second chance

"I headed for in the wrong direction many times, but I know in my heart that it was never too late to turn back"

As a daughter of Roman Catholic parents, I was raised knowing and valuing the Bible. The bible includes guidelines that can lead to a happy and victorious life. But amidst that knowledge, I still got lost--- because there were times I chose to ignore and headed down a different direction. I found myself alone.

Yes, I headed for the wrong directions many times, but I know in my heart that it was never too late to turn back.

Whenever i pray, i feel the Lord's comfort in a way that forged a relationship with him bound by tears and forgiveness. I am also being comforted by the words of German theologian, Karl Rahner who said: "There are no accidents, only Divine Providence".

I came across this message via e-mail: "It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind od life you have lived!"

As a human being, we have a choice: to be happy, or to be miserable. That's how life works. Experience is not what happens to you. Experience is what you do to what happens to you.God gifted each of us with unique talents and abilities to improve our quality of life, and there is no excuse for not fully utilizing our potentials. But many of us easily give up when confronted with setbacks in life. We should confront our limitations and accept them, so we can continue to grow.
We must not allow the burdens of the day to bend us down. We should afford ourselves moments of respite - breathing moments when we can stretch out and raise our eyes to heaven. Let us not be overwhelmed by things that we need to accomplish. Let us be reminded that life is not only about quantity, but also about quality.
Moments of silence and rest, moments of contemplation, moments of realizations are truly priceless.God is not concerned about how much we have accomplished but how much of ourselves are we willing to give.

Falling In Love

It is a mystery why we fall in love.
It is a mystery how it happens.
It is a mystery when it comes.
It is a mystery why some love grows and it is a mystery why
some love fails.

You will never do anymore than take the life out of the experience.
Just as life itself is more than the sum of the bones and muscles and
electrical impulses in the body, love is more than the sum of the
interests and attractions and commonalities that two people share.
And just as life itself is a gift that comes and goes in its own time, so
too, the coming and going of love must be taken as an unfathomable
gift that cannot be questioned in its ways.

Sometimes, hopefully at least once in your life - the gift of love
will come to you in full flower, and you will take hold of it and
celebrate it in all inexpressible beauty. This is a dream we all share.
More often,it will come and take hold of you, celebrate you
for a brief moment, then move on.

When this happens to young people, they too often try to grasp the
love and hold it to them, refusing to see that it is a gift that is
freely given and a gift that just as freely, moves away. When they
fall out of love, or the person they love feels the spirit of love
leaving,they try desperately to reclaim the love that is lost
rather than accepting the gift for what it was, then moving on.

They want answers where there are no answers. They want to know
what is wrong in them that makes the other person no longer love them,
or they try to get their lover to change, thinking that if some small
things were different, love would bloom again.
They blame their circumstances and say that if they go far away and
start a new life together, their love will grow. They try anything to
give meaning to what has happened. But there is no meaning beyond the
love itself, and until they accept its own mysterious ways,
they live in a sea of misery.

You need to know this about love, and to accept it. You need to treat
what it brings you with kindness. If you find yourself in love with
someone who does not love you, be gentle with yourself.  There is
nothing wrong with you. Love just didn't choose to rest in the other
person's heart.

If you find someone else in love with you and you don't love him, feel
honoured that love came and called at your door, but gently refuse the
gift you cannot return. Do not take advantage; do not cause pain.
How you deal with love is how you deal with you, and all our hearts feel
the same pains and joys, even if our lives and ways are different.

If you fall in love with another, and he falls in love with you,
and then love chooses to leave, do not try to reclaim it or to assess blame.
Let it go. There is a reason and there is a meaning. 
You will know in time.

Remember that you don't choose love. Love chooses you. All you can
really do is accept it for all its mystery when it comes into your life.
Feel the way it fills you to overflowing, then reach out and give it away.
Give it back to the person who brought it alive in you.
Give it to others who deem poor in spirit.
Give it to the world around you in anyway you can.

This is where many lovers go wrong. Having been so long without love,
they understand love only as a need. They see their hearts as empty
places that will be filled by love, and they begin to look at love as
something that flows to them rather than from them.

The first blush of new love is filled to overflowing, but as their
love cools, they revert to seeing their love as a need. They cease to
be someone who generates love and instead become someone who seeks love.
hey forget that the secret of love is that it is a gift, and
that it can be made to grow only by giving it away.
Remember this, and keep it to your heart..

Love has its own time, its own seasons, and its own reason for coming
and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it, or reason it into staying.
You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes
to you. But if it chooses to leave from your heart or from the heart of
your lover, there is nothing you can do and there is nothing you
should do.

Love always had been and always will be a mystery.
Be glad that it came to live for a moment in your life.
If you keep your heart open it will come again.

 "I am going to sit here with you by the river. If you go home to sLeep, I wiLL sleep in front of your house. And if you go away, I will follow you - until you tell me to go away. Then I'll leave but I have to love you for the rest of my life."

(from Paulo Coelho's book By The River Piedra, I Sat Down And Wept) 

Good Enough

For many of us, our biggest problem is that we don't like ourselves, and our skewed outlook makes it difficult for us to believe that God could possibly love us. 

For years I struggled with this problem. I spent at least 75 percent of my time trying to change myself, exerting double extra effort in all the things I do, adjust to everyone else, but all I really did was stress myself out while the devil constantly made me feel guilty by putting me down, telling me that this is lacking, ho come you never do this? Worst, even if I give my 150%, I never felt good enough.

Isaiah 53 tells us that when Jesus died for our sins, He also bore the guilt. He loved us so much that He paid the price so we wouldn't have to suffer with the terrible feelings of condemnation. If we go to God and sincerely ask Him to forgive us, He does, and there is no reason to live with condemnation.

God loves you, and He wants you to believe it and receive it all the time. He also wants you to be free from condemnation. But it takes faith and boldness to be free. God says you are good enough. Accept that today and live a life of victory.

God, Your Son has taken my guilt and punishment and made me good enough. I believe that today, and I refuse to live with the burden of condemnation. I ask for and receive Your forgiveness for my sins.

charmed life

I received a disturbing message from someone whom I'd met at a writer's workshop about two years ago.  She mentioned that she was living a 'pathetic cruel life' and went on to profess her continued love for an old colleague of mine. she ended her message with what to me sounded like a bitter note.   "Anyway, you're lucky. You seem to be leading a charmed life. Take care."  Honestly, I found this to be quite disturbing.  I mean, what does she know about my life?  What does anyone know about other people's lives?  The fact that I'm always smiling in my pictures isn't any evidence that I'm living a 'charmed life'.  I wish I did though, but very few people in this world can only be so fortunate.  I wouldn't want to encourage anyone to think of me that way either. However, I do confess that right now I am happy and contented with my life because I made a choice to be happy despite my own cobweb of personal dilemmas. I lived a very complicated life. No one's life is ever perfect.  Even Jesus' life wasn't perfect.  Only HE was perfect.  I like smiling for pictures.  I like dressing up.  I like new experiences.  I like discovering myself.  I like meeting people.  I like enjoying every happy moment in my life because maybe later on I might be less happy.  The point is, everyone's lives are different.  We all come from varied backgrounds and circumstances.  I have made it a practice not to be bitter, jealous, or remorseful of other people's lives because it won't make my life any better.  Once you start monitoring other people's steps you stumble on your own and end up wasting time.  Instead, we should just be contented with whatever is handed over to us and deal with every situation the best way possible without making silly excuses for every burden we encounter. God has a plan for all of us. We just need to be patient until we know what he in stored for us. For me, it was a tortuous path. My Cross then is one difficult I had to endure as a sign of my faithfulness and commitment to Jesus. These trials are given to use for us to realized something. It happened to me, I realized a lot of things not only with myself but as well as in life.

As my College prof said: "Your past does not determine your future".

Nothing is ever what it seems to be. NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING.  After all, don't we each have our own little stories to tell? 

God will be always there for us no matter how many times we fall or even how often we fall as long as we know how to stand up, God will always give us a second chance. We all commit mistakes. No one is perfect. It's a matter of accepting our faults and learning from it. God will always  give us opportunity to straighten out the bad choices we made.