Tag: Love

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The Most Important Thing

We began this series the first week of the year, identifying that we’re all overwhelmed, with me indicating that sometimes we know it and sometimes we don’t. Over the next several weeks, I unpacked what it is that I believe contributes so dramatically to us being overwhelmed. It all begins with us growing up believing that we have to earn the love of other people (conditional love). The more or better we perform, the more love we perceive we receive. When we don’t perform well or to the satisfaction of others (not necessarily reality, but as perceived by us), we believe we aren’t liked, we aren’t loved. Think about it in your life. 

This conditional love causes us to lack self-love, which creates in us fear, which then prevents us from doing or trying what we’re truly called to, using our God given gifts, and meeting our full potential. Instead pursuing the things that society says will make us happy…prominence, possessions, pleasure, and people, we work tirelessly trying to earn the love of others and fill the God sized hole in the center of our chests. Overwhelmed, we feel like the hamster on the wheel in glass cage. 

Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment

Over the next several weeks, we’re going to discuss the ONLY thing that can allow us to solve for the above. I’m going to detail for you the path that our Lord took me on, one of conversion, healing, and transformation…being the very best I can be, who He called me to be.  

As you’ll learn next week, it all begins with conversion, which is when we understand our identify in Christ, truly internalizing the unconditional love and forgiveness of God our Father.  This step is absolutely critical to your path to peace, joy, and fulfillment. Without it, you’ll never get there. 

Here’s an observation. Unless we know the love of Christ, little else matters. Over the last several years, I’ve come to say, if every Priest, and if we extend to the non-Catholic Christian world…every Pastor and Minister, gave every homily, sermon, and message, every Sunday for the next 5 years on the unconditional love of Christ, it just wouldn’t be enough…because we just don’t get it. 

Moreover, God made us for greatness, as identified in Scripture, i.e., Jeremiah 1:5 and 29:11. The problem…no one talks about it. How about this, which is absolute truth…

God loves you more than you’ll ever know, no matter what you’ve ever done. He made you with very special and unique gifts and talents, putting you on this earth for a specific purpose. God made you for Greatness!!! 

On page 71 of my book, I identify several ways you can help yourself towards conversion. If you don’t have a copy but would like the list, shoot me a note. 

As always, please feel free to contact me at [email protected], with questions, comments, concerns, or prayer requests. 

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Remember…God made you for GREATNESS!!!

Mark Joseph

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Weekly Blog

Trapped by Our Wounds

Many of us are overwhelmed by the wounds that we have. Just like tragedy, which we discussed last week, wounds are inevitable. We’re going to have them…all of us. The question or issue is…how do we allow them to impact us? 

Sometimes the things that hurt us are obvious, i.e., tragedies, accidents, painful relationships, or confrontations with other people — these things are all external and it’s easy to recognize them as the source of our hurt. Other wounds are much less obvious. They are often the scars caused by our own emotions sustained over a period of time, i.e., anger, sadness, anxiety, doubt, or fear, perhaps related to the hurts we’ve experienced, perhaps not. Emotional health demands that we become aware of these wounds so we can start the process of healing and moving forward. 

Trapped by Resentment

Resentment toward those who have hurt us can deepen and exacerbate our wounds, with most of us having experienced holding a grudge. Many are trapped and overwhelmed by resentment, it often consuming us. As pointed out last week, there’s a painfully true saying that resenting someone else is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die. In reality, when you harbor resentment, the only person it really hurts is you. Even if the other person knows of it and feels its repercussions, the impact on them pales in comparison to the impact on you. Our resentment can negatively impact not only our view of the situation, but of the world we live in and the people around us.  

For quite a while, I was overwhelmed by my wounds and resentments, almost in disbelief that these seeming “injustices” could have happened to me. My first wife’s long struggle with alcoholism, the failure of our marriage, her death, the loss of my business … I experienced a range of emotions — sadness, despair, doubt, fear — and I remember being angry and bitter almost on a constant basis. It was real. It was penetrating. It hurt, sometimes almost physically. My resentments over these losses consumed me for a while. I felt very isolated, embarrassed to share the details with anyone. It was the most depressing time of my life. 

There is no question that people wrong us, hurt us, sometimes very deeply, whether with malice or not. But when we let this fact get in the way of us living with peace and joy, we only hurt ourselves. 

So how do we get out of habits of resentment and hurt? It is said that the first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is one. We need to recognize the issues that plague us, many of which are the types of wounds referenced above. Self-discovery is an important step in healing. So is research and study in helping to find solutions. Healing might also require reaching out to someone like a friend or mentor, even a therapist. Our fear in facing our wounds can be massively diminished if we don’t try to go through it all alone. 

Time Heals all Wounds 

There is at least partial truth to the saying that time heals all wounds. It was true for me. As time went on, the pain diminished and healing began to set it. That said, time alone would not have moved me past my many resentments. It was critical that I take ownership of my role in each of the painful circumstances, recognizing that I bore real responsibility for what had happened to me. And that difficult realization took time. My old wounds of low self-esteem and low self-worth, having been unresolved to that point, added to the pain of these new wounds and fostered a lot of resentment. It wasn’t until I started the challenging process of fixing myself that I could humbly acknowledge my role in my circumstances and start to heal. You can do it too!!!

I look forward to continuing to accompany you on this journey. As always, please forward any questions, comments, concerns, or prayer requests to me at [email protected]. 

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Remember…God made you for Greatness!!!

Mark Joseph

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Weekly Blog

Tragedy…What a Blessing

It’s said that we can all expect two things as part of life…death and taxes. I would adamantly argue that there’s a third…human tragedy, suffering. No one can escape it. Life is messy and it’s part of humanity, the human condition. 

It can strike as something global like war, terrorism, or a natural disaster. It can be something more personal like separation or divorce, death of a loved one, a major health issue, addiction, a rift in the family, a horrible personal failure, unresolved conflict with a friend, loss of property, or a financial crisis. 

If it sticks around long enough, it becomes personal. If it’s personal long enough, we often develop resentments. Not sure if you’ve heard the expression, “resenting someone else is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die”. I’ve tried it and believe me, it doesn’t work. 

Every single one of us can point to a tragedy, either personally or in the lives of those closest to us. Many ask the question, “how does an all-loving God allow pain and suffering in our lives?” Pointing to me as an example, in addition to most who I know on this journey…it’s to bring us closer to God, to create a greater good. A couple expressions come to mind: 

  • No pain, no gain
  • No Cross, no crown

I just recently heard that we have to be emptied out, i.e., tragedy and suffering, to be filled up. 

Think about it. When things are going tremendously well, you don’t have a need for anyone else, including God. But when things get tough, that’s when you can’t do it alone. If severe enough, it brings you to your knees, often leading to an encounter with Jesus Christ, internalizing His love, and experiencing conversion. That’s what happened to me and praise God. It rocked my world and changed my life forever. 

 

Don’t Miss the Opportunity to Grow

If we allow it, tragedy can be a wake-up call, an invitation to accept the reality of our limitations, to reject the things that leave us feeling overwhelmed and to start moving on the path to lasting fulfillment. The fact is that we can’t control the future or stop bad things from happening. What we can control is the way we live in the present, and the way we accept all the things that happen to us, good or bad. The healthy response is to live joyfully in the moment and to actively engage with others on the journey. 

Some sayings we hear are truer than we know. Examples are “What doesn’t destroy us makes us stronger” or “God only gives us what He knows we can handle.” It is in our tragedies, our defeats in life, that we learn our biggest lessons. My greatest tragedies have resulted in my greatest opportunities for growth.

This may come across as odd, but I’m thankful for the tragedies in my life. If you know my story, you know that they were dramatic. You see, I believe everything happens for a reason, according to God’s grand plan. We may not know why in the moment, but God helps us in making a ministry out of our meses. That’s true for me and true for most I know on this same faith journey. As such, I live in a place of gratitude, knowing I wouldn’t be who I am today without those experiences, albeit very difficult. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today, if not for my significant struggles.

Praise God…it’s never too late to be the person you want to be, the person God calls you to be. 

As always, please feel free to contact me at [email protected], with questions, comments, concerns, or prayer requests. 

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!

Remember….God made you for Greatness!

Mark Joseph

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Weekly Blog

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

Johnny Lee sings a song called, “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.” Viktor Frankl once wrote, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” Matthew Kelly has an expression I love: “We can never get enough of what we don’t really need.” All three quotes relate to us having false gods and chasing false happiness. I refer to them as the 4Ps…Prominence, Possessions, Pleasure, and People. 

Prominence 

We all want to do well, to succeed. Many want to stand out. That could mean business or career success. For others, it might be more about social standing or popularity. Still others want notoriety for excelling in a field or doing good deeds. Prominence makes us feel respected and admired, held in high esteem, and most importantly, loved. Social media plays into this as well, since most of us only put our best selves forward. 

The drive for prominence can also manifest itself in superficial relationships, where we’re really using other people instead of truly befriending them. Maybe we desire to be prominent to them individually, or to impress others by the relationship. 

 

Possessions 

Look at the houses we live in, the cars we drive, and the things we wear. It’s a universal issue, no matter our sex, race, religion, age, or socioeconomic position. No matter the income level or the neighborhood we live in, we value stuff. One indication of this is the amount of personal debt most people have in the U.S. Many live way beyond their means. Cars and trucks can now be financed over longer and longer periods of time. The amount of electronic gadgetry that most of us have is over the top. Then there are all our other physical possessions … the list is endless. 

I’m not suggesting that we should go without a house or a car, but instead understand why we buy what we do. Is it for functionality or status? 

Pleasure

When we don’t know that we’re made for greatness, we rely on distraction and entertainment, anything that provides us with pleasure. Far too many people equate pleasure with joy or happiness. They’re not the same. Joy is long lasting, independent of substance or circumstances. Pleasure, on the other hand, is only experienced in the moment. Once the act creating the pleasure is over, the pleasure is gone. It is fleeting. 

People

Whether we realize it or not, many of us turn other people into false gods. They may be professional athletes, actors, musicians, politicians, dignitaries, the wealthy, very successful, or those that hold prominent positions. But they can also be people in our own life. In my adult life, I didn’t look to the “rich and famous” as my false gods. For me, the people I looked up to (often with envy as well as admiration) were the local business owners and executives in my hometown. I wanted to be a successful business guy more than anything in the world because of what I thought it said about me, and the people I idolized most were those I could reach out and touch. 

There is hope! But we have to stop looking for fulfillment in prominence, possessions, pleasure, and people. Only one thing can fill the God-sized hole in the center of our chest…and that’s God Himself.

As always, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] with questions, comments, concerns, challenges, or prayer requests.  

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

God made you for GREATNESS!!!

Mark Joseph