Vocation

Over the past few weeks, my prayer practice and form of worship has had to completely change. Before all of this, I already started to believe that I focus and get closer to God when I am with family or alone in nature than when I am in Mass; however, that was before there were no more masses.

The past several weeks, as you all know, have gone virtual. As a practicing Catholic, to not receive the Eucharist for this time has left me with a feeling of longing. Instead of mass on Sundays, my family and I gather to watch the service on TV and pray together as one group of people. While we may not be receiving our sacrament, we are blessed with an hour of time to give thanks and praise every week. It has quickly become a beautiful time for my family and I to connect and strengthen our faith.

However, this moment has not been the only way that I have found myself close to God in the past few weeks. I have found myself even more focused and in a meditative state when I am in the woods painting. Recently, I have started a practice of painting a watercolor in the woods every day in order to create a sort of schedule for myself as well as maintaining my artistic practice. Often during this time in the woods, I find myself alone in thought, wandering, and thinking about where I am and how it came to be. If nothing else, those are the moments that I am most thankful for during this time. When I can share my gifts and give thanks for what I still have in this time of great loss.

In the end, no one’s prayer practice will be, or should be, the same. Every person is different and every person will pray for and to something else. Therefore, I encourage every person reading this to think about what gets them closest to God. How can you better focus in and give thanks for what we still have?