Only God can take away the pain

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Maybe people may see me as super “halakhak girl”, a jolly and always happy person but I tweeted last day that “even the happiest people, cry”. There are situation in life that we feel hurt and we don’t feel God’s presence. He seems so distant! It is hard to think of Him much less pray to Him in my pain and suffering. Sometimes I may feel that He has deserted me because of the weight of my afflictions. He doesn’t seem to answer my cry for help! Friends, I am here to tell you that even if we don’t feel God when we are hurting, we need to realize no matter what suffering we are experiencing He is with us!  I am not alone! You are not alone!

I’ve learned a lot of things about God. Nakaka-amazed lang talaga Siya magbigay ng revelations. He gave me a clear fact that, He never said He would not give me more than I can handle. There will be times in life when I will feel like I am drowning and there is no one to help me.

The pain may seem unbearable at times, but God heals everything. He is preparing us for greatness, but we must be willing to allow Him to take us through His process.  God was, and is with us as we suffer. So take strength in knowing that as we suffer He is suffering too.

Remember that when God seems silent or not there in our suffering, He hasn’t forsaken us! We all forget at times that Jesus experienced all the hurt and pain we have had when He died on the cross for us. Therefore, He understands and wants to be a part of everything in our life. He also has never asked you to go through anything He hasn’t. I encourage you to patiently endure the pain and suffering because God is always present and wants to sympathize with us in our trials.

 

Why God allow the pain?

 1.  God uses pain to get our attention

Pain is a warning light. It tells us something is wrong. Pain isn’t your problem. It’s a symptom. It’s God’s megaphone. As you’ve heard before, God whispers to us in our pleasure, but he shouts to us in our pain. Proverbs 20:30 says, “Sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways.”

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 7:9, “I am glad not because it hurts you, but because the pain turns you to God.” Sometimes it takes pain to get us to do what God wants us to do.

Remember the story of Jonah? Jonah was going one way and God said, “I want you to go the other way.” So he provided a typical Mediterranean cruise for him – a whale! And, at the bottom of the ocean, Jonah said, “When I had lost all hope I once again turned my thoughts to the Lord.” God uses pain to get our attention.

2.  God uses pain to teach us to depend on him.

You don’t know that God is all you need until God’s all you got. Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 (TLB): “We were crushed and overwhelmed and saw how powerless we were to help ourselves but that was good for then we put everything into the hands of God who could save us and he did help us.”

If you never had a problem, you’d never know God could solve it. God allows pain to teach you to depend on Him. The Bible says in Psalm 119:71: “It was the best thing that could have happened to me for it taught me to pay attention to your laws.” The truth is, some things we only learn through pain. Depending on God is one of those things.

3. God allows pain to give me a ministry to others.

Pain prepares you to serve. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:4 (NLT), “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.” Everybody needs recovery of some type. Nobody’s perfect. Who can better help an alcoholic than somebody who has struggled with alcoholism? Who can better help somebody dealing with the pain of abuse than someone who was abused themselves? God wants to use and recycle the pain in our lives to help others, but we have to be open and honest about it.

Imagine the army of ministers we could train in our congregation if we helped people use our past pain as an opportunity for ministry. God never wastes a hurt!

Do not leave God out of your suffering. Let Him take control of your life. God loves us and He wants to comfort you. God brings hope and peace. Never be afraid to face your trials because Jesus paid the price for you on the cross!  Unfortunately, the pain, suffering and the trials will not disappear or vanish but things will get better.  God will help you figure this out.

Yes! ….this too shall pass.

 

Your sweetest Melody, ❤

A Christian is not perfect, but he is forgiven

Today’s Truth,

Micah 7:18-19 – Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

Mark 2:5 – When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Numbers 14:19-21 – In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.” The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth.

Some people seem to think that everyone has got to be good or bad, black or white, and there’s no gray. But the fact of the matter is that when it comes to our righteousness, there’s no such thing as black or white; we’re all gray. Nobody is all bad, and nobody is perfectly clean and white except by faith in the blood of Christ. Only Jesus is perfect and able to help us, which is why He had to come.

Nobody is ever good enough. We’re all fallible, we all make mistakes, we all commit sins, and it’s only by the grace of God that we are saved. It’s only His love and mercy and His grace and His sacrifice on Calvary that saves us. Nothing else. Nothing!

Thank God salvation doesn’t depend on how good we’ve been or even how good we are now. It only depends on our faith in the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ. In spite of all our sins and shortcomings, failures, mistakes, and unsaintliness, God still loves and forgives us. “He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. … As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:10,12).

 

Your sweetest Melody, ❤

 

The Waiting

Single ka? Sus friend! Di ka nag-iisa! Napakarami mong karamay. Singleness doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. Porket single ka lagi ka na lang mag-eemo at maiinggit sa mga nakakasalubong mong mga naka-HHWW (holding hands while walking). In fact, much can be gained from seasons of waiting. I’ve read some articles and blogs from other single women on how to stay focused on Christ while making the most of time spent alone—whether it be 20 minutes or 20 years. Game? Ano kaya mo pa?

 If I were to make a list of my least favorite things to do, I’m pretty sure waiting would rank in the top five. Minsan kasi nakakabagot naman talaga maghintay. There aren’t many things I enjoy less than remaining in that agonizing place of staring my hopes and longings in the face and wondering how, and when, and if God will ever allow them to come true. Tapos may nagtanong pa samin kagabi, “Paano mo malalamang naghihintay ang isang tao?” Umiikot yung isip ko kung ano ang isasagot ko……hayyy.

“Why doesn’t anything just happen for me?” I often find myself grumbling, tired of waiting, tired of trying to hang onto hope as the months, years slip away, and so many questions remain unanswered. I long for a breakthrough in a tedious career that does little to spark life in my heart. I struggle to find a meaningful purpose to center my life around. I wonder when God will finally bring the right man into my life to love and be loved by. So many times I’ve begged God to finally reach down from heaven and move, speak, act, shine a light on my path. But so often when I go to Him with my questions and restlessness, He doesn’t reveal anything instantly. Yes, He brings hope, He renews my faith, and He gives me strength to keep going. But in that gentle, quiet voice, He also speaks the words I’ve heard over and over again … my daughter, wait. Tapos isa pa ulit, … my daughter, wait. Paulit-ulit yang bulong sakin ni Lord.

And so I do. And as the years pass by, I’m finally beginning to realize it’s in these seasons of waiting and being still before God, pouring out my heart before Him, that He does some of His greatest work. It’s in the desert, the wilderness, the quietness that God can restore hope and vision and deepen my character. It’s in waiting that I get to know God’s heart more intimately and finally begin to realize He is my life.

Here are a few of the things I’m learning as I continue to walk through my own season of waiting.

1. Don’t try to do life alone.

There was a time when I struggled through life on my own, too scared and stubborn to let anyone in. Siguro dahil na rin sa mga nagging past experiences ko. Although meaningful relationships were the one thing I longed for above anything else, I was terrified of being rejected. And so I became a girl who never admitted a need, never burdened anyone with my problems. If there were tears to be cried, I cried to my friends but more often behind closed doors. If there were hurts and fears to be dealt with, I waited until no one else was around. I was the one everyone came to with their problems, but rarely would I risk letting them see the wounds in my own heart.

Thankfully God didn’t let me stay there, but it’s been a long, slow, painful (and scary) journey to realize we were never meant to walk through life alone, and that God actually designed some of His most powerful work to happen. If it’s growth, freedom, maturity, wholeness, and restoration we’re after—then people, the right people, are going to be one of the biggest tools God uses.

Sa schedule ko, I always find time to meet with my friends (Powerpuff Girls) and other churchmates and almost always I leave marveling at what God does as we get real with each other. Doubt, confusion, loneliness, questions, victory, heartache, joy, sickness, disappointment—every week we lay it all out in the open, we pray for it, we remind each other of the truth, we call out gifts in each other we see God developing. And as we do, our confidence is restored that God is working.

I don’t know how I lasted so long trying to do it on my own. But I see now that time spent waiting for God to shake things loose is never wasted if we’re staying vitally connected with people who help us not to lose sight of who God is and what He’s doing.

2. Look back at what God has done.

I’ve kept a journal and every now and then when God feels silent and it seems like nothing is happening, I’ll take out a volume or two of my messy scribbling and allow myself to be transported back over time. Yung mga notes kong inaanay na pero yung laman ay fresh na fresh pa rin. HAHAHA! I read, laugh, and shake my head, and somehow as I do, faith begins to seep back into my heart.

It’s so easy to lose perspective in a long period of waiting, but looking back and seeing God’s faithfulness gives me the courage I need to keep hanging on. If He’s already brought me this far, why should I doubt that He’ll keep leading me in the future? Why should I think He’s not going to finish the work He started? I’m like the Israelites wandering around in the desert, so quickly forgetting how God led them out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, giving them manna to eat and water to drink and rescuing them from their enemies. But I don’t want to lose sight of everything He’s done, even though right now the next thing seems so far away.

3.  Figure out what makes you come alive.

A few years ago I made a list of everything I want to do before I die—a list that ranges from sky-diving to writing a novel to learning to drive a motorcycle to going to Paris. I looked at the list the other day and was pleasantly surprised kasi yung iba ay nagawa ko naman na pala which is favor talaga ng Lord. Just like reading my old journals, my list keeps me in touch with who I am at my core, my unique personality and interests, the passions that make me come alive, the fears and challenges I’d love to overcome.

I’ve come to realize that even in waiting and wondering, our hearts can be alive and growing. Every day we can pursue joy and growth and opportunities to really live. That’s why I took a break from my busy schedules and went to UP Diliman with a friends, then had a jogging, talks and laughs with them in the park and listened to the sounds of nature. That’s why I often have my nephew over for sleepovers where we watch cartoons, eat insane amounts of chocolates, and giggle late into the night. That’s why I write and make blog – because these things, in their own small way, make my heart come alive. And as long as there’s life in my heart, I know I can keep waiting and trusting and hoping for the day when God will bring answers to the deeper questions I’m wrestling with.

4.  Learn to rest.

“Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). I can’t count how many times that verse has made me stop in my tracks and realize that all my hard work and all the self-help books in the world will never bring about the kind of lasting change I long to see in my life. And it takes God speaking those simple words for me to realize, again, that instead of laying out ten quick steps to becoming a godlier woman, instead of burdening me with more that I need to do, God is instead inviting me to rest. He’s instead calling me into relationship with Him, inviting me to get to know His heart and His character. He’s instead speaking to me of His love, of His delight in me, of His desire to sit with me for awhile and talk.

I’m so good at letting the trap of busyness consume me, at working tirelessly at every area in my life that I’m not satisfied with. But it’s only when I step back from all that hard work and finally rest that my thirsty soul is actually satisfied, and that peace and balance are restored to my striving, unrestful spirit. “Be still and know that I am God.” Okay, Jesus, I will.

Yes, the season of waiting is difficult. But our roots go down deep as we wait and trust and hope in God. So whether you’re waiting for guidance in a major decision, or waiting for a broken heart to heal, or waiting for love, or waiting for a clear career path to unfold, know that Jesus longs to walk with you right here, right now.

“This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a child-like ‘What’s next, Papa?'” (Romans 8:15, The Message)

 

Expectant.

Hopeful.

Confident.

Now that’s what I want to be known for in my season of waiting.

Photo by: Author

 

In the photo: Shane, Me, Ces

Your sweetest Melody, ❤