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.

Journeys 244: My best journey is yet to come

As another left in the book turns, as the old leaf fell off the branch, one has to be reckoning as to who flipped it new or who broke off the branch? Was it the air or the old leaf weary that it hold on no longer? Recently, I have had the lowest chapter in my life including friends getting the dreaded C and the coping up is much painful to bear and yet, we strive harder to move on as a new day promises a new vitality, enthusiasm and perhaps, love.

As we journey on in our lives, we encounter encumbrances that we think holds us back but actually make us first try the first step, only this time, an extra load is added to our already weary shoulders. We have had been living comfortably well prior to a dreaded news but will it really stop us from moving? Can we be like stuck in the middle of nowhere trying to fidget with uncertainty. We have many questions like will I be alright then? Will it bears me more fruit to enjoy? Will it make me wiser? Will it renewed me? Will it redeems me? Will it liberates me? Will it and more will it comes to mind but honestly, its only God who showers the answers to all and every question.

As they say that anything that comes along will too shall pass. The trying times seem to be hardest to endure but with God at the center of our lives, nothing is impossible. The best and enduring promise of God can be seen in the poem “Footprints in the Sand” which when I was a young boy, I read with much reflection. I know that when I am pained, God will be carry my load for me. When I am bruised, he heals it. When I am tired, he carries me.

My best journey in life is yet to come. Soonest when we are comforted by the abiding graces of God, our journeys will be lighter albeit in a different perspective now. Last night, over dinner, I was randomly asked by my friend, Troy Asugas which I prefer to have: Cancer or Cardiac Arrest ? I calmly told him that should I have to choose, I’d wished it’s the dreaded C for the same reason that such will redeem me spiritually while also not discounting the physical pains one has to endure. I shared to him the book I read about CEO Eugene O’Kelly who contracted brain tumor and he was told to live for 100 days no more. Practically-minded, he lived his life closing all his relationships, friends, associates, everyone who came into his life. He said in his book Chasing Daylight that his cancer and his death is a gift for he was able to prepare for it unlike those who died of accidents and cardiac arrests. Although, in my mind, I wished nothing near the two choices since I dream to live healthy and wisely beyond the twilight years.

The pains now, the phases and the enduring confusions will too shall pass. God will, as always, the greatest comforter and abider of the healing power of miracles of which I believed. To those of my friends who suffer, I am hugging you all in my warmest days and in my lowest chapters to make you stronger than me. Always remember that our journey is yet to come. It shall, as said in the song, shall pass.

Journey 241: Was it only Yesterday?

When we are in love, we care deeply about how we feel and those whom our heart beats for every minute and to those whose lives we are evolving. But when love, as we felt it, are like roses blooming and beaming through an open window, is lovely and yes, it is refreshingly interesting to see and feel. It gave us the reassurance that even if the days are gloomy, our love as we shared it, will be just as refreshing and just plainly, an eye-candy to most who sees us.

Just when we love seriously too, that there are those that hamper our love comes rushing in. Whether we can accept it or not, there are those whose purpose in life is to ruin relationships and conquer the love you built. They just easily stoop at the window and invariably pick up those lovely flowers that represented every bloom, strength, optimism and every purpose why such relationships exist. There are however, people, whose purpose in life is to wreak lives and ruin relationships of which many lovers have befall.

Crestfallen, we are often left out and ruined. We are left to move on alone and worse, we are left over someone not of our own decision and doing, unfortunately, just by someone. Was it only yesterday then that you asks about how you both felt? Was it only yesterday that we enjoyed the simplicity of life and living? Was it only yesterday that we shared a hearty laugh and a will to survive? Was it only yesterday that we shared I LOVE YOU’s? Was it only yesterday that we surrendered all our love, our faith, our loyalty, our trust, our hope? Was it only yesterday that we shared in the victory and downfall of every dream we made? Was it only yesterday that we cared deeply about us and the future we carved in? Was it only yesterday that we courted and build on? We kept asking these to remind us, not of our inability to love honestly but to revalidate our capacity to move on.

In it though, it is unfortunate that one of us go on without the other, in the company of those who stole the show, in the company of those who ruined us and those in the arms of strangers who wreaked us. Then how could moving on be not as painful? It will always be painful but the reassurance will always be that in the hollowness we felt, we find peace and respect. That in the painful journey we will take alone, we find solace in the company of those who plant love and nurture it. That in the painful transition, we are deeply reassured of our own self-worth above what they have seen through us and those whom they refused to see us through. After all, roses are lovelies when they bloom and they bloom much more than we even think they have been doomed.