A Quest
understanding reconstructions in lifeArchive for 2008
2008: Untitled XI
March 8, 2008
Alone
in this dark
locked
room of mine
buried myself
underneath
a few pillows
with clogged nose,
I seek
affirmation
and
peace.
2008: (DIS)BELIEF
October 20, 2008
You are my Lord, my God
You’re full of mercy, You give me grace
You’re the source of my joy everlasting
The source of my peace and my strength
But why this disbelief?
Why this little faith?
Why do I try to hide from You?
Why do I run away?
I cannot understand why.
I try to put You away,
To place You in the background,
Making all sorts of excuses,
Just not to meet You.
But it gets me all so messed up
I’m like an extravagant bag
That contains a stinking crap.
How can I bear this? I cannot do it by myself.
I am ashamed
Too full of guilt to even show my face
How can I get back on track
With this disbelief?
It is funny though,
How I cannot completely run away from You
That in simple things
I catch myself uttering Your Name.
But then,
I run,
I hide,
By silencing myself.
I can’t continue living this way
I don’t want to rot all over
But its so hard for when I say “save me,”
I ignore all Your efforts.
You know what’s deep inside me,
Don’t listen to my outside
Let my inside, my core, prevail
Help me trust You, help me become faithful.
I am this messed up
That I cannot bring myself to You
I am this messed up
That I hide what’s really me
I am this messed up
That I am lost because of my hiding
I want to be fixed
Search for me
Bring me back
To where I truly belong.
2008: The year that was
I started this year with the theme “love and faith for 2008” for I believe that was what God told me this year was. A lot of things have happened, yes, ups and downs, and I believed that I would see (smell, hear, touch, taste, in a word–perceive) things greater than what I have and could have imagined.
I would deviate from the norm by not classifying this year as a roller coaster ride. For a roller coaster go on huge spirals, oftentimes, these spirals are symmetrical up and down. Not my 2008. I realized what this year was when I saw an old schoolmate (who was younger than me) in the hallway of CCF. He kept me company outside the main hall during the latter part of the service. One of the questions he asked me was “how’s your 2008, ate?”
I have one word to describe this year–difficult. Yes, it was a very, very difficult year, most of the time the bad times outweigh the good ones. But then, I almost immediately told him that what seems to be bad for us might not really be bad for Him. In fact, it might be (and most probably it is) His way of pruning us, me.
Before I went to St. Francis Square to attend CCF’s worship service, I attended The Feast at Valle Verde Country Club. There, I was assured that one of God’s promises was to shake us. No temporary things will remain. Victory is waiting at the end of the shaking. Victory only comes after the shaking.
That same night, I had the opportunity to attend a party at Warehouse 135 in Makati. Spirit was the event, and it was a Christian event. The House music the DJ was playing were all Gospel music. The tag line was right–nothing bug Gospel House. I never imagined I could party like that and worship God at the same time. Wow.
This year 2008 had been really very difficult for me. But at the same time, I am completely grateful for this year. Several relationships have been formed, broken and restored this year, including my relationship with my Father. Though I did not get through this year through flying colors, I think I’d rather pass through a needle’s hole and pick up a lot of lessons instead of flying and just using stocked knowledge, gaining nothing.
I’m looking forward for my 2009. I am looking forward for the changes* this coming year will bring me. Yes, I am looking forward for the changes that will come to me, more for the changes that I will be initiating.
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*I believe change is constant, thus, there will always be change. However, I believe I can really look forward for major changes in 2009.
2008: On trust and being silent
I have been silent in my virtual world for quite some time now. I haven’t really posted anything, nor checked anyone’s sites. By silencing myself, I chose to distance myself from the “world.” I was able to contemplate on a lot of things, things that could not be made public, or even share to my cyber social group. Now, I choose to speak up.
I am not going to describe what those long three months were. That would take forever. Nor would I describe the things that I have learned for the past months. I am here to share a thought about “trust.”
For the last couple of months that I have been silent, I always receive the remark, “thank you for trusting me.” They would normally say that after I have shared my deepest struggle. Trust is such a big word, and most of the time, we lack this virtue, we tend to be suspicious of the other’s motives. But hey, being suspicious is a learned behavior. Children trusts almost anybody. Even Christ wants us to imitate the children in their trust of another.
I think, that was how I had been, like a little child–vulnerable to several dangers. There is nothing else that I could do but to trust the people nearby to help keep me away from danger. Furthermore, I realized that as I trust the people close to me, I also am led to trust myself more.
But the greatest trust of all goes to my Dad who never ever cease to give me another chance. A trust amidst all questions; a trust that goes beyond my understanding; and a trust that my Dad will see me through my everyday battles. I just need to ask, believe, and trust.
2008: food for thought
It is said that one could always choose to be happy. But what if it really is hard to be happy? Happiness is an emotion. We feel our emotions. We do not choose them, there are not even wrong emotions. That is ours, and ours alone. When we say that we feel something but that feeling is not really within us, then that would be hypocrisy, according to Gary Chapman. Therefore, it would be difficult to choose to be happy, to say, claim, or believe that we are when we’re not. However, we could instead think of happy thoughts that could in turn elicit happiness, thus, it would be genuine. We would not be hypocrites.
On the other hand, while I was sharing this thought to another, she said, you could choose happiness because happiness is not an emotion, it is a state of being. And I told her, “then, what are other states of being?” There was a long pause. “Sadness, the opposite of happiness.”
The dictionary defines emotion as a state of consciousness. Isn’t that the same with “state of being?” For me, it is.
Therefore, I made the decision to jot down at least one happy life event per day. This way, I could always come back to several happy thoughts that could elicit genuine happiness, or even joy, in my times of melancholia.
2008: Crazy and Something Big Indeed
A few of my friends are wondering how karla capco is now, especially because I haven’t posted a blog since May 18, two months ago. Wow, it was that long ago. No wonder they’re asking how I am.
I was supposed to post a blog about the Hillsong worship last May 26. I wrote something, but afterwards, I wasn’t satisfied with what I wrote. I knew there’s something more, something hidden that I couldn’t understand at the moment. I believe God spoke to me that night, but at the moment I couldn’t comprehend yet. That was the reason why I didn’t post it. I assigned the title “crazy,” somewhat because that was what I thought I experienced. Being really crazy for my God. Little did I know that it was to describe my next month.
The succeeding weekend of the worship in Araneta was the Level Up weekend of YFC Community Based. I served during the weekend, and there I experienced something different. I know I haven’t been a participant in that training weekend, but that was my second time, both as part of the service team. As the video playback, I was stuck in front and I got to listen to all the talks given. At one point, I was bored with the sessions, I was tired of hearing the same things. What I heard were like clichés to my ear, to my mind, to my heart, and maybe to my soul. I wanted something different. I was yearning of something deeper, something more specific, less generalized. In short, I wasn’t satisfied. Maybe, because that training wasn’t for me. It wasn’t made for me. At the very last praisefest, I heard God talk to me. He said,
“To decide to be more joyful, in order to learn what I needed to learn. To seek more in cliché messages/ statements because there’s always something more. This is your level up. If in times you feel tired of listening to the same, vague or ambiguous statements for you, you must seek deeper. The more you grow, the more you mature, you shouldn’t expect everything to be spoon fed to you. it is your call, your decision, to seek more. Contemplate. Yung tears mo kanina, they were tears of joy. Peaceful ka ngayon and the tears you shed kanina ay patunay langna naintindihan mo na kung anong kulang sa’yo, kung anong kailangan mo pang gawin. Just live one day at a time, worry free. Smile, magmahal, magdasal.”
After that, I told myself, yeah, I should live one day at a time, don’t dwell, just do what I’ve got to do. June came, and several other things came. There was my ultimate family weekend, enrolment period, and first days of classes. So many things happened. I asked questions, I probed on topics I know nothing about. I wanted to discover. I want my questions to be answered, I don’t want to be ignorant of topics I should have knowledge about. Being ignorant of these things would put me at a disadvantageous situation. I entered a period of forming and re-forming my own convictions and opinions regarding certain topics. Though the phase was a really rough time for me. I became depressed, I again went back to my issues before, how I was a failure, how incompetent I am. Because there was no one to really listen to me, to hear me out, to help me answer my questions, I secluded myself from the rest of the world. I focused on my academics, and I sought the answers to my questions myself. I helped myself learn a lot about certain topics, and I did irrational things. I fell into sin, but at the time, I don’t care because I want to discover, I want to feel. I want to know the what, how, where, and why. I was so concerned in wanting to explore that I came to the point that I couldn’t express myself. I was putting so many things inside me, but I couldn’t find an outlet where I could also let the excess things out. I couldn’t write, I don’t know what to do. Yes, I was going crazy.
Finally I was able to express myself through the perceptual process flowchart I made. Then, like a chain reaction, people dear to me were becoming really concerned and was asking me when we could meet up, sit, and talk. I felt that I was really being prayed for, and I know that because I felt lighter. Then, little by little, wisdom pours over me. I finally understood why I did those things, why I entered that rough road. It was my level up. I was a level higher because of the things I explored. I have more knowledge of myself, my being a daughter of God. The Hillsong worship? I know now God’s core message in that worship. It was to live one day at a time. The whole worship, I was just dancing to the beat of the music, singing along. How could you dance to the music a second ago? Or a second to go? You can only dance to the music being played right now. That was the message.
Lately, other things came up. One thing that I realized is about intimacy. To be intimate to someone is to allow that someone to be part of my life, and me in that someone’s life. I need intimacy in my life, just like everyone else. That was the reason why I’m still stuck in YFC. I experienced being intimate with co-YFC members, with my ates and my kuyas. I felt being cared for. But I know it should not end there. I must strive for intimacy in other areas of my life, in other dear people in my life. Being intimate with Jesus is also a better feeling than being intimate with myself. Intimacy.
Another realization is about death. Lately, a lot of people I know died (or the loved one of the person I know). I asked God, why so many deaths in a week? I know, there’s something underneath. Just his Thursday, I attended the Catechism class in the EDSA Shrine. The topic was about the sixth commandment, you shall not commit adultery. The priest said, when one enters marriage, one has to die to oneself. Thinking only about oneself should end, because one has to think about the spouse and the would-be family. Selfishness should be eradicated, as much as possible. If not, it wouldn’t be a healthy family. It would be a small wound that could be festered with bacteria, and thus, become infected. It could destroy the family. And I understood more why we need to be whole when we enter romantic relationships.
Thus, death, is more that death of the physical body. It is dying of oneself to the thing that one commits to. Going back to the verse Mark 8:34, Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to follow me must deny himself, carry his cross and follow me.”
At present, it is clear for me that God wants to bring me from His glory to another glory. But He couldn’t do that without me trusting Him, with His grace being enough for me. Indeed, what happened the past months are in line with what God said this 2008 will be about – love and faith. As I learn that no matter how I love Jesus, He loves me more than I could ever love Him. All the questions and formation of convictions, I believe, is part of building my faith, a faith that is more firm, more bold.
As St. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians, “All of this so that you may understand with all the holy ones that the width, the length, the height and the depth – in a word, that you may know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled and reach the fullness of God. Glory to God who shows his power in us and can do much more than we could ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:18-20)
***
Live one day at a time. Don’t dwell. Keep moving forward.
2008: Crazy
Everything was a blur. A white substance enhances that blur. All around me, there was chatting and cheering. We were getting settled, they were restless. One part at a time, the surroundings darkened, signalling the start of something big.
This is it. The long wait Is over.
Loud cheers echoed inside the Big Dome. Hillsong United finally came out to start leading the thousands of people–young and old, men and women, Filipino and foreigner–into a worship fest. Crazy young Christians as the lead singer put it. Yes, everyone was crazy enough to sing, dance, raise up their hands, offer what they could, just to worship their Savior, Jesus.
Goosebumps embraced me. I was being overwhelmed by what I was witnessing. Christians from all over Metro Manila, and I mean Evangelical Christians, Born Again Christians, Catholics, and whatever domination they’re in, as in Christians, gather together to pray, to worship. We were singing one song, voicing out our praises to our One God. The whole experience was so magnificent. No, it was beyond magnificent. It was majestic. No, it was way beyond majestic. It was indescribable. I was ecstatic. Joy and peace was constantly present throughout the whole worship. It was physically exhausting, yet, fulfilling. “Crazy young Filipino Christians,” we were described. Yes, crazy. I was like an empty cup being filled, just receiving, and I received the graces with open arms. I believe the overflow will happen in the “real” world, not in seclusion like that two hours.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if I see blurred images, that in the darkness I see small round colored lights. What matters is that in the darkness, I see the colors of the small lights. What matters is what my heart was seeing. What matters is to whom my crazy little big heart is beating for. Every little beat is a signal of something big.
2008: SHOUT Series: Last na’to
I am God’s daughter. He loves me more than I could ever love Him. His love is perfect, mine imperfect. But because He’s my Dad, He teaches me how to love like Him. He allows me to be empty, to let Him take care of my garbage within, and be open to be receive what He will give me. To just receive and be filled. Then giving will follow.
I am His daughter and therefore He says, “Karla, be My child–carefree, full of zest, trusting. Do not dwell on what you think, but rest in My love. Trust. Believe. Obey.”
2008: SHOUT Series: tubig at ihi
Ang tubig na ating iniinom ang naglilinis ng loob ng ating katawan, at inilalabas ito sa pamamagitan ng pag-ihi. Kapag mas madalas tayo uminom, mas madalas din tayo umihi, at sa bawat ihi, palinis ito ng palinis. Kapag tayo’y nauuhaw, ang pinakamaganda pa ring pampawi ng nito ay ang tubig at hindi ang kung ano mang inumin.
Hindi maganda pigilan ang pag-ihi sapagkat inilalagay natin ang ating sarili sa posibilidad ng pagkakaroon ng impeksyon sa daluyan ng ihi (UTI sa Ingles). At kahit gaano natin katagal pigilan ang ating pag-ihi, lalabas at lalabas pa rin ito, kahit na hindi pa tayo handa (dahil wala pa tayo sa tamang lugar). Kapag nailabas natin ito, napakasarap ng pakiramdam dahil ang laking ginhawa ang idinudulot nito.
Gayundin naman kapag nililinis tayo ni God.
Noong tinusok si Kristo sa tagiliran, dugo’t tubig ang lumabas. Sinabi ni Max Lucado sa isa sa mga libro niya na ang dugo ni Kristo ay ang sakripisyo ni Kristo samantalang ang tubig ay ang Espiritu Santo na gumagalaw sa atin. Ang tubig ay ang gawain Niya sa ating mga buhay. Nililinis Niya tayo, binabago. Ngunit tulad ng pag-inom ng tubig, kailangang piliin natin ito.
Kapag nililinis tayo ni God, hindi natin pwede pigilan ang paglabas ng dumi mula sa ating katawan. Lalabas at lalabas ito, kaya’t hindi na dapat pigilan. Kapag pinigilan pa, inilalagay natin ang ating sarili sa isang sitwasyon ng paghihirap na hindi naman talaga kailangan.
Sino tayo para pigilan ang pagmamahal na ibinibigay ng ating Ama sa langit?
2008: SHOUT Series: the empty cup
Imagine we are the cup.
When a cup is empty, you could fill it with either garbage or something edible. Of course, as the owner of the cup, we could decide which would go in. If we discovered that we have placed garbage in our cup, we could also decide to pour the garbage out. But unless you wash it, there would still be traces of the garbage and that would not be nice when it is filled with something great. Therefore, it should be washed with water.
Being empty can be a humbling experience. Just decide what to be filled with.
A Quest 