Is It Time To Swap Bikes?

On Sunday morning, my friends and ran the Cherry Blossom ten-miler (last race of the spring, I promise!). At the crack of dawn, we went out to find electric Lime bikes to ride down to the start line. As soon as the three of us rented the bikes and started riding, it became evident that my bike was completely out of power – it took all of my strength to pedal the thing forward, and the heaviness of the bike didn’t help. Less than a block in, I saw another bike and announced, “I’m going to swap!”

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Three minutes later we were flying down Pennsylvania Avenue, and even though I’d taken these electric bikes before, this time felt like a completely new experience, since it was juxtaposed with the heaviness of my dead bike from moments before. As we zoomed down the street, I turned to my friends and said, “If I were a skinny jean pastor, I’d make a sermon about this. The dead bike is my life when I try to do things with my own strength, and this new one is when I’m rolling in the will of God!”

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I’m not a skinny jean pastor, but I do have a newsletter to write weekly, so you get the story anyway 🙂 But I think the analogy is apt. There are so many things that I have forced myself to do because I thought it was what God wanted from me, but ultimately found myself buckling under the pressure and heaviness of the commitments I’d made because I thought that’s what God wanted from me. On the other hand, the best things in my life have come about when I was least expecting them, gifts freely given from the hand of God.

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That doesn’t mean we don’t ever have to pedal (even electric bikes require a bit of human effort!) But the pedaling is made sweeter and easier under the yoke of Jesus, who reminds us “My yoke is easy and my burden light.”

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This Sunday we celebrated Divine Mercy Sunday, a gorgeous annual reminder of the Lord’s abounding and unconditional love for us. We can do nothing to earn His mercy or His love. He generously gives it to us and simply asks us to receive it.

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This week, I’m asking myself (and the Lord) “What is feeling heavy in my life right now? How can I more completely surrender this to You? Is there anything You’re asking me to release? What are You asking me to embrace?” Maybe those questions could help guide some good prayers for you as well!

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In Christ,

Jane

What I’m loving lately

Podcast Episode 99: Friendship with the Saints

This week’s episode is all about the saints! In 99 episodes, I can’t believe I haven’t dedicated an episode to the Saints yet (whoops). We’ll talk a bit about why Catholics have the saints, and what our relationships with them can look like, and then I’ll share the stories of three of my favorite saints and how they came into my life! Tune in here on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!

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​The Father: 30 meditations to draw you into the heart of God​

I LOVE Fr. Mark Mary Ames, CFR, and was beyond excited to see him release this book of meditations on the fatherhood of God. I’m only a few days in, but it’s phenomenal. I love a daily meditation book that fits so nicely into my prayer routine, and this one has spurred a lot of good prayer about God’s nearness to us and love for us. The Poco a Poco podcast is doing a series on it now as well, which you can follow along with!

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Learning about Islam

I have always been fascinated by world religions, and this year I realized I know next to nothing about Islam. My favorite way to dive in is to listen to stories from people who have converted from that faith to Catholicism because they’ll often compare and contrast it with what I know best. This week I listened to two podcast interviews with converts from Islam to Catholicism and they were fascinating! If you’re interested, here’s one on Pints with Aquinas and one from the Catholic Truth Podcast. Also, if you have other resources you’d recommend to me, please reply and share!

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Happy day-after-eclipse!

My friends and I were glasses-less yesterday – until we heard that they were giving them away on the National Mall! We biked down real quick and got our glasses just in time. It was so fun to be out there with tons of people, like a big party at the mall! I feel like this part of the newsletter has become DC propaganda… sorry about that, but also come visit me!