Heart of the Matter

"I've been trying to live without you now

But I miss you baby

The more I know, the less I understand

All the things I thought I'd figured out

I have to learn again."

- Heart of the Matter, India Arie

This song speaks to me. Actually, that might be an understatement. This song is yelling at me. This song gives me the hope that this rough patch that I'm going through right now, it's not forever. I worry sometimes, that I might get stuck, and forget to move forward. Songs similar to this one remind me that this is just one part, one aspect of my life. That this is just ONE situation I'm going to have to live through and experience for myself. It may be painful, and it may make me crumble, but I know that He will pick me up and piece me back together. He breaks me so that He might be able to fix me again, fix me in the way that He wants to. 

The past couple of weeks have been the worst of my almost 20 years of existence. Emotional pain is certainly different and worse than physical pain. For the first time in my life, I've experienced pain that made it difficult for me to breathe. Imagine running for an hour or more, imagine catching your breath and panting after a run - that's how it felt like for me, except I never even moved from my bed.

Pain is relative, someone once said. It's hard to explain this pain, and especially difficult to make one understand it. But that's how it felt. It's hard to breathe, a perpetual sadness seems to settle over you, it feels as though someone or something is actually breaking your heart and you feel like dying. Exaggerated? Perhaps. I never thought of dying just to end those feelings, but I did wish to just sleep for long periods of time so I wouldn't have to think. Because thinking and tons of free time was quite possibly the worst combination that I could have had at that time, and sometimes it still is the worst combination now.

But I was told to deal, to grieve and to move on. 

If only doing them were as easy as saying them. But in any case, I have been trying to. Goodness, I don't think I've cried so much within a day. But lately, I've been keeping myself occupied and I've been praying more. I am clear on the fact that I cannot do this alone, and I'm just drawing my strength from Him. I try to surround myself with as much people as possible so I wouldn't have one idle moment. Nights are tough, but by God's grace, I manage. 

Right now, I'm just running on God's grace. I don't know how I could even function without it. 

I know that there is a big possibility that we simply are not meant for each other and that God will give us the people He truly intends us to be with. My prayer is that for when that time happens, we've both moved on, like honest to goodness and truthfully have moved on. I also pray that I will eventually come to accept with no bitterness whatever God plans, that I would learn how to stop hoping that something different might happen. If it happens, then good. And if it doesn't, then it's still good. I have to relearn how to settle for what He wants.

All the things I thought I'd figured out, I have to learn again. 

These things consist of learning how to be alone again, place the focus back to God, and spend more time with different people. 

I still have hope for life, in God. But hope for this one, I'm throwing it out the window. Starting now.

To You

I miss and love you.

Just thought you might want to know.

David's Prayer

"For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant." 2 Samuel 7:21

Right now, I wish I had David's attitude with regards to God's will. I know I should be grateful that I know what He wants me to do. But it's just that right now, the pain of having to deny myself overrides that. And ok, I get that that was pretty selfish of me, but my heart is breaking and I don't know what to do. I know that He's sovereign, and I know that He just wants the best for me and there's hope in that. It's just that right now, I want this horrible horrible feeling to go away. 

I think my heart has been spoiled rotten, up until this point, it has been getting what it wants. 

Lord, I really don't want to be ungrateful. But I'm still just learning to depend on You, and to draw my strength from You. Right now, I'm just feeling hurt - and I think it's the worst kind of hurt because it's abstract. At least if it's physical, it stops after a while - and there's a scientific estimate of when it stops hurting. But the pain you feel inside, like your guts have been taken out or like there's a space where heart should be - and yes, I cringed when I typed that. I am ranting, and if I may add, rather incoherently. But if I don't, everything would all just be bottled up inside of me, and no good could come out of that. So I am ranting. Although come to think of it, I have exceeded my expectations of it - at first I thought all I could type was pain, pain, pain, pain. Probably fill up an entire page of just those 4 letters. But I digress. Lord, please just comfort me - comfort us both. We both made the difficult decision to obey you, and to be honest Lord, I am close to regretting that I did. I know You want me to focus on You, and I know that You just want to reveal Yourself to me Lord - I suppose this is the answer I'm getting from You when I asked that I want to know You more. And how could I if I have one mega distraction? But please Lord, please also know that I am sincerely hoping for another chance - a chance to do things right. Please Lord. 

In Your Name,

Amen.

Some Sort of List Part 2

Things that I did today:

• wake up
• watch Julie and Julia
• go to facebook, read through news feed
• cry
• sob
• pray/cry
• pray/cry
• etc. = end of thinking capacity.

Some Sort of List

I have hope that making the right decision, despite the miserable feeling that came along with it, that things will be better.

I have hope that what I did wasn't just for nothing.

I have hope that when I did what I did, God was pleased about it.

I have hope that things will eventually be better between us.

I have hope that there's someone out there that would be perfect for him, the one that he deserves.

I have hope that God's best is somewhere out there, waiting for me.

I have hope that I will eventually know to follow Him with humble obedience.

I know that should I ever lose my hope in Him, He will never stop loving me.

His children and grandchildren

“…From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.”

Genesis 10:32

Most of the contents of chapter 10 and 11 are a list of names; that is name after name, descendant after descendant. I’m sure that a lot us when we encounter such lists when we read our Bibles gloss over them and often times, give them of little importance. And yet, these people already tell us quite a lot about God and our world today. After the flood, the only people in the world then were Noah and his family. This account that the Bible gives us says that after the cleansing of the world, God favored Noah enough that the rest of the inhabitants of the world came from his sons. (And of course, this account would eventually lead to Abram who we all know played quite a role)

After the list of Noah’s descendants in chapter 10, came the Tower of Babel in chapter 11. Some would use this passage as the origins of the different languages in the world. In a way, I suppose that is true. But more than that, it would some explain the origins of the different people in the world, the migrations of people and how there are people in all parts of the world (Gen. 10:32). As for why this was so, I honestly think that God was not punishing them, instead, it showcases God’s grace. Building the tower soon after the flood, it would indicate that people did not learn from that point in history. If they did, they would not have been so conceited as to think they could reach the heavens if they built a tower high enough to get them there. Therefore, “confusing their language so they wouldn’t understand each other” was not a penalty for their arrogance. God could have easily wiped them out again, but chose not to; that scattering them around the world would be a better option.

[Something I wrote for the Bible in One Year online devotions, unedited version]

Did It Hurt

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel." Gen. 3:15

[Before anything else, proper greetings are in order. To those, or to the one who reads my blog, HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU :)]

I think I've always wondered if God was hurt when Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of good and evil. Did it hurt Him when the two people He created out of the tremendous love that He has disobeyed Him? Is that how parents feel when they tell us not to do something yet we do anyway? I guess, I just can't help but think how heartbreaking it must have been for God to banish His own creations, when His children chose to be separated from Him the moment they ate the fruit. 

And I mean, God could have chosen to intervene, prevented the serpent from even having contact with Eve. Yet He chose not to. I don't think God was masochistic in his decision of letting things unfold naturally. After all, the fall of man was necessary so that Salvation could happen. So that God's great love for His people would be greatly manifested. 

Granted, things have changed - A LOT - since the banishment of man from the garden. For one thing, we need clothes now, we get tired, we get sick and we experience pain. When I read verse 16, I thought, this is the reason why there are women out there who are scared of getting pregnant: childbirth pains. But for some reason, I don't know what hit me, and immediately after thinking that, I thought that the pains of delivering a child into this world is nothing compared to the amount of love that they will give back. 

And speaking of children and parents, why is it that in chapter 4 of Genesis, there wasn't an account of whether Adam and Eve knew that Cain killed Abel and what they had felt. Actually, correct me if I'm wrong please, there wasn't much said about Adam and Eve's parenting. For sure we know that they were parents, but we don't really know what kind. And I suppose it just makes me wonder if being parents made them understand in some way what God must have felt when they disobeyed him (did they grieve for Abel, did they mourn for Cain's sin?) 

I suppose one big thing that I got out of these three chapters is that, parents may not always be the most popular people in a kid's life but they're the ones who will love their children the most.