My 50-Day Journey... From my Head to my Heart ❤️

 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

Three years ago, I went on a Lenten pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I spent ten days following Jesus’ footsteps from His birthplace in Bethlehem to the site of His crucifixion in Jerusalem. This year, I went on a different Lenten pilgrimage. Even though I never even left Miami, I have been on a 50-day journey that took me from my head to my heart. 

This past year has been a nightmare to say the least. Our world as we knew it was turned upside down. And little by little, I lost my focus during the pandemic. I felt like I had lost my purpose. I was moving on autopilot. I was filling up my days with meaningless activities that left me feeling empty. I had to do something drastic in order to rediscover my direction. I knew that the most important thing that I had to do was to empty my head from the bombardment of the outer world. Therefore, the first thing I did was to disconnect completely from social media. Once in a while, we need to disconnect to be able to reconnect. The time I used to spend on social media, I redirected it to doing something more useful. It just so happens that in December, my Emmaus sister, Ileana, gave me a book titled “I Heard God Laugh” by Matthew Kelly. A few days before Ash Wednesday, I saw it on top of my nightstand. I grabbed it, and on the back cover, I read that Matthew Kelly was leading a Lenten journey based on the book. It was just the invitation I needed. I signed up and my life was finally turned right side up. 

Every day in the morning, during the time that I used to spend on social media, I would listen to the 3-minute video by Matthew Kelly.  Then I would read the video transcript and read the section of the book that the video was referring to. I also read a reflection from Loyola Press, “Living Lent Daily,” which Godincidentally complemented perfectly with the video message. On some days, depending on how much time I set aside to spend with God, I also read the daily reading and the meditation by Bishop Robert Barron. At night, I would also set aside ten minutes to spend with Jesus in the sacred garden of silence. Many nights, time would just fly, and before I realized it, the ten minutes had turned into thirty or sixty. 

The first night that I grabbed my journal, I realized that I had not written anything since before the pandemic. And my journal is the way I connect to Jesus because I like to talk to Him by writing to Him. This meant that I had not had a deep conversation with Him in more than a year.  Yes, I have not stopped praying through the pandemic, but pretty much, I was praying on autopilot. I was reciting prayers, one after another, without engaging into any meaningful conversation with My Friend. This 50-day journey changed all that. I have been writing letters to Jesus almost daily. I have made time to sit in my inner sacred garden with Him. The evenings have turned out to be the best time to share my day with God. The time when the sun is going to sleep in the horizon, is the time that I have set aside to communicate with My Friend Jesus. I have shown up for our daily conversations, no matter how the world has been trying to pull me in a different direction. This new habit that I have finally developed, has helped me to find my inner peace. And I feel completely renewed. During this 50-day journey, not only have I reconnected with myself, I have also rekindled my friendship with Jesus, whom I had sort of pushed aside during the pandemic.

I usually do not enjoy Lent, but this year it has been such a reawakening for me, that I did not want it to end. Now that it’s over, what will I do? Will I go back to spending the first minutes of my day scrolling through Facebook? Am I going to put away the spiritual literature that I’ve been reading until next Lent? Should I push Jesus once again to the back burner and only pray to Him in a rush? 

I guess that just because Lent is over, I do not need to go back to filling up my days with pointless activities. As I begin the fifty days of the Easter season, my goal is to find the right balance between what I like to do and what I should be doing. I am not going to shut the door to social media completely. After all, Rafi and Emily work for Facebook so I should support the company that is putting bread on their table. But ironically, Rafi and Emily rarely post on Facebook. They don’t waste time scrolling through their Facebook newsfeed. Facebook is their job not their passion. So I am going to imitate them. I will use Facebook as my platform to share my writings and meditations. But I will not waste my days scrolling through Facebook. I will also find a balance between reading historical fiction books which I enjoy reading and spiritual books that fill my soul and leave me feeling full as opposed to empty. I just bought myself a new book titled “Busy Lives and Restless Souls” by Becky Eldredge. I think it’s the perfect book to help me find the balance that I’m yearning for.

I did not travel 6,500 miles during this Lent to visit the Holy Land, but I feel the journey to go from my head to my heart was even longer. I am so glad that I took these fifty days to disconnect from the world. As I emptied my head from all the nonsense that is constantly bombarding it, my heart became filled with a peace that I had not experienced in a very long time. It’s a peace that I can only experience when I’m fully connected to God. I had not realized how thirsty I was for His Love until it began to pour into my heart like a fresh wave, making it overflow with happiness. I am not going to push Jesus to the back burner simply because Lent is over. I am ready to fill my empty head once again, but this time, I will be picky, like a gardener separating flowers from weeds. I will choose which thoughts will remain in my head, and which ones will be pushed out to be carried away like a feather being carried by the wind. I will stop running on autopilot and I will allow God to guide me in whatever direction He wants to lead me. I know that He will only choose a path that connects my head and my heart with the joy that I have experienced in these past fifty days.