God Spotting

Lord, thank You for all my days.
31 years is a long time to be faithful without fail.

Thank You for my Dad, my Mom, my Sisters and Brother.
Thank You for my Cat, the other cat and the dog
My friends at from childhood, at church, at work
Those random people I meet and love and don’t have a category
The men I loved… and don’t feel as strongly for anymore (hehe)
For the people I will eventually grow to love.
Thank You for my job
For all those articles I finished (and lost count)
For those articles I didn’t finish (can still count)
Those deadlines that I met headon and those that whooshed past
The blogs I wrote and didn’t
For the words I got credit for and didn’t

Thank you for taking me to places
All those car rides, plane rides, bus rides, train rides, boat rides
jeepney rides, tricycle rides, bike rides
All the food I ate strange, rich, bland, cheap and expensive
All the food I can still eat and all those I can’t anymore

Thank You for Jesus, and His name that brought me to life.
Thank you for making me weak so You can make me strong
For those reminders that I don’t know much, no not really, so I can learn more
For the plans I make only so You can change them
For breaking my heart so You can mend it
For taking me out of burning furnaces unbounded and without the smell of fire on me

Lord, thank You because I saw You there,
and there, and there, and there, and there
there, there, there, there… You were there
And now You’re here.
Thank God You’re here.

Thank You.

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!

A PERSONAL PRAYER

O God, the Light of the heart that sees You,
The Life of the soul that loves You,
The Strength of the mind that seeks You:
May I ever continue to be steadfast in Your love.
Be the joy of my heart;
Take all of me to Yourself, and abide therein.
The house of my soul is, I confess, too narrow for You.
Enlarge it that You may enter.
It is ruinous, but do repair it.
It has within it what must offend Your eyes;
I confess and know it,
But whose help shall I seek in cleansing it but Yours alone?
To You, O God, I cry urgently.
Cleanse me from secret faults.
Keep me from false pride and sensuality
That they not get dominion over me.

(St. Augustine)

“Why am I doing this, really?” Andy Stanley has urged us to ask ourselves while facing the mirror, and to answer that question honestly.

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*

a devotion

I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. (Psalm 16:8)

There’s really no escaping You, is there? It wasn’t even a prayer, but I remember almost two decades before, telling my camp counselor that I want to know You “not just in an abstract ‘there is a God and He loves me way,’ but something more.” I guess what I meant was I wanted You to invade every aspect in my life so that my reality will be You over everything else. It wasn’t even a prayer, yet You took me up on that invitation. Now I have 30 and so years to look back to and see much how You’ve turned my world topsy turvy. Yes, even  at times I didn’t expect or even want You to. And I couldn’t take back what I said so many years before, when I was too young to know anything other than You. Your timing works so well that way.

Nothing is off-limits to You.

You’ve taken everything I held dear and showed me how much they are worth. My plans You have shaken into disarray and let me watch as Yours unfold far more beautifully than I could ever daydream or make them for myself. Through Your love, I love–even those I don’t want to love. It is by Your strength that I keep on moving forward. Jesus, it is by Your grace that I am forgiven and I forgive.

Thank You for never letting me forget it.

Eclipse everything in my sight, as I set You always before me.

Beautiful wisdom from a Nike ad many years ago:

You were born a daughter.
You looked up to your mother.
You looked up to your father.
You looked up at everyone.
You wanted to be a princess.
You thought you were a princess.
You wanted to own a horse.
You wanted to be a horse.
You wanted your brother to be a horse.
You wanted to wear pink.
You never wanted to wear pink.
You wanted to be a Veterinarian.
You wanted to be President.
You wanted to be the President’s Veterinarian.
You were picked last for the team.
You were the best one on the team.
You refused to be on the team.
You wanted to be good in algebra.
You hid during algebra.
You wanted the boys to notice you.
You were afraid the boys would notice you.

You started to get acne.
You started to get breasts.
You started to get acne that was bigger than your breasts.
You wouldn’t wear a bra.
You couldn’t wait to wear a bra.
You couldn’t fit into a bra.
You didn’t like the way you looked.
You didn’t like the way your parents looked.
You didn’t want to grow up.
You had your first best friend.
You had your first date.
You had your second best friend.
You had your second first date.
You spent hours on the telephone.
You got kissed.
You got to kiss back.
You went to the prom.
You didn’t go to the prom.
You went to the prom with the wrong person.
You spent hours on the telephone.
You fell in love.
You fell in love.
You fell in love.
You lost your best friend.
You lost your other best friend.
You really fell in love.
You became a steady girlfriend.
You became a significant other.

YOU BECAME SIGNIFICANT TO YOURSELF.

Sooner or later, you start taking yourself seriously. You know when you need a break. You know when you need a rest. You know what to get worked up about and what to get rid of. And you know when it’s time to take care of yourself, for yourself. To do something that makes you stronger, faster, more complete. Because you know it’s never too late to have a life. And never too late to change one.
JUST DO IT.

(I have more to say about this, but I’ll finish these things first… In the meantime, a song)

Everything is Yours

When all the world is blossoming
And everything around is bursting into life
And I don’t have to strain to hear the beat of Your heart

When all the world is under fire
When skies are threatening to thunder and rain
And I am overcome by fears that I can’t see

If everything is Yours
Everything is Yours
If everything is Yours
I’m letting it go
No, it was never mine to hold
No, never mine

Who could command the stars to sing
Or hold the raging seas from breaking through the doors?
And tend the fragile roses with the very same hands

If everything is Yours
Everything is Yours
If everything is Yours
I’m letting it go
I am, I’m letting it go, letting go
Yeah, I’m letting it go

‘Cause everything is Yours
Yeah, everything is Yours

If everything is Yours, God
And everything is Yours
If everything is Yours
I’m letting it go, let it go, let it go, let it go

It was never mine, no, no
It was never mine, never mine
[Incomprehensible] no

Credits :
songwriters: assad, audrey; wilson, steve
© meaux mercy;river oaks music company;skyline apartments music

on a day when it’s like i can’t do anything right,
occasions for apologies keep on coming up,
and i just want to hide my face for a while,

i hear the raindrops fall as soon as i am in my car.

It seems that someone up there’s keeping the rain off me.

(i don’t deserve it i know.)

(the eulogy I sobbed through for her memorial service)

I’ve only known Elvie since 2008. And, I have to confess, I only got to talk and know her this year—when all her hair was gone. The church was starting with cell groups and we thought that it would be a lot easier for Elvie if we just had one of the Bible studies at her house, that way her family could join in too.  I didn’t know that Elvie had been praying for a Bible study at their house for a while now, so when I mentioned it to her, she was really excited.

So it’s most likely that you guys know her more, have more stories and adventures with her than I do. It’s likely that nothing I say will be new to you.

So why am I here? I don’t know! I’m just grateful for the opportunity to honor my friend among people who, like me, loved her and witnessed the miracle that is her life—even for a just a little while.

We all know how Elvie was strong and joyful still in the face of having her cancer, but I got to see first hand just how deep it really went at one of our Bible studies when I asked about what we are grateful to God for in our lives. And she replied, “I’m grateful for my cancer.”

And I said, “Really?” more out of surprise. And later on, I would ask if she had any regrets and she said she had none. She took something that one would normally see as a cause to question God’s goodness and plan for her life as an opportunity to know her Father even more intimately. She said she experienced firsthand how it was to truly depend on Him for everything—her health, her strength, for provisions. And for her, she always had enough.

She looked at her cancer—something that is so scary and painful and crippling—and considered it not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us– to her. It was a good exchange for her for a chance to live out her faith, to get to know God beyond what she would, in normal health, have.

And while her relationship with God was something that was so personal and intimate, we—and anybody who got to know her, even for just a little while—bore witness to their wonderful relationship and was blessed by it.

One time, when Elvie needed blood donors, one of my friends volunteered to donate, but he got rejected because he just had surgery that year. So, he just went up to her room in Makati Med to pray for her. He texted me later that it was such a blessing to meet someone who was still so joyful in the Lord in the midst of her sickness. He found it funny because he came up to bless her, and instead he came away blessed. Elvie texted me later to thank me for sending my friend up to pray for her and that he’s cute.

I was reading through her text messages in my phone…  “Ok, blood test ko kanina, platelet 112,000 kasi uminom ako ng katas ng fresh papaya leaves, hemoglobin 9 kasi nagpa-inject ako ng mahal na gamot worth P13,500,  white blood cells 2.38…Sobrang manas na ako, hirap maglakad, left hand ko maga din… But I thank God that He continues to sustain me and gives me strength. He is so good! He is in control!”

Parang Psalms no? At first it’s like a lament, but in the end there’s rejoicing because of God’s goodness despite all that is happening.

I wrote about her in my blog last September, I even got her to read it (I had to zoom the page really close because her eyesight’s bad already). I quoted a line from a book I was reading at a time and I remembered her, “Not all powers are spectacular. Sometimes the hardest power to master is the power of yielding.”(Hestia, The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan)

By yielding to the fact that she could succumb to her sickness at any time, Elvie had her priorities straight. Each day counted. She keept on going so that God’s power and glory could all the more be shown in what was left of her days, and to see the people she had shared the Gospel to grow closer to our Savior. I guess that’s why she fought to stay around longer than her doctors expected her to. That’s why even while she had just checked out of the hospital earlier that day, and already had a hard time walking, and it was raining really hard (so hard, that it kept most of the people from going to the fellowship) on October 1, she still went to church to share her story at the SAM Octoberfeast.

She made every day count.

And I’m not saying that Elvie put on a brave face all the time. She never made it a secret that she was afraid of the pain her cancer would bring, but she had surrendered her sickness to God. She was ready to go whenever God called her home. Her only prayer was to be able to keep on serving until the end. She was no longer afraid of death because it was already welcome any time.  Even then, she was already free from the fear of death. What a glorious victory!

I’m not asking to get cancer like Elvie—but God, how I want what she had with You! But the Stef version (heh). The peace, the joy in adversity, the steadiness against overwhelming odds, and the strength—oh the strength!—until the end.

Praise You, o Lord, for Elvie’s life. That was really something beautiful. Praise you.

Christmas Oratio
by W.H. Auden

Well, so that is that.  Now we must dismantle the tree,

Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes –

Some have got broken — and carrying them up to the attic.

The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,

And the children got ready for school.  There are enough

Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week –

Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,

Stayed up so late, attempted — quite unsuccessfully –

To love all of our relatives, and in general

Grossly overestimated our powers.  Once again

As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed

To do more than entertain it as an agreeable

Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,

Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,

The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.

The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,

And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware

Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought

Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now

Be very far off.  But, for the time being, here we all are,

Back in the moderate Aristotelian city

Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid’s geometry

And Newton’s mechanics would account for our experience,

And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.

It seems to have shrunk during the holidays.  The streets

Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten

The office was as depressing as this.  To those who have seen

The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,

The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.

For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly

Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be

Grew up when it opened.  Now, recollecting that moment

We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;

Remembering the stable where for once in our lives

Everything became a You and nothing was an It.

And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,

We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit

Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose

Would be some great suffering.  So, once we have met the Son,

We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;

“Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake.”

They will come, all right, don’t worry; probably in a form

That we do not expect, and certainly with a force

More dreadful than we can imagine.  In the meantime

There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,

Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem

From insignificance.  The happy morning is over,

The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:

When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing

Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure

A silence that is neither for nor against her faith

That God’s Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers,

God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.