Parang kahapon lang, I was graduating with ESBI a.k.a my "pala" cheering ever so loudly, parang ako tuloy yung Magna Cum Laude!haha Parang kahapon lang, I was watching "The Holiday" and "Pursuit of Happyness" and talking after lights out in Patty's room with my gorgeous 3. Parang kahapon lang, I was shouting my lungs and intestines out in EK with the Superfriends. Parang kahapon lang, me, Leby, Frank, John, Ate Jen and Kito were at the Sunken Garden, having a QT together...my last QT in UP.
This year, the statement "I MISS YOU" received the Understatement of the Year award.
13 May 2006: I dropped a prayer in my, bcel's and ate jam's prayer box a prayer that said, "Lord, prepare me for London". Exactly one year later, I flew to the UK. Indeed, God answers prayers.
This past year was another year of preparation, to something bigger that I can only see with eyes of faith. The past year was a year of letting go of many things and people, and a year of stripping, crushing and molding of character. I cried too many tears that I reached the point when I was telling God that I didn't want to cry anymore, I was too tired. I seriously thought that I won't be able to get out of the circumstances I experienced in the past year alive, I was in so much pain. I was in a furnace. I was in a pit. But, "there is no pit that Christ is not deeper still".
And just as the Lord was with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the furnace that was heated up 7x, the Lord showed me, that He was with me as well. He gave meaning to my furnace. He allowed the furnace that I may be refined. It had to be hot so that I could be cleansed from my impurities.
Being in the pit didn't make things easier. There's little to no light. It's really difficult to get out from a pit that you could reach the point that you'll think you can never get out. What I learned when I was in the pit was, to keep one's hope alive, one has to keep LOOKING UP to the opening where light shines through. I had to keep looking up to my Jesus, my Strength and my Shield. It was in the pit where I experienced to completely put my trust and weight of my yoke upon the Lord. We often say and sing songs with lines such as, "You are my everything" and "You are my delight". I've come to learn that it is when we are alone, when everything's stripped off from us, when we're in the pit, statements such as these are challenged. But praise God for His grace that enables us to continue professing, believing and living that indeed, He is our sole delight and our everything even when in the pit. In fact, it's in the pit where you actually experience and realise that the Lord is all you need. Praise God for the pit, and praise God that He is deeper than any pit!
During the past year, I also learned to love. I learned to love the rain and dark clouds. When you live in London, you learn to appreciate dark, cold and wet days. Because almost everyday is a dark, cold and wet day.
And there's always the hope that after every rain is a rainbow.
I learned to love people and things who are and that are very much
difficult to love. I learned and experienced that love knows no
boundaries and that it could and does transcend time and space. (and
that love can travel through phone wires and internet servers.
)But above all, I experienced love - the unconditional, unchanging, unwavering, stubborn love and grace of God. No matter how many times I trip and fall, run away and come back (and believe me, I did so, LOTS OF TIMES), He's there. He'll always be there.
When our plane landed on the 15th of May at around 6am UK time, I thought I won't last a day here. But God proved me wrong. I could last years here - anywhere in fact - because He's with me.
And so I praise my God for all that was, there is and there is to come.
TO EVERYONE WHO PRAYED WITH ME AND FOR ME, THANK YOU! *apir*