together hand in hand
Against all odds, here we stand.
Years and years of laughs and tears,
You gave us strength to face our fears.

Best of all, you kept us together
Through the ups and downs in every weather.
We ask you to please guide us now
To stay together, forever we vow.

Amen.