After many many months of questioning, searching, and more often than not, avoiding the issue altogether, I've found some answers.

I stopped believing in providence for the longest time, so much so that I forgot it existed. All along, I have stubbornly tried to apply my inadequate understanding to things. Why are things the way they are? And more importantly, where the fuck has my faith gone? Weeks ago, Joanna and I had a conversation about how we have started to question everything, as if to say, I know better than you do how my life should turn out, I hate what you're doing with my life, and if I were in total control, I'd do much better than this. It is only now that I finally see the relevance of our talk.

Over the past two days, some things have begun to form like a crystal in my mind. It started in church yesterday. Three things.

1. Psalm 23 which says "The Lord is my shepherd"
2. The priest reiterating in his sermon the words of the second reading - "...full stomach or empty stomach, poverty or plenty. There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength" (Philippians 4:12-14)
3. Being reminded that too often, we try to solve our problems when we should be turning to God.

And then tonight, praying the rosary and flipping through the pages of my dusty Bible, revisiting the old familiar words that have given me comfort through all these years. I was musing before that very often, it felt like my prayers were not answered. But it's occurred to me that at some level, God has always answered the essence of my prayers. He grants not the immediate gratification of my desire, but shows me (in time, always in time) that the basic need is always addressed.

It's almost like a chicken and egg situation. What comes first - the supplication that asks for more faith, or the faith that leads one to surrender everything in prayer? I still don't know, but I am grateful for tonight's enlightenment. I have been so proud and so self-righteous that I started to see faith as a given, and not something that takes an immense amount of prayer to sustain. So I will stop carrying this cross like it's something God's supposed to account to me for. I will stop asking for things like it's my right to possess. Above all, I will remember not to be proud, and to rely on Him whose ways and thoughts are higher than mine.

"We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair; there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed." (2 Corinthians 4:8-9) Amen, amen.

posted by beautiful at 8:13 am