Surrender

I had to give it all up to Him because I didn't know who else to turn to. Even the strongest people in your life will not be able to support you all the time. They're human, too. Very human at best.

So I let it go. It was hard to experience...the questioning...the anxiety...the lies that were being poured into me. The spiritual battle that seems more difficult now. In the past, my companions and I would balance each other out, in the sense that one would be there to help carry the other. This time it's total dependence on God because we both struggle at the same time just as intensely as the other.

Few times have I gone through attacks like that but they seem to come more frequently when something really great is about to happen.

And I'm praying that something great is happening right now.

It's almost 10:00...First Visit. Please help him surrender, Kuya Jess.

So aware of our limitations. Challenges coming from people who care...who are curious...who are just plain concerned.

Are you sure this is the one, Gary? But she's sick. Are you ready, Marianne? Are you really ready?

I am sick. I've actually been sick. Not at my worst but bad enough that it's getting so hard to take care of so many things at the same time. Can't get a whole lot done when it feels like a hammer is being pounded into your head or when you try to get out of bed and your legs somehow aren't cooperating very well.

Whatever happened to my understanding of redemptive suffering?

I get down on myself because I don't think I can do a whole lot of good like this...that maybe I'm not good enough to marry this man who wants to love me so much.

But you know what? There is a greater good to all of this. There has to be.

And at this very moment, someone I know who is very close to my heart needs my prayers and the grace that can come to her through the physical, spiritual and emotional pain I can offer up...just so that she can be okay...just so that she can have peace and know everything is in the hands of God.

I can do some good for a little soul not even a day old by believing that he is being held in the palm of the Father's hand...that his birth and the trials that are coming with it are giving his parents the strength of saints. The strength that allows them to put their hope in what He alone can do to keep him alive.

Yes, great things are happening because people are praying. We are learning to surrender everything to Him...everything we have...everything we are...having faith that we are going to witness miracles this weekend.

So many more miracles than we could have ever imagined.

What it means to believe

My kids ask me every year - "What if we're making all this effort to follow the commandments and going to church, and we die and find out that there's no heaven?"

And I tell them - "Well, if there really isn't a heaven, at least you lived your life every day believing in it. That way, you kind of helped this world become a reflection of what heaven would have been like."

We get really philosophical...which is good and bad at the same time.

But nevertheless, it's all part of the faith journey.

You never really have faith if you don't have the opportunity to question it. You can be obedient...but that's not an owned faith. That stage of obedience is where it all begins...you trust in the one who tells you what to do and what to believe because you think that they are telling you the truth. You think that they sincerely are looking out for the best interests of your soul.

One day, however, the choice becomes your own. You reach the point where you're no longer doing or believing for the sake of somebody else. You make a choice to do or to believe because you want to...because you've come to the conclusion at the end of your search that what they were telling you really was true. You realize that after all this time, you've at last fallen in love with what you have chosen to put your faith in.

At times, it seems like a lonely road to tread. No one really understands where you've been...why you think the way you do or act the way you act. They don't get why you feel the way you feel about certain things because there has not been one person who has followed you throughout your entire life experience and experienced it with you.

Except Jesus.

He knows why you question, why you doubt, and why you fear. He knows what makes you stumble and what gives you the strength to get back up. He knows how hard it is...how painful it is...how humiliating it can be to subject yourself to living in this world.

Then all of a sudden, the road isn't so lonely anymore.

I wish I had as much patience with myself as He has with me. He stops to wait when I get tired. He dries my tears when I feel like giving up. He even absorbs my frustration when I get lost and don't know where I'm going.

Dear Kuya Jess, I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you can love us so much to sacrifice as much as you did, just so we could be cleansed of our sins. I don't know how you put up with our weaknesses and keep taking us back no matter how many times we've turned our backs on you.

All I know is that you do.

I don't have your heart but I want your love.

And then you show me what your heart looks like...and you say that the pierced and wounded heart you have is the only kind of heart that will hold the kind of love you give.

Pierced and wounded.

"The pain never goes away, Marianne."

I can hear Dominic's voice loud and clear.

I think I remember what that was like. I can't get married and start a family if I've completely lost sight of that. I can't call myself a Christian if I've forgotten what that means.

Blessed are the poor in spirit...
Blessed are those who mourn...
Blessed are the meek...
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...
Blessed are the merciful...
Blessed are the peacemakers...
Blessed are the pure in heart...
Blessed are those who are persecuted for My sake...

I was going to write on a completely different topic but I don't even remember what it was. Maybe I just wanted to remind myself that I do believe in Heaven...and maybe I'm praying that I'll see a piece of it this weekend.

Basta Ikaw, Lord.

A Gift of Love - The legacy we hope to offer future generations

"Teach me, my Lord, to be sweet and gentle in all events of life - in disappointments, in the thoughtlessness of those I trusted, in the unfaithfulness of those whom I relied on. Let me put myself aside to think of the happiness of others, to hide my little pains and heartaches so that I may be the only one to suffer from them. Teach me to profit from the suffering that comes across my path. Let me use it, that it may make me patient, not irritable; that it may make me broad in forgiveness, not narrow, haughty or overbearing. May no one be less good by having come within my influence, no one less pure, less true, less kind, less noble for having been a fellow traveler in our journey toward eternal life. As we go our rounds from one destruction to another, let us whisper from time to time a word of love and thanks to you. May our lives be lived in the supernatural - full of powerful good and strong in its purpose of sanctity. Amen."
(from Jubilaeum 2000 album)