Journey 245: Reaching Out

Everyone, in most parts of their lives, has to endure problems, trials and challenges which span from relationships, finances, work, marriages, commitments, vows, and the ever pressing concerns of health. In it, we value no one but ourselves and the only way to cope up with the challenges that comes our way is to understand why it has been there and why it has happened and what lesson has it there to teach us.

My first brush at life’s challenges comes unexpectedly and neither I nor anyone can ever understand why it has to happened so suddenly and so unexpectedly beyond my comprehension. I am stressed and depress yes, but I am prayerful and hopeful too. I had been tortured emotionally but I am getting through there. I am pained yes, but I knew this trial will pass. I am bruised yes, but I know this too shall heal. All my pains and the challenges that comes my way are constant reminder for me to reach out, not on my own and for my victory’s sake but reaching out to those whom I have left behind – my God, my family and my friends. Reckoning hard enough, I had been on the high-speed highway driving to nowhere but surely, am anchored in what God’s purpose for me. It is just unfortunate that in so doing, I have been speeding pass many others who are there to support me through.

I am grateful for my closest friend who has cancer who shared to me the film Fireproof and watched it as well as reflected on it. He knew my predicaments and he knew too well who I am in my life. He and I shared a life that only the best of friends knew and I am continually is grateful for the wonderful blessings God has given me when he shared his thoughtful suggestion about the film to reflect on. I in fact was reminded by him that we all have all our problems that we just have to face it head-on.

A friend of mine too, as with many countless others, have informed me that she has cancer. It broke me harder since I am surrounded by friends and family who are with cancers. I have already in my mind how many of them have been in the phases of life with cancer. I could not and never fathom why they, so young, has to endure it. I say to myself that one day, the physical pains will be redeemed by the renewed spirit to be an inspiration. I thought that life has to be as simple as living until our twilight years and rest peacefully in our time but God has higher purposes and direction. We are never drivers of our lives but we are mere passengers, though we have the option to hop in or not. In our life’s struggles, we have everything that others have not of which I believed will be one of the reason why God wanted us to share, share our life, our experiences and our ability to make a difference.

Reaching out is like this little boy with a twig trying to reach out a branch. It is by experiencing what we had been given that we may reach out. Reaching out to those who have made our lives significant and meaningful. It is through reaching out that our pains will be replaced with joy. It is by reaching out that our struggles will end with such victory that only we can all appreciate and share. It is by reaching out that we carefully evaluate where we are at the present and decide where we are heading in the future. It is by reaching out that we know God better, much more than we allow ourselves to know.

Journey 225: The Power of an Embrace

Everyone I believed needs a hug that is sincere and a thought that one day, we will be giving the biggest hug of our lives no matter what circumstances we are in. We have been made for others and those significant others, whether friends, lovers and families are there to remind us that our role in life is to foster the link that ours are not dots that are separated but dots that are connected. We are in all ways than one, are connected through life. Our lives the way we lived it, even miles away have an impact on ordinary people reading us, or listening to us, or those that are plain strangers we sit on the bus. Our lives, before we even acknowledge it is made not entirely of our own little struggles for recognition, of power, of grace, of benevolence but of those who had been in our lives, our pasts and our present, our future and those that come within our hearts and stayed.

The biggest challenge of every man is to show how affectionately we are linked with each other, no matter what. That is why when you hugged someone or someone hugged you, you felt the sincerity, the calmness, the openness and the hope eternal. In our ability to embrace, we do not pass judgment on someone or his past or his mistakes but we open our arms out-stretched to accept and walk on. Usually, when we are pained, we buck down. When we are tortured, we questioned. When we are betrayed, we felt unfairly treated and when we are left, we felt we are alone in the world but all these, will be ease out when one hug you or you hug someone.

The power of a hug is one that is both an expression of love, understanding and hope as well as a submission of one’s past, letting go of one’s mistakes and coping up with what is that comes along. We are indeed what our world is, that as long as we embrace others replete with their own limitations while prospective of their strength and in their future, then the world will be a better place to live in. It is just a hug yes but a hug that is truly given is one that surely can reassure another of the power of change, the ability to look beyond what is today and provides a shining future that awaits those who makes it.

Journey 184: The Missing part is the hardest

Have you ever experienced having been left behind because someone has to work overseas or somewhere away from where you are? Then we shared the same fate. The hardest part is the missing part. In this time and age, many couples have opted to either have the husband/boyfriend work overseas or the wife/girlfriend work overseas. As long as the masterplan is something you both shared then no problem there but honestly, you will feel utterly left out of the loop when your most important someone is so far away from where you had been all this life.

The moment you get to place your calls, your text messages, your emails, your chat on facebook, that is the hardest part and the most excruciating of all emotional rollercoaster ride. The teardrops and the heavy heart that you feel is but naturally human, after all, when you have all the time and days together, the missing part is never there but when one of you departs somewhere, then the missing part is present and the all the clouds you see are gray. However, even in gray, the clouds have silver-lining in it.

Most importantly, at least when you get to feel how life and living is, albeit far from each other, you still feel each other. You feel how important life to both of you and you feel how magnificently you shared your dreams and aspirations together. Some dreams are forever lit up for it to bear fruit in reality and with it, come the missing part. What is practically and essentially important is that, no matter what, you hold on to your dreams together and as the plane taxies on the runway and take-off, your dreams take its flight too. Fancy yet so true. Heartfelt yet so reassuring. Meaningful yet so simply amazing.