The Face of My Fear

 

Hey, I think you’re living in a cloud!

Several days after my (hopefully) last final examination for Graduate School (for my first MAEd that is), a voice inside me whispered those words.

It was very quiet then. Even as I try to recuperate from several days of lack of sleep and really gritty eyes, and even as I try to busy myself with work, with accepting an opportunity (a torture at this stage) to serve God vocally in front of my fellow SFCs, with working on two project proposals for our LGU linkages,  with reading shoujo manga’s on the side, a part of me, just a little part, was rebelling and was trying to pull me away from all this… like I am doing too much of stuff for people – without connecting to these people.

I feel hollow inside now. And I am longing for something simple… something where I can get in touch with people, something where I can still watch the sunrise and the sunset and do quiet walks surrounded by the beauty of creation.

Home, work, home, work, graduate school… busy travelling to and fro and not really seeing where you are going and who you are connecting with… where is life in that? Where is love?

Somehow, a part of me longs to be somewhere else, with people whom I can help and who see me not as some one who can do something great, but someone who works with great love in her heart.

I cannot give up thoughts of becoming a religious sister because I fear what I might become if I stay single – a power hungry, status driven old-maid who sticks by the rules. I am afraid of losing what little love has started to warm my life.

I want to get out there and do something like volunteer. I want to get out there and do something that is not for me but for the other person or persons. I want to serve like that’s what I am meant to be or do…I fear becoming so driven like this for work, for position and status, for promotion… I fear that so much… I fear becoming so detached that I will not feel Jesus in my heart anymore.I fear that above all else.

I was always wondering why I was getting chilled before… I was trying to cover up my true fear by not facing them. My fear has an ugly face but it was really so simple. I was just so good at complicating things that I ended up not able to grasp it.

I know what it was like to live without love. Everyday was in monochrome, like everything is gray, or black and white. Like you are an automaton functioning simply because you have to. I am only starting to feel how love can color my world.

But I was only able to have short glimpses of it. I long to be overwhelmed by that love. I long to be immersed in it. I long to bask in it fully that all I am, every moment, is a reflection of that love.

However, I do not know how to….

Dear Heart 1: A Post-Valentine Reflection

 

I was astounded by one of Macrina Weiderkehr’s reflections on John 14:1-14.

Let me lift her lines on this:

“A troubled, anxious heart is like a little person. It has its own personality and we do need to learn how to be with it. Here are some ways of being present to your troubled heart.

1. Take if for a walk in the early morning hours when few people are around.

2. Sit with it for long hours gazing into the waters of the lake.

3. Take it to a window at night. Turn out the light; open the curtains and gaze at the stars.

4. Light a candle. Sit down and empty your dear head of thoughts to the extent possible. Become one with your breathing. Let your breath become your prayer.

5. Write a poem for it! Sing it a song!

6. Take it for dancing lessons!

7. Listen to a beautiful piece of music with it!

8. Introduce it to the wide-open spaces of a meadow and fresh air.

9. Have tea with it and maybe even invite a friend.

10. Take it to church for holy hour.

                                            - from Abide, Keeping Vigil with the Word of God

I want to follow what she said but since I am too scattered to write a poem for it, let me write a letter then, an open letter to my heart.

Dear Heart,

In the 28 years that you beat on my chest, I never really thought of you as a part of me. Your presence in the cavity on my chest embarrassed me. We used to be friends when I was younger. I used to wear you on my sleeves. I used to openly share you with others. We used to laugh out loud. We used to have friends. We used to sing, and talk long hours with someone else’s heart. We used to play and run freely in the meadows. We cried when my grandfather died. When you stopped crying and I saw others crying inside that church, we would start again.

You used to beat so fast when I see guys I admire from afar. When I first wrote a love letter and handed it to that crush who crushed you in return, you retreated a little. But you would come out to play with your best friends and we found other guys to admire. We just made sure never to let others know.

Then, do you remember the one time we were about to leave school and someone teased me that I am so OA. I felt OA was bad and thus, you were bad. I stopped talking and listening to you, didn’t I? It’s easier to temper my reactions when I can no longer feel you.

Now, you have completely hidden yourself from me. Even at those points I allowed myself to feel emotions, I do not trust what you allowed me to feel. And sometimes, I cannot even identify what I feel.

I am sorry for hiding you, for locking you up for so long. I know it made my life easier. No one made fun of me again. No one hurt me. No, I did not care enough to be hurt. I had no feelings. 

Now, you have become a stranger to me. Who are you? What are you? At times, you scare me now. The way you beat, the way you want things I think you should not want. The way you just seem to take over me. Take my hand again. Talk to me. Let me feel you. Get out of hiding and look at Him. Let Him heal you after the way I have treated you. Let Him assure you that you are safe in His hands. That yes, you will still get hurt, will still feel pain but that’s okay. One touch of His healing hands and you will be okay again. Scarred yes but alive, beating, living, breathing.

Stop hiding. Join me in prayer, in worship. You can cry before Him. You can tell Him everything since He already knows them anyway. Let Him hold you and take care of you as I never did. I am sorry for hiding you for so long, for rejecting you, for not getting to know you.

When I first read Macrina’s reflections a few days ago, I am sorry for thinking how recalcitrant and contrary and bratty you have grown. I am sorry for being angry that you refused to subject yourself to my will, my mind. I am sorry for feeling perplexed and disappointed that you are one broken piece of organ that I can do without! I am sorry for being impatient with your unpredictability, your tantrums. I did not try to understand you. I have ignored and abandoned and starved you of love and affection from others and from myself thinking it would protect me from pain, rejection and disappointments.

No wonder you’d rebel.  No wonder you would be uncontrollable. You have so much in you, so much you could have shared which I have controlled, curtailed and killed. Get out of that cell now. It is safe there but it’s not a happy place to be.

I know a much safer place for you. In His hands is where you should be. Because He will take very good care of you.

                                                                                                        Love,

                                                                                              Heaven’s Mind

Regrets

Need I say more?

Perfect Peace

Life is one tension after another.

When you think you have just met one deadline and can sit back and relax, another one would come in. Sometimes, tension does not wait. In the middle of a life altering problem, another turmoil inserts itself.

Will there ever be peace and ease for man’s weary heart?

When you feel this alone, this desperate, is there ever peace like the one your heart is longing for?

According to Laura Story’s song, Perfect Peace, there is:

Lord, I long for Your perfect peace. Right now, I feel alone, desperate, lonely, overwhelmed with struggles… remind me that I am never alone.

Broken Before God

 

 

Psalm 51 is a heavy psalm. I don’t know where I read this from, or if I did read it somewhere but this Psalm somehow echoes that feeling David may have felt after he learned how sinful he has become and how he has refused to even see it.

What is a broken spirit like? How broken can you be before you can say your are broken before God? Can you mend that brokenness?

A part of me is aching right now. I am broken. I can see the shattered pieces of myself all around me but I try to hide the pieces from Him and from myself. It’s frightening, the evil I sense and sometimes feel in me. I just want to be pure and clean and whole before Him. I need to feel that.

But the depth of loneliness and sadness  I feel right now, as I hide from Him, is killing me.  Is this what it means to be broken?

A Sonnet for my One True Love

 

Back in college, there was one Shakespearean sonnet I adored simply because it initially described my idea of what marriage or love should be.

Sonnet 116

by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove,

Oh no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempest and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown. although his height be taken.

Love’s not Times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickles compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom,.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ nor no man ever loved.

 

Well, to put it bluntly, this is the sonnet that disappointed me. I never found that kind of love. Around me, marriages were breaking apart, couples were splitting up after passionate weeks or months of being together. What once was so loved became so hated. I never trusted love after personally seeing what it can do to a twenty-year old marriage.

I would smile at heartbreaking break ups and splits and nod my head sagely saying Shakespeare was oh so wrong. I never experienced a break up myself but I considered myself lucky I was spared the trouble. I was one of the joyless club, I thought, but then I think I’d prefer to think I was part of the better-safe-than-sorry group. So I threw away that silly sonnet I carefully wrote on a piece of Cattleya note and lovingly taped on my college clipboard. Shakespeare was a fraud and love is just that, an urban myth.

And then, Love found me. My True Love found me in my most hidden corner, sulking bitterly over the silliness of life. And I learned, it’s not that Shakespeare was wrong.Its just that I have been looking for love in the wrong places. I have been searching and expecting it from other people who never really knew what Love is. I have been scouring every piece of romance novel I could find for my happily ever after and was more surprised I never found it there. True love cannot be found in a mere piece of paper or corruptible flesh. Love is this: that He gave His son, His only begotten Son, for us.

That’s love. That is my One True Love.

P.S. And yes, He proved Shakespeare right, every bit of what is written in Sonnet 116 is true.

 

 

Making a Choice: How to Love (Pt.1)

Love is a verb that requires an object.

That is the one sure thing I have learned about love. Touchy subject.So, how do I live my life in love? Living in love is truly living out your vocation or living according to God’s purpose for you.

I became aware that the Christian vocation may be lived out in any of the three basic ways : the married state, the single state in the world, and the religious state.

I used to think that when you say vocation, you really mean becoming a nun. That to go on a vocational discernment retreat (or something) is to emerge as a nun. But its not like that at all. A vocation is God’s calling for us to carry out a particular role he has designated for us in his plan. And God’s plan is none other than to bring all people in union with Him. (from a booklet by the Daughters of St. Paul)

I am at that point in life where I am seriously thinking about my vocation, something I have not done before.Until that fateful (and a little reluctant, yes, sadly, when it comes to God, I have been a reluctant disciple…) and eventful individual consultation with one of the nuns from the Daughters of St. Paul. (That was during the Singles for Christ’s Western Visayas Regional Conference last September 27-29, 2013 at Ateneo de Iloilo). She told me that the age limit for entering as an aspirant with the Daughters of St. Paul was 28 years old. I have reached that limit. 

If I don’t do something, a door will close for me, a door I am fondly considering. I like what the Daughters of St. Paul is doing. The Daughters of St. Paul is an international religious congregation of women who are called and consecrated to proclaim Jesus Christ and make His WORD alive to the world by witnessing to a life lived through prayer, study, community life and through the apostolate of social communications.

The nun I talked to (I forgot to ask her name!), said I could come and visit them anytime in their place in Iloilo. I could visit their Chapel just to pray and talk to them. The problem with this girl she was talking to is that if it involves taking the initiative, you will just have to wait forever. I never take the first step. I like being dragged around because if things go wrong, I could always blame the one who dragged me around! If Peter was the disciple who denied Jesus, and Judas betrayed Jesus, and Paul persecuted Jesus, and Jonah tried to run away from God, I guess my claim to fame (well, in my own mind) is that I am the reluctant believer! I want to, yes, but I am a coward!You need to force me to do something I actually wanted to do in the first place (but, tell me not to do something and I will set my mind on doing just that!). Besides, I like being sure and certain of things. (And I was told how erroneous this need is, fueled probably by a lack of faith in the One who holds my forever).

So now, I am seriously pondering where God is calling me, where He is leading me. I can recall several  things from the consultation and from the RECON itself.

1. I don’t have much time left until one of the three options is taken away from me forever.

2. I need to pray for the grace of  courage to do what God has called me to do.

3. I should learn to trust God with my future and not secure my future by myself (she told me that. I have the tendency to “ensure” my future and refuse to listen to His loving urgings).

4. Not all are called to serve Him in this way.  It’s a special call.

5. I need to be open to wherever He leads me. I should be open to all three vocations: the married state, single blessedness, and the religious life, while discerning and praying for my vocation, for His call for me. (I guess I clued her into the fact that I want single blessedness over the other two because holy matrimony and the religious life wreaks a lot of havoc in my heart ( I am afraid of both).

6. I need to pray, to listen to Him attentively so that indeed, I would be responding to His will, not mine, not my mother’s, not other peoples’ but His alone (freaking out here, how do I do that?)

I don’t know where this will lead me. I am not even sure if I want to know or if I am ready to know the answer. I don’t know where I will get the courage to tell my mother that, if I am called to the religious life, to be a bride of Christ, that I would be doing what she has called  “my foolishness”. (I used to joke about becoming a nun, just to tease them, just as I joke about getting married when I get irked with them a bit for disregarding me).

During the Provincial Conference last year, I felt that aching call which I set aside because I cannot face it at that time. I was unwilling, a lot unwilling and I told myself that maybe, my vocation was to become a blessing to everyone by staying single, because I could reach more people in the “normal state”.

Then, in this year’s RECON, why is there a discontent? A persistence for something else. Why is there a restlessness, a dissatisfaction in my soul? Why is there a call for more? I am already doing mission work just by being a teacher to my out of school youth and adult learners! I am already so blessed in my present state really. This should be enough. I am happy with my journey but why is it that there seems to be more, that there is something much deeper, richer and fuller somewhere out there?

I don’t want to regret not doing this. I am unsure where to start, but I am sure He will teach me, lead me, and make His will known to me.

I am His Beloved

 

 

Love is something I would have never touched with a two foot pole. Love is something I used to reserve to describe an emotion I would rather read about than experience. Love is something I always thought would eventually just lead to tears and disappointments.

I am familiar with hard work and dedication. I am very intimately connected with words like “obligation” and “responsibility” and “sacrifice”.

But I can’t seem to connect love and myself in one sentence….

I am currently reading “The Story of a Soul” by St. Therese of Lisieux and I feel a little resentful because God did not give me parents like He gave Therese Martin. The “Little Queen” (as her father called her) had a childhood filled with so much love – from her parents and her sisters and from her God. At such a young age, she was already drawn to the divine.

She has so much love to draw from.

I grew up in a household where love is not demonstrated. So, I grew up cold and callous and uncaring, not because I chose to be cold and uncaring but because I did not know how to be anything else. There was just nothing inside my heart. I used to feel nothing at all. I was seldom moved by compassion, seldom moved to tears, seldom touched by scenes that would have made others cry. I felt neither pain nor comfort, neither joy nor sorrow. Everything was gray. I only feel the things that hurt my pride. I was simply existing, moving on from one chapter of my life and stoically smiling over tragedies and triumphs, while inside, there was just this empty hole.

I was incapable of love because I never felt love.

St. Therese said “… I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would lose its springtide beauty, and the fields would no longer be enamelled with lovely hues.” Why can’t I have had parents like St. Therese’s mother and father so that I would have grown up into a loving woman like St. Therese… so that I could have had known and loved God with all of me ever since I was a child?

But then, who am I to question His plan for my life? He gave me my Nanay and Tatay because He had His reasons. My parents are good parents.They are responsible parents and they loved me in ways I had not seen because I was expecting them to love me in a certain way. And now, I can honestly say that I love them… just as I love my brothers and sisters. No, not out of familial obligation and responsibility but out of something inside me that has been growing and breaking free since I felt how much He loves me.

Love is now a wonderful feeling. Love is now this strange and beautiful thing I hold out in the open when I am alone. It is something that I ponder and wonder at in the silence of my solitude. Love is so amazing. Love is everything and if not for my experiences, if not for the lack of love in my life before, if not for that void in my heart, I would not have this kind of appreciation, and sense of wonder before It.

Love is God. God is Love. God is amazing. Love is amazing. God is wonderful. Love is wonderful. Love is all I need. God is all I need… because I am His beloved and He is mine… And I love Him with all that I am….

See how He works? Glory and praise to the King alone.

Saturday Afternoons, Red Gloves and Tears

 

Still reading Unafraid, and was only able to finish Gideon’s Gift and Maggie’s Miracle from the Red Gloves collection, but these are stories that would change a readers life, if you only open your heart and head to it.

I was morose that whole week, wondering what I wanted from life and wondering why I feel so unfulfilled, and a little resentful about my lot in life.

That short, quick, unexpected Saturday afternoon talk with Nong Gil was certainly an eye-opener.

I wanted to write. I just don’t know why I can’t anymore.

I like teaching. I am just not sure why I feel so restless with what I am doing.

Reading, after God and family, is my one (well, three actually), Great Love. So, why do I keep flipping from book to book, cover to cover, author after another author, without really reading anything?

What could be so wrong?

I guess, I have learned to separate the heart from the brain that what the brain can comprehend, the heart can’t express and what the heart can feel, the brain cannot realize. Not really unusual. I may look like one whole big person but deep inside, I really am just one huge compartment with a lot of little compartments subdividing the rest of my life.

And that afternoon, I understand why I have to get hurt while reading a book and that it’s okay to cry (just not where my mother and siblings could see me). And that by so doing, I am letting my heart and brain connect with each other again.

I can’t write while I am not whole. I can’t be myself without the freedom of using what He has given me all along. I don’t know what I am capable of yet because I have always been too afraid to try.Still am though.

But this week, I found my way back into the arms of my most favorite activity, with all of me, this time. And while lying on a hammock, I absorbed one great story with both my head and my heart, taking in a series of stories involving a Red Glove and Christmas time.

After crying a river (Karen Kingsbury, seriously, knows how to make a person cry), and after engaging the whole of me in the exercise, I felt better afterward. This has always been the ultimate reading experience for me – taking in all my senses, delighting the intellect and stimulating the heart – and feeling good afterward.

Romance novels have dulled my heart after many years of gobbling them (they are just like the junk food of books). But, the kind of fiction that Francine Rivers and Karen Kingsbury create makes me feel and think and appreciate life. They make me feel more alive and closer to Him. They make me feel a part of Him, His creation. They make me think of Him and they make me cry because He makes me cry often. (And only He can do that – and reading too, and yeah, my mother as well).

And maybe, someday, I would be able to write something like what Rivers and Kingsbury have written and maybe, that would make me feel ever more alive, and fulfilled and much closer to Him too.

I Want to Write

 

Right now, I feel something literally screaming my name – the front cover of a book, several books, books meant to be written.

I have always wanted to become a writer, a novelist…

I chose to become an English teacher because I thought I would be able to become a writer and be practical at the same time. I thought I could do it.

When I became a teacher 7 year ago, I thought I only needed a laptop. When I had my laptop five or six years ago, I thought I needed time. I decided to become a Mobile Teacher because I thought I would be able to have the “time” to become a writer. And I never really did – finish anything that is.

I finished several unpublished poems that fell short of whatever literary criteria the world has. I was able to plot several young adult fiction that never came into fruition. I managed to blog about things that matter and don’t matter to me… I was able to finish a script which they intend to publish as material for our sessions, and with colleagues, we were able to finalize a modified big book and a brochure on responsible parenting.

Now, the call is so loud and so deafening that I could not think. I could not return to our fellowship with SFC because everything is so unclear to me right now. I want to write. I want to write. I want to write. I can feel this thudding in my blood. When the crowd goes away for the day, and I find the time to be alone, the same mantra begins to play in my heart.

But, I can no longer write romance novels I have effortlessly plotted when I was in High School. They seem too froufrou, like a mockery of the life I have seen so far. I can no longer write poems forthey seem to deep and too artificial a venue to express the slice of existence I have tasted in the past three years. I cannot seem to write short stories. I never knew how, anyway.

I want to write. I crave it with all of me. But why is it that the words refuse to flow, the plot refuses to shape itself, the inspiration fails to come?

I want to write. So why can’t I?

Developing Oneself while Developing K to 12-Compliant ALS Learning Materials

This week's Workshop on the Development of K to 12-Compliant ALS Learning Materials here at the GSP Helena Z. Benitez National Program and Training Center here in Tagaytay City is both a professional and personal growth time for me.

The writers @ GSP, Helena Z. Benitez National Program
and Training Center, Tagaytay City.

We were required to study the ALS curriculum vis-a-vis the K to 12 Curriculum of the formal school. Just going over the differences, similarities and gaps between the two is a nerve wracking process. Findings revealed that the ALS Curriculum for Basic Education is not that different from the K to 12 Curriculum once the gaps have been addressed... and that is the reason why we are here - to address the differences.

I have always been a solo-worker.

I don't really resent other people's opinion regarding how I work but the artistic bent in me desires full and free expression. I want to be able to fully explore all options and possibilities available to me.

However, we were grouped into learning strands and we were expected to work together. Since I am not used to it, I did not know how to approach this particular project. But with Ma'am Cora from La Carlota and Ma'am Elaine from Cavite, I was able to learn something essential. I can work with a partner or a group.

I can work even if I am not very interested in the material I am developing. I can actually surrender  and leave everything to God. I can go with the flow and trust that He will not drop me as long as I rely upon Him for everything.

I will probably be talking of all the other experiences, moving and touching experiences I had this week but yes, I feel so blessed because He never left my side at all.

All the Time in the World

 

When I heard from our household head that our area coordinator in the lower north sector of the CFC-SFC is leaving for abroad, the only words that crossed my mind was “I thought I had more time.”

I thought I had more time. I did not realize how much I would regret taking a rain check for a sleepover with the two of them last December. I never expected that I would regret clamming up whenever she asked me questions because I thought we were in a rather public setting. I never thought I would regret holding back questions I would have popped up just because I was afraid what those questions would reflect about me, and who I am or how people see me. If only I were more forthcoming, more open, more accepting, more courageous…

Sayang. So many wasted opportunities. So many chances of getting to know a woman who is so spirit-filled and so blessed as Sis Tess is. I could have talked to her. I could have shared, really shared with her.

What held me back? Fear?Trepidation? The usual social- distance- rule engraved upon me from my rather dry and sterile background? Being too shy? Insecure?

Cold creature comforts tonight – as I think of the overflowing blessings and graces I received just by listening to her address us in general. I listened to her and I was comforted, affirmed, strengthened, reminded, loved…

She has allowed God to love others through her. And I thought I had all the time in the world to really, really share in her life.

But all the time in the world ended today…..

Like an Avalanche

I have never experienced an avalanche… but I have experienced this.

Yes, I find myself here on my knees again. Caught up in grace like an avalanche. Nothing compares to this love burning in my heart. And no, it’s not my love but His love…setting fire to my soul, creating a new song in my parched heart… A wellspring of love, unending, majestic and consuming love.

He Broke My Heart Many Times

He broke my heart many times.

He took away my toys-

     Trampled on my palace walls.

     Destroyed my prince and princess

     And smote my mighty fortress.

He broke my heart many times.

He annihilated my room -

     Demolished my CD stacks,

     Knocked down the many shelves,

     And threw out all my books.

He broke my heart many times.

He crushed my little home -

     Pulled apart its foundations,

     Smash its ramparts upon itself,

     And burned down everything else.

He broke my heart many times.

Until I fell apart and found myself in His arms –

     Broken heart made whole

     And stonelike no more. 

                           - written on November 21, 2012, 08:50 PM

The State of the Fallen

Dark. It is very dark where I am today.

There is no visible light.

I wanted to reach out but I am afraid of what I might touch in the darkness.

I wanted to call out, but I am afraid that I would lead them to my corner of this darkness.

So I lay still, shivering, huddled in one corner...

Waiting...
Just waiting....

Reeling from My Reality

    I could never seem to get my feet back on the ground.

My World of Work: Sharing yourself with others often drains
you dry.

A week of work (or no work for that matter) and I am still reeling from the things I have realized, and learned. It's like I need sometime to absorb all the things I have learned, let them seep through my pores and settle into the deepest part of my soul.



That short, spiritual stint was like a taste of some drug. Although I have not tried any, I think I have experienced a certain "high" that I keep longing for... fellowship with Christians who simply love without judging you for either past or future is one of those happy feelings I have come to cherish.

This must be what is meant by 'heaven on earth". It must be nice if all
 of humanity feels this same oneness. It must be nice if that feeling of oneness, of loving one another is felt at home, at work, in every community, in our secular world.

A Scene from the SFC Provincial Conference: When the cup runs
dry, fill it up from the great Source

Maybe I am just trying to reconcile both areas of my life - the spiritual and the secular. And maybe I cannot seem to comprehend why I have to be so on guard outside the SFC community and be so open inside it. Maybe I am just trying to keep the usual numbness from killing the growing bud of love within me.

The fruit of the spirit is love. A loving community is a sign that it is indeed a place of worship for God. Without love, all is an exercise in futility.

Lord, I pray, teach me to love... Teach me to absolutely surrender everything to You... And I pray, when I get back into the world, a world I should not be a part of, lead me to the path that You want me to take.

Through the Mirage

Two day's after the SFC Provincial Conference and I am feeling another bout of restlessness. 

I took the day off (well, not totally since I am also working on the MIS at home), in order to think about certain matters, and ask myself questions that I fear to answer.

I am currently reading a book by Robert Fabing, SJ which deals with Self Knowledge. The Spiritual Life: Recognizing the Holy is one difficult book to understand. You just can't pause somewhere in the chapter and expect things to flow when you take up the book next time.

It demands a thorough read through (huh). Anyway, this reaffirms ( I am getting terribly fond of the word), my experience during the Weekend Retreat at the Carmelite Missionaries in Duenas. 

And I have come to realize the same thing as well. I am living an image. I could not consciously remember everything but I realized that the real me has not emerged. What people see is the me I wanted them to see. Reliable, serious, dependable, non-threatening, soft-spoken, quiet and mousy, Miss Do-It-All. They think I am this nice girl in the corner who simply loves to have life pass her by. They think I am this obedient and self-sacrificing daughter.

But deep inside, a voice was rebelliously and querulously plotting the downfall of such a person. I am not Miss Goody-two-shoes. I am the empty shell of a girl denying her real self.

Inside me, there is emptiness... I do not know how to love. I know responsibility, obligation, and decency. I also know about morality and accountability. I value honesty.

And I wanted to be perfect for a reason. But I am not perfect. I am totally imperfect. I am a fake. Inside me is an angry grl crying out, screaming in frustration and rejection. I have been rejected and in order to protect myself from such a pain, I denied all feelings. I became an automaton.

Currently, through my work as a Mobile Teacher and thru the SFC community, I am being taught how to love. I have come to know social feeling through my learners. But I have yet to learn of love. I know God loves me but I am the one incapable of it.

I would not know love even if it gobbles me up alive because my idealized self killed all feelings inside. I realized I have been dead for a long time now. 

The Spiritual Life, according to this book, is a journey inward... a process of getting to know oneself, getting to know the real self.

I used to think I knew who I really am. Now, I realized I truly do not know who I am... and I want to know who I am as God created me, not as I wanted to appear to others... I want to be real. To be true. I have been faked for a long time. I have been seeking for a long time. 

Lord, I pray, give me the wisdom to know where to look for that self I have hidden from for a long, long time. I also pray for the courage to confront the person You have created me to be... and not hide from it anymore...as mentioned before, I am "fearfully and wonderfully made"... and I want to know that fearful and wonderful creature You have created. 

When Nothing Makes Sense

I filled my life with work, familial obligation, friendship...and still, it is not enough.

I decided to go one step better and joined an organization of young men and women who are searching and still, it is not enough.

You might think that I am happy, satisfied with life. How do the English put it, 'I am most content." Am I?

No.

Because in my heart, there is a hunger for more. In my heart, there is this compelling urge to give more. My line of work requires me to do so. Give more and get less. But, still, it is not enough.

I am starting to feel this nagging sense of unease that's eating me from the inside out. I want to do more, be more for Him. I want to give it all to Him because to do less renders everything meaningless.

There is a gaping hole in my heart that no worldly thing could ever fill. I want my God. It cries, relentlessly. I want to serve my God.

But, I know I am unworthy of it all. A sinner, not just in action, but more in thoughts and in words and in motivations. And still, my heart craves for more of Him. I long for that time when I can do something and honestly say, Lord, I am lifting this up to You. This is Yours. Be glorified.

Lord, I do long for that day when I can honestly say that my life is truly yours, that everything I do, I do in Your name. Lead me to that day.

My Journey: Personal and Intimate

I am on a journey. I now see how the earth is supposed to be our land of adventure and discovery and the one thing that we seek is God.

I did not see it this way before. I knew I was on a Journey. I just never realized what that journey was for. I knew I was seeking something. I just did not know what it was. I also know I was supposed to be doing something as well, that I have a task in this world. I am just not sure what that was.

So, I went on with life as if I were simply travelling. I was a bus with no route. A traveler with no map and no specific destination. Was I lost? No, I don't think I was. I can only be lost if I have a destination in mind and I am no longer in the right path towards that end.  But as it is, I had no place to go. I was just moving around.

But not anymore. After SFC, after that single retreat before lent, I have come to realize a lot of things. I am on a pilgrimage towards Christ. My life is like the story of everyone else who walked this earth before me. Just like our graduation song in elementary school - we are pilgrims on the journey ...a journey back into the embrace of our God.


Although I have come to the ripe old age of 26, I have only taken a few, mincing steps forward. Most of the sprint, the walk, the climb even the crawl that I made in the past were made towards other directions but not towards the right one.

Now, step by step, like an infant learning to walk, I am making my way towards Him. The path is not clear. The road is not easy. And the funny thing about walking down this foggy road is you cannot even see the map. It's dark. It's too quiet by far. It's my journey alone.  But, I am holding on to Someone's hand this time. I am listening to Someone's voice as He guides me along the way.

He loves me. He loves me with the kind of fearsome, frightening love that sends me to my knees every time I realize and feel it. But, I cannot honestly tell Him that I love Him. Not yet. There is a little of it in here, in my heart, but it is not yet the all-encompassing and outpouring love - the love that I long to give Him, the love that I know I am capable of giving to Him. All of me, and everything in Me.

But that is the end of my journey. Me and Christ. Reconciled. Me loving Him with all that I am and everything that is in me. Me basking in the wonder of His love and mercy.

The CFC-SFC Covenant

After completing the Christian Life Program of the CFC-SFC last year and during the Lord’s Day last August 28, 2011, we were given our SFC tool kit containing a sort of welcome note, the CFC guidelines for business dealings between or among members, the SFC Bible Reading Guide, a one-year reading guide for reading through the new testament, an ID, and a little booklet thingy which enumerates the Covenant of the CFC Singles for Christ.

Here is what is written in that covenant.

Trusting in the Lord’s help and guidance:

1. I shall live as a follower of Christ:

·         Pray daily for at least 15 minutes

·         Read Scriptures daily for at least 15 minutes

·         Live a righteous life and avoid situations which are occasions for sin.

·         Put good order into my private life and support my parents in building a Christian family.

·         Participate regularly in the worship life of my church.

2. I will work towards the evangelization and transformation of my work place, my family and my community:

·         Put good order in my work situation

·         Be a witness of the love and power of the Lord Jesus in my work and in my family

·         Be a good steward of all resources entrusted to me.

·         Be a good citizen of my country, obeying its laws and protecting its environment.

3. I will be a committed and active member of the CFC Singles for Christ:

·         Attend my small group meetings regularly and support the good order of the meetings.

·         Faithfully participate in all the activities of the group.

·         Relate in love, loyalty to and respect for all my brothers and sisters in the Lord.

·         Intercede daily for the group and its mission.

4. I will make myself available to the Lord for service:

·         Bring other single men and women to Christ.

·         Give generously of my time and resources to the Lord’s service, whenever I am called and follow directions of those who have responsibility for the service.

·         Support the work of Couples for Christ and its ministries.

5. I will study and seek to grow as a Christian person:

·         Attend all teachings, retreats, seminars and conferences of the CFC Singles for Christ.

·         Diligently study all materials given to me.

May the Lord Jesus Christ help me to be faithful in living out this commitment everyday for His greater honor and glory and for the good of my brothers and sisters.

_____________________________________________

Signature

Until now, I have not yet signed the covenant because of certain fears, and certain issues that I have not yet clarified. I told myself I was not ready to follow it. In fact, I am not the only one who has not signed the covenant. I know several brothers and sisters who have not signed theirs because of the fear and the doubts that clouds the heart – maybe, I can’t live up to the covenant, I am afraid of disappointing the Lord,  I am not good enough, I am unworthy, I am not strong enough…

We only see the bottom line – the blank that requires our signature. I did too. I keep seeing the back flap of the booklet every time I attempt to sign. It seems to mock me in my humanity, my weakness…

History shows how many times covenants have failed. In fact, man seems to be predesigned to fail God most of the time. We have so many custom-made excuses for our failure to obey Him. I am only human, we say. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. No wonder SFC newbies are afraid to sign this covenant. It asks us too much. And we want to have the excuse that if we did fail, we can only say that we have not signed anything – but this, this contract is very clear in its stipulations.

However, in all our worldly fears, we seem to have forgotten a statement at the beginning.

It says: TRUSTING IN THE LORD”S HELP AND GUIDANCE…I WILL…

I would never have signed this covenant… until yesterday’s exposition with our retreat master, Sr. Rose of the Carmelite Missionary.

Last Saturday, I was made to face my fears and my pains and there were a great many of them. They led to a feeling of numbness, a “deadness” inside that festered and affected my growth as a child of God. I took on roles and lived fixedly to those roles all the while thinking that if I let my masks slip, the world will reject me. I became the selfless daughter, the workaholic government employee, the patient teacher, the generous sister, the nice friend… but they were all on the surface. It was not me, not who I am. The self, according to Sister Rose, has four layers. We have the outer layer, the role self (the masks we wear), then we have the natural self, the actual self, and the true self.

It pained me to realize that I never really progressed from the outer layer. My actions, the things I do, never really came close to who I am. And this has destroyed all semblance of self-knowledge. I was a broken person, someone who barely knows who she is.

The fears and the pain clouded everything in me that despite all endeavours, I never really felt God’s love…until yesterday morning when His love, his amazing love, destroyed me…or who I thought I was.

He loves me. I felt it. His tremendous love humbles me and drives me to my knees time and again. I do not need to feel rejection because He loves me. And that is all that matters. His love.

So today, (err, I wanted to wait until Sunday but I want to sign this today), I will be signing my personal covenant with the God who loves me. I am not perfect. I am not strong enough. I am not worthy and no matter what I do, I will never be worthy of that love He has for me. To wait until I become worthy, perfect and strong enough will be to wait forever.

But, He has promised to help me. He has promised to hold my right hand. And I will always turn to Him when things go wrong and I start reverting to my masks.

I will trust Him, trust in His love.