I am learning: 2009 - A learning year

When the year started, I took hold of a challenge I felt God was leading me to take and embrace the things that He would teach me. Thus, I excitedly declared it as a learning year. I didn’t realize the significance of the challenge I took. It became a year of learning in all aspects of my life: spiritually, emotionally, mentally, socially, financially and even physically.

For the past 11 months, I have written here about some of the things I had to grasp, often with open arms, sometimes reluctantly and, now and then, bowing in acceptance after a long and arduous internal struggle. If asked to identify the many things I learned this year, I would include the following: trusting people, being a Filipino, security in Christ, and the gift of a mid-course correction.

Trusting people

It takes me time to open up and trust people. This year, I allowed myself to share more of what is in me to several good-hearted people around me. I tried my best not to be held back by my fear of being judged or rejected. Truthfully, there were those who didn’t understand me or did not even attempt to see things as I saw them. But they were counterbalanced by those who opened their hearts to me and my life stories. In the process, I learned that it’s okay to say what I feel and think. The talking intensified the joys, invited helpful insights and needed prayers, helped wash away the doubts, contributed to the faster healing of my pains, and increased my faith in God and in how He would fulfill His purpose for my life.

Being a Filipino

I struggled through the writing of my final paper for a political science class not only because it was intellectually difficult but because I also had to battle through my definition of who is a Filipino. It was my journey of finding out how I saw myself as a Filipino. It was not easy to reconcile the tragic and ugly side of our story as a nation with the gifts and blessings given to us as a country and people. I realized that we are a special breed of people - a unique blend of East and West - able to adapt, mimic and then create our own from our experiences, whether painful or blissful. I learned that leaving our country is not always a betrayal of it. For in the larger perspective of God, we are part of His heavenly country. We go wherever He sends us. We are being used for His glory.

Secure in Christ

Rejection, in whatever form and for any reason, can bring about a deluge of self-doubt. Yet, it is through these experiences that we are tested on whom we base our identity and worth. This basic belief became more entrenched in my heart - I am a child of God; I matter. Otherwise, He wouldn’t have sent His Son to die for me. There would be many more challenges, more pains and more heartaches. Life won’t get any easier as the years go by. But if I know who I am and what I have in Christ, I can survive whatever life brings me. And the wonder of it all is that I will be able to see the beauty and the blessings in everything instead.

Mid-course correction

Until we reach our final Destination, our journey will continue here on earth. And it can sometimes be disheartening to have in our pockets the many inadequacies, failures and mistakes we have made along the way. I thank God for the gift of mid-course correction (from the book of the same title by Gordon MacDonald). Whatever our age, regardless of our past, God can continue to regenerate, redirect and refine our lives. The choice, again, rests with us. To choose the consequences we would have to live with, to choose Him and His direction for our lives. As we voluntarily submit to God, He will breathe fresh vitality and introduce a new adventure in our lives.

The year is ending soon and so will this little corner where I have written my realizations and thoughts. I am glad that we are still being given the chance to learn from our past so that we can be better persons in the future. As the year ends, I am praying just one thing for all of us - greater intimacy with God.

Here’s to another year of journeying with God!