A New Creation

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They say that change is constant. 

A caterpillar being transformed into a butterfly is the epitome of change. It’s good to keep in mind, though, that this change doesn’t come easily and it doesn’t happen overnight. The caterpillar eats voraciously, and nearly continuously, to grow strong. After she builds her chrysalis and is transformed into a butterfly inside it, she has to work to emerge from it. Her struggle to break through the hard shell is necessary for her to develop strong, healthy wings. Some people have tried to ‘help’ butterflies emerge, but this actually harms them: The caterpillar’s and butterfly’s respective work is what lets her reach her ultimate goal. In all stages of the butterfly’s development, there’s no stagnation. There’s constant work and constant change. 

The same is true for us in our spiritual life. We’ll become stronger in our faith when we resist stagnation – when we work at our spiritual growth and ask God to work with us. We’ll grow stronger in our faith by learning, through prayer and experience, how God wants us to express that faith. We’ll discover how we can show our love for God and for our neighbor with our personalities and talents and all the other resources He’s given us. What God asks of us may very well change with the seasons of our life. As we mature and as our faith grows stronger, we’ll learn to follow God’s promptings and change as He guides us to. And over time, we’ll be transformed – we’ll live with and for Christ more and more. We’ll become kinder, wiser, more patient, more generous, more compassionate, more charitable, more forgiving, more loving, and more prayerful. We’ll become more and more focused on God and less on ourselves. We’ll become more like Him.

To let our Lord accomplish all of this in us, we have to be open to change; we have to allow ourselves to be changed by the One Who created us. To become more like God, we have to become a new creation – we have to become the people He created us to be.

This doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen without effort on our part. So, let’s ask our Lord for the grace to open our hearts to Him, and to help us see how He wants us to change. Let’s ask Him to help us identify and abandon our old, stagnant ways. Let’s ask Him to draw us closer to Himself and to help us take advantage of opportunities to spend more time with Him during our day. Let’s ask Him to show us how we might find new ways to show His love to the people in our family and in our community. 

Let’s ask God for the courage to let Him transform us into the people He created us to be.

“So whoever is in Christ is a new creation...” – 2 Corinthians 5:17

Let everything I do be with You, for You, and because of You.

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below.  Comments are always welcome! 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list. 

You can also find my posts on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the people around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

Born of the Spirit

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Have you ever gotten an idea to call or text someone, not for a special occasion but just to see how he was doing? And when he answered, you discovered that he was feeling lonely or in need of some kind of help? And maybe he told you that your call was an answer to his prayers? Giving you that idea is just one way that the Holy Spirit works. 

Have you ever felt a desire to become active with a charity, or get involved in a ministry in your parish, or volunteer your time for a cause that’s meaningful to you? Have you ever felt dissatisfied with the status quo and then also felt a persistent ache to make a change? When we sense an insistent pull in our heart toward a particular action, we can trust that the Spirit is leading us. 

After Jesus’ resurrection, He sent us the Holy Spirit to be our inspiration, our guide, and our strength. When we’re ‘born from above’ – that is, when we’ve been baptized and we allow the Spirit to help us live in holiness – He’ll work in us. We can’t see the Spirit but we can see evidence of Him, just like we can’t see the wind blowing but we can see tree branches bending and waves crashing. 

When we pay attention to the promptings in our hearts, like those described above as well as others, we see evidence of the Spirit working in us. With experience, we recognize that those ideas are put there by Him. We don’t come up with them on our own, and we can’t force them. We can’t control when and how the Spirit will guide us; what we can do is open our hearts to Him. We learn that when we make ourselves available to Him, He’ll give us His gifts as we need them: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. Then, when we follow His lead and take action, we find ourselves moving closer to God.

Through all of this, we discover that God is creating something new in us, maybe in little ways but something new just the same. We may look back and see that He was leading us toward someone or something that would draw us closer to Himself. Or, He was using us to draw someone else to Himself.

Let’s make ourselves available to the Spirit. Let’s pay attention to His promptings and pray for His guidance and strength. Let’s let Him lead us toward Himself.

“(Jesus said,) ‘You must be born from above. The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’” – John 3:7-8

Open my eyes, that I may see You. Open my ears, that I may hear You. Open my heart, that I may love You in the people around me.

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below.  Comments are always welcome! 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list. 

You can also find my posts on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the people around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

A Hiking Trail's Lessons

 

Wetmore Trail, CVNP

When Ted suggested we hike Wetmore Trail last weekend I immediately said, “Sure! Let’s try someplace new!” In the 35 years I’ve lived in this area, we had driven past signs for this trail countless times, but somehow we never hiked it. It turned out to be a beautiful trail for hikers and horseback riders in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. As we followed this winding four-mile path, I kept thinking, “How have we never hiked this before??” With so many other wonderful trails within a short drive from our home, we’d overlooked this one. I suppose that’s because, like a lot of other activities in life, we tended to go back to the ones that were familiar to us. Whatever the reason, I was delighted that we had stumbled upon something new, with our favorite features: expansive woods away from the sounds of traffic, streams to cross, and a few steep hills that kept it challenging, especially after last week’s snowfall.

Zoom in on the photo above: You can see the trail way up ahead as it winds through the woods. This would be hidden by foliage during every season except winter. I reminded myself that if we hiked only during the warmer months, when the weather’s nice and comfortable, we’d miss the unique kind of beauty that winter brings. 

As I marveled at the beauty and surprise of it all, I couldn’t help but compare this hike and this trail to our spiritual life: 

Advent is half over; Christmas is just two weeks away. It’s time to ask ourselves: Have I done anything different in my prayer life to strengthen my faith, my relationship with God, or my relationships with my loved ones? Have I done anything concrete for the people around me to prepare my heart for the coming of Christ? Or am I still doing what I’ve always done, sticking with what’s familiar, hoping my love for God and my neighbor will magically increase – or, worse yet, am I complacent with the status quo? 

In our spiritual life, if we always do the same things, if we do only what we’re comfortable with, we’ll miss opportunities for spiritual growth. We’ll miss experiencing God’s love for us in new and tremendous ways. Therefore, if we long to feel more fulfilled, if we want to experience a closer relationship with Christ and with the people around us, then we have to do something different. As I learned on the trail, we won’t experience anything new if we keep doing what we’ve always done. 

These last two weeks of Advent, resolve to do something concrete to strengthen your faith. Make time for prayer time. Serve your neighbor and loved ones with greater love. Contribute to a need in your community. Go out of your comfort zone, and watch God fill that empty space in your heart in surprising ways.

“Sing to the Lord a new song.” – Psalm 96:1

“Lord, I want You to renew my heart!”

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2024 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Comments are always welcome! Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list.

You can also find my posts on Facebook!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home, in Ukraine, Russia, the Middle East, and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the families around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

Remember 9/11 and Change

Photo credit:  Free-images.com

It’s hard to believe that, before 9/11, there was little security at the airport. Anyone could enter the terminal. No one had to show an ID. Families and friends hung around at the gate to hug loved ones coming or going. Parents took their small children inside the airport just to watch the planes take off and land, even if no one they knew was traveling. 

So much changed in an instant. As we remember the tragic events of 9/11, let’s keep in mind that life is fleeting and changing. Anything that isn’t changing is stagnant; that includes us. 

Our goal is to become our best, most loving selves, and inspire others to do the same. We do this by learning and growing in our care and concern for our fellow human beings and our planet. Look back and see how much you’ve changed over the years. If you knew then what you know now, what would you have done differently? But at the time, you didn’t know the changes that would happen, and you couldn’t see the world from the future’s point of view. Now that you’re older, do you still expect things to stay the same? Or do you see that everything must change in order to mature? Do you realize that all of us must change in order to grow into the loving people God created us to be?

Look at today: What do you wish were different? Now, look ahead: What’s one change, big or small, that you can make that will move you closer toward reaching that goal? 

One answer might be simply to live more fully in the present while looking with hope toward the future. Look ahead to what kind of person you want to become and what kind of world you want to live in, and start today to create those by building on what you have now. Believe you can make changes with God’s guiding hand. Believe you can have a positive influence on your corner of the world. ‘Seize the day’ and challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone. Push yourself to be kinder and to do the more other-centered, peace-making, or planet-friendly thing. As much as possible, do everything from the perspective of, What can I do differently today to make a more loving impact on the people around me? How can I give them hope for tomorrow? Also, What changes can I make to more closely follow the Three R’s of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle in order to better care for this magnificent planet our Lord has given to us? 

Let’s learn again from 9/11: Life is fleeting and changing. Let’s strive to learn, grow, and change in positive ways, so that we can look back and see that our days were well-lived and well-loved. 

For the world in its present form is passing away.” – 1 Corinthians 7:31

“Lord, help me become the person You created me to be.”    

Thank you for reading my reflection. © 2024 Gina Bedell     Comments are always welcome! 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. Blogspot doesn’t have a ‘subscribe’ feature and so I appreciate your help in sharing my reflections. Thanks!

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list.

You can also find my posts on Facebook!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home, in Ukraine, Russia, the Middle East, and around the world. Donate toward a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the families around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

Time to Make a Change

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“Life is short, and we do not have too much time to gladden the hearts of those around us. So be swift to love and make haste to be kind…” – From a funeral at Church of Our Savior Episcopal in Akron, Ohio

Mourners filled the pews for Beth’s funeral on Monday afternoon, plus the 30 of us who sang in the choir for her service. It was a blessing to be part of it: her 57 short years on earth had been filled with music, laughter, and love.

If there’s anything that gives us a wake-up call about how we’re spending our time, it’s a funeral. We’re reminded of how quickly the years pass, and it encourages us to examine what we’re doing with the time we have here on earth. 

Holy Week begins on Sunday. It might be a good idea to use these last days before Easter to examine how we’re spending our time, and make changes where necessary. 

We can ask ourselves: 

How do I share God’s love with those around me on a daily basis? 

How, and how often, do I let the people who are important to me know that I love them?

Have I given our Lord time and opportunities through prayer to reach into my heart and make me more patient, compassionate, and generous? 

What concrete steps have I taken during this Lenten season to improve my relationship with God and with the people I care about? What reminders can I give myself to continue these practices after Easter?

In addition to my responsibilities for myself and my family, when was the last time I gave of myself to benefit someone who can’t return the favor or pay me back?

If one of these questions struck a chord with you, remember: it’s never too late to make a change.

Maybe our Lord is asking us to change how we approach the people around us. If we’re habitually impatient, apathetic, or stingy toward others, then now’s the time to ask our Lord to soften our heart and mold it to be more like His. 

Maybe we would benefit from treating ourselves with more kindness. If we think of ourselves as being loving, forgiving, and kind, we’ll eventually convince ourselves of it and live up to our own expectations. And when we’re more loving toward ourselves, we’ll be more compassionate toward others. 

Change takes time. If we don’t use our time to make those changes, and if we always do what we’ve always done, then nothing will change – neither in our hearts, in our relationships, or in our community. Our relationship with God and with others will stagnate.

There’s still time. Take steps toward bringing God’s Kingdom of Love to the people around you. Not just because Easter is coming, but because you still have life to live.

“...make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.” – Ezekiel 18:31

“Lord, help me change my heart and make it more like Yours.”

Thank you for reading my reflection. © 2024 Gina Bedell     Comments are always welcome! 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. Blogspot doesn’t have a ‘subscribe’ feature and so I appreciate your help in sharing my reflections. Thanks!

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly to your inbox, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list.

You can also find my posts on Facebook!

P.S.

Pray for peace in Ukraine, Russia, the Middle East, and around the world. Donate toward a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the families around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.