God has a way of sweeping us off our feet in a way we would not expect . . . this is my story.
My name is Rachel Graham, and I live on a farm 20 minutes Southeast of Des Moines, IA. I have just come back from a year at the Mater Redemptoris House of Formation in La Crosse, WI where I had the privilege to live with religious sisters and three young women, who are discerning which order the Lord has chosen for them, but my journey to Heart’s Home really begins before I even knew who this great person called, Rachel, is. It began with a small seed, an idea to give my whole self to God and others through joining a religious order. I attended Benedictine College in Atchison, KS where, through many prayers, stress, tears, and visits to religious orders, I fell in love with the Crucified Jesus that is at the center of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George, in Alton, IL.
After the fifth visit to their community, in the hopes of asking Mother Superior for papers of entrance, the Holy Spirit helped me realize, through Mother, that I had the necessary skills to blossom in the convent, but they require a certain level of development before I can enter. I remember asking God, “Well, now what do I do?”. I knew I was gifted with language and wanted to learn more about other cultures, but little did I know that God would actually pick me to do His work like He called St. Paul. It felt like God picked Heart’s Home out of a hat and presented me with the next leg of the journey towards Him. The more I researched and learned about Heart’s Home, the more I kept saying, “THIS IS IT! THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR!”
Heart’s Home is all about being a friend to those who are suffering, alone, or forgotten. We strive to see Christ in everyone, as we carry out our mission to imitate Mary’s example of compassion at the foot of the cross as we pray in community and reach out to others. God has called me by name to befriend His “least brothers” (Mathew 25:40), the ones that people tend to ignore, and I must answer His call by joining my brothers and sisters in Christ as we spread compassion, love , and hope to all the world through Heart’s Home.
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