Suffering will lead us to Eternal Glory!

By the time i met my wife both of us had already stop practicing our faith. we would soon discover that the would turn to bite us down the road. the first five yrs of our marriage were horrible. there was a lot of anger, mistrust, no respect, lack of love, lack of appreciation and so much more. what is more sad is that i was at fault seventy percent of the time. often i would ask my self why am i going thru this, or why is god doing this to my wife and i. sometimes i would had pray to god but with a lack of love and respect and appreciation for who he is. so need less to say i felt that my prayer went on unanswered. there was good days and bad days, however the bad days out weight the good ones.

around that time of great suffering and depression in our life's. some how or some way we found Joel osteen on television and right away we were hook. i remember that back then we started it to listen to him and the advice he would give in regards to suffering. it would help us and give us some sort of relief to know that we could make it. that the suffering would soon come to pass because god did not wanted his children to suffer and that our suffering was caused by our separation from god and once we were reunited to god we would never suffer. i cant say for sure if back then i taught of going back to church or not. but i know we did not went back to church yet despite all the suffering that was going on. but even then i remember feeling that Joel's message was lacking something else that it was not complete regarding suffering but i couldn't tell what it was.

then finally by the grace of god an opportunity that i had been looking for opened up. to relocate the whole family from beautiful and sunny San Diego 75 degree weather to the not so beautiful but more homie weather of 105 degree summer day and mid 30s winter in the San Joaquin valley and i took it. i grew up in the valley and i couldn't wait to go back. thank god my wife followed me and we made the move. sometime after living here in San Joaquin valley we started it to attend our local parish church. i don't know the exact day and and all the fine details but thanks be to Jesus we started it to go faithfully on Sundays and never look back. but it was only until i return back home to the catholic church that i fully grasp what i was missing regarding suffering in our life's. it was then that i learn and realize why holly mother church teaches so much about suffering and why she protects it as well.

no body likes suffering believe me including me. i complaint a lot, i am a cry baby when it comes to suffering. it does not matter if its something big or small, it does not matter if i scrape my arm or if i get a flat tire on the way to work. i complaint about it and i lift my eyes to heaven and ask god WHY? we all have question and even god mad at god when that favorite family member passes away so rapidly without a single sign that she or he was in critical health condition.

the holy scriptures talk a lot about suffering. we suffer because we are sinners and it is just that we suffer to pay for our sins. we suffer because Christ suffer for us and die for us and it is just and necessary that we too suffer with him. we suffer because thru gods grace and our suffering we are sanctifying our self's before god and we are able to walk away from the sins that separate our self's from god. we suffer because we don't want to follow god the father as he has asks us to do so. we suffer because we don't want to learn from our mistakes. we suffer because thru suffering we can call our self's gods own children because thru our suffering we grow into a special relationship with the father, because thanks to the suffering we can finally begin to understand and appreciate the special sacrifice god the father did when he gave us his only begotten son. so that we may not perish in sin but have eternal life if it is our choosing. because we must make a choice to spend our ethereal life on heaven or in the fire that will never stop and will forever torture our souls as a fair and just punishment for separating our self's from gods love and presence and obedience thru the son and the holy spirit.

holy mother church teaches us that we must accept everything that we receive from god thru our daily bread regardless of how the suffering is in our life's. with out questioning god or getting mad at him, with out turning away from him. that we must also accept our suffering with a smile on our face from ear to ear. we must also accept and offered our suffering to that of Christ for the good of the world and his church. for example when we suffer we offered up our suffering to Christ and he in turn uses it to heal spiritually or physically someone somewhere.

this is one of the thousand reasons why I'm so grateful to god for giving us his church were suffering is not something we want to run away from but it is being taught to embrace it fully and gracefully. suffering is like a passing storm that will drop rain on the people, if we are not ready with our buckets to catch the rain the storm will be a waste of time. however if we are ready and we can catch all the rain we can, we can in turn use that water to nourish other fields were the fruits Will be plenty for the good off the world and Christ church. Christ has called each and everyone one of us to suffer and thanks to the suffering our faith, hope, love, patience, perseverance, strength, wisdom and respect will grow and when we grow we can finally love our neighbor as Christ told us to do so.

it is not easy to look at suffering in this way, as i said it before we don't like suffering including me. but i want to look at suffering this way and i need to try and practice to suffer this way. because only then i can truly truly be grateful to god for all the blessings i have receive in my life.

sincerely

Carlos Napoles

servant of jesus thru mary his blessed mother.

JESUS IS AWESOME!

God is Awesome! what a great title to start my newest blog and you will see as you read thru it, why i make that statement. First of all Thank You Jesus! for all the blessings received. Its has been a while since i wrote my last blog. a lot has change since and i thank Jesus for it all. I am now teaching the teens in my parish catechism to prepared them for their first communion. i have a new job and its going great i am getting more hours and have notice that i am more stress free! thank you Jesus!

The last few months have been a roller coaster ride to say the least, i have been feeling down a lot in my faith. struggling to trust Jesus that He in the end had a better plan for me. you see im like many of you. when i struggle i expect Jesus to come and rescue me right away. its almost like a 911 syndrome. im in trouble and i called LORD, LORD come and help me and i expect Jesus to come walking in my life right there and then and save me and He does not. At least i think or believe in those moments that He doesn't. But i know better He is always with me. I know its a cliche right we all here, God loves you, God is always with you, God wants you, etc etc. I think that the reality is that we have heard this so much and we continue to hear it that it almost looses its meaning. So we tend not to care about it as much as we should. My self included it.

But what i have learn so many times is that EMMANUEL Is With Us. God is truly with us, during happy times as well as difficult times. It becomes hard, difficult, confusing or frustrating that we struggle and we continue to struggle perhaps with the same issue/s or different and it seems that we can never catch a break. But if we struggle is because our own faults, Not Gods. We struggle because we make everyday decisions that separate us from God more and more. We don't realize how far from God are we till we struggle. How much we need God in our life's and How great is His love for us. In my life for example, we have been struggling financially for a while now. Perhaps about a year now, to the point were things got really really unconformable, we were borrowing money trying to make things work. The lack of work made it, even more stressful because it became more and more difficult to pay back what we had borrow the week before or so. To the point that we were behind in all of our bills. I threw the towel so many times and was mad and angry. Not so much at God but at my self for not seeing Gods plan for me. You see the year before this struggle i had gotten a few job opportunities without me looking. People were coming to me asking me to come work for them. Now don't get me wrong, i am not saying im superman at my job, but i am a pretty decent worker so i guess words gets around. But without knowing that were going to struggle so much financially i passed on those opportunities thinking naah. We are ok at work, yes we are slow but things are going to turn around. But they did not and so the struggle began.

But thru it all we continue to attend mass, continue to do prayers. But i have to say my prayers became shorter and shorter. I would say things like, God help me today. Lord Help me find work. Lord help me put food in my table. etc etc. when before i could really spend time in prayer during this time i did not. which is the reason i stop writing as well. i couldn't get inspire to write, i just couldn't. But as they say after the rain the Sun shine comes and oh sure it did for me. I got a phone call from my current employer, asking if i would be interested in doing an interview with them. Now in my own foolishness, i sort of said yeah sure but did not follow on it. Thought about it for a couple of weeks or so and then decided to call them and do the interview. I have to say that was a huge Blessing in it self. After the interview right there and there i felt this is it. This is were God wants me to go and i have been in my new job for two months now. Thank You Jesus!

But i also have to give thanks to Jesus! for kicking my butt and showing me some of the path that He wants me to go on at least for now. You see one of my many short prayers to God has been, Lord show me what you want from me? Show me what direction you want me to take with my spiritual journey with you and like they said be careful what you ask for. Because you might get it. Well its true, i had somewhat consider that perhaps Jesus wanted me to teach others about HIM. Now i have no masters degree or any formal schooling. I have been learning our true and rich faith, thanks to my brother in Christ Rick Lentz from http://www.brothertobrotherministries.com. Rick and i have been going threw some materials that have help me a lot and he has been a great blessing as well. But when my priest ask me if i wanted to take on a class on my own teaching students preparation for their communion and i said Sure why not, so i did. I have to say i have great blessings all around me like my "compadres" ( co-parents ) Sergio, Odon, Juanita, Frank, Teo and his wife. All these people are now my sons and daughters godparents and they have been instrumental part of our life's and in my walk with Christ.

I love teaching my students, i know its only been two months but i absolutely love it. Its a big responsibility. One that perhaps i understand But not yet Fully Understand! I have to think about what i want to say to them and how to explain it. How to make the class fun and interesting and engage them to participate. I just dont want to teach them the faith i want them to be on fire for the faith. I want them to have Agape for Christ. so that one day they too can evangelize others. I want them to know what they have, who Jesus was and is for them. How much He loves them and wants them in heaven and so much more. I know this is only the begging of my walk with Christ, i know he has a lot more in store for me and perhaps on a smaller or bigger scale. I cannot wait till He reveals the rest of it.

Its going to take a while for our financial situation to become stable, we owe a lot. But the reality is that every day it becomes easier to give our worries to God and let Him take care of them. He always has, i am telling you. I can prove it, i just tend to panic and i don't see Him or feel Him. Jesus Love You! and He loves you with all the love in the world. Its impossible for us to grasp it but we must believe it. Because it is true. Trust on Jesus that He will help you, call on His name and don't let Him sleep. Bug him 24x7 with all your worries and anxieties and stress and difficulties. He can take them all, He really can!

But be prepare to make some changes in your life as well, just as we ask God to help us. We must also help our self's and come closer and closer to him. Other wise how can we expect to ask Jesus to help us if we are not Willing to love Him and walk with Him! Jesus did not promesses us that we were never going to suffer He did however promesses us that our suffering would be Joyful walking with Him!

Servant of Jesus thru Mary.

Carlos Napoles.

Many failures! Many disappointments. Much more blessings!

Many months have past since I last wrote. Many bad things have happens but much more blessings I have received then ever before. Like any good Christian CatholicI had set different goals in my prayer life and knowledge of Christ. And like many times over. Ill start strong. Listening to audio CDs on catholic apologetics. Watching videos. Reading catholic and Christian blogs. Doing Espiritual  exercising to help my faith grow.

 And a couple of weeks will go by and ill be on top of things. And then out of nowhere something will come about that will change everything. Work will be slow or none. Frustrating or challenging. Or something will happen in my house or with my family. And I'll have to shift my focus back to deal with a particular situation or person. In the meantime not realizing that I have lost my focus on god.   And before you know it I stop praying as much and then the feeling of being drain out kicks in. 

But not realizing how much more blessings I get every time. I have failed so many times. I have to confess that to you reading this blog. I am not proud of my sins. But I am happy that every time i have fallen I have managed to get up and  start up all over again. 

Every time I have fallen I have Learn something different about me. I have learn a different weakness and strength. Every time I have fallen and got up I have 

done it thru the grace of god and by the same grace i have left some part of my sinfulness nature behind me and thankfully some hard and difficult sins have become more and more easy to avoid and not commit or think about committing. 

Many people including yours truly. Had the mentally to say. Well I have fallen time and time again so what's the point to get up again. I can testify to you that Thru the blessed mother the Virgin Mary. I am changing little by little. Every time I fall I hear the blessed mother saying. Get up Jesus is waiting for you with his arms wide open. Watch come and see how much Jesus loves you. 

Yes I hate to fail!  Yes I get tired of trying an not succeeding! Yes I want an easy life! But it is not what in want. It's what jesus wants out of my life! 

I am very blessed to have my priest in my life. Father Jorge Dela Torre. Has taught me a lot about god and his word and his teachings. My mentor and personal friend. Rick Lentz from http://brothertobrotherministries.com

Has been a great example To my life as a man

As a father. Husband. Disciple of Christ and a

Great catholic leader. 

And I can go on and on. I do have many things 

To be blessed for. And the only reason why is

That every time I have failed i have got up and 

Succeed In some kind of small way. 

So brothers and sisters reading this blog. When

You have fail. When you feel discourage and 

Wanting to quit. When all hope is gone. Remember 

god is always There. And two

You too could get up and try and try again. 

The path to heaven has been laid out for us. Thru

The ministry of the one true and holy and catholic

And apostolic church. Go bless you and your love

Ones. 

Sincerely

Carlos Napoles. 

Servant of Christ thru Mary!