Back from Slumberland

This entry is in thanksgiving for God's gift of my life


For 27.5 years of my life, I was sleeping in a cave in the most remote abyss of this planet. A lukewarm, half-hearted and uncommitted believer. It was as if I had never seen the Sun nor the green grass or the river cascading down the valley. I was blind. I looked but never saw anything. Life passed me by superficially. It was as if I was alive, yet never really fully living, never fully alive. 


I had not done anything right nor deserving. On the contrary, I was sinking deeper in sin. It was solely because of God's undiscriminating and boundless mercy and love that He took the initiative to send His Spirit to penetrate through the deepest layers of my distortions, distractions and self-protection, that I am now awaken from my slumber and growing continuously in wakefulness and responsiveness. 

It all started here at the basement of St. Peter's Basilica. Fr Valerian was celebrating mass for the choir in one of the many private chapels, and for some unknown reason, I just kept tearing from the start to the end of the Mass, especially during the Eucharistic part onwards. There was nothing I was feeling in particular that contributed to the tears besides a growing awareness of God in the highly sacred space I was in. In that experience, one of the first of several deep spiritual consolations to come, God was melting down the heart of mine so hardened with resentment, frustration, refusal to love, rejection, insecurities, selfishness, hurt. And it is to remain fluid and thriving with His love from then on for all eternity. 


As the choir sang, as our voices blended in resonance within the small space of the chapel, so did God's Spirit enter and resonate between the walls of my heart. It freed up a lot of room to receive Jesus anew into my mind, heart and life. I began to fall in love. I am caught in the net of His love, like a dolphin's flippers are trapped in the fisherman's net; there's no way of escaping and the more I struggle, the more entangled I become in that love net. 


I've never fallen in love before until I've fallen in love with Him. Because of Him, I do things that are out of this world; yes, out of this secular world. Because of Him, I give up all that I have in my life to follow Him into His world of the unknown; a world in which He is my only Light, His hand my only guide, His presence my only protection, His love my only source of energy, His assurance my only warmth, His faithfulness my only security, His mercy my only hope, His embrace my only destination. He alone is sufficient for me; He alone is everything. And only these I ask of Him, these which are my only desires - to know Him more intimately, love Him more deeply and to follow Him more closely in one heart and mind with Him. 


I praise and thank my gracious and generous God for all He's done with me and for me. Today, or rather yesterday, is a celebration of life, that which is given and blessed and taken care of by Him who loves me so infinitely. In my family, my friends, my life, my faith, God has spoken His message of "Love" to me.


"For You created me and shaped me; 
gave me life within my mother's womb.
For the wonder of who I am, I praise You;
Safe in Your hands all creation is made new."


17 December 2010, Friday
12.39am