I was baptized in the Catholic Church when I was a baby, and I was confirmed when I was four years old. Usually kids are confirmed in middle school, but I was impatient and wanted to commit and be confirmed. I spent some time in the UK, attending mass at Catholic Church and Sunday school. When I came to the US, I started going to mass regularly with my mom. I stopped in high school but I started going to mass again and taking Eucharist last year.

I’ve been going through Proverbs in my Life Application Study Bible, and I’ve found myself gaining nuggets of wisdom. My spiritual gift isn’t wisdom, and I often have had to pray for wisdom to come from the Lord. Having wisdom is essential in making the right choices in our day to day. Abiding by God’s truth helps ensure we live our lives according to our plans as well as His plans for us.

I finished studying the book of Hebrews, and I wanted to share what I learned in my study. Hebrews is aimed at Jewish Christians to encourage believers to remain steadfast in their faith by illustrating the superiority of Jesus Christ to Old Testament heroes and figures. Jesus’s sacrifice is final and sufficient for salvation, rather than Old Testament practices of sacrificing animals. Through Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven and we can accept his sacrifice for us, being cleansed and made whole through taking Communion.

“Fix your thoughts on Jesus.” - Hebrews 3:1

Putting God first and foremost means trusting him over any person in this world. God is the ultimate parent, therapist, doctor, pastor. Go first to God for advice on your troubles, and others are secondary to him. Talk to God through prayer and listen to him speak to you so he can sustain you in times of stress and pain. God can be relied on in times of suffering and pain, he is the one who is unchanging for all of Eternity.

I’ve been learning more about the sanctification process through my church Church of the City (NY). They have an awesome series called Formed, which talks about the steps to salvation — justification, sanctification, and glorification. Sanctification is the process of becoming more like the likeness of Jesus Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit. Three actions that catalyze the process of sanctification are affliction, mortification, and vivification. Affliction is the process of suffering all Christians go through the same way Jesus suffered, mortification is the process of putting to death sin, and vivification is the renewal of the soul by the Holy Spirit.

“On the other side of greatness is love.”

Reading through all of Psalms, I learned more about King David and King Solomon as I traversed through the verses. I could imagine the pain King David was going through, the limitations he was pushed to that he started writing Psalms to appeal to the Lord. I too was pushed to my limitations, so I went through Psalms in order to exalt the Lord and submit to Him.

“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

I haven’t been able to watch TV as of late. Series that once interested me fall flat, and I’m more interested in watching Bible documentaries and The Bible Project and The Chosen series than watching secular TV. A devotional that I read about the renewing of the mind lit a fire inside me, causing me to be more aware of the thinking patterns that have been unfruitful for me.

Choosing God’s path is the way to find healing. When you read the Word and develop a relationship with Him, He will guide you through life. Choose God to receive the Holy Spirit and the promise of eternal life.

Meditating on the Word means spending time reading, thinking, marking, and reviewing what we have read. It means changing and growing so we live in accordance to what God wants. Getting a study Bible was the best decision I could have made for my faith. Meditating on and understanding God’s word are the first steps to applying it to your every day life.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” - Psalms 34:18

I’ve had complex PTSD for a long time. It started 2 years ago, when several acts of sin followed me and caused me to lose my job, my apartment, my dog, and my savings. The enemy attacked me, and it wasn’t until recently, that I’ve managed to defeat him.

The war with Satan lasted for more than 20 years. Incident after incident, attack after attack, Satan tried to take me from my Father. I was baptized when I was a baby and was cemented in my faith for years, having gone to Catholic church. But after high school, I fell from my faith and departed from God. It took me more than 10 years to go back to my faith.

I remember in 2017, sitting at my desk during work at break time and reading through Exodus on my iMac. I had embarked on a year-long plan to finish the Bible in chronological order. During this time, I didn't have a physical Bible but relied heavily on apps and websites, using my iPad to pore through devotionals. I had forgotten about the importance of having a physical Bible, having forgotten a lot what I knew about Christianity from my youth and younger days.

Ecclesiastes speaks of the seasons that all humans go through; in life, in work, in love. Not all seasons are meaningful; some are rests, between stanzas, between eras we’re noted for.

I know the feeling of unrest that Solomon the Teacher reminds us again and again: life is just a chasing after the wind. I want to be productive every minute of my day, but I find myself taking more breaks than I want to be known for. Each day passes by, another paragraph to my story.

“Gentleness and self-control; against such things there is no law” - Galatians 5:23

Recently I listened to a sermon by the late Tim Keller on self control. This was spurred on by an act that I deemed as my loss of self control. On Sunday, I left church early. I was dealing with anxiety, and I didn’t feel comfortable with my environment or with myself, so I left church in the middle of a sermon. Thinking about it, I was debating on whether it was the right thing to listen to my body or was it the wrong thing to leave church early. I had already gone to Catholic mass earlier that day, and I was mentally exhausted from the day. Against my body’s and the weather’s wishes, I tread to church, and it just didn’t feel good when I was there. And listening to myself, I decided to leave.

“But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.” - 1 Corinthians 15:46

We’re tied to the earth. 1 Corinthians 15:46 speaks of the physical body coming first, then the spiritual body. Without our physical body, a vessel for the spirit, we would be unmade and unformed. It is hard then, to resist things of the material world. We were taught first to live materially, than to live spiritually. For me, engaging in the teachings of Christ to nurture my undying spirit is an ongoing investment in my spiritual health. Caring for my soul relates to not tainting my body with immorality of the flesh, from sexual immorality to material greed to earthly desires.

“A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.” - Madeline L’engle.

I don’t believe that people don’t change. It doesn’t matter the terrible things you did as a child or as an adolescent, but if you repent for them and come to Christ later on, you will be granted eternity as well. I used to think that the people who are saved had their names written down since their birth. I was privileged in that I was baptized at birth, but the struggle to grasp on to God in the midst of sin and to hold onto faith despite the inundation of secular messages from this world ruled by Satan are battles that I’m still fighting.

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” - John 15:18

Ever since I was a kid, I wondered, why some people hated. And why some people hated me. It was part of my personality to try to make everyone love me, and I thought if I loved people, people would love me back. I’m naturally reserved on the surface, but my father told me that I was a lover of people, a people-pleaser, yes, but someone who actually loved people, and he knew me better than anyone else did.

I recently looked up Andrew Huberman’s morning routine, because not only is he the most talked about “neuroscience expert” due to his scintillating Youtube videos and verbose podcasts, but his morning routine is espoused by many to optimize your day. I found similarities between his morning routine and mine, with some key differences.

Mornings are hard. Especially if you’re not a morning person. But is there really such thing as “morning person” and “night owl”? Sure, our biological clocks run a huge part of our lives, and our physiology and biochemistry affect our productivity and routines. But for Christians, “with God, all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26).

I’ve been reflecting on the transformative power of words as used in praise and prayer. The verses in the Bible have the power to call upon angels to protect us, guide us, and comfort us. Speaking the words out loud during prayer is like sprinkling stardust on the spaces between us, creating something out of the void, shedding light on the darkness.