I was struggling against blinding, massive rainbows today, and then I realized: I would rather not for self-glory at all because I know it is a vain and pointless pursuit. I told God: “Unless you Will be all that is there, then take me away. Because I don’t want to live without you. Though your will be done.”

I’ve been in interior darkness most of the past two days – and it hasn’t been a patient or kind darkness either. It has tested me greatly because it is getting worse and worse, and I am getting more prone to reacting badly. I keep losing myself in it, spurned to heavy emotions. I told the LORD: “Please accept even my frustrations and negative emotions in reparations for others” because, yes, even those are a recurring suffering. The remembrance of them in repentance and shame is a double suffering that I also offer to the Lord to do with as He pleases. 

Reminder – I have been told to say something like this in these times: ““Lord, I don’t have patience or peace to give You today — but I give You my lack of patience and my unrest as an offering. You can do with it what You will.”

This time, I felt it more necessary to say than ever “Don’t be far Lord. I am not giving you permission to leave.” I told Him earlier: “I will stay in this if is your will, but then that means you are not allowed to leave either.” So, I guess we are both stuck in it for the duration. I know He is immune to orders, yet He hears and understands our requests. I spoke it as though an order, because it isn’t required of God that He stay, but it is required for me that He does. I can’t do this alone.

And I know and understand that He doesn’t expect me to. He isn’t driving me away – He is drawing me closer. Inwardly, though outwardly it might seem as though I am far from Him.

There could be a place closer by His side where the Lord would be far from me, yet there is a place for me far away where He is closer than my breath.

You shouldn’t not pray because you feel unworthy, or terrible, or that you committed too many wrongs. You should definitely pray, if for no other reason than because you love God despite whatever other feelings might be there.

To kiss the King dishonorably is to kiss Him without love for Him.

You have to love God more than you hate your sins, because He loves you more than He hates your sins. Jesus loves you as if you were all He had. He loves you as if you were His only friend and His only creation.

It is my belief about the end times, that God is not only giving the world over to justice because He has good reason to (sinfulness, wickedness, etc.). He is giving it over to His justice because He has good  reasons (positive reasons) to. I have discovered it is not only the Lord’s mercy that lifts up, His justice can also lift up (not just tear down).

I was sitting here thinking: “This is a time of mercy? When the world is groaning under the weight of suffering and sin? I don’t know if, in my eyes, the world has ever really seen a merciful day since the beginning.” Yet the Lord has a purpose for our pain. As I said yesterday, His justice can also be uplifting. To love suffering and difficulties… it is an alien idea to me. Yet I do know that a pure love can endure through it, and become even purer. Compassion is increased because of suffering. I guess it wouldn’t be completely wrong to say that suffering increases the type of love that God wants to see in us – even if outwardly it might lead to some negativity sometimes.

I told the angels, saints and others in Heaven: “When things get shaky, tell yourself ‘I am going to renew my faith In Christ.’ You don’t have to be able to yourself, just tell yourself that and try, and the LORD will do the rest. Do this every day that you need to and every time you need to.” I am writing this down as a reminder to myself too. I told them, they have the capability in Christ to be faithful in all things, no matter what happens… and I do too.

The Lord doesn’t want you to guess His intentions. He never suggested that. He said “Have faith.” You don’t need to try to understand everything. A lot of times, things work in unexpected ways, so that even when you think you have it all figured out, the results are different than what you expected.

Look out for these three things as they are always some of the best opportunities to prove your fidelity and faith to Jesus: undeserved suffering, not understanding something of great importance, and coming to know things too big for you to carry alone. When you practice faith in these times, you progress very far very fast.

It was suggested of me to say the following prayer (by Saint Philip Neri) every day: “Lord keep thy hand over me this day, for it not, I will betray thee.”

I accept all actual help as coming from you Lord. I know where my help comes from, I know what sustains me all my days. It is the bread of the LORD and His word.

Symbolically, I feel as though I (and in a sense, the rest of the world) have fallen from the pointer finger of God, onto His pinkie finger, and then He created a separation between them. Yet there is still a way back – His palm which was pierced, that is Jesus. There is always a way back.

Never trust someone who doesn’t point to you to Jesus Christ. Love them, yes, but don’t trust them. You receive into your house those you trust and even if you let someone into your house you don’t trust, would you dare leave them alone with your valuables? No, you guard them. In the same way, the believers need to guard Jesus Christ in their hearts against non-belief. The world doesn’t always just tempt with pleasure of sin. Sometimes it tries to tempt against belief – with worldly knowledge (in a sense) and distractions that make you forget you even do believe. The world is in a worse time of temptation than ever before – the Lord have mercy on us.

Never be too distracted to pray. Make it a practice: the less you feel like praying, the more you should pray.

By the Lord’s grace, I have felt much interior light the past few days. I was even able to take a walk in the sunshine and sit outside for a while, which I have felt too poorly to do for a long time. I walked a mile and back. He has granted me the disposition lately to keep preoccupied, rather than being idle. In these times, I feel my wanderings of mind quiet down. It is astounding how fast wandering with your feet and hands quiet the wandering of the mind – or at least make it more manageable.

Sometimes we pray and ask Jesus to move mountains, when Jesus says “No” because He wants us to climb those mountains with God-given strength, so that we are lifted higher.

If you are like me, you might’ve felt a hesitancy to join the Catholic Church or Catholic tradition when first introduced, or reintroduced, to you. This hesitancy is not to draw you away, rather you should look at it as a sanctifying sign and test of your faith to the Catholic Church and Christ in it. If your faith persists through this trail, then you will feel a close connection to Catholicism and it’s Church like an enduring light full of grace.

The interior light has lasted for a few weeks, and I am learning to persist at least in prayer (though my faithfulness to Jesus might waver occasionally) through the day and the night.

God didn’t call us to be worthy of His grace, He called us to be faithful and trust in His goodness, despite all our misery and weaknesses.

Even the most holy saints had their areas of weakness – the places where they fell short of the glory of the Lord. These places always keep us coming back to Christ. Without them, we might think we don’t need Him.

I put off my prayers all day today, and I think it was because the Lord wanted to lead me into more meaningful prayers in the night. I was crying tears of joy in the prayers I prayed tonight. I sometimes tell myself “Maybe I shouldn’t keep the Lord waiting all day before I pray,” but the Lord leads us along and, as long as you are looking for it, He will arrange things so that you can spend time with Him.

It can never hurt to pray the Apostle’s Creed if you wake up in the middle of the night… and then go back to sleep.

Things to add to your prayers: “Lord, I ask for the grace of final perseverance” and “Lord, to thee do I commit my body and spirit.” in the morning and at night before bedtime. It is always the time to pray for final perseverance (at all ages) because you never know when the Lord might take you away.

I love you Jesus. Thank you for letting me share in your glory despite the fact that I am your most pitiful and miserable creature.

I was just overjoyed for a moment on the goodness of God and this life He has shared with me. I feel His joy in me inwardly. I keep telling Him to keep His hand over me, because I am afraid when the darkness sets in, I will forget about His goodness.

If the state of the world makes you grieve to the point of tears, offer them to Jesus and ask Him to heal the world with them. I just did this today, and I know that He will use them according to His will to work good.

Pray for whatever you want, but always say “Your will be done Lord, not mine.” The more often you say this in prayer, the better. Even someone who can’t remember things well can get in the habit of surrendering, even in bitter circumstances when all you can say otherwise is “NO!”

It isn’t so much about all the times you might say “No, I can’t do this God. I won’t do this.” Even with one time of saying “Your will be done” midst great challenges and denying His will 100 times, you will find the grace of God present. That one act of surrender to God in the challenge has more power than the other 100 times of saying “No.”

 The invisible interior light I just experienced tonight (I will call the types of interior light “invisible” and “visible,” even though all interior light is invisible; we live by the visible interior light in comparison) was great. I felt what I can only describe as in invisible interior light in my body, with much grace present and most likely deposited, from either an angel or God (I am not sure which, though regardless I understand the source).

One day, very soon… tears of sadness will turn into tears of joy.

So many are caught living for this life because they say they believe, but they don’t truly take Jesus Christ to heart. They never stop to consider the priceless soul within them, and only have a mind for the carnal body that can do nothing but pass. Many sins are committed, and much harm is done, because people don’t take God into their hearts. They treat Him like a dead thing, and they search for Him in the distance while He keeps urging them to look closer than their breath. Those people will never fully experience the joy of the Lord in this life unless granted special grace by the Lord – if it be His will – which brings me great sadness. They are living for this life, and yet they are leaving the greatest joy of this life untouched.

Reminder to self: You keep turning away from Him five minutes after saying “Your Will be done,” because you are telling yourself “I accept your Will whether it is good or bad for me” (this is an error) and not “I accept your Will because I believe it is good for me, regardless of what I might think or see myself.” This shows a lack of faith on your part.

To love the Lord in a life of torment or trials might be the highest degree of love we are able to offer Him. To have faith in Him in the same, might be the highest degree of faith we can have in Him. There is seemingly no greater thing you can ever do than these two things midst suffering.