10 Facts About Alicia

1. I am very shy when meeting new people or when I'm in big groups of people...but put me in charge of that big group and suddenly I am no longer shy.
2. I enjoy public speaking.
3. If I could do absolutely anything with my life, I wouldn't have a paying job. I'd just be in Ministry working with teens and women.
4. Horror movies give me nightmares.
5. I hate being wrong.
6. I don't like showering, and if I never smelled, I wouldn't take one.
7. I like to be silly.
8. I LOVE adoration.
9. I thank God everyday for the family that He gave me.
10. Sleep is overrated.

Missing Home

I just got home for Christmas, and I'm already leaving. In my mind it always seems so simple to fly away, but now that I have only a couple days left with my mom and younger sisters, I'm really sad! Yes, I'm just as excited as ever to move to Birmingham and attempt to get a job, but I really wish I could be in both places! I don't want to miss out on any more family memories than I already have! Since that's not possible, I'm praying that God will bless them so much more than if I stayed. The crazy things we do when God is tugging at our heart. Who can resist him for very long? I have big dreams, and I'm not going to sit here and pretend it's impossible.

Happiness

Do you want to be happy? I certainly do. Yet so often I find myself making choices that are far from what fulfills me. I eat too much; I pray too little; I complain too often. And at the moment I'm choosing any of these, I choose them because I want to be happy, whether consciously or subconsciously. What a paradox: In seeking happiness, I choose the very things that are obstacles to my happiness. Today I was reading Archbishop Sheen's book "The World's First Love," his thoughts on Mary. In it he writes, "The humble are necessarily the joyful, for where there is no pride, there is no self-centeredness, which makes joy impossible." Christianity seems to be the religion of paradoxes! So to be joyful we must not be concerned with our own happiness at all. Joy* is one of those things you can't try to grasp. It's like a butterfly. You can chase it for hours and never catch it, but then it lands on you when you aren't even looking. You see, we experience joy when we find fulfillment. We find fulfillment when we meet our end (as in purpose). Our end, our fulfillment, our joy is God. God is Love. And love is sacrifice.


*I'm using joy and happiness interchangeably, even though joy and happiness aren't the exact same thing.Beatitudo, perfect happiness, complete well-being, is to be attained not in this life, but in the next.