Pope Francis: A life of radical love

Because of the fact that today is the day one of my most favorite people on the planet was born, I knew I had to write a blog post about how amazing of a person Pope Francis is. I don't even know where to begin because I love every single thing about him. Pope Francis is one of the most humble, loving servants of the Lord the world has ever had the chance to know. He never for a second is thinking about himself, but rather he always has his focus on others and satisfying their needs before his own. When I look at Pope Francis I see the kind of person we are all called to be. We are all called to be lights to this world and to love all the people around us in every way possible. We are called to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, leaving no person left to care for themselves. We are called to live a life of radical love for the sake of the gospel and to proclaim the news to every corner of the world. Pope Francis is the epitome of what it means to be humble. Without hesitation he goes and seeks the neediest person he can find and brings him into his home like he is no different than one of us. He goes out into the streets with no protection at all to bring healing to the brokenhearted and the suffering. His every action is done out of compassion and I think we all have something to learn from this amazing man. He teaches us what being joyful truly means. He has made us believe the incredible truth that we are all called to be saints and to live a life of holiness.  Pope Francis has been a light to all the nations since the day he was declared Pope of the entire Catholic church. I fell in love with him the minute I began to see all the good he is doing for this pain-stricken world. He has brought so many people back to their faith and has made huge bounds in growing the catholic church family. I truly believe that if more people were like Pope Francis the world would be a better place. Through him, we have to come to realize what it means to truly be a disciple of the Lord and to keep God at the center of every aspect of our lives. He has taught us to extend a hand to the needy and to love everyone around us the same. Pope Francis calls us all to be brave and to give of ourselves to other people. He also tells us to be joyful and to live a life of happiness with the Lord. He once said:

"Love is the measure of faith."

Pope Franci teaches us to love with all we have. Our love shows how deep our faith in God is. Pope Francis teaches us to be brave and to answer the deep cries of the poor and the suffering and to share in the joy of the Lord with them. Pope Francis is my hero and is someone I believe we should all look up to. He is the perfect example of what living a life for Christ looks like and his life is truly one worth imitating. He teaches us to let ourselves be consumed in radical faith and to radiate our light wherever we go. May we always look to him in our desperate search to be more than just mediocre Christians. Happy 78th birthday to the greatest human being, Pope Francis!

Restoring Joy

Yesterday was one of those moments where I knew I had fallen right on my face and God saw it all. Since being accepted for The World Race, sadly my real purpose and why I was doing it all slowly began to trickle away as the daunting task of raising money entered the scene. I knew that this was something that happened to a lot of people but I assured myself before I started the whole process that I wouldn't be one of those people. Yet here I was. I was at the point where I wasn't allowing God into the situation like I knew I was supposed to rather I was just trying to do it all on my own and for my glory. I was spending hours and hours writing letters and talking to people about it in hopes that they would support me financially but I didn't allow them to see the utter joy and love I had for the program. It became all about the money and how I was going to fundraise and this and that until I had lost sight of the why. Why I was even fundraising. Why I was going to giving up nine months of my life to go serve. It had all faded away once I began fundraising because the amount of money I had to raise seemed too big for me not to constantly be worrying about it. But with my loss of my purpose and why I was doing it all also went the joy I felt for it. I had let this huge price tag on the trip overcome my happiness and turn it all into a chore instead of embracing the process. But then God brought me today. Yesterday He showed me that joy and that fire I had when I first started the program, before all the money. He showed me the true passion I have for this mission and WHY I am doing it all. He reminded me that service is where my heart belongs and where I am feeling called to go. Just with a little help from something else, God was able to fully bring back all the joy and the excitement of the new adventure I am about to embark on. My t-shirt design had just been finished and although I was a little skeptical if anyone would even buy it, there went God again with his awesome plans. Within minutes I was receiving tons of text and comments on instagram telling me what sizes people wanted and how excited they were for me and my trip. But this was only the beginning of my restored joy. Later on in the night, I recieved a text from a very sweet friend of mine and this only added to the immense joy I was already feeling. He told me how proud and excited he was of me and how good the work I'm doing will be for the Lord and his Kingdom. He told me how we are called to share the good news and be a light to others and told me that is exactly what I am doing. My heart was overflowing with happiness. It was in that moment that I began to remember it all. I began to remember all the joy I felt when the journey first started and I got the call that I had been accepted on The World Race. And slowly but surely I began to remember the true purpose for doing all this; to love people. I had gotten so caught up in the financial part of it that I had forgotten to see how my heart was changing and growing towards this mission. I think it is easy to get caught up in the moment and to lose sight of what is really important. I'm so thankful for a God that knows exactly what I need when I need it and who loves me unconditionally even when I fall flat on my face. I know falling again towards only making money and having myself all funded may be inevitable, but I now know how easy it is to get sucked into that mentality and I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back to being in a state where I forget what its all for and why I am even raising this money and the first place. I now know that this is a hard journey, raising funds, but it is one that can bring me closer to God than I ever have before and restore my faith and trust in him. In the end, I know God is going to provide if this is where he wants me to be next year. So for right now, I'm remaining in that truth and letting myself feel the pure joy of it all.

Simple things

As a PALS 2 we get the amazing opportunity to visit an Alzheimer's home near us as well as mentor young children in elementary and middle schools. Visiting the Alzheimer's home has brought me more joy than I could have ever imagined, especially today. When we arrived, there were some kids from a local christian school that were there singing some songs to all the residents in one of the main cafeterias. Attached to the cafeteria is a room with doors open to hear the music and in that room sat a sweet lady clapping and dancing to the music, happy as can be. A couple of my friends and I went over to her and the next thing I knew, we were all up on our feet dancing to the beautiful music being sung in the room over. Nothing could ever compare to the joy I felt holding hands with a such a sweet lady dancing without a care in the world to "you are my sunshine" and "deep in the heart of Texas." As we all sang every word to all the songs they played, I began to see Christ exuding from sweet Layla. I can't even begin to describe how that smile made my heart feel. All I know is that nothing can compare to the joy I felt dancing with Leila. After the kids left, I got the chance to talk for the remainder of our time there with sweet Leila and what a life full of whimsy and adventure she has lived. Born in New York City, lived in Istanbul, Turkey till she was 15, then moving to Austin to attend UT and later earn 3 degrees, Layla had done it all   She told me all about her four children and her great love for horses and the sport of polo. We talked about New York and the beautiful season of Christmas there. She told me all the places she had traveled to; Brazil, Greece, Egypt, England, Turkey and many more places I have only dreamed of going. She told me to follow my dreams and to travel while I'm young and gave my the encouragement to do what I want to do with this one crazy life. We talked about Austin and what a wonderful place it is. Then unfortunately my time with sweet Leila was done for the day and we had to leave. I made a beautiful new friendship today and my heart couldn't be happier. Leila made me smile bigger than I have in a while. I'm so thankful for a God who knows what I want more than I do. It's the simple things in life like dancing with a sweet old woman that make you step back and take a look at the beautiful life God has given you. Today I am thankful for a whole lot more than I deserve; a beautiful new friendship and the chance to dance and rejoice in the life God has given me.

Send Me

Today is the day my whole world flipped right side up. I recieved the comforting news that I had been accepted into the World Race Gap Year program and I could not contain my joy. Upon ending the call, I found myself jumping with joy and a huge smile plastered on my face. I immeaditaly texted and called everyone that has been apart of this journey with me with the happy news of acceptance. Nothing could ever compare to the joy and peace I felt in my heart after hearing the words "congratulations, you've been accepted into the World Race Gap Year program." It's only the start but I can't stop thinking of what's to come and the future God has so graciously placed before me. In a matter of months I will hopefully be on a plane headed to the ends of the earth to spread joy and God's love to all that I encounter. I know that taking this gap year may be one of the hardest things I'll ever do. Leaving all my friends and family for nine months, going to places I've never been before with people  I've never met, and placing all my trust in God isn't going to be easy but I know it will all be worth it in the end when the whole is better for at least one person because I was able to give them the help and love they so desperately needed. I know that if I just open my heart to what God wants from me and the ways he wants to use me that he is going to preform amazing miracles. I feel in the depths of my heart that this is what I am supposed to do and where God is calling me to go. I constantly dream of helping people in some of the poorest places and giving people hope that things will get better and that God has such great plans for each and every one of us. I've been so blessed with the most amazing friends and family encouraging me through the whole process and praying for me and being apart of this beautiful journey with me. I can't wait to see the ways God will use me to further his kingdom and help his people. My heart is overflowing with the joy of such an amazing opportunity to serve and love God's people. I don't know where life is gonna take me next year, but I know it's going to be one crazy adventure full of tears and laughs and lots and lots of love. 

Here I am. Send me. 

Making the Days Count

These past couple months my life has consisted of going nonstop and constantly having things to do. It's felt like I haven't had any time to just sit and enjoy life and all its many blessings. After finally catching my breath after months of constant business, I started thinking. Just thinking about everything and how hectic my life has become. Thinking of my future and the path God is trying to reveal to me. Thinking of my family and my friends. Thinking about senior year and how just a few short months my life will be totally flipped upside down. Then the thought came to me, Why is it that we hate being still? 

It seems that we can't go a minute without doing something. We are constantly filling our time and squeezing in everything we can into the 24 hours we are given each day. We are all guilty of this habit of making ourselves so busy that we can't appreciate the little special moments of life. We can never seem to just take a minute and realize just how beautiful this life really is. Upon realizing this, I've challenged myself to just take a moment out of everyday, just a small moment, to look up. Look up at the beautiful sky we walk under everyday but never truly take a good look at. Look at how God has blessed us each day and what he taught us today. Look at our families and realize how thankful we are for them and their unconditional love. It really is the little things that mean the most. But sometimes we let those little moments slip away until they are apart of a huge memory that all becomes a blur as life goes on. We allow only the big moments to stick in our memory rather than remembering the small precious moments that happen in the day to day. 

"Cause life is not the mountain tops. Its the walking in between."

-Ben Rector 

I don't want to live my life just going through the motions every day. I want to make every day count and mean something. Too many times I have let myself fall unconscious to the blessings each new day brings and have let life pass me by. I don't want to get to the point where you look back and realize how much time has passed of you falling numb to the world around you and what God has been doing in your life. Carpe diem. We must seize the day. Each and every day we are on this earth we need to be joyful and thankful and truly live. Every day holds the potential for something beautiful to happen if we let God work in our lives. Enjoy the people around you and be grateful that God has given you another day here on earth to spread his kingdom.

It's Not The End, It Is The Beginning

Yesterday, the world lost a very special person. Miss Kelsi Little left this world and joined the angels up in heaven. Her life may have been short, but she lived it well. Being brutally attacked by cancer is never an easy thing to go through, but Kelsi fought like hell and truly left her mark on many people. God was able to show her just how widely and deeply she was loved in a way only he could have planned perfectly on just the right day. Without knowing when Kelsi's last day might be, many of her friends and former students put together a small gathering to celebrate Kelsi's life and to tell the many memories they had made with Kelsi. They called it "Kelsi Little Day" and what more appropriate of a title could that have been for her last day here on earth. The loss of Kelsi is not easy to comprehend to anyone who was touched by her life but Kelsi did what she needed to do here on earth so that she could be in her eternal resting place in heaven. Losing the life of such a sweet, encouraging person brought me to thinking just how precious life is and how quickly is can be taken away from us. We like to think of death as the end. A scary, sad reality that our time here on earth is over and we will never return. Bur death is only the beginning. We are simply living on earth, our temporary home, anxiously desiring our true home; heaven. It is hard for us to accept this reality though. We view death as a sad and heartbreaking thing when really it is something to rejoice over because a loved one if finally going home. It is hard for us to look at the world the same after someone we love so deeply isn't in it anymore. But this isn't our home. Earth is not where we belong, we belong to something so much greater. Somewhere so much more divine and eternal; heaven. We exist on earth only for a short period of time for a purpose. We are here to love people and to make forever friends and we try the best we can to make something of ourselves and this one shot at life we have been given. But we have to continually remind ourselves that death is not the end, it is the beginning. The beginning to something beautiful and everlasting. God has a plan for each of us and as cliche as it sounds, it is true. God knows what we are going to accomplish with our one life, he knows the children of his that we are going to grow to love, and he knows the number of days each of us have on our temporary home. The amount of time God gives us may seem short, like in Kelsi's case, but I have come to realize that it is not the number of days we have in our lives, it is the amount of living we do in each of our numbered days that matters. Each one of us, as God's children, have a different mission to accomplish within our numbered days. We are all called to a life of loving unconditionally and furthering God's kingdom. We shouldn't fear death, we should welcome it with open arms as a new rebirth to something bigger than any of us could ever imagine. When my time comes, I don't want people to be sad that I am gone, rather I want my life and the things I did to be celebrated. I want my loved ones to rejoice in the fact that I am finally where my heart belongs. I want there to be a "Reya Martinez Day" and for people to celebrate about the life I lived. None of us know when our own time will come to depart this temporary home for our eternal home which is why we have to continually thank God for the people we love and for the chance to see another day. We are only given one life but if we live it right, one life is all we need.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."

 This quote by Oscar Wilde couldn't be more true. We tend to think only about the end and all the things that go along with it. We get so wrapped up in the idea that once life is over here, its over. But life starts when we get to heaven. What we have here on earth is all temporary, but God wanted us to have the chance to make something of ourselves and leave something for the world. We can't let our life go on before our eyes merely thinking about the end, rather we must truly live our life and not take for granted our years on this earth. We must always be pursuing a greater purpose and always striving towards our true home. Heaven.

 

The World Race Gap Year

I'm excited to say I think I am starting to see the future God has called me to. The past couple of months, and really a large portion of my life, I have felt the call to serve others and to be Christ to others. I've always had a deep love for people and a desire to be able to meet their every need. I've always known I wanted to do mission work some time in my life but I wasn't really sure when I would. I had always thought that I would live the typical life, go to college, meet my husband, get a job and have kids and somewhere I would fit in time for mission work. I never would have thought that God may be calling me to take a year in between to do his work instead of going to college straight after graduation. The idea seemed crazy to me at first, and I figured it would probably sound even crazier to my parents who have always taught me how important my education was. So when I brought up the idea, it was safe to say I was completely shocked by their response: that sounds like a great idea. I think that would be a really amazing opportunity for you Reya. The call seemed to be coming so loudly ever since the first idea popped into my head and I was thrilled but fear crept in occasionally. My mind was overwhelmed with thoughts of leaving home for a year and traveling the world to do the mission work I'd always wanted to do.

So I began the search. I would be on the computer for hours on end trying to find a gap year program that could satisfy the desires that had been placed upon my heart a long time before. The search continued and it seemed like I was never going to be able to find a program that I was either eligible for, or one that I actually wanted to go on. I was starting to lose hope and just figured that maybe I would just go to college like everybody else and leave the silly thought behind. I started college applications and all the stress of it seemed to be taking over my life and oddly enough the only thing that could make me stop worrying was thinking of mission work and helping people. God was placing these thoughts on my heart because he was calling ME. He was continually trying to make me realize that I'm not made for an ordinary life but I refused to listen. Somehow, God always brought me back to that thought and I knew I couldn't just continue to ignore it and try and make my own path for myself.

So i began the search again, but this time with a new mindset. I decided I would let God show me where he wanted me to be, not where I wanted myself to be. My sweet friend Delaney and I decided one day in the summer that we would make a day out of it and go to morning mass together then head to barnes & Nobles to research different gap year programs. I knew it the minute I watched the video and read the description that I had found where my heart belongs. The World Race Gap Year. A nine month mission trip spending three months in Central America, three months in Southeast Asia, and three months in Africa. Days would be spent visiting orphanages, doing construction work, teaching and tutoring children, door-to-door evangelization and many other things. Every day bringing a new surprise and way to learn to love all of God's children.

From that moment on, I knew I had to go. I just felt the call so strongly that this was the program God wants for me and the people I will touch are the ones that God wants me to help. Everything seemed to be falling together. An amazing program, the most supportive parents I could have ever asked for, and the opportunity of a lifetime. Since that day, there hasn't been a day that goes by where I don't think of the opportunity God has placed in my life. I pray every day that I can have the courage and the faith to be bold and to live a radical life for the sake of spreading the kingdom of the God I love so deeply. Every time I picture a child in need, I know I must go. I believe God has called me by name to see the pain of the world in a unique way and want to do something about it with the gifts he has given me. Nothing brings me a greater joy than thinking about the possible life God has planned for me after this year. I'm so thankful that I serve a God who is so much greater than all the hurt in the world and wants to use me, an inexperienced, adopted child of his and use me to accomplish great things on this earth. Every time I tell someone my future plans to take a gap year and then go to college I get a different response. Mostly good, hopeful responses that think it's a good idea but I also get the occasional bad responses that tell me I shouldn't do it and that it's crazy. And it is crazy, it's crazy to leave home for 9 months to places you've never seen before and help people you've never met but the though has never scared me, it's only excited me. Every time I let the the reasons of why I shouldn't go creep into my mind, they are completely shut down by the multitude of reasons why I should go. The good far outweighs the bad in this situation. I know this is what I am called to do and this is the live that God wants me to live. I pray that I can fulfill the task and just love people big. After all, Bob Goff said,

Love's plan is pretty simple: Everybody, always.

My job is simple. Follow the path God lays before me. Love and show compassion to every one of God's children. Use this life God has given me to do something great. Make a difference in people's lives.