Tag: grieving the loss of a loved one

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Healing Life Spirituality Uncategorized

Waiting for No God

When I was younger, I never thought there would come a time when this bible verse would come true – that there would come a time when no one would be waiting for God anymore.  Yet as I observe our times, I realized that the time may soon come to pass when God would be seeking out his people and no one would be looking back.  Why so?

1. THE RICH

Because the rich will have bought the idea of positivism to the extreme to the extent that they have learned to focus only on themselves and their needs, excluding everyone else that may get in the way of their perfectly established lives. The rich would have become indifferent, already possessing everything they thought they needed to live their lives to the full.

2. THE POOR

Because the poor would have thought of himself as being unloved, comparing himself to the rich one whom heaven has blessed far beyond the necessities he prayed for.  He would have lost his hope or grudgingly accepted his lot.  The poor would have grown a rage that consumes all of his soul.

3. THE RELIGIOUS

The remaining people who claim to be religious would have become the self righteous judgmental people who neither understands the poor nor prays for the awakening of the rich.  The religious would judge the poor and the rich for their sins, but see not the dust in their own eyes.

There may soon come a time when all these would come to be, when the hearts of people have grown so cold as to forget the most important thing of all… authentic love.

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Healing Life Spirituality

It’s such a hard work to rest!

It used to be so easy to rest, back in those days when “recess” was our favorite subject in school, or when Friday was our favorite day of the week because we’d finally have a hard-earned weekend to indulge in a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Yet have you noticed how many people today find no more satisfaction in the simplest activity of all?  We get anxious with our vacant hours and we try to fill our days with as much activity as we can just so we can avoid that time when we have nothing to do but be with ourselves.

I recently had colds and it necessitated a leave from work as well as a leave from the many activities I enjoy, including writing.  How I prayed that it be over, how I desired to get back to my normal routine.  But the body it seems, knows when to go on and when to take a pause, when to wake up, and when to get some time to sleep.  It’s the rhythm of life, the ebb and flow, the natural course of nature that keeps everything in balance, and that makes everything fresh and renewed.

But why the unnatural response from many of us?  Why the difficulty in surrendering to rest?

1.   We’ve lost our ability to wait.

The modern times have provided us with so many tools and gadgets we need that make our life easier.  It has enabled us to do things in an INSTANT, in a single click of a button.  We do things real FAST! 

Rest is waiting.  It is downtime, a healing time both for the body and the spirit.  We just couldn’t accept the fact that we are not after all as perfect and as powerful as we thought we could be, that we can be on the go 24/7 much as we wanted to.

2.  We’ve lost our ability to trust.

Rest and healing is doing nothing necessarily active on our part, but trusting that our body knows what it is doing to repair itself, to grow, maybe even to be better than before.  We believe that only our conscious efforts can accomplish something, and if we’re not doing anything therefore, we’re already doomed!  We don’t trust anybody, not even our own body when we know we are not consciously in control.

3.  We’ve lost our ability to receive.

Our culture has impressed upon us the necessity to give; giving is a concrete sign of being alive, of being of value.  When we are not able to give or to do anything productive, we quickly lose our self esteem.  Our self worth is so connected in doing what we do, that when we’re unable to do anything, we feel empty and worthless inside.

We  do not realize that receiving is also an integral part of being.  Receiving is actively cooperating to the one healing us, actively acknowledging that we are worthy of help, of being assisted in times when we couldn’t help ourselves.  Receiving is honoring ourselves as being worthy of notice and honoring others as being able to endow upon us something that is an important part of themselves.  Receiving, like giving, is being able to share and be a channel of the flow of life.

I’ve learned that even times of sickness and unproductiveness can teach us something.  I’ve learned that in times like that, it’s quite okey to wait, to trust the way of life, and to receive healing from the God who never abandons us whether we’re living our lives energetically, or whether we’re merely trying to while away our time sneezing and teary eyed in the comfort of our cozy beds.

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Life

How do you lift up a lonely heart?

You hear her cries, you see her tears, and you wonder how on earth you’re going to wipe them all away.  You try to wipe them with your handkerchief, but then she cries again, and tears continue falling.

Your heart breaks, and deep in your soul you don’t want to see her that way.  You get furious at those people who’ve hurt her like this, surely they have no right to do this to her.  But what could you do?

You can’t turn back time, you can’t pull it back to that moment when she’s happy and her eyes filled with the spark of laughter.  No matter how much you wish, you can’t undo the evil that has been done.

But you can stay beside her, and you can hold her hand.  And if you can’t pull her out of the darkness she’s in, you can join her where she is and let her know she is never truly alone.

You can wait with her until the storm passes.  You can remind her how beautiful she is and how you believe deep down in your heart she’s going to rise above it all a stronger and more beautiful person.

You can be a shoulder to lean on to, a reminder of the strength she already has.  Yes, you can wait with her for the morning, when the sun shall reveal once more a glitter of hope upon her teary eyes. 

When It Is Too Painful To Weep

A widow for fifteen years.  She alone raised her six children by selling bottles she scavenged from the neighborhood.   She has no social security, no dayoff, definitely no overtime pay.  The day she misses work is the day her family starves.  She cannot succumb to weakness.   She cannot allow her tears to fall.  Because if she did, she may not be able to hold them back anyore.  She’d keep on crying with no one to dry her tears away.

 

A child of ten years.  Eldest of four children.  Breadwinner of his siblings, and of a bedridden mother.   He begs at the streets for a living and sometimes pickpockets with his gang.  Playing tough is the only rule he knows, it is the only way he has survived.   Crying is for whimps and for those whose only remaining wish is to die.

 

How tough must you be to live?  How long can you hold back the pain that is gnawing at your heart?   When will it be okey to let go of your tears and cry?

 

Sadly for many people, the time has not yet come.  It isn’t safe yet.  There isn’t anybody yet who can see them through when they finally feel their feelings and face the hurts they’ve been carrying all this time.

 

Sadly for many people, there are more people around them who are far quicker in judging them than in understanding their plight and reaching out a helping hand.

 

And many times, the helping hand they really need is not a few spare coins or a lonely piece of bread. These things may help them for the day or for the next meal, but these will never be enough.

 

You may then say, “I’ll give them more. I’ll give them a small capital to start a decent livelihood.”  But even that is not enough, my friend.  It isn’t enough if you desire to see tears of gladness welling up from their eyes.  So boast not of your gift and judge them not if you can’t see outright the gratitude and joy you’re looking for.

 

Give them time.  Because great as your gift seems to be, the happiness it should have brought cannot be felt until it’s been allowed to enter into their hearts.

 

For a heart that could not weep is a heart that has been shut, and a heart that has been closed could not let happiness in as well.

 

Slowly and gently one must knock, slowly and gently must a heart be opened.  The heart must know that it is safe atlast to trust, safe enough to reveal   its many sorrows and be understood. 

 

And when the heart has wept with all the tears it can possibly give out, when the pain has been faced and the burdens laid down, only then shall it be able to know happiness, only then can it be able to cry out at last with tears of real joy.