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whathowhy 
11:58am, May 30, 2009
I’ve been trying to organize my thoughts for over an hour already trying to figure out what to write. Ideas keep firing in my mind-- I don’t know if it’s the coffee that’s kicking in but it was just overwhelming. To the irony of it, I couldn’t come up with something of substance to start pondering on for this paper. By midnight, I was still literary unproductive so I decided to call it a day but then, the electricity suddenly went off. I kept still on my seat as I was alone in the middle of darkness, trapped and helpless for a while. I think it took only 5 minutes till the lights were back, but that was just enough time I needed to finally realize how peculiar life’s way of teaching us invaluable lessons is. During those empty few minutes of silence in the dark, when I could almost hear my own heartbeat, did I able to feel that I was never alone. God was always with me after all. He lives in me through the beating of my heart. When I thought everything else is gone, He remains. That, if I would only take a little time to just close my eyes and listen to voice within me which almost always left unheard, I could possibly find meaning to everything I tend to complain about. We communicate to God through prayer, and for me, I believe He connects to us when we reflect on our experiences. I have a strong conviction that the universe is a perfect balance of everything. I believe that each creature down from the microscopic to the huge ones does play a unique individual role as integral part of a bigger, more complex functioning unit of basically everything. Therefore, if all has purpose, then it’s true that all happens for a reason. When lights were out and all my senses went numb, I experienced God’s presence because it is only in the dark could I see the light. Beggars in the street are reminder for me to contend with whatever I have. Their presence is a message that even if I may not have everything I want, at least I have something. Maybe for a dying patient with cancer, she has all the reason to consider her suffering as a curse from heaven, but for me who takes care of her do realize that having faith would not make her live but it would totally change the way she experience death. Living is indeed in itself a struggle and this world is a battleground. My daily strife of overcoming pain and defeat prepares me for the uncertainties of tomorrow. Though how tough I thought I am, it is in the midst of sorrow that I feel how badly I am in need of true friends. When I’m down and hurting, when nobody can console me, all I need is just the most soothing, warmest embrace of a mother’s. I learn the most valuable lessons in life during these times when everything does not turn out the way I want to; and as I go for short-cuts or as I insist on my selfish way of getting through it, the more I fail. Stubborn that I am, sometimes I think I really deserve the beating because blow after blow, I mature. It is by devouring pain and taking some time with myself that I understood how perfectly God planned everything about me. He made me according to His image but He wanted me to experience being human—weak, vulnerable, sinful—so He gave me free-will and placed it in my head so I can think as I make choices and take responsibility for the consequences of whatever I do. The beauty of it all, by being human is having a soul and conscience to guide me in overcoming the difficulties in life. I am not a devoted catholic and I don’t fully understand everything about being one. In as much as I am unworthy, I am still so much blessed; for each time I fall, I learn from the experience, I get stronger, become better individual in the process. I’m just sure God loves me. He takes control of everything His way, His time.
