Is there a place where God is not as we live out our lives on planet earth? No! God is with us. One of the titles of God is Emmanuel which means, "God is with us." Each moment of our lives our God of healing and love is with us.

How difficult is it for many of us to feel and believe that God is with us? Where is he in the middle of all this muck? In all the stress, suffering and ways life breaks down where is God who we believe has created us just for the opposite? Feeling connected to God can seem like grasping at air.

Prayer and church are so important in growing in the reality that God is with us. I have had many people come to me who want that connection with God because they have little or no experience of him in their lives. I ask them if they are regularly praying and going to church and they tell me no. I point out that we can not have any meaningful connection with God if we do not seek that out on a daily basis.

Daily praying and going to church frequently are about changing a preposition in your life from "by" to "to". What does changing the preposition idea mean? Well, in our world of frenetic pace, we seem to be running by everything. People and days become blurs to us. So much that is important is right in front of us, right with us. But we keep running by it. Daily praying and frequent church are all about going "to" the Lord instead of running "by" the Lord. As we practice going to the Lord in prayer and church, we grow in realizing that God is with us each moment of our lives and we can go to him with our needs.

God is always with you. His healing is greater than your suffering and his love is everlasting. Take your suffering, past or present, and hand it over to the Lord.

Let us pray, "God, you are with me. You have always been with me. You know my pain and sorrow. You know what happened. I did not believe you were there but you were. I did not turn to you in belief. But now I do. You know what went on. I ask you to come into that situation and heal me. I need your healing and I believe you are greater than the pain. Show me that you were there and you cared but that you could not stop others from sinning because you gave us all free will. I am tired of carrying it so now I hand it over to you. Take it away and fill me with your healing love. You are with me and I believe. Amen."

Blessed by the BEST,

+Fr. John