You and I do not belong to such

         On account of loneliness, sadness, pain, feelings of rejection, disappointment or any other forms of being in low spirit and downcast - I always try to keep my mouth shut. Though it is easy for the whole world to know how sad I feel by simply typing an emoticon - =( on my status on facebook - I try my best to refrain to do so.

     Several months ago or probably during the previous years, I was not used to balancing how I feel. I was a severe 98% melancholic (from my high school temperament test). One who broods for hours and through the whole day about every minute detail in the world, possessing a high tendency to frustration and every time attacked by feelings of gloom. Calling me "emo" back then would best describe it. Mind you, I didn't use eyeliner or tried to kill myself in any literal way possible, but I did feel the too emotional way they felt.

       I desired to disattach myself from these dark moods and not to pamper my emotions. A lion-hearted girl - I so hoped.
    
       But with the days, weeks and months that have passed - loneliness still arose, disappointment came and pain I became afflicted with. It occurred to me that they're all the things that make me human, they're all the things that make life - life - imperfect in this fallen world. The only change that took place was how I dealt with these emotions in sound wisdom, His wisdom.

            My own wisdom would tell me to embrace sadness, wallow in despair and let all the bad feelings paralyze me and make me immobile for my responsibilities.
           
            When I seek God's wisdom for these emotions - He enables me to think, not merely feel, to see the truth in His perspective and not be blinded by what my heart is telling me.

            At the very time I feel sad, hurt and down, God by His grace reminds me to pause for a while and reflect.

            "What is God trying to tell me through these feelings? What promise does He want me to hold on? How can even this sadness be transformed to His glory? How can I be of help to others who are experiencing or will experience the same pain and hurt feelings?

             It brings great comfort when God trains your to declare:
             "Never alone. My peace and joy = Jesus ;)"
             When you felt alone, doubtful and in gloom for a while.
             or "YOU'RE my sunshine in the rain and my breeze of fresh air in the melting heat."
             When you felt disturbed by the weather recently.

           On the other hand, being a work on process tells us we're not okay all the time. Sometimes, we slip off God's arms and run to our own waywardness.

               Perfect not [in gloom I am]

Chaff blown by the wind
Tossed and sways with the breeze
Falling leaves, dying trees
Aches to man have pinned

Thine longing hermit heart
Wandering, blank mind
Torn flesh thou can find
Seizing pull of the past

Pictures drawn on sea
Relives engraved on stone
Poorly poetic me
What fool I've shown

Hopes to be mystic
When the obvious hovers
Grief, cease and be over
Die, ye not chronic

              The above shows how we can choose to embrace sadness, hopelessness and a feeling of death within.

               God recently corrected me when he made me realize how I love to be owned by these negative emotions. I let them captivate me.

                The song on our Sunday Service was something like this:
                "I belong to You (Jesus)"

                 Yes, I belong to Jesus, He is my Lord and everything I feel belongs under His authority, not mine.

                  These feelings don't belong to me and neither do I belong to them.

                  God has rightful ownership to everything I am, everything I have within and therefore every emotion that I have.

                  To Jesus - I ought to give them all.

                   Simply put, the insight God gave me about my emotional struggles is this:

                  These "loneliness, sadness, pain, feelings of rejection, disappointment or any other forms of being in low spirit and downcast-" You and I do not belong to such.

The Principle of OVERLOAD

            Countless, numerous thoughts have been lingering on my mind from the very start of this busy week. I didn't have time to readily  pour out my heart and express it all in writing because I was full-packed with school works wherein computer time meant research and more research. (kincareer ang pagka-busy :])

          But after the blast of busyness, I can now let out a sigh. I had some form of celebration yesterday with my new found Christian friends and classmates. [Mcdo again?! :D]

"God has people for His people." and "Haloo! New friends! New sisters in Christ :) uhm... I enjoyed our conversation :)" - I quote from their dearest text messages :))

          God is just so good! Just when I feel alone or heavy - He suddenly makes me smile and makes me see that everything will be alright especially with the friends - great blessings He intentionally designed to be my classmates!

          Well, I was supposed to write about it yesterday, but I wast stuck in reading Ate Joan's blogs and in thinking of what exactly from the "countless, numerous thoughts" I'll write.

          What has been dominating my mind is "The Principle of Overload" that our Sports and Recreation professor mentioned yesterday. So I'll stick with it and it's the culprit why I entitled my blog this way :D.

          Simply put and in relation to real life, this principle means that the more pressure or difficulties in life we encounter, the better we become in handling such and the greater the growth.

          To me, God has impressed a different kind of Overload Principle. The Overload Principle- God's version.

          As it had been echoing in my daily thoughts (from a quotation or something I've read once):

          "Nothing starts easy. Everything begins with some level of difficulty."

          Waking up and having my devotion early in the morning takes a lot of "Lord. five more minutes please?". Taking a bath takes me moments of staring blankly before I could drench myself in water. Walking inside the classroom, being with new classmates and new professors would need a lot of boost in self-confidence on my part and especially adjustment.  Making assignments, researches, and reports would never be so easy that you could take them so lightly.

          It isn't even a weak that we're having classes but I could feel that this beginning is an overload for me.
         
          But once very early in the morning, when I still needed to read my report and some research, I could not utter anything in my prayer, except, "Lord, I surrender... I can't do anything." (I could vividly remember how heavy I felt)

          God's principle when He gives you an overload is to make you fall down on your knees and say "All I need is You Lord."

          It makes you like a child dependent to a father, and it brings you closest to Him, aware and desperate for His presence wherever you go and whatever you do.

          God's almost tangible pat on my back and very clear message for me were His words:

Psalm 10
          12 Arise O Lord, O God, lift up your hand, forget not the afflicted.
          14 ... to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless.
          16 The Lord is king forever and ever...
          17 O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted, you will strengthen their heart, you will incline your ear.

          I shared it to a friend of mine and she told me God's message to her about our situation. God said that if she was in a regular class she would trust her own strength and capabilities, but now that God has placed her to where we are now - she would not trust herself  but God.

          That is also what God wants to tells us. An overload for us is not even the slightest piece of cake for Him. [It's an easier than the easiest load for Him] An overload leads us in total, complete dependence to Him and nothingness without Him.

          And I thought, God isn't selfish He wants you to have a pressuring overload because He just wants (as in demanding and controlling you to do so) you to trust Him. An overload is inevitable and in fact, it is always there.

          Two choices exist - carry it all by yourself or throw it all to God and depend on Him fully.
          There never existed another better choice than the latter.

I Take The Last Seat

Talk about my stuttering and stammering on the first class of my first day in sophomore year.

The task given to us by the professor was to recall a short story, novel or any literary piece from our Philippine Literature lessons in High school / Elementary.

A story, its writer and something about it.

LOADING...

and more

LOADING...

I was rummaging from every corner of my brain anything I could recall and discuss about. "Trust, trust, trust" came battling my thoughts of freaking out.

"Ang Kalupi" written by a writer  named i-forgot-who was the story that popped out of my mind when "Abegail" was finally called.

This was harder than a usual getting-to-know introduction on a first day class. The pressure was greater having the presence of "Honors Class" students around and a very intelligent professor awaiting my answer.

The next minutes were uhm, uh, uhm, uh.

Though words came out of my mouth, to me, my point was unclear. I didn't hit the bull's eye. 

My confidence was slowly being drained.

Probably, when my concern was about what I'll say and how I'll say, it made me more like a chaff blown by the wind. Whereas, thinking about something to share to encourage, enlighten and glorify my Lord could alone have made me that "tree planted by the streams of water, whose leaves does not wither, whatever it does prospers".

Oh, "Whatever you do, work heartily as working for the Lord and not for men."

Nonetheless, I sat there listening to the answers of my classmates. 

Great intonation, fluent speech, minimal speech mannerisms, sensible, critical, bull's eye thoughts - how could I not keep my mouth shut and listen?

The bad news was I dreaded the aura of competing inside the class.

The good news was our Personality Education 3 lightened up the rising tension.

We formed a circle as a group and I heard one of my classmate say something like this: (as the professor required each of us to speak)

"I don't' want a competition inside the class. If there would be any, I want it within myself."

Competition within ourselves - that would best improve us. It was a relief to hear it from her then finally each classmate of mine reaffirming it. :]

Another good news is that they desire we help "improve and surpass our strengths and weaknesses together." (as iron sharpens iron :)

My classmates are probably far abler speakers, brighter students and more skilled writers than I am.

I take the last seat. The lowest place at the wedding banquet.

It stirs inside me - the great expectancy to all the rooms of improvement I have and will still have, the lessons my Great Teacher will deal with me and the more humbling experiences emphasizing my self-bankruptcy and complete nothingness.

There will never be no growth without tension. 

And now, tension should excite and let us move at our best after all.

I take the last seat now. The lowest place at the wedding banquet today.

But shouldn't this excite me more:  I get to be with the Best English Teachers in the Future - Among Batch 2014! (I sure dream to call myself one someday, by God's grace!)  :]]

Today, A Very Rainy Day!

    Rain was the first thing that caught my attention in the morning. The tempting motivator that tried its best to glue me on my bed.

Well, it didn't stop me from my quiet time but it did make my mother and I wait for hours before going to Manila. Yes! We didn't want to get wet out there together with my stuffs for school and for the dorm.

Rain - all the way through our travel in the bus and rain as we tread the streets along Normal Hall, TUP and the surprisingly-not-flooded streets of San Marcelino.

Laughing while walking was the coping mechanism my mother and I had at best! She was carrying three bags and I was carrying two (one extra heavy) along with my uniform covered with a jacket. Whew! (the thought of it still tires me) Car oh car - I did hoped for one!

 We found our destination and as we got up that narrow and very steep stairs (I'll really lose a lot of weight if I'll go up and down on it for the rest of my college life!)

Alas, my mother and I was not expecting that same picture of a dorm that was before our very eyes. It needed more renovation and more cleaning. I could not start fixing my things when my mother and I still didn't have peace about the place.

It was not at all a great start for me and my mother because there were immediate "questionings" raised upon our first sight of the dorm.

But anyhow, further conversations with the land lady made us feel better knowing that we'll stay there temporarily and move to the room for two most probably on July. 

Since my roommate (Ate Angie) was not yet around, my mother felt it was safest for me to sleep with Ate Jem (the land lady) just for 2 nights. And when my mother felt settled - I urged her to treat me at MCDO :]]

It was a late lunch time, and on the way, my mother, seeing the trail of students inside SM Manila (I doubt whether a day will pass without students scattered around every corner of that mall) kept on telling me "oh ganito pala no, pagkalabas ng mga studyante deretso na dito." Hahaha. And she kept picking on me as she notice how familiar I am with the place! (will not a year make me that knowledgeable enough - I jokingly reasoned out with her)

The craziest joke she had was when she was seeing "partners" all around. "Baka pag uwi mo may partner ka na rin ha!" Hahaha. I just laughed at the thought of it. 

(No! My Lord, you'll help me by your grace never have any other partner but YOU! :))

My mother and I bought some groceries, a blue umbrella for me (of course :) and ice cream amidst the freezing rain.

We walked through rainy streets again. When we parted, I faced again multitudes of students (to exaggerate!) along the way.

I headed straight here - at a computer shop.

What could be waiting for tomorrow, my first day in school?

Excited and nervous will spell it all out.

Clueless  I am, but I ought to trust Jesus and be excited because tomorrow and the entire school year ahead will be greater opportunities to trust Him.

Tomorrow, I know not.

Today, a very rainy day.

Yet trust, trust, keep the faith.