We need Him to love us

I have led a very blessed life. I have two parents who are dedicated to each other, their marriage, and getting our family to Heaven. I have a sister who has forgiven me countless times and loves me enough to call me out when I am being less than I can be. I have found a handful of wonderful friends who put up with my antics and encourage me in everything I do. Sure, I have had struggles, who hasn't? But they have definitely been small ones. So it is amazing to me the people the Lord brings to my life.

Even when I was in high school and college, many of my friends dealt with struggles that I couldn't have imagined. And now that my job is basically to connect with as many women as possible at Seton Hall, I learn every day of a different pain that those around me have to live with. From things like pressure to please family members, a crush on an unattainable boy, or stress from over-extending themselves to healing from suicide attempts, eating disorders, or recovering from abuse, I have heard stories that blew my mind. I have even been privileged enough to accompany some of these women on parts of their journey to find healing.

When my friends share that broken piece of themselves with me, my heart aches for them. They are such amazing women that I don't ever want them to hurt that way, and if that can't happen, I want to fix it. I want to make a step-by-step plan of how, in one short year, they will be healed of this stress, of this hurt. However, during a conversation with my mentor, she reminded me of something that we all know, but as women it's sometimes hard to practice. You see, as women, we tend to want to fix things. We see orphans and we want to build an orphanage or adopt all the babies (that was for you, Jessica). When other women trust us with their struggles, when we can see their cracks and little broken parts, all we want is to soothe that pain. We want to help them heal them, therefore mistakenly placing their burden on ourselves. As much as I want to, I cannot heal. I cannot fix their problems or soothe even my best friends' wounds. Rather, I am here to lead them to the Great Physician. I can show them the suffering that our Savior endured so that we could be healed. That doesn't happen through a detailed program of healing, though. The best - the only - way I can help them is to live the love that God gives to me. St. Thérèse, while meditating on the Body of Christ, discovered through the Heart of Christ her vocation to love.

I understood that it was Love alone that made the Church's members act, that if Love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the Gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood. I understood that love comprised all vocations, that love was everything, that it embraced all times and places...in a word, that it was eternal!

I can't  fix anyone's problems. Only God can. But I can love. The title comes from a song by one of my favorite Christian bands called BarlowGirl. It just reminds me that we all are broken and that the only thing that can heal us is the love of Our Father.