Author: Kleah Zara

Whenever I wake up late, don’t plan my day wisely, or just do something that isn’t important, I lose an opportunity to love Christ. I miss out on moments, seconds, and hours from sharing God’s love with others. I hinder myself from moving forward when I don’t open my life and my schedule to the Holy Spirit to lead me.

God always asks me, “Kleah do you love me?” When I fail to use my time purposefully, I’m essentially telling God, “No, I don’t love you.” This is where the guilt comes in and from: a tension builds when the heart knows it is responding in opposition to its purpose of accepting and loving God. When I accidentally subconsciously say that I don’t love God, I am denying who God is and reject His absolute importance in my life. I reduce God’s existence only to when He’s convenient.

I can make excuses and say that I need the rest… that I need to just do nothing, so that I can get away from my responsibilities. I can say a bunch of things; I could even try to run away, but I know that there’s something in me that’s not right if I’m avoiding what God wants me to do. It could be my anxiety kicking in again, but I’m not sure.

I’ll be honest and say that I’m not as in tune with the state of my heart as I thought I was. While I think that I’m great and that I’m happy, I still get moments of temptation, sadness, and doubt — none of which are indicators of peace. Whatever it is that is bothering me, I know that when I don’t give God the opportunity to shine light onto my darkness, I’ll never really know how my heart really is and I won’t know what my issue is either.

Maybe this has nothing to do with my heart, and could possibly just be the inclination to sin because I’m human but there is definitely something stopping me from doing what I’m called. There is a lack of self-control in me to do more good. I’m not giving God the permission to overcome what’s hindering me.

I believe I’m trying to do everything that I can in my various services to God, but by not welcoming God into my life more leaves me at a great disadvantage from doing everything that is possible.

To truly love someone requires action. By being lazy or wasting time only shows a lack of action, thus a lack of love. In giving my time to Christ, I am allowing Him to work in me. And when I allow Him to work in me, to possess all of me, I can begin to love more like Him and not feel guilt or regret. So when I give God my time, which is and was always His to begin with, I pray that I remember that I’m responding with “Yes Lord, I do love you. Now help me show You that I do.”

So what am I supposed to do now?

Time and time again I’m reminded to draw near to God and He will draw near to me. If I but seek Him in prayer, in the Sacraments, and in my own heart as I see the face of Christ in myself and others, I know I will be able to break my bad habit of not using my time wisely. I’ve begun to schedule my life more and started to plan. I’m thankful for the MV Program because I can see all of my plans laid out onto a calendar. Whenever I put events into my agenda while in school, it would be complete for maybe the first two months of the semester. There was never any consistency. But being “forced” to complete my calendar is really helping me schedule events, even unexpected ones.

I’m also thankful for my older sister who showed me her long list of things To-Do and events To-Go-To on her Notes app on her iPhone. I’ve begun to follow her example and have many things to do and events to attend to. It feels awesome to delete things off of my list haha. A sense of accomplishment dwells.

I know I haven’t completely gotten rid of my bad habit of wasting time and sleeping too much or too late, but I know that if I draw near to God, He will continue to draw near to me and help me.

Lord, may everything I do be for your greater glory. May I consistently invite you to remind me to respond to You, “Yes Lord, I do love You. Now help me show You that I do.” Amen.

I’m so thankful for the gift of being part of CFC-Youth Canada because the community has grown in many beautiful ways. I feel very blessed that this growth has reached the Mountain Region because I’ve seen and been part of the growth for the past 11 years. I would have never thought that God would lead us to this point where we would dream of having a myriad of youth attend from more delegations and that the service team would dream bigger and work more intently in bringing life and creativity to sharing God’s message with other youth. Who would’ve thought that there would be an Awake Fair, workshops, a poetry slam competition, and a bunch of other crazy cool things? Eleven years ago, I personally would have never thought that I would be serving in an RYC, but by the grace of God, here I am! Praise God! 🙂

A lot can change in eleven years, but one thing that I noticed that was very different today than in the past was the posture of everyone’s hearts. When I was younger, we were reminded several times that any competitions we were a part of were to bring glory to God. But still, many of us would be upset when we didn’t win a particular competition. There were even tears of sadness and disappointment. Even while worshiping, many people would be crying  painful tears. But today, the youth seem to just know truly in their hearts and minds, that all they did and offered on stage, on court, in worship, or in their service was for the glory of God.

At RYC I witnessed tears, but these tears were joined with bright smiles because I knew some of the youth had breakthroughs after being broken down; I knew some of the youth were expressing joy after working tirelessly; and I knew some of the youth were touched to hear the conversion stories shared by their fellow brothers and sisters; or were excited to encounter and worship Christ again.

I shared at RYC that I joyfully cried at the sight of seeing the growth of an old household member as she played in the RYC band and when I saw some of the Edmonton youth perform a session creative because I was aware of the sacrifices many of them made in order to serve. How beautiful a sight it is to see this great change in the posture of the youth’s hearts — hearts of perseverance, trust, and liveliness! Also, how amazing it is to see the reverence of the youth when they encountered Christ in mass and adoration! Thinking about it again makes my heart very full because in the past we didn’t have adoration, nor did we have mass twice in a single RYC. In fact, this was our first RYC where Mountain Region celebrated mass two times! :’)

This past RYC in Mountain was so blessed! From the preparations to the event itself, I couldn’t help but feel very loved by God. Witnessing all of the work everyone put in, the amount of trust they had in God, and the final execution of ensuring that it was the best they could make it really brings me joy. Even having the entire RYC Package was a huge blessing because it contained all of the outlines for the talks, sharers, and workshops; the graphic package; and just everything else in it haha.  CFC-Youth Canada and CFC-Youth Mountain Region has bloomed despite the many struggles. What’s more exciting is that we’re not finished growing! God has much more in store for everyone! But this growth in numbers, creativity, faith, love, hope, and joy in the past and in the future can only be attributed to the Holy Spirit who guides, empowers, and inspires our hearts to serve and love God.

Thank You, Holy Spirit! Please continue to fall down on us and come into us and ignite our hearts to love and serve more! Change the posture of our hearts that we may believe in the Gospel and live as true disciples of Christ. Amen.

In March I attended a talent show at one of the catholic high schools to support some of the youth in the core group and in my home chapter. As I waited for my brothers and sisters to dance, I watched the many other performers share their talents. There were students singing, dancing, rapping, playing the drums, guitar or other instruments. Everyone did such an amazing job, but there were some performers who really impressed me with their talent!

As I sat in my seat, watching these youth and being entertained, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Why does this event seem slightly empty?” And then it occurred to me that there was no pastoral aspect/content to this event. I was at a catholic high school and there was no mention of God or how God gave all these youth their talent; there was no mention of how the youth’s talents could be used to help the world and give God glory. I grew up in the public school system, so I was used to not hearing about God, but it just seemed off to me that not a single person said anything about God and I was a catholic school.

Although God was not spoken about, I asked God to help me see Him there. And so I found God in the youth and in their courage to perform, and in their desire to share their talents with others. I found Him in the songs that were sung and in the lyrics rapped. I heard God in the encouragement of the audience members as they cheered their fellow school mates on. I heard God in the voices of the teachers who shared their positive feedback as they judged each performer. I heard God in the emcees who thanked and honoured the staff and students who planned and executed the event. In all of this, it caused me to silently cry tears of joy haha. God is present. He is here!

Yes, God was present in the goodness found in the people of the school. But there was still this desire, this longing, in my heart for the people to fully acknowledge God and to mention Him in the program. I thought, how great would it be to have HSB at this high school again? It’s been many years since HSB was established here.

My prayer for this catholic high school and other schools across Edmonton is for the students and teachers to know the CFC-Youth community in the near future. I pray that they will come to know and encounter Christ in varying ways, and see that He is relevant and rightfully deserves praise and honour. I pray that everyone will remember God and vocally say aloud that He is present with boldness and excitement. Amen.

Often times I don’t consider myself as others may perceive. They say that I love outside of myself, that I’m passionate about service, and that I’m brave and unafraid. But I don’t see that at all. What I often see is someone who fails to love. Someone who does what they can, when they can. Someone whose life verse is “Fear not for I am with you always” because I’m often afraid. I am someone who constantly thinks that I’m not giving enough, doing enough, and loving enough in all aspects of my life because I don’t possess particular characteristics that people say that I have 100% of the time. Because the truth is, amongst a lot more sins, I can be lazy, selfish, not confident, and very impatient at times.

This is why I found it difficult these past couple of weeks to say yes to taking on extra service for RYC because I thought that I wasn’t fit for what was asked of me. I sincerely didn’t think I was capable of leading a workshop because one of the activities was something I had no skills or experience in, and I thought that people in Mountain would be tired of hearing me share about my life again since I shared at Liveloud and at the previous RYC. There were a lot of worries cluttering my mind, causing me to doubt that I was anointed and called by God. My Area CCs, my counterpart, and my ate were all witnesses to this when I told them how I felt.

I never thought that I was someone who would ever doubt the Lord, especially after all the good things He has done in my life. I even told my household at one of our households that doubt wasn’t my issue; it’s forgetting that God is present. But I realize more deeply now that I am doubting God when I fail to see the presence of God in me, especially when I question if I’m really called to do a particular service.

As RYC draws near in the Mountain Region, it makes sense to me that I have discovered my doubting story. Although it does not precisely mirror that of St. Thomas the Apostle, I’m glad that I’ve found some little way to relate to this saint as his own doubting story led him to do great things for God in various parts of the world. I can only hope to do what God wants of me in my own life, beginning with this RYC.

During this RYC and further on in my life, I pray that I may see God in me and understand fully that yes, I am imperfect and other people definitely could do the service I was asked to do. Regardless of what other people could have done and what other things would have happened, the most important thing to address is that God is present and alive in me, and He calls upon the least expected people to do His work and He empowers them with the Holy Spirit. I have never doubted the service I was asked to do until these past couple of weeks and so this quote, “God doesn’t call the equipped, but equips the called” has a fuller meaning to me now. I pray that I may believe that God is not only alive, but He is alive in me at all times, even when I doubt myself. May I believe that whenever I am asked to serve, that I may not hesitate to believe that is God who calling me by name. Amen.

Ad majorem Dei gloriam.

St. Thomas the Apostle, pray for us.

If you try your best, God will take care of the rest.

Personally, school is really exhausting mentally, physically, and spiritually (This may even be an understatement haha). School takes the most energy out of me than any other responsibility/obligation because in order for me to excel, I have to put a lot of work in.

Like many people, I have this desire to do well in school, but for me this desire stems from what I’ve learnt through this community: that God calls me to be excellent in my studies as it is a way that I can be thankful for the gift of education and glorify Him. There’s another part of me that wants to do well in school, because I want to make my parents proud. They, too, hope that I am able to do my best, graduate, and find a good job that makes good money and makes me happy.

Another reason I have for wanting to do well in school is based on a pact I made with myself years ago. Ever since I wasn’t able to get into the U of Alberta School of Business after my first year because of my low GPA, resulting in me having to transfer to MacEwan University’s School of Business, I made the decision to never be mediocre in school again. A few years past and I found myself doing extremely well in school more than I ever had before. (Thanks be to God!) But then in Fall 2013, I failed my first exam and dropped out of my first course in university. This occurrence in my life caused my self-confidence to depreciate and I found myself almost giving up on doing well in school because I equated my self-worth to my grades. (I still sometimes do that out of habit, but I’m definitely trying to get out of that rut.) Despite having gone through such an event, God still made a way for me to do really well in my other courses that semester through my projects and final exams.

This semester, like all my other semesters, I attribute my success to God alone because it would be impossible for me to say that I did everything on my own. After a really tough semester, I’m coming into my finals with overall grades of 89-94% and I just have no idea why God is being so generous to me lol… I know He is a very good God and gives because it is His nature to, but I can’t help but feel like I don’t deserve it. It’s true that I try hard in school, but I spend a lot of time doing other things — service, work, hanging out with my family and friends, watching TV shows and movies, or sleeping — that doing this well doesn’t add up in my mind.

I will admit that I do have sporadic moments (days) where I focus just on school and this is where my greatest effort comes in. But even though, whenever I go into an exam I feel like I haven’t studied enough, always cramming seconds before my exam comes in front of me, often resulting in my professor telling me to put my notes away. And whenever I come out of an exam, I often feel like I have no idea how I did and leave the marking to my professor. These past couple of years, I’ve been in this cycle and over and over again, I’ve ended up with nothing lower than a 75% on an exam, but even this mark acts as an outlier as I usually get marks between 84-95%.

All I can think of is, DOMINUS EST! (If I could make this font bigger to emphasize this truth, I really would.) It is always the Lord. The grades I get have nothing to do with my own efforts, but have everything to do with God’s kindness and generosity. It is the only explanation.

Moments ago, I honestly felt like giving up on studying because there seemed to be so many other things I would rather be doing since studying is my least favourite activity in the world; all it really does is build a lot of anxiety in me. But reflecting on how far God has led me and how much support I get from my parents, I feel incredibly loved. This love only makes me want to do better and to keep pushing through. In the most humble way, I’m happy to see that God has made it known to me that I can trust Him in the best of times and the worst of times, in and outside of school. This semester was really tough for me to balance, but God was walking with me through it all. He was greater than the trials.

During exam season, it is always very difficult for me to spend time with God in prayer, but I’m grateful for the few minutes I do have with Him, especially when my anxiety heightens. I’m also thankful for all the saints who continue to pray for me, especially St. Joseph of Cupertino, who has been on this journey with me for years now.

As I continue to study for my last two finals and grow tired in the nights to come, I hope and pray that I will remember that God is with me and that He never sets me up for failure, but rather, always makes a way for me to be victorious, especially if I do my part (although very little) and trust in Him.

Dear God,

Thank you for the gift of education. As I continue to study, I pray that You help me concentrate on all that I need to know for my upcoming exams. I’m getting easily distracted by what’s around me. Please help me to focus on studying so that I may be able to glorify you through doing well in school, and by honouring my parents by making them proud. Please bless me and all those who are still writing exams with Your Spirit.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
Our Lady of Good Studies, pray for us.
St. Joseph of Cupertino, pray for us.
All the holy angels and saints, pray for us.
Amen.

I recently came across a few posts on Facebook that demonstrated that a single human person is so minuscule amongst all the billions of human beings and the different life forms on this earth. The purpose of these posts, I think, were to disprove that the individual human person is not relevant and furthermore, could not possibly be loved by a god or God (whom the creators of these posts believed didn’t exist in the first place).

Initially when I read these Facebook posts, I couldn’t help but scoff because I knew that they were completely wrong. But then, as usual, my curiosity led me to further read why they believed in what they believed. As I read deeper into the posts, a thin cloud of doubt began to rain over me. I started to question, “Does God really exist? If so, how could He possibly love me when there are so many people in the world and so many different creatures that exist?”

In a split second I came back to reality and was instantly reminded of the time when I felt most loved by God. A great warmth began to calm my heart, and the cloud disappeared. I still remember that moment very clearly. It was when God personally proved to me that He existed undoubtedly and most of all, loved me completely regardless of how far I distanced myself from Him.

After I finished reading the posts, I remember not feeling disturbed or concerned by it anymore because I had all the assurance I needed to know that God existed and that He loved me because I had encountered Him at that moment and a multitude of other times in varying ways throughout my life.

Even though I was firm in my belief, God always seems to give more of Himself to me. He always seems to want to show me that it is true: I am greatly loved and His love is the reason why I exist. God came to reveal this to me when I came across this quote by our previous holy father, a day after:

“We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God.”
― Pope Benedict XVI

In this quotation by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, I’m reminded that yes, the earth is comprised of a myriad of creatures, organisms, plants, and all other sorts of beautiful life forms. But, the human person is still not just a product of evolution. Rather, I am a result of a thought of God. That means God, the Great Mystery that He is, commanded that I exist and as such, He willed for me to be greatly loved by Him!

There are so many different creatures that exist and although those post-creators try to make it seem like I’m meaningless using this fact, I praise God for allowing me to see the opposite.

It is impossible for me to not recognize that order is still maintained despite the billions of people and the countless number of organisms that exist at this moment, and have lived since the earth began. It is impossible for me to not be in complete awe and wonder that Someone is guiding, directing, controlling, and connecting everything together, ensuring that I still wake up every morning and go about my day, and that I safely return home and into my bed. There is Someone who is watching over me specifically, whom loves me deeply, and that Someone is God.

God, the Master of all things, created every molecule that makes up this universe and all of its contents, including little me. A five-foot, young woman with many dreams and very little to offer Him, yet He still loves me profoundly and continuously makes this known to me in personal, intimate ways. Truly I am blessed! :’)

I am blessed to know that I exist and I am loved, but more so that God exists and that He is Love.

Thank You Lord for always revealing to me that I am loved by You. I pray for those who do not know you (yet) and have doubted or have forgotten about Your existence. I pray that every heart is open to the Holy Spirit and that we see that You are fully present in our lives. May the universe, which You have created, inspire us all to see how intricately detailed You are! May the earth, which You have created, only lead us to believe that we are blessed to live in a beautiful world! May we all believe that Heaven, which You have created, is our true home because it is simply where You want us to be.

Amen. Ad majorem Dei gloriam. <3