Katie's prayer: Cheer Up Charlie's "Love"

Let your actions speak louder than words and they will be heard.

I like to try and listen to the Sunday Sunday Sunday Podcast by Mark Hart every week. It's kinda like my second homily for the week (or usually, my first homily, cause I try to listen to it before mass). The main thing Mark talked about yesterday was "actions speak louder than words." Peter becomes the first person to publicly say "You are the Messiah." But when his actions didn't match that - he questioned what Jesus was stating about His death. Mark went on to say "if you and I aren't persecuted at least a little bit, we're probably not living the Gospel as boldly as we're called to live it."

When I listened to that podcast, and again today when I listened to this line, I began to think - are my actions really matching with what I'm saying. Truthfully, no. I'm a huge perfectionist and for some reason, I feel this need to come off as being a perfectionist. Especially now, coming off as perfect in my faith life and my prayer life, because if I'm not perfect, how can I really lead others to have a better faith life. So I find myself stating (not exactly) that I pray like 72 hours a day. And really, that's not true - partially because there's not 72 hours in a day. All these books I'm reading about youth ministry say that you need to be truthful with the teens, be vulnerable. Because they will see through fakeness. They will see through my 72-hour-a-day prayer. (: So I need to come away from my perfectionist ways, and make sure my actions really are matching up with my words, and my words with my actions.