Blessings...Foiled Again!

I’ve been happily busy the last few weeks with all sorts of physically taxing (but spiritually rewarding) “Martha” activities, with relatively fewer “Mary” moments in comparison, so on Saturday night I talked to God about our day off. I had planned to attend the second session of the Feast with the He Cares family and several HC teens, and then afterwards just veg out with the Lord (which usually entails marathon naps - in between conversations with Him and meditative reading – or should I say conversations and meditative reading in between marathon naps, hehe). Instead, my well-laid out plans were shot as my veg-out afternoon was spent entertaining Kuya Joe Dean, the other volunteers, and 17 noisy teenagers (plus one out-of-place little monkey that answers to the name Ime) at our house from late lunch (the KFC we’d gone to for our post-Feast feast was booked for a birthday and jampacked, so we decided on an impromptu picnic in my Mom’s garden) to merienda to dinner. Apparently God didn’t mind not having my undivided attention that day. Anyway, as Sis Imee would say...”happiness!”

In the wee hours of Monday, I planned my day once again. Monday is my personal veg-out-while-working-at-home day, by accident of color coding, and I was looking forward to waking up late and staying in pajamas until I had to get ready for the 7:30 p.m. CLP. But, as usual, God had different plans. At 10 a.m., as I was en route to He Cares to drop off Mia’s baon for Montalban (after which I was supposed to meet my Dad to do the groceries), Mia called and asked me to put aside my plans for the day because they needed another car to accommodate all the volunteers visiting the site. Fortunately, my Dad didn’t mind the change of plans, and I was effectively “kidnapped,” pambahay and all, away to Montalban. We managed to evade the MMDA (what a miracle), even though we traveled back to QC later that afternoon during the traffic ban. ..and even if we’d been flagged down, we had a legitimate excuse: two doctors in the car on call, and one relocated Montalban resident we needed to “relocate” back to a QC hospital because of his gangreous foot. God’s plans, indeed – at least I managed to make it to the CLP without having to show up in all my dirty, sweaty, stinky pambahay glory. Tired, kidnapped, with plans frustrated yet again, but nevertheless still happy!

In the early hours of Tuesday, right before going to bed, I put my foot down…because later that day I actually had a schedule I fully intended to follow. Try to finish articles and revisions in the morning, attempt to join the Chinatown shoot at lunch, meet for a TV pilot in the p.m. But blessings (as opposed to curses)…foiled again! A certain little girl from He Cares was going to the dentist to get her teeth pulled that morning, but she refused to go without Ate Honey (who, strangely enough, is terrified of the dentist herself). I’ve done a lot of client “hand-holding” in the exercise of my profession, but never of the pre-dental appointment kind! Afterwards, two Kuyas were heading off to Divisoria to purchase supplies for the livelihood projects, so I jumped at the chance to join them while at the same time hoping that I could still hook up with the Chinatown tour…only to find out that God so very considerately postponed the Binondo “food safari” I’d have hated to miss! My schedule was therefore freed up to navigate the streets of Divi with the hopelessly clueless Kuya Mike and Kuya Vince (apparently Divisoria is still very much Ate’s territory, except if you happen to be Kuya Joe Dean or Kuya Oman!). Of course, my 4 p.m. production meet was compromised by the rains and the failure to locate certain materials, but my producer so very nicely allowed me to miss the meeting, and I was later to find out that it would have been a waste for me to go anyway, as no creative details were discussed! God really knows what He’s doing when He “ruins” our plans for the day and reschedules everything according to what He wants us to do! :-) Praise Him, always!

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts
and your ways are not my ways,
declares Yahweh.
For the heavens are as high above earth
as my ways are above your ways,
my thoughts above your thoughts.” (Is. 55:8-9)