in house

i was a zombie at work yesterday (kahiya), still recovering from last week. I’ll blog about my marvelous week soon.

For the meantime, I want to tell you guys that I’m going on the 60-60 Experiment. I stumbled upon a book called Soul Revolution last week in OMF and browsed through it, getting that feeling that I usually do when I know I should get the book. Anyway, I bought it last night and just started on it before stopping to send you an invite to join me.

See, I’ve been a Christian all my life (and became a Christ-follower as well when I was eight years old) and every day since then has been a great and awesome journey. Well, I’m nearly thirty now (grabe no?) and I’ve seen God do wonders in my life and in other people’s lives as well. Every day, God’s been showing me just how much bigger He is compared to my concept of BIG (and I thought I already thought He’s BIG). Well, I want to see how much BIGGER He could get  but stepping it up with my faith even a bit more.

Anyway, I’m inviting you guys to do it with me. Can’t go on an awesome journey by myself right? Check out the website for more information on the 60-60 Experiment and let me know. I’ll be updating my blog as I go along, but it would be great to have some people with me so we can swap stories. Leave a comment and a link to your blog if you have decided to commit to this.

For the people who miss Truth Thursdays, I’ll be posting the questions and insights on Thursdays in lieu of our tradition so you can hop in.

Ready?

I’ll be gone for a youth camp I’m helping out in Union Church over the Holy Weekend. I wasn’t supposed to say yes to it anymore because I just wanted to get some rest, but after talking to the camp director, I just realized that I had to do it. She said that she believes I could teach these kids about service, by showing them at the camp how it is to serve. I’m not going to speak at a session, but I’m going to lead by example.

I wanted to tell her that she’s got the wrong girl. That all I wanted in the world is to just sit on my butt and have everything brought over to me. I want to be the center of attention every time. I want to be taken care of. I want a driver to drive me around. I want a man to worship the ground that I walk on. I want everything to come easy and fast so I wouldn’t have to work or wait.

Even as I am writing this, I know how wrong that sounds. Hahaha. I guess that’s why I said yes to the camp. I guess I have a lot to learn about being a servant too– by being one, and by being accountable to the dozen+ volunteers that I’m supposed to supervise in the three day camp. So I suppose that’s why I said yes.

Right now, I’m thinking about Jesus, who, in the night when all the authority of heaven has been given to him, took a towel, wrapped it around his waist and knelt down to wash his disciples’ feet. The Son of God doing the lowliest of the tasks for a servant–a job nobody wanted to do– to show His disciples that this how they should be to one another. (John 13: 1-20)

This is His brand of love. And the world would know that we are his disciples by how we love each other. Pride and arrogance will tear us apart, the desire to be recognized for our service is going to ruin us. But Jesus’ love builds each other up.

Of course, it’s not literally washing each others’ feet. But it’s the spirit of humility and willingness to put others first before ourselves. It doesn’t look good most of the time, and the world’s not going to understand it, but this is how it is. We are not performing for the world (even if we do know that they’re watching us), but we’re serving God. We can’t just look the part, we have to be it.

I guess what I want to say is that I pray that we Christians would take on the heart of a servant. To be willing to go the extra mile for each other and others, to go beyond our comfort zones to reach out to people. To be the solution. To serve, even when nobody is watching.

I know that it feels good to be recognized by what we do. The applause and standing ovation is cool. The accolades are just super. But that’s not what Jesus called us to.

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph. 3:10)

Just think of our Father in Heaven, smiling at us as we go about the work of the Kingdom here. There may be no medals in the immediate future, I just want one thing– that when it’s time for me to go home and stand before Him, I would hear my Father say, “Well done.” That would be more than enough for me.

(from John 5:1-8)

Do you remember the time when Jesus healed the crippled man who had been sitting by the pool at the Sheep Gate nearly all his life? The pool where all the invalids (the blind, crippled, the paralyzed) hung out in case an angel stirs the pool and the first one to jump in will be healed? Jesus came along and saw a crippled man lying there and asked him if he wanted to get well. I noticed that he didn’t exactly say, “Yes! Please heal me!” or “I believed that you can heal me Jesus!” It was more like, “Well, I could’ve been healed a long time ago, but I have nobody to help me get up to jump into the pool when the water is stirred, so somebody else gets healed instead…”

Funny how even if he didn’t know who Jesus was, he didn’t really answer his question and instead gave a summary of the hopeless situation he was in– that if the universe hadn’t conspired against him, everything would have been fine. Are we like that when faced with a dire situation? How many times has God asked us if we need any help and we reply and just point out the hopelessness of our situation, forgetting that we’re talking to A REALLY POWERFUL GOD.

I remember last year, I had just given up on the possibility of going to my best friend’s wedding in Michigan because I simply did not have money nor enough time to save up for it. While walking, a voice in my head just said, “If you really wanted to go that much, why didn’t you ask me?” and I was like, “Oo nga no, Lord?!” I said sorry right then and there, and asked if I could go. I went to my parents next and asked them if I could go, and they both said, “Of course you should go! He’s your best friend!” And they gave me money for the ticket and added to what I saved for my pocket money. So all I had to do was to stop moping about how I could’ve gone had I had more time to prepare, if my job paid more– and just ask God!

Of course, this doesn’t happen all the time, but, you know, it never hurts to ask in faith that God can and will give us what we need when we need it (or him/her haha!). I really believe that it’s a mercy that God doesn’t answer all our prayers. He’s the only one who sees the whole picture after all.

Another thought about the crippled man who was told to get up: I wonder how long it took for him to get used to using his legs again.He left Jesus rejoicing. And Jesus, upon bumping into him later, admonished him to stop sinning, now that he’s been healed. I wonder, did he wake up every morning grateful that he can walk or did Jesus’ admonition weigh heavily in his heart? Was he still grateful that he could walk even after the muscles hurt for a while? I wonder if he swore every time his knee would bump something or he stub his toe. Was he still grateful that he could walk even if he had to work for a living now, and walk everywhere now unlike before when people had to carry him around? One thing about being healed is that you’re not as weak as you were before, people don’t cut you any more slack and expect more from you now.

Funny that, I was just thinking that I can’t use the fact that my boyfriend had just broken up with me as an excuse so people would cut me some slack at work or at church or at home anymore. Because people could see– and I know– that I’m really more than fine. And it’s all because of God. Mahiya na lang ako if I still pretend that I’m still not fine just so I could get special treatment, after all that, right?

So what has God healed you from? What are the chains that He has broken to set you free? Whenever hard times come, always be grateful that He has given you the strength to withstand them and to grow from there.

⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

⁸Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

John 5:6-8 (NIV)

“All of my life, in every season, You are still God. I have a reason to sing. I have a reason to worship.” (Desert Song)

I haven’t been feeling well for the past few weeks. My doctor told me (the last time I went to him because I’ve been getting sick a lot again), that I went to him last year, at around this time, with the same complaints as well. So we just put it down as a season of Stef getting sick for some reason or another. I’ve had blood tests and other tests that came out normal every time, so we still don’t know what’s causing this.

I’m just seeing this as another weightloss opportunity. hahaha.

Seriously though, some times I do worry about what’s happening to my body. I don’t like it that I don’t have much control over this matter. I have done what I can to stay healthy– vitamins, good eating choices, sleep, and regular exercise, but I still get sick.

Still, I know that in my weakness He is strong.

Last Tuesday, after a bout of stomach flu, I got up from my bed, attended Station One and was just grateful that I still had strength to lift up my hands and sing. I felt all the better for it.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26

despite my reputation for being an insomniac, and a person who “thrives on stress,” i’ve actually been putting in a  decent number of sleeping hours a night now. and it shows on my face, my temper (it’s better), and my outlook in life. it’s easier to get up early for work now, but unfortunately, i have yet to learn to sleep and still meet my deadlines… well, one thing at a time, eh? he he

I read in A Slice of Infinity about the Christian Vision Project wherein questions were raised as to how Christians can be counterculture for the common good. While the answers ranged from from becoming our own fiercest critics to experiencing life at the margins, from choosing wisely what to overlook and what to belabor to packing up and moving into the city. But there was one answer that stood out,

Author Lauren Winner, in her book Books & Culture, proposed: More sleep. She quickly admitted the curious nature of her retort. “Surely one could come up with something more other-directed, more sacrificial, less self-serving,” she wrote. Still, she carefully reasoned through the forces of culture that insist we give up an hour of sleep here, or two hours there–the grinding schedules, the unnerving stock piles of e-mail in need of responses, the early-taught/early-learned push for more and more productivity. Thus, Winner concluded, “It’s not just that a countercultural embrace of sleep bears witness to values higher than ‘the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things.’ A night of good sleep–a week, or month, or year of good sleep–also testifies to the basic Christian story of Creation. We are creatures, with bodies that are finite and contingent.” We are also bodies living within a culture generally terrified of aging, uncomfortable with death, and desperate for our accomplishments to distract us. “The unarguable demands that our bodies make for sleep are a good reminder that we are mere creatures,” Winner concludes. “[I]t is God and God alone who ‘neither slumbers nor sleeps.’”

This reminder was the final argument on whether Stef should get more sleep or not. I guess I’ve made time for everything else in my life, I should make time for rest too right? Sleeping has also taught me to make the most of my day, to wake up early to get things done early, so I can have more time to do the things I used to stay up late for (like read, and do my other articles, and hangout with my family, friends and myManu).

i guess it all boiled down to being confronted with the promise I made to myself and God at the start of 2008– and that’s not to worry, because I know that He’s in control. Good sleep is actually one of the biggest signs of a worry-free life. We can only do so much, but we can rest in the knowledge that our God can and does go beyond our limitations. I’m not saying that faith is an excuse to slack off, remember, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” (Galatians 6:7).

But sleeping as an act of faith, who would’ve thought it?

my mom’s the most selfless person i know. yes, you can name several people famous for their service to humanity, but i see my mom’s service first hand.

i don’t think she knows how much i admire and appreciate her– it’s probably my fault. but i do watch her. i do learn from her.

my mom just gives, she doesn’t just give money– she gives herself. it’s her time, her talent, her resources, her heart. she missed the ’80s and a big chunk of the ’90s because of me and my siblings. she was so deep into raising us gremlins into civilized God-fearing human beings that all she knows from the music of the era is Kid’s Praise Kids, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Strawberry Shortcake… well, you get what i mean.

when we’ve grown up (well, grown bigger), and could take care of ourselves, in a way… she focused into church and ministry.

and i haven’t even mentioned how she deals with catankerous and belligerent old people.

she is a great example of how to be a wife and a mom.

i know better than to argue with her now.

i want to be like her when i grow up (but maybe with a lower voice… and a smaller waistline. hihihi)

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

Proverbs 31:30

When I consider your heaven’s the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of  him, the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:3-4)

These are two of my most favorite verses ever and still, everytime I read them, I’m still amazed at the implications posited bythe psalmist. “who am i?” that the creator of the inoverse would know my name, have set the path for my steps long before i was even born? that’s just so mind-boggling!

But then another clarity has been brought to my attention when I look to my side right now– where Merlin’s curled up by my arm on the bed. A few minutes ago, I kisseed him on the top of his head– he’s still smelly from the kennels at the vet, and he’s still quite scruffy. i recognized all that and still felt so much love for him that it even surprised me. i just spent thousands of pesos– my monthly retainer fee for the magazine i work for, actually– on him just to get him well, and i know that had it been for something else, i wouldn’t have been able to get myself to shell out that much cash.

and merlin’s just a cat! the most constructive thing he’s ever done was to catch an occassional mous. most of the time he ignores me– even runs away when i try to hug him. he eats my mom’s plastic plants, bothers us every meal for hand outs, and he scratches me all the time (not on purpose)– he’s even split my lip open twice already! and yet– whenever he does come willingly, sits at my feet, or beside me, whenever i’m sick or sad–or for whatever reason a cat has for giving occasional acts of affection– my heart just fills with joy.

i love him because he’s mine, and no matter what he does, i still love him– but that doesn’t mean I don’t discipline him whenever he does something bad. actually, one of the first words he learned was “no!” the other one was, “down!” it’s mostly when he’s eating the plastic plants or stealing food from the table.

and right there, i think, is a stef scale model of God’s love. i’m not saying that what i feel for the cat is all like God’s love, but for me, that’s a tangible hing of what it is. I love my cat because he’s mine– and it’s not because of the things he does or stand for.

God loves me because I am His. And I think I have an idea now of how much He loves me– I could just multiply how I feel about my cat to azillionth power, and then some. And if i think how overwhelming, surprising, and joyful it is right now– man, God’s love is just awesome! and i can take no credit for it– it’s all His.

Oh my God, Your love is much wider and higher than the heavens. Who am I? I am yours.

(from a journal entry January 10, 2008. Merlin just got home from the a six day confinement at the pet hospital when he got so sick he nearly died. Now, Merlin’s a big fat fuzzy cat who is a lot more mellow and affectionate than ever before. hihi).