God placed compassion for the sick and shut in, in my heart. I thought I had it before when I was working as a recreation/music therapist in various nursing homes for 20 years. It was only when God allowed his latest sifting and testing in my life did I truly understand His heart. Thru my storm, He has granted me peace, joy and true compassion for the hurting. His grace and mercy endures forever. I volunteer for the Nursing Home ministry and childrens/nursery ministry. Smooches Lydia

Teaching, I love to teach others in their day to day jobs. If I can go home and have taught someone something new, then I'm happy.

healing through the laying on of hands, and counseling. I once would have said teaching, too, but one of the most important lessons I've learned recently is that I don't have anything to teach, although sometimes I do sense that God uses me to teach, it is certainly nothing that I can take credit for... well... the same goes for healing... Its all God... I just try to make myself available for his use.

GREAT QUESTION!
I FEEL THAT GOD HAS DEFINITELY PLACED THE SPIRIT OF COMFORT & UNDERSTANDING
WITHIN ME.
I NOT ONLY SYMPATHIZE WITH THOSE IN PAIN, OR BATTLING SICKNESS OR DISEASE, BUT I EMPATHIZE BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT THEY ARE GOING THROUGH.
THE LORD ALLOWS US TO EXPERIENCE DIFFERENT OBSTACLES AND DIFFERENT
WALKS IN LIFE FOR A REASON.
WE CAN ALL LEARN SO MUCH FROM ONE ANOTHER.
I TOTALLY BELIEVE THAT IT IS PART OF THE LORD'S BRILLIANT PLAN!
GOD HAS GIVEN EACH OF US TALENTS AND GIFTS.
MY PASSION IS DEFINITELY TO SERVE THE LORD ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE.
GREAT POST!!!!

i haven't looked at posts in this group in quite awhile. i just skimmed over the titles and i kind of laughed when i saw this one. yesterday, i was talking with my friend. we don't know eachother too well but i guess he knows my personal life more than anyone else. he said that it makes him sad that i lack passion. sometimes he'll ask me, what do you care about? what makes you happy? i ... dont really know. this is kind of a silly prayer request but could you guys pray that i find passion for something. sometimes, i dont know why i was put on this earth. i feel that i dont have a purpose. but i hope to find it :)

Ditto volcomsnow, passion, don't have any for anything. Through the years of making bad choices, drug addiction, and mental illness, I've been left with a hole in me. Been there for several years, I long to be passionate about something again. Please pray for me. Thank you

God gave me a joyous faith, a faith that burns slowly and yet with such ardor. God made it difficult for me to see anything at all. All is mostly smoke & mirrors. I began my purgatory on earth when I was very young. I experience solitude on a level that, well, I don't even want anyone to tell me they too are solitary individuals. I read the writings of the Desert Fathers, I am in a desert, I called this season a Winter of the Soul. Better a winter than a prison of the soul. I write epistles to imaginary, fictitious characters.. God gave me inspiration, endless creativity and imagination, and a force of character that is unmatched thus far, in my honest experience. I suffer from all of the worst flaws & foibles of human nature. I am often positive that God hates me, I sing hymns at times like "Jesus Hates Me, This I know, For the Bible tells me so".. For often I feel as though I am Legion, suffering as I do.. No one will risk baptizing me.. I want to be baptized as a Catholic to honor my Grandfather.. I am extremely well-read in christian theology, mostly in Catholic doctrine, dogmatics, writings of the Doctors and Saints.. I have in recent years undertaken a serious study of Byzantine, Orthodox liturgy, theology, etc. I paint icons.. Mary and Saint-Anne are good to me, Pope Johannes-Paulus II is like a saint to me. I am blessed, yet I am perhaps the most cynical man y'all will ever meet. For I am in essence still an atheist, not even an agnostic. I know all too well what this world is.. What it means to have had a God create this Creation which is but one bountiful gift inside another.. endlessly a vast sea of abundance in love and joy and raptures divine profound. My faith is unshakable, and it will infect thee with spiritual pleasures. I am waiting for Opus Dei to come to me with a proposition. I love nothing more in life than Catholic doctrine, the driest most pedantic, erudite, long-winded pieces of writing, the Code of Canon Law, old medieval texts, it is all what God gave me a passion for. God wants me to be the best documentarian in the world, a veritable Archivist, natural-born Alexandrian library-builder. Though I am cynical, my faith is a bounty and treasure-chest of joys profound. And though I am constantly mortified.. and know no security in this world.. And I am persecuted and stigmatized ceaselessly.. I do not even wish to see His Face.. I have no need to see His Face... not when I have seen the impenetrable darkness and a divine darkness tantamount to a Johannian Dark Night.. inwardly.. and have intoned those prayers of my Rosary of Peace... in His Honor, in the name of Truth and Beauty.. that is what my passion is for.. I am both Jonah Cartier and Jonas-Thanatos.. two sides of the same coin, though y'all can just call me Alex.. I am a puissant, unshakable Christian.. And yes, I am all too aware of my vanity, it is grandiose, and I still choose the path to perdition.. At least I think I have chosen this path all my life, for I am completely without remorse and have known no authentic repentance. Every day I try... that is what I need help with...

Can y'all help me to truly feel an authentic sense of being repentant? I have been in the Eleventh Hour for centuries, it seems... Timelessness is the norm for me.. I do not utilize illicit substances.. I am not an epileptic.. or a hermaphrodyte or anything special.. Just a man who is 31 years into his earthly existence which is a god-given purgatory...