“Pain has a message. Once we get the pain’s message, and follows its advice, the pain goes away” – Bible Diary 2002
SOUL-searching was never a part of my vocabulary until I found myself crying over the fear of accepting that I was alone.
After I lost my mother to death and my siblings to marriage, I was filled with the fear of losing the people around me. Since then, I had been under pressure to do everything to protect every relationship.
In school, I was lucky to have a big group of friends. Seeing myself in them, I treated everyone special. I assigned myself to become their best friend—their personal protector against physical and virtual enemies who would come their way.
One time, a classmate bullied one of my friends and started making up stories against our clique. Rattled after receiving a phone call from the hurt friend, I thought of something to get back at the bully.
I countered, not with physical force, but with my weapon of choice—words.
I started creating lies against him and glossed over the details. It was so easy to research on his vices and devious habits.
I somehow felt happy with the turn of events. The whole class gave the enemy the cold shoulder.
When the moment of revelation took place, the lies I made turned into a quicksand—the more I tried to fight back and defend myself, the deeper I drowned myself.
I was deeply hurt not because of my friends’ injustice but because I knew I was to blame for the problem our group had. I was dishonest and rejected.
Aware that what I was doing was devious, I knew that I would find wounded people at the end—the bully, my friends, and myself.
Many times we live in a spirituality of fear that paralyzes us. Fear turn us to into cowards and drives us to escape reality. To fight back, one has to possess faith. And faith is what I lacked.
Faith, unlike fear, makes one realize that amid all lies and bad means, there is still someone who would still accept one with arms wide open—God.
Prayer: Lord, thank You for the gift of faith. At times when we face the challenges of honesty and courage, we ask You to help us get through them and grace us with Your forgiveness when we can’t do against it. Lord, we are sinners who always need Your presence. Please don’t leave us alone. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
