i write to believe.

I look at the second to the last post I've written and saw that it's been exactly a year.  How uncanny is that?   I've scattered my thoughts in many different places but still one place beckons me to stay still.  To write to believe.  It seems like an anthem that I'm hearing.  A sheep's horn begging me to come out from hiding.   And I am.  The year has been difficult.  There were relationships I had to let go of and relationships that I've chosen to keep.  There were duties that I had to stick out for and woundedness that I had to face.  It's been a sifting kind of year and it wasn't easy.  I am amazed that I am still here alive and grateful for unexpected places of grace.   I've chosen to simplify many things.  Like the way I write and the way I live.  I realized how difficult it is to keep having to shape-shift around many people.  They won't always be like me and I will not always receive wha...

I wrote this a week ago on a different space.  I've totally forgotten about this page and right now I'm asking God what He really wants me to do with it.  So many things have happened the past few months and I've been recovering from a lot of things.  From immense burn out.  From relationship fall outs. From losing fragments of myself in this transitory period of my life. But during Holy Week I found myself coming into wholeness again.  Able to listen to myself and hear God a little bit more closely. This is what I went through during 4 days of silence. - I've never experienced a silent retreat before until this year. I decided to go because I felt that for the longest time I lived such a noisy life. This noise comes in many forms. Exterior noise and interior noise. When the noise becomes overbearing it becomes hard to hear yourself or God. So this year I made a decision to go on a silent retreat that spanned the entire Holy Week. I had many thoughts ...

The world continues to press on even through this supposed restful time.  I am still caught up in between conversations, debacles, debates.  Swimming in perceptions between people, leaders, friends.   And I am dead tired.   The year of restoration, a promise, I remain holding on to because it is God's word for me at the beginning of this one.  Even in the middle of this exhaustion of still making hearts meet, bridging gaps and mending broken ties.  I hold on to it.  The year is not yet over and the promise has already been spoken.  It is on now a matter of time and the patience within my waiting.  That I shall be receiving soon, a moment of utmost peace and rest.   I am hanging on to the promise of Advent. The Greatest Gift has been such a great companion for me this season and this morning's read has got me grounded on the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth.  How the priest and his wife have been forgotten and barr...

I am silent and my heart acknowledges the vulnerable rhythm of its beating.  Only a few more days till Christmas and I let myself soak it all in.  This journey into truly understanding what the season means. I've been following devotional after devotional and as much as I want to write about everything I read or listen to or see, I do not have a lot of time.  Today I'm given the grace of time, and words because I am just moved by the story of 2 mothers listening to the beating heart of a daughter gone.  I read the story from Ann Voskamp's post today on "What to Do With a Hurting Heart This Christmas" .  The title of the post just captured me because it's what I have been thinking about for many days.  How do people who are experiencing situations of aching celebrate Christmas?  She illustrates this by sharing the story of 2 mothers and a daughter's heart.  And I watch and let my own heart be moved. Ann writes, "When God hears ...

I watched The Nativity today. I wanted to understand a bit more about the season we celebrate as Christmas.  I feel that over the years it’s been overrated and it’s lost it’s real meaning because of all the festivities we prepare without completely knowing how the first Christmas was two thousand years ago. When I was younger I’d always know the story of Jesus began with the angel appearing to Mary and announcing the virgin birth.  I know that the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream so that he can take Mary as his wife.  I know that Jesus was born in a manger.  I know how Mary and Joseph weren’t given a place at any inn in Bethlehem.  But those simple facts missed may have missed out on what could have really happened. I realized without understanding the real story, what I know of Christmas may even just be a one dimensional caricature of how the events truly unfolded. And yes, it’s indeed been like that. ...

It’s grace when you meet with a person who hurt you and instead of groveling about it you choose to give of yourself.  It’s grace when you haven’t spoken to someone for so very long and the courage opens up the door for a short but meaningful conversation.  It’s grace when you share what you have to those who have not.  Grace came for me this week and gave me the opportunity to love in situations where it was difficult to love.  Jesus revealing Himself as Grace moving my heart because He moves mine. Living becomes my response to His life in me.  Here I am learning to live again this advent.   I take days slowly at a time.  This week I’ve been unable to really do any writing because I have been mesmerized by the unfolding of a new hobby.  Crocheting has taken my time and I’ve fallen in love making little flowers that I plan to stitch together and make a scarf.  I’m lulled by the rhythmic looping of thread and yarn that almost allows me t...

Your truth pursued me yesterday and Your grace gave me the strength to hold on.  Despite the noises that threatened to steal the slow peace I’m finding in You.  Noises that taunted my aloneness and alienation.  I stay in this place where Your arms have encircled around me and keeping my eyes stayed on You.   You found me through the book of Romans.  The fourth and fifth chapters were words I read out loud to myself and how their sound just moved and tugged at my heart.   God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.  How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath. (Rom 5:8-9) These words of St. Paul broke through the dismal fog that clouded my mind and kept it cluttered for days.  I said it to myself again and again.   God proves His love.  God proves His love.    What kind of God proves His love to His creation? ...

I'm soaking in the words that have been written by women of faith today.  Devotional after devotional. Blog post after blog post.  I am hungry to resonate with those who have found Him. I am longing to come to know those who have lived through their own lives unraveling with fullness in Him.  And I find myself in this place where I'm called to enter a slow silence. Where do I want to be right now?   I want to be in a place filled with His peace and His love.  I want to be in a place where I too can say that I've known Him and I continue to get to know Him.  I am still in the "getting there" and the "figuring it out again" but this time I want to be more conscious of my choice.  More deliberate because now I know the source of my own discontentment.   I ponder upon Ann's words again in her Hope video.  How she focuses on Jesse's stump and how this stump are those moments in our lives that have been cut off, given up on, nearly impossib...

I've been looking through  Jennifer's blog archives  because her voice is a voice that I resonate with a lot these past few weeks and I'm learning about her journey and how God has found her.  I'm learning about how God restored her to Himself.  I'm learning about the peaceful rhythm she has found as she walked intimately with her Beloved.  A walk so inspiring and captivating.  A walk that reminds me of my own walk many years ago. But believing that one thing is everything, that the pursuit of these desires is the act of pursuing You makes an idol out of our desires. Our pursuit of what we think we want becomes more important to us than You.  (May 17, 2011) It’s true.  I have turned most of my desires into my idols.  Even the desire to be a reliable youth minister, a creative writer, a dear friend or finding true love. Even the desire to be financially successful, professionally admirable and competently consistent.  I realized ...

i find the silence louder than any attempt to still the night pregnant with prayers the sky roaring with tears and heaven longing for earth’s saints what prayers have we buried in the soil of our memories? what promises have we not kept letting faith vanish behind the mountain? what candle can we light to let even shadows find home in the dark? what sound can keep us awake that even noise can embrace silence still?

i am banished from a place  where the conversations move freely between me and you the day ends with stories  i can no longer tell like a  heart filled tale  and i am absent from the words i say like a ghost lingering in the small white frame  where what exists is only a shell of what was left between me and you like an echo whispering  over and over in the dark  remember my name remember my name remember my name or a dream that was left back into the night what has become what has become what has become and the words which are all that is left as the remains of conjoined journey forgotten become empty as  dried up seeds  of trees longing for rain

Accepting oneself is not easy especially if you’ve battled years of struggling to find a place to fit in. The struggling to adjust to the people around you and not being able to bare your entire self as transparently as you need to exhale and breathe can feel like an imprisonment or slow suffocating death.   Lately, I’ve been thinking about this because receiving God’s love means I receive it for myself and this love should be able to help me accept myself with all my flaws and idiosyncrasies.  I haven’t been able to wrap my mind around it  else I would be completely secure in His love all the time.   God’s love is not easy to anchor on especially if acceptance and affirmation is something we always rely on other people for.  It’s not easy to anchor on to someone you cannot see, talk to or hang out with. But I’ve realized that by not anchoring myself on Him, I too am not able to completely receive other people’s love completely as well.  I will a...

I hurdle constantly with the issue of expectation.  In a relative world, having expectations is a normal thing.  It's the reciprocity of human life. You give and you also expect to receive.  You love and you expect to be loved in return.  That popular Golden Rule "Do unto others what you want others to do unto you" has gotten me stuck on some issues about expectation. Living awake has made me realize that the golden rule while noble and profound is unrealistic.  What you do unto others is seldom ever done unto you.  For example.  I listen to about 10 people on the average day.  Aside from my consultancy practice, I'm also a youth minister and a daughter and a friend.  Listening is an activity that takes up a lot of my time and I happen to like doing it too.  I listen quite intently and really go deep into the core issues of people.  Just today I had a meeting with a client and he was telling me about his concerns over some...

Distractions are the common man's band aid to the small things that affect life.  I have many.  But for the past few weeks God has stripped me off my distractions to focus my attention to certain things. Sometimes I complain because I feel deprived of the more pleasant things that I see other people experience.  I grumble at how other people can be insensitive to my difficulties and play deaf to my pleas for help.   This particular season of my life has forced me to take a good look at what I value in myself and other people.  And I've realized how I can count with my  hands what I really value the most.  I value truthfulness and authenticity.  I value deep conversations.  I value learning and reflecting.  I value meaningful companionship.  I value honouring good memories.  I value true loyalty.  I value faithfulness. When you're being stripped away off everything that you thought was valuable to you, you begin to re...

Purity isn't a subject matter that I have allowed myself to be familiar with. In fact I have evaded it for the longest time.  I'd often react to the word and cringe at the memories of how many moments I've been the total opposite.  I still do to this day.   I've been struggling with understanding chastity for most my life not because I don't want to be chaste or am not trying to be but because I don't see how else I can be chaste and how I can overcome the world's many distractions and temptations that can keep me from being chaste.  I have been pondering about this for a while and yesterday I finally took time to visit  Jason and Crystalina Evert's page .  I've heard about them around 3 years ago but didn't really make the connection.  I suppose in my head I've already concluded that my struggle with chastity is an impossible battle and I've scarred my purity so deep with my lifestyle in the past that I will never just completely g...

How much do I understand what I believe?  This was the pressing question that left me after today's talk on "Understanding the Eucharist". While I've attended similar talks like this throughout my life there was something different about this one.  Perhaps it was because I am more desperate in seeking the truth or perhaps God just really wanted me to be jolted awake.    The speaker spoke loud and clear.   Lex orandi legem credendi constituit.   The law of prayer determines the law of belief or the way we pray reveals what we believe. After the talk we gathered to share our thoughts and many in the table agreed mostly one thing.  How can we say that we keep seeking God in daily life?  In praise music?  In worship gatherings?  In one another? When we cannot even see Him in the Eucharist where His presence is the most real? There must be something terribly amiss about what we continue to profess as our belief.  Listening ...

I walk in a rhythm of highs and lows. Interaction after interaction. Seeing the hearts in need of help. In a deep deep hunger for soothing peace. Every person I encounter resembles my aching and I dig deep with them. To see the hurt and the pain. And wait with them till the light of God’s comfort embraces them whole. The past few weeks have been tuning in to this rhythm. And I get tuned in so deep and this morning I uncoil from the work and breathe. I spend some time listening to the voice of encouragement. Going back to that one thing that has helped me keep my grace-filled rhythm constant. Ann Voskamp does that for me. And tuning in to her eucharisteo rhythm which she discovered at the height of her anxiety-filled life brings me into a solace that I would never have known had I not learned the habit of counting gifts. 860. Noodles for yesterday’s lunch 861. The peaceful moments listening to encouraging words 862. Blue masking tape for the brown notebooks gi...

I am worn out God. My humanity is worn out. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. And today I humbly admit that before you. I am worn out. I am worn out by the physical and emotional demands of ministry. Worn out by the demands of my work. I am worn out. Have I admitted that to myself enough? Do people around me know that the past 10 years of being so involved with care-giving has worn me out? Yet despite this weariness I hunger desperately for the in-filling I know that only You can give. Only in this weariness can I recognise my own neediness for such an in-filling that no one else can supply but You. No person. No accomplishment. No companionship. Nothing is enough when the weariness of man cracks the bone. Nothing but You Beloved. Oh how I've seen You laced around fingers of their raised hands. In the dark room where prayer rose from the depths of broken hearts. I saw You God. I saw You wrestle with their woes & struggle to get them still ...

The days have been long since I've gotten myself to post here again.  So many things have happened the past month and most of my cluttered thoughts have been chronicled in fragments  for only fragments can be mustered right now.   It's 44 minutes past midnight and I'm tuning into a place of silence I haven't had in a while.  It's 2 days since the eleventh encounter weekend with the youth ministry.  It's been 26 days since my dear spiritual mentor Tita Belle has passed away.  It's been 95 days since I decided to take on a different route with my work. So many moments have passed and there is only one thought in my head right now.  I want to live my life with a meaningful rhythm void of haste and solely relying on the flow of God's grace. I have been in many conversations the past few months.  Things to achieve.  Things to complete.  Things to pursue.  Things to fix.  People to listen to.  People to mend. ...

I am called back to the memory of Assisi. The pink stoned walls and the peaceful prayers whispered on the way up to the Basilica of Saint Francis. Francis. The name of our new Pope. He chose the name of a man who traced the pink walls with his hands. Once rich and robed, he tossed out his wealth to choose the countryside instead of his castle. A man who sang to the earth and called out to brother moon and sister sun. A man whose heart longed to be this channel of peace and borne out of his heart is Assisi. A peaceful little city crowning the mountains Umbria, Italy. I watched the news this morning to know more about Papa Francesco. They say he rode the bus to work and chose the apartment instead of the archbishop's palace. His first words to the public was to ask for blessings instead of giving his blessing. He seems to have a different default. Asking, receiving first instead of giving. And is it not such an act of faith? Of humility? To know that one is in ne...