Living in the Present Moment

I finished reading Chapter 3! And boy was this a good one! Mother Angelica discusses living in the Present Moment and how important it is to deal with the here and now. The whole chapter was dedicated to this particular aspect of our Christianity, so I will probably write about this over several days. For today, I want to share an excerpt with you from the beginning of the chapter:

You see people today doing unreasonable things, and they do them because they are living in their memories and imaginations- they exist on an animal level. The intellect never comes into play. Self-control is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which requires us to decide what enters our memory and what remains there. I must look upon every resentment, every bitterness, every hurt and conquer it, or it will conquer me.

Isn’t that AWESOME?! How many time have you let your past control your here and now? MANY times for me! I know I have done it just in the past WEEK!! It’s so easy to get caught up in how someone else has hurt us and how badly it hurt. But it’s important to move on. Now I’m not saying to ignore what happened, because from personal experience, it can come up and bite you later on. So it’s important to deal with it in the here and now. My last post mentioned telling the truth. So, tell the truth, tell your feelings, and let that other person take it or leave it. Leave the rest to God. Just because we move on, does not mean everything is OK, it just means we have to move on.

I do have to say that saying my peace helped, regardless of what the other person said. I’m more restless and irritated when I have something on my mind.

But we cannot let the circumstances of the past RUN our lives. I’m no expert on conquering anything, but I feel like I’m getting the hang of it. Acting like a mature, intellectual human being is very peaceful. Communicating and expressing ourselves through words is what puts us above the other creatures of the earth. When we take to verbal slander and violent actions, it saddens our Lord, and it hurts the people we love and care about.

It takes a lot of self-control not to bring ourselves down to the level of those animal-like human beings walking the earth that may offend us and treat us badly. But it sure does feel good to be the better person. Because really, the only One that needs to know what happens is God. He knows the truth. He IS the truth and it is HIS judgment that we need to worry about.

Sometimes we focus so much on the negative, and how much other people may have hurt us, that we can’t see our own selves. We are not able to examine ourselves and our actions to become better Christians. We are not able to see the every day blessings that are right in front of our faces, each and every day.

Lord, help me to see you in every moment of my present life. Open my eyes to the blessings that I have right here in front of me, right here, and right now.