Is the destination showing itself?

I know for sure that the path is brighter based on the constant wisdom God has granted me. I had been resistant towards administrative jobs as a permanent career but He has so beautifully reconciled me to them. My initial goal was feature writing but He so gently prodded me towards these jobs. He has even granted me interview answers. I have never had such direct guidance in my previous job interviews. Thinking back to my whole career path, He has made me walk towards personally resistant jobs. My first one was in the teaching line. He has also made me stronger and more thick-skinned in preparation for my new job. I believe the turning point was my mum's demise.

Though my heart will always be with teaching and my fantasy job is a governess, I am grateful for the past 9 years of being able to touch hearts and lives. As I embark on my first interview, and more to come, I walk with my Lord and allow Him to lead me. I know He will ultimately lead me towards the perfect choice He has planned for me. Amen!

A greater dimension to my love for Daddy-o

I Belong To You(Hillsong United)

Discovery

I am a little sad at a piece of news I found out. It is good news but not really so for me. I am not sure if this is God's way of revealing His will for my life. I have not exhausted all the options yet but I am not sure if they will still stand.

Nonetheless,I know Daddy-o has heard my deepest desires and whatever He wills for me will be beautiful and perfect for me. Perhaps the little revelations He has given to me are His signs pertaining to it? If so, Lord, please grant me the grace and joy and courage to accept it. I know though that He will be with me as I go through this, as He promised to be with me in all my trials pertaining to my state of life.

Whatever may be, I wish the people involved in the news God's blessings. The good thing is that it is merely slight sorrow but not heartpain. Perhaps this option is really not the right one for me for certain factors. Now that I have found out this news, I know my boundaries and will refrain from any more activity. It is a good decision, I feel, so as to prevent any unnecessary negativity from the other.

God healed me within a short time and I think I know why. I included this option based on head knowledge, that it would be good for me and meet my needs. However, my heart was not in it. Hence, my heart was not hurt :)

Assumption of our Blessed Mother

'For I have found His favour
And my heart rejoice in Him.'

As we sang the hymn My Soul Magnifies The Lord and these lines came, I know that my heart sang them too. It truly was the Holy Spirit glorifying God in me and Mother Mary praising Him with me, as I had prayed. My own relationship with God came to mind.

Actually, this prayer had been answered even before I prayed it. How great is my God who knows what I need even before I ask Him! How great is He for using me to glorify Himself! :) During Offertory, I was given the realization that I am special, set apart, anointed and chosen. Despite the times I nurse a flu, I can still sing to His glory. How indulgent and loving He is towards me!

The times He revealed His love for me came flooding back to me. I am referring specifically to God the Father, my Daddy-o. He first did so by calling me to a silent retreat and revealing His constant indulgence towards me. I believe the Holy Spirit gave me this name to address Him with, since they are so close to each other. The proof is that I thought it was just a name I myself came up with but it really means Abba Father :) He then affirmed His love for me through these lines which He repeatedly
sang to me during my choir retreat.
'I have loved you with an everlasting love
I have called you and you are Mine.'

How humbled and grateful I am! My God loves Me! I am but a mere human being who does not deserve His love. He is so almighty and I am so small, so unworthy! He chose to overlook my flaws and sins, my impurity and dirt. How humbled I am!

God's love never leaves

Once God has poured out His love into me, it always remains. How assuring and comforting!

I don't always follow a daily prayer schedule and inevitably, am vulnerable to the devil's insidious ways. A thought against God's values crept into my my mind, but that was the wakeup call to go back in prayer to Him. Praying two decades of the Divine Mercy Chaplet helped pull me back :)

My God is great though. He doesn't leave me with the love He previously poured into me but gives me more of it. I felt a fleeting moment of it during Mass and that left me teary. I knew then that it was He who was again revealing His love to me. It may have been fleeting but it was real. With God, one second of reveling in Him is more than enough due to the intensity of it :)

He has shown me His miracles in my life too. I was down with a bad throat and cough, but I was still able to praise Him with my voice, though not at my usual level. Still, that was enough for me. He also physically sustained me and protected me from a bad fall :) He has been graciously answering my prayer and those of others for me, by healing my left arm.

The most obvious sign that I reciprocate His love, and that is important to me, is that I still feel love for Him when I pray certain P&W songs. I can thank Him with true gratitude, refresh my emotional weariness and irritation in His presence, and declare with my soul that "my heart will follow wholly after you". Praise the Lord!

Lastly, He still deems me worthy to be His gentle and humble instrument to others. I know that is true, for there is trust and openness towards me. I thank the Lord for His continual promptings in me :)

I Love You, my Daddy-o

Dwelling Places by Don Moen

New perspectives on 'resting'

All those times, when I got slain, I took it as if it's God's power over me, and I am more open and filled with faith to Him than others. That was the most I could decipher of it. The crucial word is "power".

However, last night's intercessory prayer was made new for me. I felt joy and peace as I awaited my turn to be prayed over. I believe the Holy Spirit was already waiting for me before the actual prayer. He had heard my preparatory prayers to Him during the praise and worship segment, and just before the actual prayer.

The intercessors did not even ask me what my prayer intentions were. Immediately after being anointed, He overwhelmed me. The incredible realization was that He showed me that it was not just His power over me, but His love embracing me as I rested in Him. I felt as if He held me in His arms. I rested for a longer time and therefore, directly loved for a longer time. He had been waiting to shower me with His intense love :D

He has humbled me by revealing to me that His intercessors do not need to ask for my petitions, but with collective trust in Him, He will work in us. His intercessors are merely His channels, as long as they are open to His workings in them. It does not matter which parish they are from. Thank you, Daddy-o for correcting my misconception.

He keeps giving me more and more of His love ever since my silent retreat with Him. Being loved by God is so wonderful. He clearly looks past my unworthiness and impurity, and just loves. How can I not feel loved? Like I learnt at the retreat, the way to return His love is just to receive it and allow myself to BE loved.

A taste of singlehood

These past two weeks have seen me trying out the life of a single and it is only at this moment that I actually begin to feel a tinge of the loneliness that assails a single, though I must admit it is due to my picky preference and my sloth.

Nonetheless, I am not afraid for my God has promised me that He will be with me in the trials associated with my vocation.

Drop the ego!

God creates marvels in His own ways. Who am I to limit His ways and to define the way things should be done? He can heal a person in the way most suitable for him. A call may not be followed through but He can still turn things around and cause conversion in the mind. He does it through His silent promptings which happen so naturally and yet wonderfully, that I can only attribute the miracle to Him. O Lord, how great you are! I am humbled.

I tend to judge even the ignorant and that really means self-righteousness within me. I must change myself. This is only one of the changes I must make in myself before I even find a life partner. Perhaps this is my preparation period for it?

Spiritual preparation for my silent retreat

Not everyone can do a silent retreat. This inability reflects the problem of sitting still with the Lord and spending time to listen to Him. Lord, thank you for this grace that enables me to do so. As a result, I should not feel superior but humbler instead. I am filled with gratitude that God has made me able to find beauty in His silence.

What I hope to do this time round is to listen to His heart and not just His words, perhaps to just be with Him in whatever way He wants me to be. I was given a chance to be with my bestie in time of physical pain and in the same way, I can be with my suffering Lord :)

Secularistic dangers

We tend to place our happiness on people. When they do things for us that make us feel loved, our hearts sing for joy. However, humans are fickle by nature. Therefore, we should really place our happiness on a constant source, our Lord. He is forever constant and loving towards us. Lord, I aspire to this!

Singlehood may mean individual independence but there is a real danger of our hearts and mind being overtaken by secularism. It should really lead us closer to God. Oh Lord, I have fallen into this trap!! Pull me out of it, please!

Pentecost

I received a wakeup call when I could not give an immediate answer as to what I wanted to pray to the Holy Spirit for. I guess it was the way the question was thrown so unexpectedly at me too. As I attempted to search for one in my mind, I realised that it was lacking. What I came up with was somewhat based on external input.

My being is definitely overshadowed by a secular event that is coming up, and which I am hosting. My only hope for adequate preparation for my silent retreat then is God Himself, but I have to desire Him of course. I need to increase this level of desire though!

The thing is, I was called to the retreat merely to "rest my heart" and spend time with Him. It sounds simple but I know that it is a profound experience too. How then could I have immediately linked this to the question that was posed?

A "chill" came within me when I realised there was a possibility of my serving God devoid of sincerity. I told myself that I must never reach that stage. A pastor told me that the Holy Spirit is strong in me and I don't wish to lose Him. It would be such a tragedy.

Then my conductor was choosing the person to read out the General Intercessions and he based it on who needed the Spirit. I knew I needed Him and I guess God prompted him to choose me, because He knew I wanted Him.

Then I asked Him to pray and sing in me before mass. I couldn't sing with my usual spirit before I received Him.

This is how I eventually received Him: I opened myself to Jesus' words in the Gospel "Receive the Holy Spirit". When it was time to read the intercessions, I felt a sense of peace and calmness that subdued the nervousness within me. I knew then that He had given me Himself. :D What I sang after that moment was definitely in my usual self :)

The Spirit stayed with me and I was aware of it. He prompted me to practise physical self-control and offer it up for the conversion of sinners. He also prompted me to offer up my pain for the same intention.

My conductor told us to ask the Holy Spirit to do things with us every day. I did so and it does make a difference. I need Him to teach me which tasks are more important to do than others, when I have so many to do.

Praying in the Spirit

I never really knew what it means till today. We were reciting a decade of the rosary and slowed down in the midst of it, because we were not meaning the words of the prayers. We were to let the Spirit pray for us instead.

I was able to do so, praise the Lord! I felt as if it was not me anymore praying and the words were beyond their very nature. It is not that I did not mean the words but that I was past their meaning and their created purpose. I felt as if I was distant from them and I was blocked by a mist before me. This refers to the conscious me. Could this be a step closer to receiving the gift of tongues from the Spirit? Is that how people who pray in that way feel as they do so?

Easter Sunday

- A time of beauty-filled rest but a different Easter experience; a sense of hidden joy in the air waiting to burst out.
- Solemnity and grandeur were present, befitting the occasion. The mass seemed like a high mass. Paradoxically, it was a simple tuning of the voice that made this happen.
- A time of familiar intimacy.
- Simple words of the Easter message: Jesus is ALIVE but presented in a well-loved song - He Is Lord.
- Our Father sung in Latin - a new thing for me but added a regal sense to the occasion.

Holy Saturday

- The Paschal Candle being brought into the church gave me Christ's light to alleviate the dark church; light overcomes the darkness.
- The passing of the flame to one another made the church seem magical, like bright stars in the dark church.
- The new way of Baptism; going into a water tank dressed in black, and having the head ducked under thrice before surfacing, made it seem like a show rather than a sacrament. God was forgotten in the process. I thus felt a greater motivation to instill a prayerful mood through my singing.
- There is a need not to allow personal agitation to affect my singing; self-denial.
- In the midst of exhaustion, there is paradoxically more inner strength to fight it and sing better.
- Due credit is indeed to be attributed to the unsung heroes who work hard behind the scenes for overall perfection.

Good Friday

- The heavy rain was to me, God crying for His Son.
- The empty tabernacle was a physical reminder of emptiness and the absence of our Lord; His death.
- The intercessions were an opportunity for me to pray for bigger intentions than just my usual and immediate ones.
- The veneration of the cross was my expression of love to Jesus.
- The distribution of Communion was a glimmer of hope amidst the despair.
- As fellow Catholics, we were one in commemorating the suffering of Jesus.

Maundy Thursday

- A time for giving to Christ instead of receiving from Him, as I usually do.
- He may have emptied Himself to the point of being deprived of love, but I will still love Him even if He can't feel it.
- He deserves even more praise to counter the mockery from the soldiers.

Fasting during Lent

Fasting is internal as well.

Mind: no critical thoughts of others.
Tongue: no gossip or slander of others.
Heart: no bearing of grudges against others.