THIS TOO SHALL PASS

(JUNE 2005)




A famous writer I admire gave me a bit of consolation today. The first sentence of the book I am reading goes: Whatever you say to yourself today, let it be something good.

When people and circumstances would prove you unworthy of affection it is very difficult to affirm yourself. When friends would tell you that there is something wrong that you did now, which reminded them of faults you have done in the remote past, it is so hard to affirm yourself. When someone you love would turn away from you claiming to have preferred or turned to someone undoubtedly worthy or someone better, what does that make you? Someone bad and someone unworthy. When people and circumstances which has got a hold or authority over your life would in their gestures proved you undeserving of acceptance, it is simply difficult not to be too hard on yourself.

For months now, I felt drowned by all this feelings. I felt like I simply wanted to die because I am no good at all. For so many sleepless nights, I have several negative situations before me and I simply would want to stop breathing. My tears would flow uncontrollably and I could not exactly say for what reason my tears are being shed. For quite sometime now, I felt I don’t deserve the help of God because I feel that other people who are more deserving have claimed monopoly of the God that we all know. Now, I feel so small and so low I totally forgot that I too am a child of God.

One thing that makes it worse was the thought that some of my so-called friends could not understand what I am going through. To them, I am simply over-reacting. That I am so shallow. That I am just making a big fuss of everything.

Perhaps I was just really making a big drama of everything, perhaps that was really nothing and that I can always choose to hate people and move on feeling nothing at all. But I cannot. And I simply know the answer. And The God I claimed who knows me so well knows the answer. I am hurting, I have loved and lost, I cannot let go, I cannot understand, I feel betrayed. I am shattered.

And when nothing seems to make sense in all of my world, still there is something in me that is trying to reach out to the light. Something in me is trying to call out to Him asking for deliverance. I then turn to the only solution I know: Prayer.

Prayer has helped a lot of wounded souls, and I am invoking its aid right now. I imagined God once again holding my little, wounded hand. I am a helpless child again whose eyes are fixed into my God who knows the answer to all my questions. There is something so consoling in being a helpless child because God and I are walking and He is holding my hand so tightly as if to show off that I am being loved immensely.

I have a God after all. I have a God who never taught me to hate those who hurt me. I have a God who inspite of all my pains, told me that my life is greater that its circumstances. I have a God who will cause all things to work for good. I have a God who, in my loss told me that there is something to be gained. More importantly, I have a God who in my aloneness brought me very few friends who proved to be more precious than what I blindly hold dear in my heart.

Life, I understand now is simply going on in circle. And that helped me hope for a brighter future. If right now, I am in misery, I know that, in time I will be healed. I simply have to take the step.

Yet, if in the past I was always taking baby steps forward and making giant leaps backwards to revisit my wounded past. I simply cannot do that now…I have to stay focused in my journey towards a more beautiful life. Prayer helped me let go of parts of my memory that is no longer worthy of my attention.

Now, I am once again walking. Prayer helped me see that God believes in me. Now I know, just like in the past when I have fallen on the ground and thought I could not rise up, I now understand. Indeed, “this too shall pass.” ©

A Dose of Vitamins for the Soul

“Wherever you are, is the best place for you to be, because God allowed you to be there. You don’t have to know why. Just believe that He knows what is best for you.”