Author: Jocelyn Soriano

See her books like "Questions to God", "Mend My Broken Heart", "To Love an Invisible God", "Defending My Catholic Faith", "Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief" and more - click here.

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(You may freely quote excerpts from this website as long as due credit is given to author Jocelyn Soriano and the website itakeoffthemask.com)

Categories
Spirituality

God Is With You In Your Darkest Hour

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

God knows how weak we are and how lost we are and how dark this world is. He knows how much we suffer. He is not ignorant of the hurts that tear our hearts apart. If we could look through His eyes, maybe we can see each other better. Maybe we’d realize how hard each one of us has been trying all along. Trying so hard to survive despite the pain. Trying our very best to do good despite falling again and again. Trying our utmost to love.

Never think that He does not see you. Never ever think that He doesn’t care for you. If He ever holds back from helping you right now, it is because He is waiting to reap the sweetest fruits from your bitterest trials. He knows you, He knows just how much you can bear. Lift up your eyes then in prayer and have faith. Though God is silent, He is with you. Though God seems far away, He abides in the innermost chambers of your heart.

Categories
Poems

For the Single and Loveless One

Image from Pixabay

For the single and loveless one,
for the one who walks alone;
For the one who seeks and cannot find,
for the one who cannot make it home.

For the one who aches for true love’s kiss,
for the one who sleeps in the cold;
For the one whose pain cannot be healed,
for the one whose tears you dare not hold.

For the one who bleeds like rain,
for the one whose heart is in pain;
For the one whose touch is repulsed,
for the one whose feet are scarred.

Take heart and see the path you’ve walked,
Rewind the days that made you strong.
Look up and find the sky has cleared,
as birds surround you with their song.

Your wounded heart has been enlarged,
and now greater love can find its way.
Your deepest sorrows shall be your joy,
as your darkest nights shall turn to day!

Categories
Poems

How Could a Song Make Me Cry?

Image by Ri Butov from Pixabay

How can a song suddenly just make me cry?
How can a song whose language
I don’t even understand
speak so closely to my heart,
perhaps more intimately
than the words my mind
could possibly comprehend,
more deeply
than if I had made up the words myself.
It’s as though they came
from a distant memory I tried to forget,
or to an unspoken dream I’ve always had.
How could it touch a wound I couldn’t even see
or heal the broken parts
I never even thought could mend?
There is more to the soul than what we bare,
there is more to life than the masks we often wear.
Sometimes, it’s a simple song that reveals it to us,
a melody that’s like a long-lost friend,
whispering
it’s okay to cry,
assuring us
we were never truly alone.

Categories
Words of Wisdom

Two Kinds of Happiness

There is a kind of happiness that can easily make you smile or laugh. Sometimes it can even be so overwhelming that it makes you cry. After a while, however, you realize that your feelings slowly start to fade. Somehow, you find it harder and harder to remember the way you felt before. Eventually, you may wonder whether you’ve been really happy at all.

On the other hand, there is a happiness that doesn’t seem like happiness at the start. It’s so subtle that it almost speaks in whispers. It moves ever gently you may fail to notice it’s there. But if you pay attention to it and you give it time, and if you allow it to touch you and to enter your heart, you’d see how it would grow steadily from day to day. You’d understand it more and more.

Unlike the first kind of happiness, this one doesn’t quickly fade. This one doesn’t excite you only to let you down. But this kind of happiness grows deep until it takes root. It changes you and moves you. It penetrates your very soul.

This kind of happiness is not a sudden rain that dissipates the heat for a while only to leave you dry again. This happiness is a fountain that never ends, a source of water you can come back to again and again, filling your every need and satisfying the deepest desires of your heart.

Now if there are two kinds of happiness, which one would you rather have?

Categories
Poems

Sometimes I Need an Older Song

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Sometimes I need an older song,
A song that understands
Who I am and where I’ve been,
A song that grew with me
And felt with me
That never left me
All these years.

Sometimes I need an older song,
A song that can make me feel
Where I came from
And where I belong,
A song that’s as warm
As an old coat or shoe
A song that fits and
Sticks like glue.

New songs come
And new songs go
But not all songs
Can touch you
The way that some
Songs do.

They remind you
Of that life,
Of that breath
Of that particular time
When life was simpler
When hearts were purer
And when you danced
And lived
And loved.