{"id":1705,"date":"2015-06-27T19:34:08","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T19:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/?p=1705"},"modified":"2015-06-21T19:45:07","modified_gmt":"2015-06-21T19:45:07","slug":"it-doesnt-take-much-to-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/2015\/06\/it-doesnt-take-much-to-care.html","title":{"rendered":"It Doesn&#8217;t Take Much to Care"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Martyrs and missionaries make astounding sacrifices each day to bring the Gospel and God&#8217;s love to others. They commit themselves to monumental tasks, knowing that they are giving their lives over to serving and, sometimes, dying for others and the Lord. \u00a0And when we look upon these heroic individuals and measure our own lives against their sacrifices, we might feel as if we are coming up severely short &#8211; not doing anywhere near enough as they do.<\/p>\n<p>But, just as not everyone is called to be a priest, minister, doctor, or teacher, not everyone is called to leave home and travel far to engage in missionary work. Nor will every believer be called to die for his or her faith.<\/p>\n<p>No, for some, heroic living that involves service, sacrifice, and sharing the Word means living\u00a0<em>at<\/em> home, serving those close by, and reaching out, to paraphrase Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said, in small ways with great love.<\/p>\n<p>In short, it doesn&#8217;t take much to care. And, in fact, if we wait around for great things to do, we will be missing out on all the less visible ways we might be making a huge difference.<\/p>\n<p>I applaud those who dedicate their lives to the Gospel, whether they leave behind all that is familiar to work &#8220;in the fields,&#8221; or remain close to their roots. Truly, where we live out God&#8217;s purpose is not as important as that we\u00a0<em>do<\/em> live it out. Day by day. Person by person.<\/p>\n<p>Peace,<\/p>\n<p>Maureen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Martyrs and missionaries make astounding sacrifices each day to bring the Gospel and God&#8217;s love to others. They commit themselves to monumental tasks, knowing that they are giving their lives over to serving and, sometimes, dying for others and the Lord. \u00a0And when we look upon these heroic individuals and measure our own lives against&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":548,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,1242,1047,578,1420,1245,1246],"tags":[1777,1778,1774,1780,1775,1776,1779],"class_list":["post-1705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-encouragement-in-life","category-food-for-thought","category-good","category-goodness","category-pain-2","category-positive","category-uplifting","tag-being-a-missionary","tag-called-to-serve","tag-gospel-living","tag-heroic-living","tag-living-the-gospel","tag-missionaries","tag-serving-others"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>It Doesn&#039;t Take Much to Care - Good Days...Bad Days With Maureen Pratt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/2015\/06\/it-doesnt-take-much-to-care.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It Doesn&#039;t Take Much to Care - Good Days...Bad Days With Maureen Pratt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Martyrs and missionaries make astounding sacrifices each day to bring the Gospel and God&#8217;s love to others. 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She expected to be writing scripts. God had other plans. A few years after her graduation, Maureen was diagnosed with a life-threatening case of organ-involved lupus. Her life turned upside down as she grappled with the effects of the illness and other health conditions that ensued. She was no stranger to serious health challenges; even as a child, Maureen had survived numerous bouts of pneumonia, flu, and other infections. But lupus made her take a fresh look at her life goals - and took herlifelong, strong Catholic Christian faith and writing in a direction she'd never imagined. Today, Maureen writes and speaks about walking with the Lord while living with chronic pain and illness. Her most recent book is \"Don't Panic!: How to Keep Going When the Going Gets Tough (Franciscan Media). She is also the author of, \"Peace in the Storm: Meditations on Chronic Pain &amp; Illness\" (Image Books\/Randomhouse), \"Beyond Pain: Job, Jesus, and Joy\" (Twenty-Third Publications), \"The First Year: Hypothyroidism, Second Edition\" (Perseus) and \"Taking Charge of Lupus: How to Manage the Disease and Make the Most of Your LIfe.\" She writes the syndicated column, \"Living Well,\" for Catholic News Service, and has also written for Saint Anthony Messenger Magazine, Journey for Women Magazine, The Upper Room Magazine, LupusNow, and Arthritis Today. Maureen's health continues to be a challenge, however she feels honored to be able to bring her perspective, from experience and knowledge, to others. \"Good Days...Bad Days with Maureen Pratt\" is a new way for Maureen to reach people who carry the burden of illness and pain in their lives, or who care for someone who does. Through the blog, she hopes to bring issues of health, wellness, and spirit into focus and, especially, inspire others that, no matter what health challenges, illness, or hardships they endure, each person can find a good way to realize the wonderful potential God has placed within each heart and soul.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.maureenpratt.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/author\/mpratt"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/548"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1706,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705\/revisions\/1706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}