See her books like "Questions to God", "Mend My Broken Heart", "To Love an Invisible God", "Defending My Catholic Faith", "Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief" and more - click here.
Subscribe to Single Catholic Writer and get the free e-book "Single People Can Be Happy, Too!"
(You may freely quote excerpts from this website as long as due credit is given to author Jocelyn Soriano and the website itakeoffthemask.com)
Life is not at all a game of accumulating everything you need and maintaining a certain level of happiness, for happiness after all cannot be maintained. Life is a constant flow, of touching and growing and moving on. Life is either experienced or not, in joy and in sadness, in anger and in despair. Those who choose not its sorrows choose not its happiness as well; and those who choose not to live fully choose only to crumble and to die. – www.itakeoffthemask.com
When I was younger, I never thought there would come a time when this bible verse would come true – that there would come a time when no one would be waiting for God anymore. Yet as I observe our times, I realized that the time may soon come to pass when God would be seeking out his people and no one would be looking back. Why so?
1. THE RICH
Because the rich will have bought the idea of positivism to the extreme to the extent that they have learned to focus only on themselves and their needs, excluding everyone else that may get in the way of their perfectly established lives. The rich would have become indifferent, already possessing everything they thought they needed to live their lives to the full.
2. THE POOR
Because the poor would have thought of himself as being unloved, comparing himself to the rich one whom heaven has blessed far beyond the necessities he prayed for. He would have lost his hope or grudgingly accepted his lot. The poor would have grown a rage that consumes all of his soul.
3. THE RELIGIOUS
The remaining people who claim to be religious would have become the self righteous judgmental people who neither understands the poor nor prays for the awakening of the rich. The religious would judge the poor and the rich for their sins, but see not the dust in their own eyes.
There may soon come a time when all these would come to be, when the hearts of people have grown so cold as to forget the most important thing of all… authentic love.
What keeps a person from
receiving a gift,
a very precious
and significant gift?
Given the chance to accept such a gift,
a brand new car perhaps
a beautiful house and lot
a precious jewel,
how many among us would refuse
something totally for free?
Following are some of the things I thought would prevent us from receiving the blessings/ gifts the good Lord has meant us all to receive:
1. Hostility/ doubt towards the giver
It doesn’t matter sometimes how beautiful or precious a gift is as long as we do not approve of the giver. Who would ever receiver a gift from someone she doesn’t trust? From someone with a vested interest perhaps? From someone scary? From a monster?
We are unable to receive many gifts because we do not approve of the giver.
2. Feeling of unworthiness
Even if we believe in the giver, we oftentimes refuse our gifts because we do not believer ourselves worthy of them. We think we do not deserve a new car because we have not studied well, we do not deserve to be forgiven because we have been so bad in the past.
But have you ever considered what the giver is giving the gift for? Maybe it has nothing to do after all with what we did or not. Maybe it is being given just because the giver would be happy to see us receive the blessing. Maybe it is because of his generosity. Maybe it is because of his unconditional love.
3. So much focus on other things
as not to see what is being given
How do you receive a gift you do not even notice? If we are so busy doing something else, talking to this and that, taking care of this and that, worrying, fretting, anxiously thinking of our fears, would we ever have the time to even think someone’s waiting for us, intending to give us something beautiful?
4. lack of confidence
to be able to use the gift
If we do not know how to operate a personal computer, having not even a slight interest in learning to do so, would it matte at all that someone’s giving us a top of the line PC, complete with accessories, software and technical assistance?
If we think we’d have no use nor skill for something, we may refuse something being given us.
5. ignorance on the nature and worth
of what is being given
Our ignorance on the nature of the gift being given us hinders us from receiving it open arms. Instead of gratitude, we have doubt. Instead of excitement, we have apathy and we care not whether we receive the blessing or not at all.
6. ignorance of one’s needs
that can be fully satisfied
by the gift
If we do not know our selves and our needs, we may not be aware of what good the blessing before us is going to give us. An abundant feast may have been set before our eyes, yet if we do not even know we’re hungry, it wouldn’t satisfy us a bit. We may even look for other things we think we need.
7. comparing one’s gift to the
gift given to others
How many times have we refused our blessings because we deem it lesser than the gifts we saw given to other people? Our blessings may be the best for us, yet oftentimes, we look at bigger packages given to another. We know not that inside the small package is a precious jewel waiting to be revealed if only we’d have opened our hands to receive it rather than whine about how small it is compared to what our neighbors have received.
Have you found your blessings yet? Have you prayed and received not the answer? Reflect for a moment and consider, you may have refused the very blessings God has placed before you all the while.
This article was written by Jocelyn Soriano at ITAKEOFFTHEMASK.COM
You are free to redistribute this article as long as proper attribution is given to the author and a link back to this site is provided. For more free stuff and blog ideas, visit ITAKEOFFTHEMASK.COM
Moving On Quotes
“I am tired of all the regrets, the shame and the self-pity. I will begin a new phase of forgiveness, of change and of moving on.”
“Moving on now, I see how much life has changed, how much I have changed. I am no longer the silly girl I used to be. I am much wiser now, much stronger, and much capable of loving again.”
“We can never move on for as long as we keep looking back at the past. Let the past take care of itself. Today is a new beginning for all of those who want to find their joy!”
“Dare to live, dare to move on, dare to start again!”
“It breaks my heart to move on without you, but I must pick myself up again and start over alone with the dreams we used to believe we could reach.”
“Our heavy burdens of guilt and anger keep us from moving on and finding our peace. Let go, let God and let true love and courage show you the way.”
It is only by being confident enough to face the present that you can move on and look forward to whatever it is that lies ahead.
Moving on doesn’t only mean letting go, it also means holding on to all the beautiful things that are worth keeping to guide you in the life you desire to pursue.
Let these Moving On Quotes help in your healing and give you inspiration in starting over and in moving on towards your greatest dreams!
Herein is the secret to the fullness of life – that one be born again, and again, and again… 🙂 – www.itakeoffthemask.com
