Peace Be With You

“They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.”

—Psalm 112:7

Peace... such a rarity in this world we live in. I crave it more than anything. If I had to choose between a diamond and peace, I would pick the latter. I do not remember the last time I had an uninterrupted night of peaceful sleep. If peace could be bought, I would be the first one to place an order, no matter the cost. 

Peace is the message of tomorrow’s gospel reading. “Peace be with you” (1) is how Jesus greets His disciples when He appears to them after His resurrection. He knows that they were lacking peace. Fear robbed them of their peace. 

It’s the same with us today. We live in constant fear. Fear of catching Covid-19. Fear of the vaccine. Fear of our political leaders. Fear of bad news. Fear of the future. Fear of everything. And this constant fear, keeps us awake at night and robs us of our peace. 

I am writing this while I am sitting at the spa getting a pedicure. My view is the ocean. The setting is peaceful and serene. And yet, instead of being relaxed and enjoying this moment, I’m doing a mental checklist of all I need to accomplish this weekend before I go back to work on Monday. If only I could empty my mind of worldly preoccupations and simply enjoy this hour. 

Too many thoughts interrupt me as I try to relax and concentrate on the beautiful view in front of me. I have been trying to deepen my prayer life by sharing each moment with God. But it’s so hard. I start praying and I get so easily distracted. As I start thanking Him for this beautiful view that I get a front row seat to enjoy, I remember that I need to add fabric softener to my grocery list because I’m running out of it. So what am I supposed to do? God must lose His patience with me when my prayer goes something like this:

“Dear Lord. Thank You for this beautiful world that You have given us. This ocean that I get to enjoy almost every week... Hold on, Lord. I just remembered I need fabric softener. Let me write it down before I forget... OK, I’m back... what were we talking about? Oh yes, the beautiful ocean...”

During Lent, I learned that our entire day can be turned into prayer by sharing everything with God. He wants us to talk to Him about our joys and sorrows, our happy moments and our sadness, our hopes and our fears... but does He really care that I am running low on fabric softener? I guess He does if He wants me to share everything with Him. 

“Peace be with you,” says the Lord. “Do not fear, for I am with You.” (2) I wish I could trust Him so completely that I could drop all my worries into His lap and feel the peace that I’m yearning for. But I am always so restless that I cannot even get myself to disconnect for just this hour that I get to spend at the spa. How then am I supposed to spend every minute of my day with Him?

God is peace. And He wants to share His peace with me. I just need to allow myself to be embraced by Him and His peace will overwhelm me. But for now, I have to finish writing my grocery list. 

Copyright © 2021 Christy Romero. All rights reserved.

References from the New International Version of the Bible:

1. Luke 24:36
2. Isaiah 41:10

Pushing Meaningless Busy Out of my Life

“COME AWAY WITH ME for a while. The world, with its nonstop demands, can be put on hold. Most people put Me on hold, rationalizing that someday they will find time to focus on Me. But the longer people push Me into the background of their lives, the harder it is for them to find Me.

You live among people who glorify busyness; they have made time a tyrant that controls their lives. Even those who know Me as Savior tend to march to the tempo of the world. They have bought into the illusion that more is always better: more meetings, more programs, more activity.” 

Sarah Young in “Jesus Calling”

After spending Lent somewhat disconnected from the world, now I feel a little lost. After being off Facebook, Instagram, negative media and political newsfeeds for fifty days, I’m afraid to turn them on again. At first, I must confess that I was experiencing FOMO. I told my daughter to keep me informed of anything important that was announced on Facebook. But after a while, I stopped asking, and I actually felt liberated. Now, I feel like I have returned from a long journey to the mountains where there was no internet nor media, and I am trying to reconnect with what happened while I was gone.

The first day I entered the world of Facebook, I had so many notifications that I turned it off immediately. I just could not deal with it. I felt bombarded and I just did not feel ready to rekindle my relationship with social media just yet. I realized during Lent that spending time scrolling through my newsfeed leaves me empty. It was just a way to keep busy doing meaningless activities. I excused myself by saying that I get so busy during tax season that at the end of the day, I can give myself a break. But I have come to realize that kind of meaningless busy ends up making me feel more overwhelmed and tired, than when I’m busy doing something productive.

I know that I cannot shut down Facebook completely because otherwise I get completely disconnected from the rest of the world which is also not a good thing. We are meant to live in community, not like hermits. Nowadays, everyone announces their family news through Facebook, especially during this pandemic when we could not see each other in person. New babies are introduced through Facebook or Instagram. Pregnancies and engagements are announced in social media. We attend weddings by enjoying the pictures that get posted, and it’s also a great way to remind us of birthdays.

When we went to the Holy Land, I tried to post my blog and photos during the trip because I knew a lot of people had asked me to do so. They had not been able to go on the trip physically but I took them with me spiritually. I even took their prayer requests with me to place on the Western Wall. But I promised myself that was all I would do in social media. After all, we were on pilgrimage so I did not want to get distracted with what was happening on the outer world. Honestly, there was hardly any time for distractions. I barely had time to write on my blog and post the photos. But a week after we returned, while trying to catch up with Facebook, I found out that a cousin had passed away. Sadly, even deaths get now announced through social media. We don’t call nor text each other anymore for these announcements. I did get a few texts from close friends and family during Lent because they knew that I was off social media. My cousin reached out to me directly to let me know that her daughter had gotten engaged; a friend sent me photos from her son’s wedding; my sister-in-law messaged me to share with me the good news that my nephew had received an important award. I really appreciated this direct contact but I do understand that it is so much easier to announce it to hundreds at once than to have to call or text one hundred different people. However, we have definitely lost that personal touch.

Now, as I try to find my balance and push meaningless busy activities out of my life, I am enjoying a much slower pace. Today, I am just sitting by the pool, enjoying a good fiction book, and writing this blog post as inspiration hits me, sometimes simply by a phrase on the book. I have reached out to a few persons, but not through social media. I talked to my friends in Madrid through WhatsApp. I messaged my cousin in Orense. I talked to my mom on the phone. I texted with my daughter. And I have not so much as checked Facebook not even once. Last night I did, but only for a little while. I am finding a balance between meaningless busy and productive busy. I do plenty of productive busy during the day, so I can treat myself for a bit of meaningless busy, but when it takes over all my free time, then it’s time to stop and take inventory of my life. Do I want to spend the rest of my life wasting my time? Or should I ask God what does He want me to do with the rest of my life? I am certain that He has something more productive in mind for me. And it doesn’t need to take away all my free time. 

Copyright © 2021 Christy Romero. All rights reserved.

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.