That summer I walked across the country...warning: clickbait. ;)

Ok, so I only walked for two weeks, and I didn't walk across all of the country in those two weeks. Shocker.  But I walked, and I learned.



From July 8th - July 22nd 2017, I had the privilege of walking with Crossroads Pro-Life, and this particular group did, indeed, walk across the U.S. of A. (To explain in brief:  the group started in California and finished just a few days ago in Washington, DC). Their mission? To walk, pray, and sacrifice for the hearts in this country to recognize the dignity of human life in every stage.

The Logistics

During the week, the group traveled around with an RV and a van. The ladies stayed in the RV at night during the week, and the men stayed in tents.The van was our best friend during the days we were walking. Those assigned to morning shift would get in the van and head out for the day. A shift usually consisted of 6-7 walkers. The shift would split in about half, and the groups would take turns walking 1-3 miles. In the vans, waiting to walk, you would find us  napping, reading theology books, or scavenging around to find the last granola bar. When actually walking, you would find us praying, laughing, grimacing, or taking in whatever beautiful view was present. Usually, the morning shift would meet up with the rest of the group for Mass in the middle of their shift.The walking/van rotation then continued until the afternoon when the next shift would take over from wherever the morning shift had finished walking. A few people would make dinner at the RV camp, the group would pray together, and bedtime would hit so fast you couldn't even remember blinking. The whole journey would begin again early the next morning.

During the weekends, we were housed by host families (more on them later) and would speak at parishes.

My friends, it was a beautiful whirlwind.

The People

How crazy do you have to be to walk across the country promoting a message that you wholeheartedly believe in? Just crazy enough. The walkers that I was blessed to walk with had varying types of personalities with one thing in common: a fiery passion for promoting the sanctity of life. It is one of my favorite things in the world to meet people who care. And care they did. Not only were they passionate about people in the abstract, these men and women were sacrificial in the most concrete of ways. I was the newbie in the group, and one lovely lady slept on the RV floor so that I could have a bed my first night in the RV before we figured out sleeping situations that could accommodate everyone. One of the men on the trip had someone hand him two cold water bottles to replace some of our room temperature ones. Instead of keeping them for his half of the shift, he ran out to give it to our half. People cooked for one another, prayed for one another, made each other laugh and loved each other as best they could. And they offered me that sacrificial love as a stranger joining their midst. I won't completely sugar coat it though. Obviously, with many varying personalities come many varying conflicts of wants, opinion, and just personality itself. However, the underlying bigger picture of their journey kept them as a family and kept them walking each day. The fact that these people offered their entire summer to this cause was truly an inspiration.

My fellow walkers weren't the only people that I encountered that inspired me. Like I said earlier, we would stay with host families on the weekends. The host families that I encountered were sacrificial, thoughtful, and overwhelmingly generous. They would feed us. They would allow us to do laundry. (Many loads, my friends, many loads). They would make sure we were awake in time to get to the churches we needed to get to. They would let us ride their 4 wheelers through sunlit flower patches. (THAT was a highlight).  My heart was touched by their acts of service and their care of us.

We met generous parishioners at the parishes we spoke at, and we met many that needed prayers for difficult situations (if you're still reading this, say a prayer for them if you get the chance).

We met a priest that pulled over on the side of the road to donate to our cause and to say a prayer with us.

So many beautiful souls were encountered, and it gave me new hope.

The Lessons

I've heard it said that pro-life people only care about the fetus and never afterward. If that is the extent of a person's pro-life beliefs,then that is a despicable travesty. Pro-life means caring about all people, all injustices, and all uniqueness-es of each person from conception to natural death. Crossroads recognizes this and puts it into action.

In the middle of one of the shifts, we had stopped the van at a rest stop. A few of us had gotten out for a bathroom break, and upon our return we saw a lady talking with some of the walkers who had stayed in our van. I'm not sure why she had come up to us that day---maybe our bright yellow pro-life tshirts drew her to us or maybe just the fact that we were all young people had something to do with it. But she started talking to us and explaining her story. She had been taking care of a grandson.She had a mentally ill daughter. She had just gotten kicked out of her apartment and had to live in her car for a few days before finding another place to stay. We gave her money for the hotel room she had asked for, gave her a ton of our snack food/water bottles, wrote down her prayer requests, and prayed with her on the spot. I'm not writing this up to sing our own praises. I'm writing this to show how much the group cared about this woman ( who wasn't a fetus) in need and jumped into action by helping her as best they could. I wish I had taken a picture of our group giving what they could to this lady, but I will  have to make do with the one in my mind. This is how we should all be living our lives.

Another man we met while walking reminded us that when prayers go up to Him---> blessings come down. A simple statement of faith that most of us have forgotten about.


Finito

I learned about myself in those brief two weeks, and I learned about other people. In the eyes of my fellow walkers, I saw the strong, kind, patient, fierce passion that we must all gain in order to become preachers that walk the walk as well as talk the talk. Because it matters. To quote Pope St. John Paul II: "The person is unique and unrepeatable, someone chosen by eternal Love." Real talk paraphrase: there will never be another you, that fetus will never be the same as any other fetus, we belong here, and we are loved.

Grateful doesn't really begin to cover my time on Crossroads, but it's the word I will leave you with.

If you have any interest in donating or walking with Crossroads next year, go to: https://www.crossroadswalk.org/

Blessings,
Paula

An open letter to all girls:

Dear girls of this society,

 I would just like to say… that I am so so sorry. I’m sorry for all the lies you have been told by this world. I’m sorry for all the hurt that you have experienced. I’m sorry that life has pushed you to a point of utter confusion. I think so much of this confusion comes from girls not recognizing where their true worth actually comes from. We were not made to be scared, dependent, broken or unhappy little weak creatures. We were made to be bold, joyful, strong, beautiful, and whole. We must recognize where our true worth comes from to become all that we were made to be.

               First, we have to realize that our worth does not come from things. I know this sounds obvious to most. But just take a second and think about a few things. How much does your mood change depending on if you like an outfit you put on in the morning or not? Personally, I get frustrated at my morning self’s pick of an outfit when I’m groggily picking something out to wear before my 8:15 class. Does that happen to you? Do you ever define yourself by your style? Do you classify yourself by abstract things like “writer”, “emotional”, “wild”, or anything like that? We think we are what we look like or we are what we act like. We think that defines us. We think if we didn’t have a cell phone, no one would be able to find us, so no one would ever talk to us, so no one would love us, so therefore we will die old maids and will not be worth anything to anybody. Yep, I know you have at least subconsciously had those thoughts if you’ve ever had a broken phone. Things are easy to fill our lives with, the simplest to let define us. But we need to stand above all that. We need to detach ourselves from the physical objects, at least emotionally. And from the abstract things? As cliché as it sounds, don’t let the words of others (or in some cases, the words coming from yourself) make you feel inferior or superior. If your feelings of worth in this life change based on what other people say about you then you’re never going to be content with yourself. I know a secret that every girl needs to know: Your worth stays the same, regardless of the clothes that you choose to put on that day or the daily opinions of others.

Secondly, your worth does not come from other people. We all know that girls tend to bounce from one friendship or relationship to the next, especially when they have been hurt. We do this in the hope that at some point the emptiness will be filled by another person.  Well, as many broken girls can tell you, that isn’t much of a solution. We do this even if we haven’t been hurt too. We run to tell our stories to our friends and can’t make decisions without others' input. But the more we seek fulfillment in other people, the more we realize how broken others are and how we need to be seeking something outside this crazy world to fill our longing hearts. This doesn’t just apply in the extremes in life either. It goes for the girls that make their best friends their everything. As much as we desperately need community with other strong girls, there are some things that should be saved for our daily conversations in the chapel. We need to rise up and recognize that to be whole we need a healthy dose of independence from other people. Occasionally, it’s good to try something new, without the same group of people you always do things with. And don’t fall into the female jealousy trap. When others do things without you, it usually is not meant to be a slap in the face. It is our scared little girl that is left in our hearts that makes us hate when we feel left out. But actually, sometimes being left out is a beautiful occurrence that lets people recognize that depending on people is not the way to live a healthy life. Sometimes being slighted by other people is a good thing for us, a blessing almost. And as I stated earlier, girls tend to make decisions based on others. Having a few good friends who you trust is beautiful. Not being able to make decisions on your own or not being able to go places by yourself though… is a distortion. We need community, yes. But overly abundant attachment to anyone is a good way to fall, headfirst, in the wrong direction.

So where does true worth come from then? We don’t get it from things; we don’t get it from people. We get it from God. He made us. We are His princesses. We need to dive into His love to become what we were made to be.  If we stop clinging to the objects and people in our lives so tightly, our hands will be empty to be filled with the hands of the Savior. When we rest in Him, he guides us in everything. He listens to every hurt better than any human. He fills every void better than every relationship. He brings more joy than any Instagram picture on your cell ever could. He gives us our worth and is crying out for every one of His beautiful daughters to turn back to Him to find out what true happiness is. We can only learn this if we stop holding on so tightly to the broken things of this world and go running back into the arms of the one who longs to bring our hearts joy.

Blessings,

~Paula

Vivere L'amore

Vivere L’amore.

 These words are written on the inside of my forearm at the moment…in pen.  That’s as close as I’ll ever get to a real tattoo. But even though I would never allow myself to ink it permanently on the outside, I’m working on allowing it to be permanently etched on my heart. “Live love” Not just, “Live and love” But live love, make it one and the same action. Make love your whole freaking being. I’m not trying to be just your little old hippy hipster living down the street right now. I just…wish I could live up to God’s call for my life, and I have to constantly remind myself because I always fall short.

Everything we are was meant to be given to God and to others. Our joy should come from serving, and opening our hearts to help take the pain away from the suffering. We all think our lives are so horrible and God is awful, and hiding His face from us. But maybe the reason we don’t feel God’s presence when we suffer is because we are so wrapped up in ourselves that our souls have no room to allow God in.

 I know that sounds cold. I know people who suffered more than I have in my life might scoff. But in the midst of suffering, if we can look outside ourselves and offer everything we have to others who are hurting, there will be no time to focus on our hurting. The only thing we will feel is joy because we know we are helping those in desperate need. We are loving; We will be living love.

Blessings,

Vivere l’amore,

~Paula(:

Happiness

                    It occurred to me this morning, after waking up on the wrong side of the bed, that I was not happy in the slightest.
                 
                   I'm a newly appointed member in the club of college freshman, and it has been one of the most up and down months of my entire life. I thought my moods could already change at the drop of the hat, being the emotional 18 year old girl that I am. But oh my word, I definitely had never experienced real mood swings til I stepped foot on this campus. I was absolutely ecstatic when I first got here. I was free. I was meeting kind people. I had new adventures to go on, and time to really learn how I deal with new things.  After the first crazy week of orientation though, school started. I had almost forgot college involved school. Tedious, grueling school. I'm not sure how it is at some colleges, but at mine, the workload has not let up for a second. It really set me off last week. Meltdowns were occurring left and right (for others too, not just me).  This week however, I had sort of acquired an apathetic nature toward the whole ordeal. Towards new friends, towards new interests (romantic, extracurricular, and whatever else goes on in the lives of freshies), and toward the Bs I've been getting (for a girl who's never gotten a B in a class in her life, getting Bs on all of the first few assignments has been a huge smack in the face, but I'm working on letting it be in the past.)

                       This morning when I woke though, I was a huge mess. I was grumpy. I was exhausted, and I was overwhelmed with the fact that my friendships, my grades, my crushes, my hopes, my dreams, all seemed to still be mysteries to me and I was left feeling helpless and frustrated. So all day I clammed up, not letting other people in, and certainly not listening to what other people needed. Finally my friend asked if I was alright, and I admitted that I wasn't. We were in the middle of the cafeteria though so when she asked what was wrong, I didn't feel like answering. I'm not even sure I could articulate what was wrong, because what was wrong was...well, everything.
                   Or at least, that was the thought I let myself employ in my head. But I got back to my dorm, started listening to music, worked on some school so I didn't have to feel totally unproductive, and drank coffee. Suddenly my eyes were opened. (It was either the Holy Spirit or the coffee, I'll let you be the judge.) Well, as open as they can be this side of Heaven. I've allowed the circumstances around me to dictate my mood. I've allowed them to creep into the depths of my heart and control me, instead of the other way around. I have become a slave to my situations and emotions. I haven't yet come to realize that boys who don't like me and a B on a quiz does not change the fact that I was made for a beautiful purpose. To love and be loved by God.
           This day I pray that God allows me to learn how to take the frustrating situations and annoyances of every day life, and deal with them in a healthy way. To acknowledge my weaknesses, but not indulge in them and throw a pity party. I pray that I not ignore the needs of others around me just because I feel like my world is crashing down around me. Because that is never true. Never, ever, ever. My world cannot crash down around me because Jesus is standing next to me holding it up, and holding me up too.

Happiness is found when we look towards the maker of it. So next time I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, I'll kneel on the other side and pray for the strength to find the constant joy we are all called to find.*