Conversations with Christ. Friday, July 29. 2011.

Last night I had a conversation.
A conversation with Christ.
I was just kind of moping over all the things that I have had to give up to be a Christian,
over all the things that make me different or that make me stand out,
and over all the things that I wish I could have or do.
Shameful. I know.
So I went even farther and said, "Man, Jesus, the things I do for you.."
He wasted no time in shooting back with, "The things I did for you."
Ouch.
That did not take any time to sink in.
It just dropped like a huge boulder on my heart.

I think that often times as Christians we forget that everything we give up or do differently is for a much greater cause, clearly I do.
Every little discomfort or ounce of suffering that you go through because you are a Christian, it is not in vain. There is purpose for it. There is hope for redemption.
There is hope and redemption and purpose because of all that He did for us.
Our small daily discomforts could never add up to what He did for you.
Being betrayed.
Being scourged.
Being stripped of His garments.
Being harshly nailed to a tree.
And being left to die.
And I have the guts to complain about the small discomforts and still call myself a Christ follower?
I don't think so.
My discomforts are nothing in the long run.
And nothing compared to what Christ suffered for me.
I am weak, clearly.
I am so weak.
I am human
and therefore a sinner.
But that gives me no right to compare my small sacrifices
to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ giving His life that we may live.
That we may live to do what...?
Well for me it's to complain half of the time.
Dang...
Well when it is put that way.
How disappointing for Christ.
He gives His life so that I might complain.
There is something very wrong with that picture.
I guess the question would then be, how can I live my life to best glorify Him?
I, however, am not here to answer that question. I am clearly not worthy to answer that question.
But I ask you to join me in taking that question to the Lord.
Lord, how may I glorify You today?
Lord, how may I glorify You in this moment?
If You lived to die for me, then it would kill me to not live for You.
Help each moment of my life to reflect your glory.
Each and every moment.
I love You despite my failures.
Despite my lack of ability to live for You.
I love You
and all You did for me.

Spiritual Warfare Book for Teens- COMING SOON!! Sunday, July 24. 2011.

Hello all,
Today's post will be more of a letter than an actual blog post. First, I want to truly thank each person who has ever read this blog. It means so much that anyone would take the time to read this blog. I pray with all my being that this blog brings glory, honor, and fame to the Lord and nothing less.
At this time, I feel called to write a book. The book will be focused on spiritual warfare for teens. The Lord keeps pointing me in that direction and He continues to place some amazing words on the paper. I humbly, yet confidently, ask for your prayers. I am confident that the Lord is leading me in this direction yet, I most definitely need prayers to continue what He has asked of me and to complete what He has asked of me in the manner which He most desires. I would really appreciate all the prayers possible. I thank you so very much for your time and prayers. All glory and honor to the Lord. Praise be to His name.
May His peace be with you,
Rebecca LaBriola

Blessed to Be Alive. Blessed to Be Able to Pray. Sunday July 17, 2011.

I consider myself blessed to be alive.
I always have. But after this past weekend, I feel even more blessed.
Long story short, my friend and I had an encounter with a drunk man that could have been very dangerous.
The man happened to be roaming around our very quiet and safe neighborhood before 11pm on Friday night.
He was clearly drunk as he decided to pay his respects, if you will, to each of our license plates that all have to do with prayer and praying. He walked down the street but then decided to come back. It was then that things could have become dangerous. When he came back he decided to start a conversation with my friend and I.
He was uncomfortably close and started talking about random things including the licenses plates. He used a line that would be a prime line to use so that he could pull out a weapon. He told my friend and I to look around. I was just simply waiting to hear some sort of noise from a gun. Praise be to God he did not pull out any sort of weapon. As he continued about nonsense, it appeared that he was more than just drunk, he had a sliver of evil engrained in him. He was being used. He was being used to bring fear and panic into the night.
He finally left and I quickly went into my house.
I wasn't able to sleep for hours.
Every time I closed my eyes his face and his harsh, evil voice came to mind.
From the moments I laid in bed I started praying just simply to keep my mind off of what happened but it seemed impossible, even with prayer.
It was then it hit me.
I was fine.
I am fine.
I am safe.
Nothing bad happened in the big picture.
I was scared
but the situation could have been MUCH worse.
It was not me who needed the prayers but him.
I needed to pray for the guy who completely terrified me.
He was the one in need of prayer.
He was the one who allowed himself to be used for evil.
He needed the Lord and the Lord's peace.
It was by no means any longer about me.
My Hail Marys turned from prayers to bring me peace to prayers for him.
The man who was clearly so hurt and so far from the Lord's peace.
Despite the fact that the whole situation was just awful, if the Lord allowed it to happen so that that man could receive some prayers, then so be it. All glory to God.
By His grace I praise Him for all that happened.
Please join me in praying for the man.
Please pray for anyone who lets themselves be used for anything other than the glory of the Lord.
May our lives always reflect everything good about Him and His glory.
It is for this that we were created.
No less.
Let your life bring glory to Him.
Let your life reflect the Son.
All praise,
all glory,
all honor
forever be the Lord's.

The Battle Belongs to the Lord. Sunday June 10, 2011

I love ministry.
Church ministry. 
I just absolutely love it. 
I live for the days and nights when I can tag along with my dad when he speaks at a parish. 
And the nights that I am blessed enough to speak, also very awesome!
I love ministry for the simple reason that it brings others to a deeper relationship with Christ.
He works through people. 
His love changes people. 

We are called to have a one-on-one personal relationship with Christ
But Christ also acknowledges that the unity with others is also important. 
Where two or more are gathered, Christ is there. 
This is the beauty of ministry and unity. 
When people are brought together to and through Christ, His name is glorified. 
He is exalted.
He is honored. 
And the devil is peeved. 
And so enters the battle between good and evil.
Spiritual warfare. 
The on-going, never-ending, yet, beautiful battle. 
The battle is beautiful because it will be overcome.
The Lord will prevail.
The good side will win.
Undoubtedly. 

The promise and assurance that Christ will win this battle make it a joy to be apart of it.
To be a soldier in His battle. 
To proudly wear the armor of faith.
The belt of truth.
The breastplate of righteousness.
The shoes of peace.
The shield of faith.
The helmet of salvation.
The sword of the Spirit.
All for His glory. 

The battle may be rough.
There may be days when you feel like quitting and giving up. 
It feels like it will never end. 
You get discouraged. 
You do good for the glory of the Lord and then it seems like every little thing goes wrong the next day.
Retaliation.
It just seems like too much. 
It is in the moments of overload or of too much that your participation in the battle for the Lord is most needed. 
It is in moments like these that the words 'praise God' mean more than you could ever know. 

The battle belongs to the Lord.
It always has.
It always will.
Will you fight for Him? 
Fight with Him? 
Fight along side Him?
Fight for His glory and honor.
The battle belongs to Him.


*This was a VERY brief overview of the concept of spiritual warfare. There is more information that goes into a lot of detail. It is outstanding information to have. Though it may sound bias, the best information and the most accurate information I have ever found on spiritual warfare is found in one of the books my dad wrote entitled, Onward Catholic Soldier. If you have an interest in equipping yourself with knowledge of spiritual warfare, please consider this book! God bless!

Directions for the Journey Home. Sunday July 3, 2011.

"We're just going right around the corner but I have directions for anyone who needs them."
"I do! I am so lost in this grid that we live on." 
I smirked upon hearing this conversation. 
The destination was literally around the corner and someone needed directions? 
But the more I thought about this conversation,I realized that the person who was so lost is the person that we should all be.
No, not going out and buying a new GPS
but being humble enough to admit our failings and weaknesses. 
And allowing ourselves to be guided to our final destination, home, heaven. 
Man does not know when his time will come; whether it be the end of the world or his own personal death.
Our time truly could be around the corner.
Or it could be years from now. 
He knows.
We don't.
It is for this reason that we must strive to be holy, to be Christ to others, and to bring others to Christ. 
This life is a journey. 
A journey that could last a second longer or 70 years longer. 
We were created to know, love, and serve God. 
I am prideful and weak. 
I need to humble myself so that I may best know, love, and serve Him. 
I NEED those directions. 
I do not come equipped with a built in GPS. 
I am lost and need Him to show me the way
Yet I am too prideful to accept those directions. 
Lord, humble me. 

The directions are there for us, to help us on our journey for Him and to Him. 
The Church. 
The Church is part of these directions.
Our priests and religious. 
Pray for our priests.
They are called to lead the Church home. 
Each and every person we come in contact with; they are a part of these directions. 
Each person was placed on your path to help you on this journey; whether it be your best friend or the person in your way on the road. 
He placed them there.
Pray for them.
Your Bible, your rosary, your sacramentals. 
They are there to help you on your journey.
Most importantly, He is there. 
He is here.
He always will be.
In time of despair, helplessness, pain, sorrow, joy, suffering, turn to Him.
He is your rock.
He is your salvation.
He is your answer.
He is your guiding light.
He is your way home.

Directions for the Journey Home. Sunday July 3. 2011.

"We're just going right around the corner but I have directions for anyone who needs them."
"I do! I am so lost in this grid that we live on." 
I smirked upon hearing this conversation. 
The destination was literally around the corner and someone needed directions? 
But the more I thought about this conversation,I realized that the person who was so lost is the person that we should all be.
No, not going out and buying a new GPS
but being humble enough to admit our failings and weaknesses. 
And allowing ourselves to be guided to our final destination, home, heaven. 
Man does not know when his time will come; whether it be the end of the world or his own personal death.
Our time truly could be around the corner.
Or it could be years from now. 
He knows.
We don't.
It is for this reason that we must strive to be holy, to be Christ to others, and to bring others to Christ. 
This life is a journey. 
A journey that could last a second longer or 70 years longer. 
We were created to know, love, and serve God. 
I am prideful and weak. 
I need to humble myself so that I may best know, love, and serve Him. 
I NEED those directions. 
I do not come equipped with a built in GPS. 
I am lost and need Him to show me the way
Yet I am too prideful to accept those directions. 
Lord, humble me. 

The directions are there for us, to help us on our journey for Him and to Him. 
The Church. 
The Church is part of these directions.
Our priests and religious. 
Pray for our priests.
They are called to lead the Church home. 
Each and every person we come in contact with; they are a part of these directions. 
Each person was placed on your path to help you on this journey; whether it be your best friend or the person in your way on the road. 
He placed them there.
Pray for them.
Your Bible, your rosary, your sacramentals. 
They are there to help you on your journey.
Most importantly, He is there. 
He is here.
He always will be.
In time of despair, helplessness, pain, sorrow, joy, suffering, turn to Him.
He is your rock.
He is your salvation.
He is your answer.
He is your guiding light.
He is your way home.

A life well lived. A cross well carried. Wednesday June 22, 2011.

A childhood friend of mine died this weekend.
She was 19.
She had cancer for the past 4 years.
It's so unreal to me.
It is in moments like these when we are called to trust in His plan.
To believe He uses the sorrow and the sadness for His glory.
To know that He knows exactly what He is doing.

Looking back on growing up with Diana the things I remember most clearly about her were her infectious laugh, her sweet personality, and her respect towards others. 
Regardless of the fact that we were about 7 years old, Diana made sure to address my parents as Mr. or Mrs. LaBriola. The last name LaBriola is a mouthful for any child but Diana made sure to use that mouthful of a last name whenever addressing my parents.
She was always sure to include everyone in the games we would play at recess. 
Often times she would be the leader and distribute the parts we were to play in the game but it was always done in a generous manner and with a sweet spirit. 
Her laugh, my goodness when she laughed we could not help but all bust up laughing. 
There was just something about her laugh.
There was something about Diana in general.
There was always something special.

Diana was special. 
She was diagnosed with a type of cancer that would eventually spread throughout her body.
But that did not bring her spirits down. 
In fact her joyful spirit still soared. 
Her faith strengthened.
And the thing that just blew me away was her acceptance of her cancer.
Diana believed that her cancer was the cross that the Lord had given her. 
Wow.
What faith.
What an incredible person.
Her comment about her cancer being her cross stunned me.
I was not stunned or shocked because it was out of character for Diana;
I was stunned to see how greatly I fail in picking up the cross that He has given me and following Him. 

We are called to pick up our crosses and follow Him.
We are each given a cross to carry to better understand the life of our Savior and to learn to follow Him.
The crosses we are given may change throughout our life.
They may be big.
They could be small.
We may be given one cross
or we may be given a couple crosses to carry. 

If I could carry my cross half as well as Diana did, I would be a different person. 
It is in picking up our cross that we learn to lay down our lives for Him 
and it is in surrendering to Him that we find true freedom.
In our humanness we do not understand the irony.
We struggle to understand that in giving of ourselves completely to Him,
it is then that we become free.

Instead of pushing our crosses aside
or carrying our crosses with complaints,
what would happen if we gracefully and joyfully picked up our cross?
What would have happened if our Lord picked up His cross and complained all the way to Calvery? Or if He just ignored His calling to pick up His cross?
The story, the greatest love story of all time, would be completely different. 
Just as with our lives, if we picked up our cross the way the Christ did, our story would be different.
Each of our stories would be different.
We would be different.
The world would be different.
We could begin to change the world if we could learn to pick up our cross with grace and joy.
One of the things I learned when we moved to Texas was this- 
there is a difference between doing what God asks of you and doing it with grace.
That is one of the most important things I have learned on this journey of life. 
There is a difference between doing it and doing it with grace. 
The very next moment you are called to pick up your cross, 
take a moment to figure out how you can do so with grace.
Bring Christ into every part of your life, especially the hardest parts, the crosses.
If anyone understands, it is Him.
It is He who loves you
and it is He who is strong enough to give you the strength to pick up your cross and to follow Him.
Follow Him, for His burden is easy and His load is light.

Diana gracefully picked up her cross and followed Him and by His grace she will see Him face-to-face.
May we all be graced with the same undying faith that Diana exemplified so well.
Pick up your cross.
Follow Him.
Make the choice: with grace or without?

Please pray for the repose of Diana's soul as well as for the comfort, peace, and strength of her family. Thank you.