Edna Mode

The little woman with so much to boast confidently exclaimed: fight! win!

I just came from CRL and I could feel tiredness seeping in my already-disgruntled nerves. I would not dare tell you about my harrowing day because it is something I don't want to talk about right now. But I would very much like to tell you something very amazing.

Yesterday, after pouring my pent-up emotions on my friends, I discovered that I was letting myself drift away from everything else that is good except from my ego. You see, thoughts of going back to the dark side of everything crossed my mind. Thoughts on wicked people getting all the blessings while I am slaving and ending up with nothing weighed heavily on my twisted, dark mind. Thoughts on things not making any sense, not having any worth blinded me. Yes, you could say that I hated the world and all that is in it. You could also say that I savored rebellion against my Maker. You could also say that my disposition, my mental state, my all was bordering on unbelief. I reasoned: it won't make any difference at all whether I live as a Christian being a Christian or living like a Christian being not a Christian. Everything is the same. Everybody goes through the same senseless matters. Everybody is actually really lost.

Then came this: CHOICE. An author said that the ultimate submission is really the surrender of your free will. It is a choice to use it for your benefit without the thought of God or use it for your benefit but giving God the driver's seat. When I went through this extreme emotional let down, I realized that in doing so I actually made a choice to rebel against God, to be negative, to look at a lot of people with intense dislike. It was a choice on my part to switch off the positive mind disposition and exchange it to the negative. Sad to say, but it was my choice to have the devil gain a foot hold of me. It was also my choice to let my emotions run. It was also my choice to let my will be driven by my unstable emotions.

A pang of pity hit me when I realized all these, but, believe it or not, it felt good to be slapped and kicked by the reality of my horrific mindset. I heard Edna Mode scream: fight! win! Then I asked:how could I be so sure that this is God convicting me? What if it was just me trying desperately to change, thus enabling me to create all sorts of uplifting reasons? How could I be so sure, after all He didn't even bother to answer all my questions? I let my thoughts wander and concentrated on Him for a while. Then it hit me: I do not know His answer because I did not bother to look for it.

The Bible, for Christians, is where THE ultimate answers are. I asked Him, then, what He wanted me to read knowing that there is a danger in merely opening your Bible by chance and interpreting it as something that is from God directed to you. Then He gave me John. I asked, where in John? Number 15 appeared. Which specifically in chapter 15? I asked again. Numbers 14 then 12 appeared. Time was ticking and I still could not get up and open my Bible. Then, after a long while, I got up and checked it out. I told myself that if it is from God then it would make sense and would somehow be related to what I was feeling. Lo and behold: John 15: 14 and 12 says "you are my friend if you do what I command; my command is this: that you love one another as I have loved you."

Creepy, huh?

Fight! Win! I would have to say that I definitely chose to let my will control my emotions. I chose to stop letting anger get me and decided to excahnge it with love. I chose to fight and win. After all, if God made all the amazing things in this universe, then, I would certainly win this batttle.

Join me, then, in this journey that is worth losing everything, even yourself. BUT gaining it all in Him. How to start? Ha!ha! by simply ASKING Him to give you the perfect faith. He will certainly give it. *wink*

Beach(ing) Around

I could never understand why a lot of people absolutely LOVE swimming in the beach. Sure, I love the beach and all that, but just the feel of it, the look, the freshness and beauty of it. But that’s that. My attitude could be best explained by, first, I grew up in a place where you could go swimming like every day and it has lost its thrill, second, I don’t know how to swim, and, finally, I’m too afraid of sharks.

Call me ignorant or a joke, fine. But you could never blame me. Blame it all on the people who created Jaws and all those movies that showed sharks eating people like humans do with Pork Lechon. When I was a kid, I saw this movie featuring a killer shark that attacked people even while they were near the shore. That movie left a mark in my already-twisted memory that whenever I’m in the sea, I’m not comfortable at all. Every time something touches or brushes my leg, body or hand, I freak out. I think of either a water-thriving snake or a baby shark. Whenever that happens, I usually scream then run, not swim, towards the seashore only to find out that it was just a stick, a plastic, seaweed or just the body part of my companion/s.

The problem is I am surrounded with people who love the beach – my close friends mostly at the UP Christian Youth Movement. They couldn’t get enough of it that they always plan one trip after another to Zambales, Subic, Puerto Galerra and to where the beaches are. There is a pattern, though, that I’ve seen. Most of them did not grow up in places where beaches are everywhere. And, I dare say, they are what I call the fearless ones. I say that they are fearless because they do not cower from huge waves. In fact, they love it.

Last August, we had a retreat/adventure/gimmick in Zambales. From the day we arrived to the day we departed from the place, rain was pouring (not all the time, though), thus the water was high and the waves monstrous. Thankfully, I was not the only one who do not know how to swim, thus I had companions wading very near the shore. We were perfectly enjoying the beach, scooping the water with both hands as if bathing ourselves, dipping our heads and bodies a lot and crawling once in a while when Ian, the beach lover of all beach lovers, called us to join them in their activity. The activity? Battling the waves with their bodies while holding onto the person next to them. I hesitated, of course. What if I drown? What if a shark suddenly bares his pointy teeth at me? I had two choices: to join them and squeal to my heart’s delight or remain where I was – alone. I ended up doing the former and, boy, what fun! The thing was I swallowed enough sea water that I had a fleeting thought of urine sliding around in my intestines. I brushed the thought aside and concentrated on squealing, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I was becoming more and more paranoid of the gigantic waves coming onto us. I thought of a shark suddenly emerging, circling us. I thought of a shark coming among the gigantic waves then swallowing me whole, not even giving me a chance to scream for help. With that, I turned my back from the flirtation I had with the waves and headed as fast as I could to the shore.

Trust me, I love to learn swimming. Isn’t interest one major factor for a person to learn and enjoy what he or she is learning? Take for example Edmon. He grew up in Bulacan but he knows how to swim and skin-dive (thanks to P.E class) because he plainly loves swimming, while I, the one who grew up in Negros Oriental, do not know anything, not even floating. I would very much like to have for a reason disinterest as the one that deterred me from learning swimming. But, sadly, it’s not. It’s really the monsters lurking in the waters.

I did not want to remain the laughing stock in the group, so early this first semester, AY 2004-05, I took swimming as my P.E. class. I figured that if Edmon learned it from P.E class and ended up being a good swimmer, then, I, too, can be one. Unfortunately, I did not accomplish what I desired to accomplish. The teacher did not drop me from the class; it was just that I stopped going entirely. I did not lose interest, however, it was just that I couldn’t shrug off the horrific dream that I had.

I dreamed that I was swimming in the pool with my two cousins, Piolo Pascual and a lot more when, suddenly, people were screaming. Piolo approached me and made me leave the pool frantically telling me that the pool is infested with a shark. I hoisted myself out, all the while screaming the names of my cousins. Then I saw my cousin; the shark was an arm away from her. I screamed, instructing her to get off the pool fast, but too late. The shark had her by both legs. I ran towards her hoping to rescue her body from being eaten entirely, I pulled with all the strength that I had, but when I looked at what I was clutching I was shocked to see that it was the half part of a huge tuna, the tail part. Then I saw the greedy shark going back to the pool side, apparently his cage.

I did not drop out right after I had the dream, of course. I struggled to learn, but it was too much a torture to even close my eyes under water. I kept on looking closely, fearing that a shark would suddenly emerge. Because I dreamed of the pool side being the cage of the shark, I stayed far away from it and swam in the center. After two meetings following my dream of shark encounter, I dropped out.

My friends know how much I fear sharks. Ket, my org-mate, invited me to watch Open Water with her and my other friends saying, with a knowing smile, that she will pay for my ticket. I politely declined the offer telling her “kahit may libreng snacks pa ‘yan, di ako sasama.”. I wouldn’t dare add that movie to my already-crippling remembrances of sharks. But I did watch Shark Tale. It was cute, though, but it did not change my perception of sharks or helped erased my fear of them. The only consolation was it gave me hope and something to wish for: I wished for a time when all sharks will become like Lenny – a confessed vegetarian – and be that way forever.

It wounds me deeply when people say that I’m over-reacting. Wouldn’t it be much better to be just merely over-reacting? I would very much love to enjoy swimming in the sea, carefree, not paranoid over being made a day’s meal. Sharks, even in dreams, terrorize me. I love the beach, but swimming in it is another story.

The heart-stopping reminder I breathe is always this: where the beaches are, the sharks are there as well Argh!

Boredom

How do you cure boredom? Why is it that all of a sudden I'm bored? I looked at myself a fleeting moment ago and I couldn't see the energetic me. What is wrong with me? Have I discovered that all I've been doing are senseless? Am I being overly critical? Overly negative?

a new day

Good morning to you!Here I am, bubbly again (or so I mustered). I prayed a prayer of comeback a while ago, a thing I've been meaning to do since the day I was devastated by horrible news. I figured, what would I lose? He is a gigantic God and problems are mere fungi. I realized that leanong on your emotion to sort things out isn't the right thing. The right thing is to be strong in faith, to look up to Him AND to go to Him for comfort, not on other temporary things and certainly not on people.

You know, the scary thing is I know these things but in my pigheadedness I plainly refused to let these facts sink in. You see there are times that a miserable person would gladly cling on to misery rather than hope. I am right, right? You smile. Well, the explanation is that we sometimes find comfort in misery because it is a known ground, but hope? NUh-uh. Hope is something kinda far-fetched and so you would sigh and tell yourself that you are merely building castles of sand. Then you would abandon hope and fix on misery. Poor you, poor me...but that's the reality.

As Christians, we should hope on one thing and one thing alone: that in everything God works for the good of those who love Him. There will be a lot of tribulations that will threaten to crush us, but we should take heart because we have Jesus. This is not our fight it is His. If you think I'm bluffing, well, GO READ YOUR BIBLE, MAN!

I am really okay now and it feels sooooo good!

A bit of me

I say hell. It was hell and hell and hell. BUT I’m back again.

I say that I am okay relative to the last weeks of October, but not that okay. I planned to make my blog a sort of something where I write meditations and stuff. I want to, really. It’s just that I’m not ready yet. I can say a lot of things but it would be plain hypocrisy. I believe I have to muster all the courage to come face to face with Him. I am tormented by so much grief and my heart, honestly, is not right with Him. He is teaching me something – a something I couldn’t fully give Him.

In my days of sadness, I found out one thing: the more I resisted Him, the stronger I felt His presence in me and around me. I believe it was hope or that faith I have or just the positive-thinker me. Hopefully, it was both hope and faith. God carried me through. I am in the process of dealing with it and nursing peace in my heart, and so forgive me if I would seem aloof, distant and kinda cold.

I am truly hoping to recover, to get up and fight, to trust Him enough to give my all. Right now, I am praying for that. As the plans I built melted before my very eyes, I know deep down that God would build it up with His faithful hand. As the gigantic fear looms, I know He would protect me.

I am in so much pain and all I want right now is to embrace it, to taste all of it and swallow it whole. I have shared the gift of pain to my friends, and all of it are coming back to me – hammering me with its truth. I could only stare and ask God: how much more could I bear? God has good plans for me, this I know. I pray that, in time, I would get to see it. This very moment all I see is a blank piece of paper. May God write His plans for me on it and let me have the full view.