The Best

The inevitable topic of conversation, whenever late Friday nights catch me at the Center and members of the Solas' Caring Group start arriving, is my "precarious" civil status. Precarious, meaning that, from all indications given, majority of these married couples seem to think that I'll soon be joining their ranks, and their CG. Not that I mind - their good natured teasing is very cute - because I do intend to get married one of these days, perhaps sooner than later. All in God's time, of course.

Tonight, as I was saying my goodbyes to this very pleasant and Spirit-filled group, Ate Mayette Salvedia said, with a meaningful smile, "The best, Honey, the best." Meaning of course, if taken into the context of my continuing series of (predominantly one-liner) conversations with her, pray for, wait for, and finally choose the best that God has prepared.

God's best. Oswald Chambers once said that "the greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best." (My Utmost for His Highest) "As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and physically gratifying possibilities will open up before you. These things are yours by right, but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God make your choice for you. God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the appropriate thing to consider, if you were not living the life of faith. But if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and allow God to make your choice for you. This is the discipline God uses to transform the natural into the spiritual through obedience to His voice."

Ate Mayette (her previous "one-liner" was on hearing wedding bells), Ate Ardis (whose wisdom as a Christian missionary, wife, and mother I've benefited so greatly from in all our long talks at the kitchen table) and I are on the same page. As beloved daughters of the King, we have to always remember that His Majesty knows and wants only what is best for us, and all we have to do is allow Him to choose the "one" - the right one. Good is good, but that would be settling for so much less, when the best awaits. And I await the best, whoever my Father may reveal him to be! May He grant me the grace to recognize the "one" when the time is right. :-)

P.S. For a great read on waiting for the best that God has to offer us, especially in terms of the man He has chosen to be our life's partner, check out my good friend and sister-in-Christ Tere Gum-apas' recently released book, When My Bridegroom Comes, available at Don Bosco Makati Seminary bookstore, Christ the King (E. Rodriguez) Seminary bookstore, Books for Less outlets, Sto. Domingo Parish
Bookstore, St. Joseph Care & Share Shop (Robinsons Galleria, across Edsa Shrine) and Nuestra Señora de Aranzazu Pilgrim Store (San Mateo Plaza).

Weekend in Cali

A weekend "off" out of the city. The moon reflecting off the placid lake. Hard work, late nights. Frosty sunrises. Dawn prayers. Memorable conversations. Silly moments that packed a wallop. Backrubs. Sleep of the dead. Set meals to die for. Rotts, labs, a Saint Bernard, and a golden retriever named Sam. Fat chickens and turkeys, all sleeping in a row. Record-breaking group-effort scores on Text Twist. Building a team. Building a family (Amats' apt observation). Playing cards and popsicle sticks and ten-freaking-thousand-ribbons round the old oak trees. Call centers, cigarettes, corporate life and the gratitude of being involved in none of the above. A "guesthouse" I could live the rest of my life in. A kitchen straight out of my wildest dreams. Mark Joseph and his wisdom. Tita Vicky, Tita Estee and their warm, gracious, and refined hospitality. Tito Peter falling asleep on Numbers. Amats. Lex. AG. And stars, stars, millions of stars.

Kuya Joe Dean: You look good, Hon...did you enjoy your weekend?

Res ipsa loquitur. God is good. :-)

I Have Seen You

Wednesday night, and I still didn't have a topic for the first talk of the year at the Montalban mission. I'd been praying about it for a few days, but no inspiration seemed to be forthcoming; I was resigned to sharing my personal testimony (or at least part of it - a very long conversion story that's still ongoing!) to encourage the attendees to share how God has been working in their own lives. Or, in the alternative, to reflect on the Gospel of the day (Mark 1:40-45 on the leper who begged to be made clean). But the Spirit came through at the eleventh hour, leading me to a verse that virtually leapt off the computer screen with its immediate impact. The inspiration was so overwhelming that I found myself completing the talk outline in no time at all - it was still primarily a witnessing of God's hand in my life, but founded on what I now consider as perhaps the most powerful verse in the Book of Job:

"I had heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes." (Job 42:5)

Most of us know who Job is - the poster child of affliction who lost his wealth, properties, children, and good health, all in the same day. And so he sits in his miserable state, for the good part of 38 chapters, suffering - above everything else - the derision of his "friends," until God finally gets sick of the speculation and booms out a lengthy, forceful monologue that probably had Job's buddies running for cover. Even so, at the end of it all, He still hasn't categorically answered the question as to why the upright Job had to endure such debilitating trials. But Job no longer needs explanations - he realizes that he cannot grasp the magnitude of the Almighty's purposes. Instead, he seems to be strangely satisfied, for he has finally seen the God (albeit in His fearful indignation!) he'd previously only heard about.


I too, like Job, had only heard of God before, but now I have seen Him with my own eyes. Not in freaky in-the-flesh encounters, mind you. Some translations of the same verse read "I knew you only before by hearsay...", hearsay being defined in law as evidence based on the reports of others rather than the personal knowledge of a witness and therefore generally not admissible as testimony. I have "seen" God, for I have personal knowledge of Him. And, as I look back on my life, I can enumerate at least three ways by means of which He has showed Himself to me, to witness Him at work and to know Him.

Seeing Him in His Mercy. I first saw God when I, in all my filthy sinfulness, came face-to-face with His immaculate goodness, and found myself being embraced and washed clean in the fathomless ocean of His mercy. I was the leper in the Gospel of Mark, who asked to be made well...and was healed by His loving and merciful touch. His forgiveness was real, His love was tangible as it freed me from the bonds that were strangling my soul. I saw Him on that afternoon of June 1, 2002 when He forgave me and welcomed His prodigal daughter back after a lifetime of being separated from Him. I never really believed in confession - my last one prior to that weekend had been seven years previously, and before that, 14 years! - but I finally appreciated the Sacrament of Reconciliation on the weekend I was renewed in Christ, because I finally truly believed that He indeed had the power to forgive me, even if I could not forgive myself.


Seeing Him In Our Helplessness. God will sometimes allow us to be brought to the point of absolute helplessness to be able to lay our eyes on Him. The old saying holds true: it's only when we're flat on our backs that we can finally look Up. During prayer group a couple of weeks ago, one of the prayers that came out of my heart was "You were there when no else was." And He's always been there when everyone was gone; He always will be there. But sometimes everyone and everything must be removed, so we can truly appreciate that beautiful truth.

After my renewal, I went into the "desert" and was very easily tempted. I went into a major backslide, multiplying the same old sins and even committing ones that were bigger and badder. So God did an "intervention" and allowed all the things that were distracting and "destructing" me to be taken away...until only He was left to hang on to. And hang on for dear life I did! I could only rely on His promises that He would turn my mourning into dancing, that He would make a way, that He had plans for me, for my welfare and not for my woe...and, unlike others who turned back on their word, He came through on each and every one of those promises I held on to. Indeed, it is in our worst suffering that He holds us closest and tightest...and when we realize that, all we have to do is to look into the face of the One who embraces us. And see Him and how He loves us so.


Seeing Him As He Changes Others. I see God when I see His hand in the lives of others. Whenever I look at Ryan, who was always so high from sniffing glue that he kept on losing his slippers and could hardly walk straight, or Francis, the ringleader of the Delta streetkids who got thrown into rehab and out of his house, I know for sure that there is a God. For there is no explanation for the 180 degree change in their lives except the transformative love of a Higher Being.

I remember the makeshift shanties on Culiat that were demolished, and the grievious suffering of the families we cared for when they were relocated to Montalban. I only have to look at their newly renovated houses, the high grades of their school age children who could not even read or write a year ago, and their faces as they attend our prayer meetings, and I know that I have seen the sheltering hand of our faithful God.

My own life - and the things I now do (as well as those I do not do!) - is witness that there is indeed a God. I could never do what I do now in His service or continue not to do what I should not be doing, on my own. It's just not within my power - but entirely within His. I still slip up, and beat myself up for it once in a while, but my loving Father always lifts me out of the mud, hoses me down, and sets me back on my feet. I see Him as He changes me.

I had heard about You before, but now I have seen You with my own eyes. May I see You every day in this life, until the time comes when I really cast my eyes - and not just the eyes of faith - on You. Amen.

Weathering The Whirlpool

Whew. I think I'm safely on steady shores now after the "strengthening storm," with an armful of lessons learned from riding this latest whopper of a whirlpool of faith. Even my “interiors” feel a whole lot different, as if something foul and carcinogenic was purged from within - it’s an exhilirating liberation that I can attribute only to God. But I'm still clinging on for dear life to the Captain of the vessel, who not only rescues me from the depths of the ocean, but likewise walks with me on solid ground. May I never stray too far from Him again (a familiar refrain by now to His ears, good thing His patience is infinite!).

For some reason, this latest "episode" reminds me of the last scene of the movie "The Day After Tomorrow," when mankind's abuse of nature triggers a drastic climate change that devastates a huge portion of the earth but finally results in a whole new and environmentally improved world. Nature sought to make things "right" again, just as God seeks to always make things "right" in the lives we've given Him, every time we miss the mark. And sometimes, He has to rock our worlds just to put everything back in place. After the last few days of getting back on my spiritual feet, I can say that everything is where it's supposed to be - or at least it's getting there.

I learned (again) to depend solely on Him and spend more time listening to Him - in His Word, as well as in my circumstances. He reminded me of the absolute necessity, especially for people who serve Him as missionaries of His Light, to constantly partake of the strength He gives us in the Holy Eucharist...our daily bread indeed. Without frequently receiving the greatest gift of His love - the Lord Himself! - it becomes extremely difficult to bring His love to others. And the more we receive Him and His love, the more we can take Him to others by loving them even more. Somehow, in the busy-ness of service, I managed to lose sight of the awesome privilege and blessing of attending daily Mass and started going less frequently, if at all...and now I realize the grace I "missed out" on. Our "in-filling" is as important as our "outpouring," for we cannot give what we do not have. Praise God for His boundless reservoir from which we can always draw our fill!

I'd always been meaning to "get one" but never quite really got around to it, so I am pleasantly surprised to find myself blessed with a priest-confessor, to whom I have been able to regularly hold myself accountable through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This particular confessor likes to hear confession face-to-face, under the stars, in the garden; he "wipes" your bloody brow every time you beat yourself up for falling short and tells you to be "gentle on yourself, for even the Lord does not condemn you;" and whenever he corrects, there is no doubt in your mind that he does so with love. Just like Jesus. Which is how it should be, without going into catechesis. It also helps that, like the Lord, he's close to my age...and he blogs (just like his Boss, whose "Blog" is a Bestseller). How cool is that? Anyway, God's forgiveness on that Tuesday evening was the final cleansing I needed after all those days of rolling around in the dirt of my conscience, and somehow I knew that we'd reached the shore.

The counsel and faith sharing of strong Christian friends is also a tremendous blessing I am grateful for. God alone takes us through whatever we must endure, but fellow Christians help us get our bearings back more quickly - we are all broken, weak-kneed creatures who have to lean on each other to be able to stand upright. I am thankful for my "safe place to fall" - where I can bare my most wearying struggles and most painful shortcomings - in the presence of faithful friends in Christ, both in the mission and in our little group of believers to whom I am accountable. After each conversation with the handful of people I've shared this latest struggle with (albeit only after God brought me across), I felt my spirits lifting higher and higher - as if helping hands were reaching down to pull me up.

And as the "greenhouse effect" in my life was being cleared up and the smog blasted out of my spiritual system, I began to hear God speak ever so clearly. His most prominent word, which I believe is His "theme" for my life in 2006, has been this verse, which has resounded and been confirmed by others over and again since prayer group last Thursday, during my Friday night prayer time, and again, today at the He Cares planning session:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.
Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more.
You are clean already, by means of the word that I have spoken to you.
Remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a branch-and withers; these branches are collected and thrown on the fire and are burnt.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for whatever you please and you will get it.
It is to the glory of my Father that you should bear much fruit and be my disciples. I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete. John 15:1-11


Remain in Him. Stay close to Jesus. Keep your eyes on the Lord, do not stray from the Shepherd. For cut off from Him, we can do nothing, but in Him, our joy will be complete.

I'm ready to get back to work, Boss. :-) But while I'm at it, may I always remember Whose I am. Amen.

Carpaccio

Feels like many things have been "wrenched" from my life - not forcibly, but through voluntary surrender to Him, although it's no less painful - and I'm still raw and bloody from it all. Call me carpaccio.

But I bear it unbowed, because He is the lifter of my head, and, from my short experience as His oftentimes stubborn patient, reconstructive surgery is always meant for expansion that is ultimately for my own good. In the meantime, while I am emptied of my own dreams, desires, and plans, I cannot do much except wait for Him to fill me with what He will; to fill me with His dreams, desires, and plans for me; to fill me with His will.

What makes this surrender particularly agonizing is the fact that the fulfillment of my dreams, desires, and plans was never denied or withheld. Instead, all that was asked was if I would give up pursuing all these good - albeit unrealized - things on my own in exchange for the Best, for the Best that is yet unknown. It's a classic game show laban-bawi situation...hold on to what is in hand and within reach or risk it all for the unseen pearl of great price? Would I lay all my fondest hopes at His feet and let them die there? And would I have sufficient faith to wait for Him to replace all these with His own, which could very well be the same things I dreamed for myself, or then again, entirely different dreams? Would I actually trust that all things really and truly and actually work for the good of those who love Him and who are called according to His purposes? Did I honestly believe that He knows and wants only what is best for me? You probably know the answer to that by now, but the "yes" came not without very great difficulty. That's what probably shames me most - that I had the temerity to doubt, for more than a split second, His infinite wisdom. Abraham was in my thoughts and prayers the entire time I lay everything He asked me to on the altar - the "Isaacs" of my life, that I'd always believed had come from Him (then again, as Job would probably argue, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away!). But the jury is still out on whether my "Isaacs" will be spared by the scapegoat sacrifice or whether they'll be drawn and quartered and thrown into the frying pan. Come what may, everything's in His capable hands now, time to do nothing else but trust.


And thus, right this moment I can't take charge of my life, much less others', because He's totally in control of mine, and I willingly let Him take over the steering wheel: I'm way too tired to drive anyway. It's a time of surrender, submission, and subservience. I'm only too happy and relieved to follow instead of taking the lead. Truly, this is what a work in progress is all about...a few more dizzying times around the wheel as the Potter lovingly slaps and shapes an ugly blob of clay into a work of Art. And that stupid piece of mud should realize that it is futile and exceedingly foolish for her to resist.

Sometimes I forget that He has to slap our hands free of what we cling to so He can fill them with what He wants us to receive, so He can fill them with Himself, Who alone is worth clinging to. Lesson learned and still being learned, how quick we humans forget. In my weakness, His strength is perfected! May I never say I am strong in any way except through the love of my Savior.

Detachment. Temperance. Trust. And above all, love. New lessons that He's been teaching; tough lessons, but through His grace I pray I make the grade.

God bless you, God loves you. By the way, I love carpaccio too, but not as much as I love God. Or as much as I love you. :-)

MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST!

Now I get the point - a point very well taken. Praise God :-)

January 1 (From My Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers)
Let Us Keep to the Point

". . . my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death" —Philippians 1:20

My Utmost for His Highest. ". . . my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed . . . ." We will all feel very much ashamed if we do not yield to Jesus the areas of our lives He has asked us to yield to Him. It’s as if Paul were saying, "My determined purpose is to be my utmost for His highest— my best for His glory." To reach that level of determination is a matter of the will, not of debate or of reasoning. It is absolute and irrevocable surrender of the will at that point. An undue amount of thought and consideration for ourselves is what keeps us from making that decision, although we cover it up with the pretense that it is others we are considering. When we think seriously about what it will cost others if we obey the call of Jesus, we tell God He doesn’t know what our obedience will mean. Keep to the point— He does know. Shut out every other thought and keep yourself before God in this one thing only— my utmost for His highest. I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and Him alone.

My Unstoppable Determination for His Holiness. "Whether it means life or death-it makes no difference!" (see Philippians 1:21 ). Paul was determined that nothing would stop him from doing exactly what God wanted. But before we choose to follow God’s will, a crisis must develop in our lives. This happens because we tend to be unresponsive to God’s gentler nudges. He brings us to the place where He asks us to be our utmost for Him and we begin to debate. He then providentially produces a crisis where we have to decide— for or against. That moment becomes a great crossroads in our lives. If a crisis has come to you on any front, surrender your will to Jesus absolutely and irrevocably.