Prince Caspian: I do not think I am ready.
Aslan: It is for that very reason, that I know you are.

I saw The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian for the first time a couple nights ago. The above lines have stuck with me since I watched the movie. So many times I am in Prince Caspian’s place telling God that I’m not ready, that God expects to much of me, whatever. However, just like Aslan knows Caspian can do it, God knows what each of us is capable of. When we don’t think enough of ourselves, we have to think about what we can do with God on our side. The more let God work through us, the more we can do because of God working in us. God can work through anyone. We simply have to be the ones to open to letting him do so.

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Just over two weeks ago I was on a mission trip to El Salvador. I’ve been thinking a lot about the trip since I’ve been back, it is something that is constantly on my mind and heart. Below is a reflection of some of my experiences from the trip.

Something that has been on my mind a lot since the trip is how we are in so much more poverty here than they are. While they might be materially poor, they are also very rich. They understand things about life that I can’t even begin to understand. On a note that will make more sense in a minute, I went to women’s night the other night. It was a modesty fashion show and they also touched on inner beauty and how important it is to realize our beauty and our dignity as women. In thinking about this in relation to El Salvador, our entire world is in such greater poverty than I have ever realized. I knew it when I came back because we lack the faith, sense of community, genuine care of the well being of others. Here we are poor on so many other levels. We have people starving themselves, not reaching out to others, not giving a care because they don’t get it. They don’t get that life is so much more than what you look like, the fact that life is rough right now, the fact that you don’t like another person, whatever. Life is so much more than the trival things we make it out to be. Our world is in need of people to rise up and recognize the dignity of each person, to see the beauty that each individual is meant to bring to this world. So many people don’t think they are good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, worth enough. I have met so many amazing people in my life that can’t see the awesomeness that is them. People are afraid of themselves. They are afraid of what they are capable of doing, they are afraid of failure. However, if we are too afraid to take leaps of faith, we are never going to get anywhere. We are never going to be able to move on to bigger and better things if we are too afraid to take the next step. But sitting back waiting for someone else to step up gets absolutely nothing done. So what if you fall flat on your face- at least you can say you tried. That’s all we can do sometimes.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, famous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

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“They judge me before they even know me.” -Shrek

I was watching the movie Shrek tonight and I realized in watching it that is entirely based on the characters caring about what the other characters thought of them. I think many people feel this way, myself included. We worry about what other people think, that we made the wrong impression on someone whatever. I try to not care what other people think of me, but I’m not always good at it. I worry about if other people like me, what they think of me, all of that. However, I came across this quote that I’ve really been liking lately.

“Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness.”

I think that part of my weakness is that I care too much about what other people think about me. I worry that people judge me before they get the chance to really know me. I forget that it doesn’t matter what other people think about me, all that matters is what I think of myself and what God thinks of me. God loves us. All of us. So much. He can do so much good through each of us. Shrek wanted to be by himself because he felt judged, he felt unloveable. He was unable to recognize his own beauty because he was too busy trying to hide himself from the world because he felt so judged that he didn’t want to let anyone in. He didn’t want to be vulnerable. Shrek didn’t want to put himself out there and risk getting hurt. I do that a lot more than I should and I know a lot of other people who do that too. They put up walls so high that no one could ever get in. But God tears down all the walls. With God we can truly be vulnerable, truly be ourselves. We don’t have to worry about what God thinks about us. God loves us unconditionally, no matter what, just the way we are. We don’t have to try to impress him, don’t have to try to be the funniest, the coolest, the smartest. With God we can tear down the walls, be ourselves and be open to the love of God. God’s love is always there, so why not be open to it and accept it with open arms?

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“Do whatever He tells you.”

These are Mary’s last words in the Bible. I saw this on someone’s facebook a few weeks back and it has kept coming back to me since then. “Do whatever He tells you.” I think this is one of those things that we all know we need to do as Catholics, but it is a lot easier said than done. I know many times in my life, I’m like well, I really would like to do this God, but it is a pretty far stretch, it’s going to take me out of my comfort zone, I don’t know people are going to react, the list goes on and on. I could probably justify just not doing many things God asks of me, but he wants more. He resides in the very depths of each soul and he wants our heart. He wants our hearts to long for him, to want to be with him, to live for him. God doesn’t ask us to stretch ourselves so that we can fail, God doesn’t lose battles. If we trust in him and perservere, we can take on anything he puts before us and do whatever he tells us to do. In this time of Advent, as we continue to prepare our hearts for Christ’s coming, what a perfect time for us to do whatever He tells us.

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So tonight was scheduled to be a crazy but good night for me. There was a vocations panel at 7pm, Eucharistic procession at 8pm, and a dessert party at 9pm. My roommate and I went to the vocations panel at 7, but it went long. We knew that the procession was just doing the campus mile though (big square around/through campus) so we went looking for it, even though we were late. We walked all over campus and couldn’t find them until it was ending up at the Abbey.  After finally finding Jesus, we decided to go to the chapel and thank him for letting us find him (even if it was 20 minutes after we had started searching). 

I feel like my life is like this a lot sometimes. Like I’m wandering all over trying to find something, knowing it’s out there but am not quite sure where.  At times I’m not sure where to look, who to ask where to go, or even where to go once I know I’m not in the right place.  “When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me with you, says the Lord. ” This is not always something easy to do. Laura and I kept telling ourselves “if you seek me you shall find me” tonight as we were wandering around but it took us longer than we had planned to find him.  God’s plans aren’t always our plans. We might have one plan for our life and God might have something entirely different in mind.  You might feel like a nomad, wandering around aimlessly. Other times you might be right on track and feel as though that is where God wants you. Although it might not seem like it, God always puts you where he wants you. While we were wandering around trying to find Jesus, my roommate and I had pretty good discussion. Maybe God didn’t want us to find him so we could have that discussion.  I don’t know. We can’t understand why God does the things he does or why he puts us in the places we are.  We just have to trust, knowing that we are where God wants us to be and that he has a plan that is far greater than anything we could ever image. 

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