Feelings of the HEART

Haha! I know you all have missed me. Sorry about the silence.  The messages, phone calls, tweets and bb pings I received show me you guys really care about my writings. I really appreciate your concern.  I decided to take a break in order to refill my inspirational tank. Lately, I have been doing a lot of readings and I’m just about to finish reading a book by Robert Kiyosaki titled Rich Dad Poor Dad. If you haven’t read this book, I would encourage you to please get a copy. Rich Dad Poor Dad is a life changing book.

So let’s go into business. Today, I decided I’m going to share a personal story of mine. It’s perhaps the most painful experience I had while growing up. For some reason, I wouldn’t go so deep into details.  However, if you are careful enough, you would leave with one or two lessons after reading this article.

So, I encourage you to read this piece with your eyes, mind, and heart wide open. Look in-between the lines for the lessons. Treasures aren’t found on the surface, you’ve got to dig deep for them.

Several years ago, I experienced what is perhaps the most powerful force on earth. Such a force is what everyone, regardless of status, race, educational background and financial capabilities can’t stand when hit by it. It’s so powerful that without it we are nothing.  It’s called LOVE. Yes! I fell in love with a very beautiful girl. Back then, she was everything to me. My world revolved around her.  

Walking down the hall, I heard someone wailing in the class room. I peeped to see who it was, lo and behold; it was the girl that most guys detested and wouldn’t want to have anything to do with because of how proud she was. Just like every other guy, I hated her, but this was past 5pm in the evening and everyone had gone home and I just couldn’t leave her alone in that empty class. Not allowing the hatred I had for her to get in the way, I walked up to her, and without saying a word; I embraced her and allowed her cry while leaning on my left shoulder. I understand that sometimes, people don’t need words when they grieve; they just want someone who can be silent and help them face the reality of their powerlessness. 

She was going through a very tough period in her life and I stepped in to be a friend. As time went by, our friendship grew stronger. We would share with each other things that we didn’t want others to know about us. We both lost friends because it was all about ‘us’ and no one else. We were inseparable. There was never a time we were apart from each other for 1 hour except when we had to say goodbye for the day. For long, we remained friends. But when you really love someone you just can’t be their friend. We both grew to love each other. 

We both made crazy sacrifices for each other and would spend a great deal of time planning our future together. It was such a beautiful experience.  The more time we spent together, the more we became part of each other. Our hearts became so united that the only reason I saw the next day was because her heart didn’t stop beating. 

 Gradually, an unusual fear began to grow within me; the fear that someday, my heart would be broken. On the outside, I would act as thou all is well, but deep down within me there was a civil war going on. How do I reconcile both love and fear? How do I enjoy the moment without letting the fear of tomorrow get in the way? It was challenging finding answers to questions as such.  Fear got in the way and somehow our relationship began to go sour. To cut the long story short, one thing led to another and she told me it was best we go our separate ways. My greatest fear became a reality. My heart was broken.  I was so devastated and for weeks I went without eating solid food. 

For years, I carried this scar in my heart and I just couldn’t open up to love.  Then, I began realizing that the struggle begins not when people surround us, but rather when they forsake us. It is then we begin to discover our own identity and self-worth. It took 5 years to heal from such a traumatic experience.

 Emotional pain is to the spirit what physical pain is to the body. Pain warns that something in our body is not healed. In the same way, when pain feels our hearts, we know that we have an area where healing or restoration is needed.

We need a private place of honesty. We need to be honest with ourselves. We need a place where we can sit down, reflect and mourn. However, we must be careful not to mourn over the past longer than necessary.  After the funeral, there is always a burial. The burial separates the survivor from the deceased. So we must come to a place of separation and decide to move on. 

The greatest tragedy is that most of us keep our pain active. Consequently, our power is never activated because our past remains unresolved.  We must allow the process of healing to take us far beyond bitterness into a resolution that releases us from the prison of depression and sets us free.

God’s healing process makes us free to taste life again, free to trust again, and free to live without the restrictive force of threatening fears. Someone may say, “I don’t want to trust again.” That is only because you are not healed. To never trust again is to live on the pinnacle of a tower. You are safe from life’s threatening grasp, but you are so detached from life that you soon lose consciousness of people, places, dates and events. You become locked into a time warp. You always talk about the past because you stopped living years ago. Listen to your speech. You discuss the past as if it were the present because the past has stolen the present right out of your hand! You’ve got to take it back. 

Could it be possible that there are those around you who want to be part of your life, now that you have chosen to go through the healing process and stop dwelling on what didn’t work out?

Put your seat belt on, get into the driver seat of your life and move on.

Gracias

Our own AGENDA

Life is filled with trying to meet the latest deadline; submitting a report due, stop by the store for essentials, get the kids to bed, go to ball games, business meetings and conferences; get the oil changed in the car; stop off at the gym for a workout; prepare for an exam; mow the grass; write a speech, prepare for a sermon; and go to the studio.

With these things and more filling up our schedules, it’s easy to keep our focuses inward, to parcel out our time, money and energy for the things we want to accomplish rather than remembering the people we want to accomplish them for. It now becomes our constant practice to place more value on things rather than people.

When we get wrapped up in our own plans for the day, we can overlook what those around us truly need, and we can miss the opportunity to serve them.

Magazines articles tell us we need to slow down for the sake of our health and well-being. That may b true, but we also need to slow down for the sake of people- for the sake of family, for the sake of loving relationships. How can we know what people need, much less help with those needs, if we are distracted by our own agendas all the time?

How many of us have rushed past a homeless person on the street or the security guy that watches over your home, office or dormitories without noticing the look on his face? In the same way, every day we hurry by people, sometimes in our own kitchens, whose needs we could meet if we would set aside our to-do list for a few minutes.

Of course we each have certain things we need to get done each day. At the same time, we must realize that the most important thing may not be the most urgent thing. Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in one’s life time.  When our long term perspectives carry more weight than our short term checklist, we realize that generosity is often simpler than we realize. The good lover’s question, what can I do for you?, doesn’t take long to ask. Pausing to listen to the answer can make all the difference to someone in need of love.

Gracias

Solitude

Your essential being is inward, invisible, spiritual and as such it derives its life, and strength from withIN, not from withOUT. You as a spiritual being cannot be maintained in strength, uprightness, and peace except you periodically withdraw yourself from the outer world of perishable things and reach inwardly towards the abiding and imperishable realities.

In solitude, you gather strength to meet the difficulties and temptations of life, knowledge to understand and conquer them and wisdom to transcend them.

I love to be alone sometimes. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in the chambers of our thoughts.

It is only in solitude that you can be truly revealed to yourself. It is only in solitude that you can come to understand your real nature, with all its powers and possibilities. The voice of the spirit is not heard in the noise of this world. There can be no spiritual growth without solitude.

 If you would be strong, useful and self-reliant, learn the art of being alone sometimes, far away from the disturbances of this world. For it is by being alone that you discover the genius within you.

Being alone allows you to draw from within, the rich potentials deposited in you. In solitude, you discover the dark spots in you that need light. If you don’t withdraw to yourself occasionally, you will never live to your highest potential.

Every great invention was first conceived in the secret place. Solitude is where we grow and become wiser. It is in solitude that we find answers to our problems. It is solitude we find unending peace. It is in solitude that the broken places in us are fixed. It is in solitude that our minds travel and reach out for possibilities. It is in solitude our hearts experience love.  

It is solitude we find rest for our souls.

Gracias

Trapped!

Have you ever found yourself in a trapped situation? You look to the east, west, north, and south and you see no future. Trapped moments in life can be so painful that it leaves you almost bleeding. I know some people don’t understand what it means to be trapped probably because they’ve always had everything going smoothly for them. But I tell you, regardless of who you are, somehow, somewhere; you’ve been trapped by life circumstances. 

For some, it may be that they are trapped financially. No money to pay the debts, no money to pay the tuition, and no money to buy yourself and others some good stuff. They are trapped!! For others, theirs may be being trapped spiritually. They can’t seem to understand the sudden silence from the God who always speaks to their every need. It is difficult to endure the silence of walking out your faith before God who does not always speak to your insecurities. 

While for others, they are trapped emotionally. Oh yes! This perhaps, is the toughest of all, because naturally, we are emotional beings. Our emotions can be linked to how we spend our money and how we worship God. I do not wish even my enemy to be trapped emotionally.

You alone know where you are trapped. And you wish that somehow, someone can come to your aid and rescue you.

Recently, I began studying once again, a story we all know or may have heard of, and I was amazed at my discovery. To better buttress my point, let’s delve into this story for a bit.

Now, these people have been enslaved for 430 years in Egypt and for once in their life they heard that they were going to be delivered from their bondage. Imagine, I have been trapped and forced to think in a certain way (slave mentality) for that long, and here comes someone with a promise of deliverance. Someone may be asking: How is it possible to be set free from something I have become used to?

I have been abused and molested by people for years and here you are promising me deliverance. I mean, I have been enslaved by drugs and certain habits for years and here you are promising me deliverance. I have had low self esteem for years and here you are promising me deliverance. For years, I have had problems loving myself and have always perceived myself to be nobody, and here you are promising me deliverance in a short while. 

Emotionally, I have been heartbroken and been enslaved and trapped, not wanting to let anyone in again and here you are promising me deliverance in a very short while. How possible is that?

I know you all can relate with these feelings. And it becomes a problem when on the outside you act as though all is going well, but on the inside life is punching you real hard and you are a point n life where you can’t handle just one more punch.

And here comes these people after they have been delivered out of the land Egypt, facing even a greater challenge and have become trapped, not knowing which way to take. They look behind and they see what they were running away from now running towards them and in front of them is a big obstacle-the RED SEA. Trapped by their situation, they began to wail, and wished they remained as slaves in Egypt. 

How painful it can be for you to look behind and see your history/past experiences running towards you just when you are trying to get over them, and in front of you, you see no future because of the obstacles ahead. You are trying so hard to get over that abuse, heartbreak, low self-esteem, drugs, poverty mindset, you name it and each time you look back you see the things you are trying to let go off running towards you. You are trapped and you wish that someone can help you out. I know that feeling; some of us have been there and have tasted of such bitterness.

Trapped and wailing and left confused, God told them to MOVE ON even though they still see the obstacle standing and staring at them. The RED SEA still remained undivided, and God is telling them to move on. Eventually, as they approached the sea, it parted ways. Now, many historians find it hard to believe that such happened but I do believe with the whole of my heart.

They walked through the red sea on dry ground.  Get this straight, There is no going to be “WALKING THROUGH “unless you first “WALK TOWARDS.” In order to walk through your obstacles, you have got to first walk towards your fears and conquer them.

You alone know your RED SEA. You alone know where life has you trapped. And sometimes, when you look back you see your past running after you and you wish you can overcome what’s ahead of you and watch your past drown.

 Just like the Israelites did, you’ve got to MOVE ON in order to overcome your fears. You can’t afford to remain trapped in that (“filling in the blank”) just one more day. Make up your mind to MOVE ON

At the other end is a land filled with milk and honey. So why allow life to trap you in what you know you have the power to overcome?

Gracias