For the past few months, I have been undergoing some transitions in my life. Since about January I have been preparing to move from the house we have lived in for the past 15 years, and the house that could be considered an ancestral home of sorts as it has been in the family for about 100 years, and moving to a new place back where it all began. (You can read more about that here if you would like)

We are settled into the new place now and I am trying to make a decision on whether I want to change parishes. I have been regularly attending St. Anne’s Parish in Sturbridge since returning to church and have been a member there since first moving to Sturbridge in 1980 something. But now I am living in the place that I have always considered to be my hometown, Southbridge, and am closer to my old parish, Saint John Paul II Parish, formerly known as Notre Dame Parish, the parish in which I received all the sacraments in (except the last one as I think I am still alive) and have been gravitating back to this one.

I guess if I rejoin this parish, I will be a new member of my old parish? Or would I be an old member of my new parish? Although, since technically it isn’t the old parish, but a new parish, would I be a new member of a new parish?

I have always had a problem with feeling like I belonged anywhere, whether it was at school, in church, in the community, which is why even after moving from here to there, I always felt like this was still my hometown. I think this all goes back to an incident in my youth when I was left tied under a porch while the rest of the family went to frolick and play up at the same place I just moved from. But that is a blog post for another time. I have always had a difficult time making friends and fitting in with others in the past and am not sure going to a new parish will make any difference.

But alas, enough of that. What I really want to talk about is this: I have been able to turn my life around in the last few years, ever since the day I fell off the back of that tow truck. I can see the difference that trusting in the Lord has made in my life. I have had some pretty low times in the past years, and it wasn’t until I finally gave in and said “Lord, my life is in your hands now” that things really began to turn around for me. I stopped worrying about what happened yesterday, and I stopped worrying about what will happen tomorrow and I began to take my life one day at a time.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil. – Mt. 6:25 – 34

I truly believe that once I followed this advice from Jesus, that my life has changed. I know that it could change tomorrow, it could go bad at any time, but I also know that God will take care of me as long as I continue to stay on that narrow path. I stopped worrying about “things” and worried about what comes after this life and it has made all the difference in my life.

It’s been a long road, and I have come a long way, and I know I have a long way to go, but with Jesus having my back, I’ll make it.