Such thoughts used to scare me to my wits. In retrospect, i would think that there are a few points in life where you'll realise you're standing on a crossroad, everything's changing too rapidly and it passes you by in a blur, you wonder how you ever got to that street in the first place and all of a sudden, you have to make an irrevocable decision for life.
One such moment came for me after high school and one such is coming upon me again.Where do i go? What do i do? How do i move on from here? Which friendships will thrive?
I had no idea what i was getting myself into (that's so funny now and i'm really laughing out loud as i type this, i'm not sure why). Along the way, i questioned myself a lot and i questioned God.
Looking back, i realise it isn't so much about whether i made the right decisions in life. So often i let that haunt me and ponder on the what-if's. What if God had planned a different route for me and i've taken the wrong one? What if i missed out on something better? Maybe that's why this path is so difficult to tread?
Suddenly, it doesn't matter really, because God makes straight the crooked paths. What's important is i give Him all my plans and the question of the rightness of the path chosen would ebb away.
I remember praying for humility 5 years ago. I did it half-heartedly because what's humility to a 15 year-old know-it-all? I remember praying for the gift of joy (because no one likes a sulky Catholic now do we?) 2 years ago.
I am amazed at how much God has guided and taught me since.
To teach me a bit of humility (a bit because we all know i'm not quite there at all), God threw me onto a road traversed by and congested with what was then strangers who were LEAST similar to me. (I absolutely see what You did there Big Guy /eyebrows).
How do i illustrate that? It's a bit like throwing Justin Bieber into Linkin Park. Or making Bon Iver sing Call Me Maybe.
Anyway God was totally "Oh you wanna pick up some humility? Hmm, for starters, let's make you learn some Chinese because we both know... you hate it hehehehe." (Okay, He probably didn't do the hehehe but you get my point).
And joy. Oh joy.
Joy is a never-ending lesson. To be the person who continues trusting God when the world crashes around you. To be the person who smiles when all you want to do it break down. To be the person who comforts when all you desire is to be comforted. To be the person who needs a listening ear but tries to be the listening ear. All this because the joy of the Lord is my strength.
Joy is a tricky one but sometimes in my prayers or when i sit before the Lord before the Blessed Sacrament, i see so plainly how we can be joyful even when nothing is in place. It falters when fear consumes us but it comes with trust in the Lord. Trust that He really loves and provides the best.
So it's really tempting to despair time and again.
And now I'm coming to my second big crossroad. After being as a fish taken out of water and having been stripped of what i considered who i am and after much sacrifices, God is taking me away again.
The friends i made and grew to love in KL will always be the ones who break me, confuse me, drive me mad (because i seriously didn't want to conform to this horrible sounding language and utterly foreign culture), upset me, and make me want to rip my hair off but they'll always be the ones whom God chose to teach me a bit of of everything. Mostly, i'm overwhelmed because as different as we are, by some sorcery (actually, it's the branch of magic known as the Grace of God if you've heard of it) i have come to love them.
Which makes it really ironic that i now have to leave. I am pleasantly surprised to find myself sad about it.
It is crossroads all over again.
The difference this time however, is that i will trust the Good Lord (i have this fuzzy feeling that good things will happen) and keep you in my prayers so you will be ever close to the most Sacred Heart. May you find strength and joy in Him all the days of your life.
P/S: My biggest source of inspiration has been Ma Mary. Read up about the craziest things which happened to her in Luke 1:38-56 (Hint: It involves pregnancy scares, braving a desert, babies leaping in wombs and praising God YET STILL through the absurdity of it all).
"Faith is not a fire, as much as it's a glow." -- Audrey Assad, Slow.
May God bless you.
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