Let life become a prayer

Often throughout my life, my prayers would be "please God help them", or "God help me", or asking God to help someone in need. I even recall as a child praying to pass my school tests and never really studying. I just thought God would grant the request. This is a simple example of my hopeful prayer life. Hoping God would answer all my requests. My sister Anastasia used to have a little wooden plaque hung on her bedroom wall that read: "pray to God but row towards shore". Rewritten for me, I guess it would have read: pray to God, but open the text book and study. Truly that plaque was the beginning of the understanding of what we must do as prayerful people. We must act. As I have grown up and evolved in my understanding of pray requests, I am often moved into knowing what to do in order to have my prayers literally answered. For example, I recently saw a homeless man on the streets of SF and began my prayer "God help him have food", and then I realized that he needed food, so I bought him lunch. My request for God to help the man was answered through buying the lunch. This is only one instance, there have been other times where I began a prayer request and knew what to do. When one's life becomes the active prayer, you see and experience the miracle of God's love working. Not all of the active prayer is as easy as buying lunch, but as we practice the easy actions, the more challenging responses seem more possible. I continue to be hopeful in prayer and joyful in action as I let my life become a prayer.

Searching for the star

The season of advent is here, hooray. Advent is a time of preparation for Christ's arrival. I am deeply grateful for understanding and being called to follow the way of Christ. Jesus' way is simple: love thy neighbor, forgive as often as necessary and love God. Christmas season is a beautiful opportunity to practice loving neighbors, forgiving ourselves and those we have hurt and loving God. In this time of preparation, and silent nights, I search for the star that will guide me to those most in need so that I might bring the joy of Christ and God's love to all. I wish you all a holy advent and merry Christmas.