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.