It got me thinking– what’s my stand on the gay marriage issue? I choose not to have one. I think I’ll just stay here, right in the middle. I don’t really know where I should stand in this issue, what I do know is that I don’t want to be defined by what I’m against for, nor be known for judging people (who does?). Love requires me not to hurt other people, to know their stories first before I get to have a say in their situation (if I have to in the first place). Jesus approached people differently, He didn’t have the same approach for every person he encountered in His ministry. Come to think of it, he was rather tough on the church people in those days…

While I’m still trying to figure out this whole, “What does love require of me?” thing, I’m not going to encourage more anger and hate– especially online, where it’s just so easy to get people going with a single post. I’d rather encourage and give grace and healing, light and love where there is hurt and ignorance and hate. I can’t say that I’m wise/wiser or I’m better than everybody else. Gosh, I’ve made more than a lifetime’s worth of stupid statements and stupid mistakes. By myself, I’m no better than anybody in this world.

All I know is, if Jesus were here today, he’d be hanging out with those we Christians call the “lost” and the sinners. And he would love them, they would feel loved, even if they are so different from each other. They would feel Jesus’ acceptance even as He would show them the way, the truth and the life. Jesus would certainly not be hanging out with the likes of us church people (who would probably wondering, “If he’s the Son of God as he says he is, how come he missed out on the weekly fellowship?!”).

If I want to be where Jesus is, I should be right smack in the middle, where all the action is, being the embodiment of truth and love. I would want to be His disciple, learning, observing (most likely baffled by his closeness with people who don’t have anything in common with Him but accepts Him just the same) and trying to do things just like how He did them.

I’m sorry if I’m rambling, I’m still trying to figure things out (help me?).

My friends (and I do have a lot of gay and lesbian friends– one of my closest friends is gay), if you’ve ever been hurt by a Christian, or by any of our statements or rash judgements, I apologize for us. Most of us (all) are still trying to learn our way through Jesus’s command to love one another just as He loves us (John 13:34-35), and learning is kinda messy.

Someday, maybe, there will be a time for me to take a side on an issue, but I don’t think that this is the time. Not at the cost of misrepresenting Jesus Christ to people whom He loves as much as He loves me.

I know I should pray–I’ve asked people to pray for me, but for some reason, I didn’t. Not until this morning. 

I know I have just been coasting along with God. I have treated Him much like my friends these days, I know He’s just there, on call. But for some reason, I never called or texted. I just know He’s there, but I chose to languish in my sickness alone. When I wasn’t sick, I worked and worked and worked. Sure, I mentioned Him all the time, listened to songs and talks about Him, but to actually be with Him? Not really.

This morning, I decided to call Him. Acknowledge that I miss Him. Apologize for not calling until now. It sucks to treat my Creator– my Lord, God and King– my Father this way, but for some reason, He let me.

Of course, there are days when He drives us into a corner until it was either face a wall or Him. Sometimes His presence is just so palpable that we’re reduced to tears even before we even knew it. Sometimes He’s Pillar of Fire. Sometimes He’s a landslide. Sometimes He’s a still small voice.

And sometimes He lets us come to Him in our own time.

I don’t know why He does this, but I find it amazing that in the midst of everything that screams out His name, He chooses to be silent and lets Himself be found, when we feel like it. Patiently waiting, never asking what took us so long?

Oh, how He loves us so.

 

⁴¹ As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it ⁴² and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. ⁴⁴ They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Our littlest baby girl
You are a wonder

What makes you smile in your sleep?
Just how big is the world for you in your cradle
and in your mommy’s embrace?
Do you remember where you came from
before you got here?

Our little River
Our small wonder

As I scratched him behind his ears, I wondered if there’s anything in the Bible about pets. Did Jesus have a dog or a cat while growing up in Galilee? Did God put in dogs and cats’ genetic codes makes them be kept by humans as companions? Was it God’s will that we have made some animals friends while some for food?

I don’t know. But if you have some insight to this, dear reader(s?), do share it with me.

In any case, I’m grateful for my cats (we now have five official cats at my parents’ house), dog and hamster. I’m grateful that I grew up in a household where everybody loves pets. Sure, my mom and Ate Mina would complain about them once in a while, but I don’t think they would have it any other way. Growing up, pets taught me and my siblings to be less selfish and to take care of others. My first pet was a chicken (according to my mom, at least. She also told me we eventually ate her.), then we had dogs, hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs, even an iguana for a while. We’ve always had stray cats around the house because we couldn’t help feeding them, but Merlin’s my first official cat.

Merlin’s already 11 years old and he still surprises me with his quirks. He has recently started giving people massages, and he’s been extra snuggly with me whenever I’m home. If you know Merlin, he’s always been characterized as a snooty cat– he doesn’t rub against your legs or be conventionally affectionate– but lately, he’s starting to become strangely sweet to people. Who knew that a cat can change his stripes? Figuratively, at least. Looks like he’s still not done growing up.

As I look back on our history together, there were plenty of times I could have written Merlin off as a non-affectionate, non-conventional cat and would have still loved him for it. But as he grew from a loud skinny ugly kitten to a handsome husky fellow, from playful to mellow, from aloof to sweet, I catch a glimpse of how God may be seeing us as His children. He loves us for who we are then delights in us even more as we grow, patiently seeing us through our mistakes, detours and failures, celebrating with us in our victories, drawing us even closer to Him.

Maybe this is why we have pets (and/or children), to see God’s reflection in us as we love and take care of them without condition.

On Genesis 28:10-22

Can you imagine being stripped of everything that you own that all you have is a rock for a pillow? At one point in his life, Abraham’s grandson Jacob found himself without everything that he had except for the clothes on his back, running for his life (because his brother wanted to take that too.).  Admittedly, it was his fault (with the encouragement of his mom) that he had to run. Suddenly, this momma’s boy is without a mom, running in the wilderness (without survival skills), and running out of hope.

Tired and alone, Jacob took a rock and used it for a pillow to sleep. It was dark and he was probably thinking of all the predators that could kill him as he slept, but he was just too tired to care. I have no idea what was going through his head when he did that (the passage didn’t say), was he crying? Was he beating himself up for pulling that stupid trick on his dad (what could he do the first-born blessing if he was already dead, anyway?)? Did he miss his mom? Was he practicing what he would say to his brother if ever Esau catches up to him?

Whatever they were, Jacob fell asleep and he had one of the most famous dreams in the Bible: Angels going up and down a ladder from heaven reaching earth. “And the Lord stood above it and said: I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac… Behold I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” (Gen. 28:13-15)

And Jacob woke up from his sleep and said, “The Lord is in this place and I did not know it!” (Gen. 28:16)

And if you read through Genesis, you can see that God did pull through for Jacob–even as Jacob wasn’t perfect in his righteousness and faithfulness at all throughout everything, God still remained faithful and true to His word.

It’s funny (well, not really) how I’ve been talking to a lot of people and I’m noticing a trend– not all of us are having an easy time these days. Some of us are discouraged, uncertain, lonely and verging on depression. The future looks uncertain from where we stand. And while we are far from having a stone for a pillow, we feel like that we’re in a dark place right now and wolves are lurking about waiting to tear us apart.

But let’s take our cue from Jacob who still found it in him to sleep, to rest even when nothing is comfortable. Sleeping left him vulnerable to all the dangers out there, but for a man at the end of his rope, he still got to sleep. I’m not saying you should sleep when you have to be at work, but REST. Be at peace. And there, like in Jacob’s dream, God reveals Himself to be with you still, will keep you wherever you may go and will not leave you until His work is finished with you.

Happy Monday guys. The Lord is with you.

The thrill of of hope
The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!”

Wow, Christmas is literally fast approaching. Seriously, it just took me by surprise that it’s this Sunday already! And the week after that, it’s the New Year! Do you remember the time when Christmas couldn’t get here fast enough, that those presents under the tree seem to have been teasing you forever. (Confession: when I was a kid, I peeked into my presents. I have mastered the art of taking the tape off without ripping the paper and putting it back without anybody noticing–at least, that’s what I thought!). Sometimes I got exactly what I wanted, other times, not exactly.

We’re not the only ones who have waited for Christmas in great anticipation. Before Christ, believers of his coming have waited and generations died waiting for the Messiah to come. Yet people believed and kept watch. Until finally, at the appointed time, Jesus was born to a virgin and the world who had been waiting didn’t even know it was him because they were expecting someone different– a king, a warrior, someone who will free Israel from the Roman Empire and reestablish the country in its former greatness.

But instead, they got a baby in a manger. A carpenter. A man who walked on water. A man who healed and brought the dead back to life. The man who hung out with sinners and tax collectors. A man who didn’t condemn but forgave sins. A man who is the Son of God. A man who claimed that He and His Father are one. A man who didn’t say anything and was crucified. A man who rose from the dead.

We’re all waiting for a lot of things, answer to our prayers, we expect great things from our God, but sometimes, most of the time, God’s concepts of time and greatness differ from ours  that when He finally does answer our prayers, we don’t recognize it because we’re expecting something (or someone) sooner and something (someone) else. My prayer for all of us this Christmas is that we’ll set our hearts not on the things of this world, but on things above. For us to delight ourselves in the Lord and He’ll give us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4), so we’ll know and recognize God’s answers to our prayers when they come.

One of my favorite parts of the Christmas story (although it’s rarely mentioned because it’s later on after the manger scene) is when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, and there’s a man there named Simeon, who had been waiting for the Messiah everyday of his life. The Holy Spirit revealed to Him that He would not die before He had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Then one day, he saw Jesus. There must have been so many people at the Temple that day to present their babies, but Simeon was so in tuned to the Holy Spirit that he found Jesus, and when he did, he praised God, saying:

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32)

May we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the glory of God revealed this Christmas and in all the days to come!

Merry Godspotting, you guys.

So here’s my life verse:

⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12: 9-10)

When I first encountered this verse, I was a depressive insecure teenager with a crippling low self-esteem. I loved God and I was a Christian already even then, but for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why I was feeling like the world was crashing around my ears all the time. I felt like I was the worst Christian ever, and I didn’t know how God could ever use a zero like me. I was angsty and suicidal, but being a Christian, I fought against those thoughts and just gritted my teeth as I went through each day. I was ashamed to ask for professional help (or any help) because what would they say about a Christian depressive– what would that say about the God whom I loved so much?! I felt like this pretty much until the end of my 20s even if I had gotten better at hiding my depression from other people throughout the years. I kept people at a distance because I felt (and some experiences had proved it true) that if people really know how pathetic the real Stef was, they wouldn’t want to be with me anymore.

This verse was my lifeline throughout that time. It assured me that my God, despite all my shortcomings, still can do something good and great. And when I am weak (which I was– and am still– all the time) He is strong. It gave my–what I had thought back then–pathetic life meaning and purpose.

Eventually, the depressive episodes stopped coming (just as I was about to turn 30), and I was amazed at how freed I felt. When you’ve been living with the heavy burden of depression all your life, that’s all you know, and when it’s gone, it’s amazing to find just how light and bright life actually is!

This is still my life verse, and, while I know that I’m still far from perfect, the awareness of my own weaknesses and shortcomings is no longer burdensome, but rather a blessing. I see them as an opportunity for God’s grace to be shown to its fullest extent– in-house Godspotting! While I know that God can leverage my strengths for His glory (now that I am aware that I do have strengths), I still don’t have any qualms about Him working through my weaknesses more.

Although, I have to admit that I still pray that I would be really great and be the best writer, the best managing editor, be rich and famous (or marry a rich and famous man), and for that specter of my old thorn in the flesh to go away (my emotional instability), I’m still grateful that God doesn’t give me all that I ask for and instead tells me, “My grace is sufficient for you.” Because witnessing God’s all-sufficient grace completing my weaknesses and lack is worth all the trouble that they sometimes get me into.

So take heart, you. God’s grace is always enough.

Happy Birthday to the best father in the world in the world Manny Juan! He has set such a high bar for all the men in our life, and we are so blessed to have him as our daddy.

My dad comes from a rare breed of men who fears and loves the Lord. He adores my mom, and he tirelessly protects, provides and cares for his family before himself. On top of that, he is really cool and has a quirky sense of humor! He also has great taste in clothes and shoes!

I love you, Daddy! Happy Birthday!

I’ve been asking myself that a lot these days. Actually, for a whole year already, since I made the move to WinMakati. Especially now, with all the things I have volunteered to take on, I’m really wondering is it because I’m just stupid and activity-addicted this way, or is it something else?

What am I trying to prove? To myself, to others… to God?

“Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment is given to you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service, you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really life. It is like a small child going to His father and saying, “Daddy, give me a sixpence to buy you a birthday present.” Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good of the transaction. When a man has made these two discoveries, God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. The man is awake now…” (C.S. Lewis)

*breathes*