The Greatest Love Story of my Life (The SFC Knights’ Tale and Princess’ Diaries Weekend Retreat)

 

 

 

This weekend retreat of the CFC-Singles for Christ was originally meant for the Iloilo Lower North Sector (Passi, Duenas, Barotac Viejo/Nuevo, Banate) alone. However, since it was scheduled for November last year and Typhoon Yolanda hit the Visayas area exactly that day, it was, of course, cancelled/postponed.

I was excited about this retreat because it has been a much touted retreat in the conferences I attended. What I was not looking forward to was wearing a dress.The dress code was my biggest problem. I did not see the whole point back then. You can listen to talks by wearing everyday clothes anyway.

Last August 24, 2014, we had the Iloilo North Sector KTPD Weekend Retreat at Passi National High School, Passi City, Iloilo. Participants were from the Lower North and Upper North Sector (Ajuy, Sara, Balasan, Estancia).

The sisters attended the Princess’ Diaries retreat while the brothers attended the Kinghts’ Tale retreat. I could not grasp the concept as to why we had separate retreats at first but the first talk cleared all the cobwebs in my brain. Indeed, it would be uncomfortable to talk about the stuff our speaker mentioned when there are brothers (men) around. Just listening to her made me feel uncomfortable. I did not realize I was prudish that way.

I don’t think I can ever relay the whole five talks in this small space. Suffice it to say, it was an encounter that completed the missing pieces of the puzzle I call myself.

The other weekend retreats I attended answered several questions I needed to answer. This retreat, however, provided a necessary element that was missing – what it means to be a woman in God’s eyes… what it truly means to be the daughter of the King, to be His princess.

Growing up with two generations of a female dominated household can give you twisted ideas of womanhood. I never really knew what being a woman meant. In fact, I got the message that being a woman is not good so I have come to cultivate and develop the more masculine aspects of myself.

I became cool, cold, aloof, uncaring and gruff. I became career oriented. When Tatay left, I took over his role.I helped provide for the family and discipline my brothers in ways my mother can’t discipline them because she had a really soft heart for her sons. I can be cruel in order to be kind and I believed that.

But, I am a woman. This retreat made me see that. I am a woman, designed by God to be a woman, with a woman’s needs and desires. These desires are alright, and they are not wrong. They are not vanity or covetousness, but are normal and expected of being a woman. There’s nothing wrong with my tendencies. There’s nothing wrong with feelings of discontent since my life is not fulfilling God’s designs, after all. I saw that during this retreat.

I was becoming what Talk 3 warned us about. I was already exhibiting what becomes of a woman when she believes the lies she is told – about not being beautiful at all, about not being enough, about being undeserving, unwanted, unloved. I was becoming a little of the Dominating woman- the woman pretending to be strong. I was becoming the woman who tries to pretend she can do it all, who tries to deny or hide her heart’s desire. The woman who is always self-assured, and who focuses on material success. I was also becoming the Desolate woman – the woman who is overgenerous, who clings to people (I don’t cling though, I automatically teach myself not to care enough), and sometimes, who think that they are nothing, are nobody. I was already suffering from depression.

Despite the really positive, self defining Discovery Weekend two years ago, I was wondering why I cannot reconcile myself. I now know why – I was seeing everything with masculine eyes, the one I developed in order to protect my heart and cope with the lies I completely accepted and believed in.

Talk 4 helped me see all that. The speaker, Sis Lhyn from the Upper North, talked about how deep inside our hearts, we have questions about our beauty. I was really defensive then, thinking that I never had those question… and this is what I wrote even while she was speaking.

- There is no question whether I am lovely or beautiful because I don’t believe I am, and I don’t bother to make the effort since it will not change anything, anyway.

But deep inside, I realized I have buried all these questions. I had a standing joke with my mother three or four years ago (I was 25 that time). I always asked her Nay, gwapa ako? (Mother, am I beautiful?) She will always tell me, Huo, a. (Yes) . Despite her answers, I really never believed my mother.

I keep hearing the jeers, the laughter (tambok ibok-ibok gadalagan, naga umpok, and please do not ask me to translate this, its rude Hiligaynon after all.). I believed I was bullied a lot in elementary and high school and in order to cope, I turned to books and food. I became cold, aloof, uncaring, sometimes shy, but really, just jaded and tired of trying to make others like me. I accepted all that and coped as best as I could but obviously, it was the wrong way to cope.

I never asked those questions again from anyone. I became too afraid to ask. Besides, boys have made their answers clear without saying a word. No one courted me, fat (obese really) girl that I am and I kept saying, I am thankful since it means I have no problem. But, in reality, it felt like rejection.

So, Talk 4 helped start the healing process. I know you can’t do away with a lifetime of taunts in just one night but it helped me see something I failed to see. Our speaker told us to pray and forgive ourselves, forgive others -the women in our lives who failed to show us what true womanhood means, the men in our lives who failed to protect our fragile hearts, and those who failed to see how innately sensitive we are and treat us accordingly. She also urged us to forgive God, because somewhere, somehow, or at some point in our lives, we have blamed God. (And she is right!)

Then, she urged us to dance with God and ask Him all our questions.

1. Do you see something in me that makes you want to pursue me?

2. Do you find me worth fighting for?

3. Is my mystery worth revealing to you?

4. Does my presence add meaning to our relationship?

5. Am I making a difference to you?

6. Do I offer something that will make you pursue a relationship with me?

7. Do you appreciate/value the beauty I held?

Sis Lhyn told us that only One should answer these questions – only God should. And all His answers are a definite YES to all our questions… and while dancing with Him that afternoon, I knew it as the truth.

God, indeed, has designed me, not only to be beautiful, but captivating, worthy to be pursue or romanced, and worthy to be loved, by the King Himself.

Others may not think so, but that is only because they do not believe this of themselves. Once you do, you’ll see everyone as worthy of being the same – God’s creation, sons and daughters of the Lord… His Princesses and Knights.

And that day, I rediscovered the greatest romance of my life.

 

 

 

Love and Other Drugs (Pt.2)

 

I read too much.

I have tried starting my blog several times with that. Reading is my chosen drug. My guilty little pleasure, along with food.

I read too much. Not a lot, but too much. I don’t read to enlighten the mind. I don’t read for literary entertainment. I do not read to know or be aware. I read to escape.

I do not have much of a life if I compare my life with that of people my age. I don’t go to parties. I never went on any night-outs. I never drink (except for red wine). I never shopped except for essential stuff (meaning books). I never leave home on weekends except for school and lately, church or SFC activities. I never went places except for work-related seminars and trainings (and I never ventured out of the venue, not in Baguio, certainly not in Tagaytay or in Manila (except for that expensive dinner with our City’s first lady) although several concerned souls dragged me around Cebu twice or thrice).

I guess when you don’t have much experience, you compensate somewhere. I compensate by reading a lot. If I can say vicarious living is experience, I would say I have been through a lot of scandalous reading material to offer me one lifetime of experience over people my age. I know stuff I am not supposed to know and I am aware of things women my age and my background and upbringing should not know about.

My teachers used to warn Nanay about the reading materials I pore over during school breaks. I hated them for ruining my enjoyment of a spicy historical romance novel and because of their reaction, I would often raise up my books covered with scantily dressed couples cavorting on lush, verdant, forest-like backgrounds, just to irritate them.

But my teachers were right. I have become addicted to these books. Whenever I am upset, I read. Whenever I am worried, scared, troubled, I read. If I do not read, I eat. Sometimes,I wish Nanay carefully monitored what I was reading all those years ago. (If I get married and have a daughter, my daughter will be reading books on my lap!).

Reading is so much easier than praying.

Reading does not bring your problems and your helplessness to mind. Reading let’s you cover up your scars, and your fears. It let’s you forget the troubles you have. It let’s you escape.

Praying reminds you of your helplessness, your powerlessness, your lack of control and your ignorance. It points out how little control you have over everything. It reminds you how human you are… how much dependent your are on God.

Reading takes away that sense of dependence. It makes you feel a false sense of being powerful and in control because you can read anytime you please. You can even skip to the back portion and know the story before hand.

But reading just makes you feel more confused, more unhappy. It binds you in its endless, utter hopeless spiral of reading and reading more to numb you from everything else.

Praying is freeing. After a long, open-hearted and honest moment of prayer, you would feel refreshed, comforted, assured. You can leave all your worries in His hands because You have been assured that He cares, He loves, and He is involved in your life and that He wants what is best for you.

Reading leaves you hopeless, more desperate and bound by the need to read more books. But prayer let’s you live. Truly live.

I know I don’t treat reading in it’s proper context and I don’t resort to prayer when I am so upset and troubled that I can barely think. I can pray when everything is okay but when sorrow, fear, pain and disappointment drowns my heart, I resort to reading.

Reading has brought me a lot of trouble. Sometimes, I wish I don’t know that much or that I can erase certain stuff, images and scenes I have stored in my head. But I can’t.

I should remember however that the love of reading is God’s gift too. But if I abuse it, it would be the devil’s tool.

Lord, teach me to use reading in good, helpful and Godly ways. Remind me that in every book I read, You are always looking over my shoulders. Lead me to good books that would nourish my soul and my heart and not just titillate my senses.

A quote from Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB comes to mind:

God is the sustaining presence that is our inheritance, our greatest good, our refuge in times of trouble. When we court other gods, the troubles in our lives tend to increase.

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?

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?

Broken Generations

 

The world has coined various labels for its varied and many generations of people. Lumped together to be perfectly categorized into neat boxes, these generations have been born, existed, survived, and died. Some of its members left indelible marks in the annals of history, some faded like mere bubbles, fragments of an imagination that littered the world for a while with people.

But there is one thing common in all humankind… whether referred to as Generation X, Y, Z or whatever pretentious label man comes up with, all of man’s generations have always been broken.

Broken by the stings of an aimless, meaningless existence, stung by the poisons of inexplicable family dynamics, bitten by varied neuroses… Man tried to cope by rationalizing his brokenness. He tried to make excuses for his behavior by blaming others for it. No one was willing to take responsibility of choices that went wrong, decisions that lead only to more pain and hurt. There was always someone or something to blame. A broken man finds it easy to expose the chink in a fellows armor than deal with his own broken shield.

We are a broken generation. We are a broken people. And we try to heal our brokenness by covering it up with more broken armors and fragments of the self we could have been.

What glues us together are the very same things that broke us apart. The tiny pieces of ourselves have been cast away or were lost, and we believe that we can no longer find those pieces anymore.

But we don’t need those pieces. We do not need to hang on to the tattered rags we are wearing.

Someone out there sees our brokenness for what it is.But, since He crafted us in the first place, He knows that these broken chunks need to be broken, so that the beautiful masterpieces would come out.

We are a broken generation with scraped elbows, and bruised knees and we can turn to the Great Physician to heal our brokenness.

We are a broken people who can be mended by a great God.

Loving Thy Neighbor

 

I was asked to talk about this particular topic in an SFC Christian Life Program in a neighboring chapter. My first thought, to be honest, was Why Me? and then Okay… and then, I decided to set it aside.

However, now that the talk is drawing quite near, I started wondering why I was asked to give the said talk because hey, I do not know what that topic really means. Really. My college school mates once accused me of not knowing how to relate to other people because I read too much. You do not read people in the same way that you read books.And my own mother once remarked that she already pities my future husband (if I ever get married) because I was so cold-blooded and aloof. Even an acquaintance once remarked how distant I really am with them – that I am surrounded by brick walls, all over… brick walls that are 12 feet high, and 10 feet thick. It was a joke, but I guess jokes are often half-truths.

And deep inside, beneath the façade, is really this dead person walking – because if this dead person could feel, she would be crying, and groaning day and night… but since I only started crying after I joined the SFC, I guess I am not used to letting my guard down.

I do know that the 10 commandments can be summarized into two : Love the Lord your God with all your strength, with all your mind and with all your heart and love your neighbors as you love yourself.

Whew. Simple words and reminders for every Christian but… I haven’t even gotten close to loving God with all my strength, heart and mind and now, I am being asked to answer to the 2nd command Jesus left His disciples.

I always thought that a Christian’s curriculum is somewhat similar to that of the formal school but I guess Christ’s operates in a similar manner as the alternative learning system – He meets the learner’s needs first. (Well, that is indeed another way of putting it)

Confessions of A Procrastinator

 

I procrastinate. I usually rationalize procrastinating.

For instance, when I have work to do, I always find reasons why I cannot do them immediately. One, I don’t know enough about it (so I need time to research and all that) . Two, I have other things I have to do first (and then end up not doing them as well because I am bothered with this pending task I must do but did not do). Three, this task is not in my schedule!!! (so I end up rearranging my schedule until deadline). Fourth, I need a break (and out came my mobile phone with its fancy epub reader), I can do it tomorrow anyway.

Oftentimes, I would get hook with reading, researching, resting, and prioritizing or scheduling, and reading and resting and the cycle goes on and on and voila… deadline’s tomorrow…

I shut out all questions, confusions, set aside the mobile phone, throw away the calendars, and the planners and the never ending list of things to do and focus…

After about twenty minutes (if its’ just a report), or about two hours (if it’s a very lengthy and complicated report)… all done! And I am amazed at how quickly it was done… last minute creativity.

But really, it makes me feel awful because it means I never had the time to check my final output… the perfectionist defeated by time.

The need to take charge and be in control of everything I do makes me procrastinate. I want to be sure. Since I am not sure, I had to hold back and wait for the perfect time. But then, the perfect time may never come so I should just….

 

And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew, he also predestine to be conformed to the likeness of his Son. – Romans 8:28

When Worlds Collide

Musical description of my emotional state:

This is not my world and I am not made for here. But when you are totally immersed in it, you can either sink or swim. I need my lifeline... I need Him so much...

Going Through the Motions

There are no words for this.

Away from the World

Sometimes, life gets too cluttered with non-essentials that we often need to step back for a change in perspective.

I have started (albeit half-heartedly) this retreat three weeks ago and today, I am on it's third week. I pray that He will sustain me and keep me faithful in this particular program.

I know, I am one of those types who can't keep things going after the first flame of passion has petered out but this journey is not something that I willfully started. He led me to this particular walk and I expect He will keep pulling me until it is completed.

If you want to try this retreat (pray first and ask for strength from Him, we need it)... just visit this link...Online Retreat for Everyday Life. It's a 34-week retreat patterned after the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

Before you begin, open your mind and hearts and trust Him who led You to this retreat.