Private devotion keeps faith alive, and public devotion shares that life giving faith with others. It is about time that those with a living faith quit feeling the need to hide from this world. It is time they start letting their “light shine before others.”

It is rare that a perfect living faith comes before dying to self. Yet who can cast themselves out of themselves? Wherever you go, you will always follow yourself, not God, until you are willing to surrender in full to Him.

I told Satan: “I can’t justify you because I don’t understand you, though I can’t judge you either.” I know he is capable of reason, he is very smart. I said “I don’t really trust you, but don’t take it in a bad way, I don’t even trust myself.” Then I told myself in humility “It would be hard to trust someone who doesn’t trust themselves.” Those who trust in themselves, or anything but Jesus, will be disappointed with the results often – if not altogether. A lot of times the Lord frustrates the plans of those who trust in other things.

A lot of times it feels like I am getting extreme flashes of blinding light and then flashes of blinding darkness, like severe lightning in the night. The trials just won’t stop. Last night was a night full of torrential flashes.

I know He led me into it, I know He is leading me through it, and I know He will lead me out of it into the salvation I am waiting for.

Someone came to me when I was a child, all at different times, who claimed to be Jesus and they said these three things to me:

“I will have no choice but to leave you.” (to test my hope)

“I will have no choice but to destroy you.” (to test my faith)

“You will tell them you love them but they are wicked.” (to test my love)

I just realized today, all these years later those were the reasons.

God sometimes allows trials, not because we are in need of improving or correction, but so that the fidelity and faith we have in Him are made known and to increase our merit.

You can get in the practice of praying over the water you drink or bathe in, asking God’s blessing on it. For example, you could say: “Lord, I ask You to bless this water in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. May it be a sign of Your mercy, as the water that flowed from Your Sacred Heart on the Cross.” While pastors are given the special privilege of blessing water for the whole Church, any Christian can invoke God’s blessing – though in a different way – in faith through the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. In the same way, people say grace before a meal, which is not the same as receiving Communion, so a lay prayer over water is not the same as holy water or wine blessed by the Church. Yet it is by no means powerless. God answers the prayer of faith and blessing in this way can even work miracles – if it be the Lord’s Will to grant.

There is a great source of grace present where someone repents over a sin because they know they ARE forgiven and not repenting to try to gain it.

I was reflecting, and I realized that I was avoiding God because of something I feel is necessary, while also in repentance, and I was thinking about this: I was looking into times other people in the Bible fell short and willfully sinned, with stories like David and Bathsheba, Adam and Eve, and Paul. I am someone who says that you should never avoid God, no matter how terrible you feel. Though due to my own purposeful shortcomings this has truly been put to the test. This being in a ‘willful and sinful’ situation. But I am going to keep the faith and not turn away. I told God “Help me choose you over this decision to do this, if it becomes mine to make. Help me want you more.” 

I have been repenting in tears the past day. I offered them to God to work healing with if it is His Will – to turn a bad thing into a good thing. I have felt like a slave to sin the past week or so, just waiting to be freed. The Lord will set me free.

He can heal the world; he can heal you. That was His promise. He wounds, but He also binds up.

Being a sinner grants you the perspective of a sinner. This should lead you to forgiving other people who sin against you. You should forgive your brother and sister because you too also need forgiveness. If you are a sinner who is actively repenting, then the next course of action is to practice forgiveness of others.

Forgiveness is an act of the will in spite of emotions for revenge, not necessarily without them. You can also use forgiveness as a form of repentance in self-mortification. Done a wrong? Forgive a wrong, even if your feelings say otherwise. Christ does say “Forgive, if you want forgiveness.”

People wonder why God would allow people to die. They wonder why he takes away their family or friends before they were ready to say goodbye. But there is a fate worse than to be dying and wanting to cling to life – having to cling to life and desiring with all your heart to die. There is no worse fate.

In order to attain to heaven, it might be said that you have to live according to His commands. But if you live according to His commands, you are already there. Heaven is love. To love God first and ones brother, sisters, and even enemies. Heaven is where love is. If you are not willing to live according to these commands, then you are not willing to live in heaven. 

The Lord doesn’t expect you to be some immovable stone in anything – if you were, how would he use you? A firm faith is not an immovable faith, it is a faith adaptable and open to the Lord’s command. It trusts in Him, even when everything else around it changes.

I made a purple and green scapular for my household. The purple protects against chastisement (especially of fire and darkness) and accidents. The green protects against Satan and evil influence. These two colors of the scapular require no particular daily devotional prayer, although you are supposed to pray in some form daily for the protection of the purple one. The green one protects your whole household, whether they are willing or not or whether they know it or not. It can be the secretive scapular for protection from evil. Through the Sacred Heart of Jesus and His Word to His people.

I read somewhere (I think it was in one of Anne Catherine Emmerich’s associated works) that you don’t have to have anything fancy for the LORD to grant the object the same power. I just made my Scapular out of a piece of string, paper and tape. It has the same power as any others. I did say a prayer over it though and asked the LORD to bless them. The important part isn’t the object itself (what it is made of, how it looks) but faith in Christ that counts.

I said “it might not seem like the scapular or blessed object is working and at times it can feel like it is having the opposite effect.” For the green Scapular for instance, the devil might attempt to be more active after you make it. You might even notice more things going wrong. Because the devil is testing you in it. He is seeing if your faith will survive the test. Your faith of God’s protection. Your faith in the Word of God and His blessing. Your faith in God working through the object of protection in this case. Even in the making of the sign of the cross, is the call to have faith.

I told the LORD “The moment I can somehow do the impossible myself, you are allowed to leave me. The moment I can do anything myself, you are allowed to leave me.”

I was told “Suffering opens many doors, even those otherwise impossible to open.” But do you know what opens any and every door? It is love. Love will accomplish all it sets it’s mind to. Love never fails. Praise the LORD, His love endures forever.

I was saying… I think God gave me more this afternoon, because He is testing if I will be more charitable if I have more. I sort of closed my heart off to charity early this morning, and said “no” to someone for the first time in a while from my place of poverty.

A lot of the things we see as hindrances, or annoyances, or bad things (situations, people in our lives, etc.) in our lives are actually the things God is using for our benefit. Unless you keep your eyes open to this, you might accidentally complain about the path to the blessings God is preparing for you.

To surrender to His will is to do everything in love and in faith. Never neglect or undervalue even the smallest amount of love. Never look down on even the smallest amount of faith in Christ.

I have recently been listening to worship hymns. There is something about the right kind of music that rejuvenates the spirit, and it has helped me a lot in my faith journey. Music can have a profound effect on our moods and mindset. Hymns are mostly simple and yet deeply moving. I know I may not be the best singer, but I like singing along with them.

I also occasionally like to play them in the background while I’m doing something, so my subconscious self can listen to them. There’s nothing like a little worship music to help brighten a bad day. I wish it would occur to me more often when I am upset to sing hymns.

I think that it is good to incorporate them into prayers, like how guided prayers like The Lord’s Prayer can be helpful when you don’t know what you want to pray about. I guess hymns are (in a way) prayer through singing.

True love takes everything you have, but it is worth it to gain true love.

Without Jesus, all I am is a sad, miserable, mean, and pitiful man who can only earn destruction.

Even if I possessed every good work, I am incomplete without Jesus. If I could somehow attain to perfection myself, it is as though this is a shadow of the self I would want to be in Christ.

I have been thinking of moving out on my own lately. But I got the inspiration (despite the strong desire to move out) that I should stay here. Today I came home after being away for a few days and I smelled the smell of holiness (and sensed the presence of holiness) in my room. I don’t know though if this is Jesus telling me that He wants me to stay where I am and not move. I guess it is something to pray over, yet I don’t know how He can reveal this to me in stronger terms than He already apparently has. I told Him, “if it not be in Your will that I move, then though I can’t promise to accept it gracefully, I will at least accept it if you frustrate my plans.”

I have learned this: Never promise to accept something and say or think you’ll stay in a state of  “grace in self-will”  – because how fast good things can become bad, and how fast bad can become worse. How fast worse can become overwhelming, even. The harder the trial, the more God’s presence is needed, yes. And the more present He is definitely. But a lot of times, when we make this promise, God intentionally sets us up to fail, because we told Him, “My will will not fail you,” instead of “Your will will not fail me.” If it be in His will for you to remain in grace in the matter, His grace will never fail you.

I was just joking: personally, I hope I don’t make anymore promises, because the Lord seems to frustrate people who make them.

I was thinking: “You can never be in such a dark place where Love won’t find you. Love already knows where you are. You’d better be prepared for the day Love comes for you, because Love is coming for us all – the living and the dead.”

My life is not something that you should look at and go “I am losing trust. I don’t know….” or doubt. My life is nothing less than a life that says “I trust in Jesus, even when things seem impossible or I don’t understand them.” This is true for everyone; everyone’s life says this. Even when we don’t know where each other is, we trust. Even when we don’t know where we are ourselves, in the darkness or light, we trust.  These things remain: faith, hope and love.

Love can be painful. It can seem as though a weakness; like it is tearing you apart. But it possesses all power and strength. Every power and position comes from Love. And there it will submit to it.

Many Saints have said that the LORD doesn’t need us to be perfectly happy. But it is my belief that He WANTS us so bad in love He might as well need us. He goes to great lengths for us.

I told the angels and saints in the past “The only thing you have to listen to me say is trust in the LORD” but then I thought of something else that they need to keep that is probably even more important: “LOVE the LORD!”

There is a certain creature close to my heart that sat with me for almost every day of its life. Then one day I couldn’t find it anymore with my eyes, yet I know it is present another way. I told it to be strong and faithful.

The sufferings must run their full course. There will be no deliverance until we finish the race, because the LORD calls us to live.

Reminder: I was told to give my guardian angel a name, and then use that name and call on Him for help when I need it and the angel will answer. I believe this to be true, because not only am I certain I received the help when doing it, I have also sensed their presence around and within me. I ask them to tell the Lord things for me, and especially ask him to ask the LORD to forgive me. I told him to remind me to say “Praise the Name of the Lord” amid trials.  I am calling my guardian angel (along with his heavenly name) – Fides (Latin for faith).