Realizations...The New Year...

Man, this new years really took me by suprise... I think it's because of all the activity preceding it. Right before New Years I was in the City of Love with my beloved Ivan. Hehehe. Anyways... I fly into Paris on December 25th... no joke, I was in Paris for about 5 hours and then we get in a car with Manou, John, and Ivan's aunt and head to Feldburg, which is on the German-Swiss border. It was a long car ride, and like on almost every road trip I've been on, I had some realizations. What a great time to have them... right before New Years... 

We pulled into Feldburg at around 9am. Exhausted. We are greeted by Ivan's cousin Father Louis (who is a priest). We have coffee and talk. We crash for about 5 hours and then get in the car and head to Geneva, Switzerland. It was a nice quick ride. We happened to suprise Nadia, by telling her to meet Ivan's cousin in a mall so that he can give her a present from Ivan. Little did she know that we were the present :-)

We meander around the city for a bit and meet up with Kathia... who gives us bags of Starbucks pastries... yummy. It was our fuel for a few days... After the pit stop at S-bux we cruise to the train station and suprise another set of people: the lovely Razonables and Lester. It was quite shocking for them considering that they were coming straight from Paris, and then were greeted by people from Paris (Ivan, John, and Manou), and myself. I think 

they liked the suprise. After the night of suprises, exhausted, we drove back to Feldburg.

I think we slept until 10 or 11 the next. It was nice, considering how much Ivan and I drove the day before. We proceeded towards the mountains for some skiing, however, because of our delinquent wake we were unable to ski. We made it our goal to wake up early the next morning to get an entire day of skiing in. We left the slopes and went to Mass in nearby Freiburg. 

I love Freiburg.

Again... we ended up in Starbucks that night... chatting the night away. After coffee and talk we drove back to Feldburg for an early night. Father Louis and myself ended up chatting the way back and I realized how amazing the Lord is. Let me digress...

It's funny how some people who do not know the love of the Lord, and the sweetness of living a life for Him (not saying that I know the love of the Lord entirely, or live a life for Him perfectly) think that it can be boring and simply worth the exchange of your will to Him. 

Father Louis is a man that has truly given his life to the Lord. His sacrifice for the service in a unique way to the God and His Church makes you really think. Because of Fr. Louis' "yes" God has taken him literally all over the planet. God does that. Do not doubt that. What is even more cool is that all these different places that the Lord takes you to prepares you for the next place. It truly is a journey with a destination- an eternal one. 

I can also attest to the goodness of God, for He has taken me to many places as well. 

So here we are sharing our lives with each other in this car ride from Switzerland, and we realize that the Lord has shaped our journeys so that we could meet and have the conversation we had. Amazing. The Lord really knows how to introduce people. That brings me to a major point in this blog...

The Lord has brought us together. Our journeys have all been shaped so that this happens. I want to thank all of you brothers and sisters that I have met this year. You have all been blessings to my life. You have touched my heart and moved me to closer to Our Lord. Some of us have shared pain. We have all laughed together at some point. Either way, we have all seen the face of God in one another.

and to you... you know who you are... you have been the best gift to me so far.

Brothers and sisters, let's continue to live our lives for God. It is never a one time decision to say "yes" to God and have a radical conversion experience. Our decision to say "yes" to God should happen at every moment of the day. Furthermore, it is in all the small decisions that we do this: from smiling to a stranger in the Metro, or holding the door open for someone, listening to what your parents tell you to do without complaining, calling an old friend, mending bridges, going to the chapel to pray for 30 minutes, saying a rosary, going to daily Mass, give a sandwich to a beggar, etc. This is what we must do. This is what I got to do. 

But when we start to do these things, we begin to see, in retrospect, that through the small "yes"s our bigger "yes"s take care of themselves. A saint once said that being holy means doing the small things with great love. 

Small things... let's do them.

Enjoy the pictures. Keep praying. Don't give up. It's worth it.