I wondered why God does not yet answer my prayers. I was questioning His silence. A conviction to ask the fellow believers with me weighed on me. I was hesitant to share my struggles with my sisters in Christ I thought I would be a burden to them and I did want that. My pride and hate held me back, and God does not want a proud and hateful child. He wants us to be loving, humble, and dependent on Him. He knows how far we can endure.
When she could not take it any longer, my mother asked and insisted we bring her to a doctor for a check-up since over-the-counter medicines were not helping her to ease her suffering. We went to different doctors, but it was already late in the afternoon, and it seemed like no one was willing to take in a patient who have symptoms similar to my mother suffered with. We were frustrated and filled with uncertainties. A hospital has only the capacity to entertain patients with CoVid symptoms.
My mother was swabbed test and we waited a few minutes for the result outside the hospital. We were not allowed to enter and we also did not want to. We were feeling agitated and my hate towards my sister grew bigger. I was browsing my social media account just to have a little diversion from the predicament we were all facing when I came across one of my sister's shared posts on one of her social media accounts about something funny. I was furious that she did not even care that's why I reacted with an angry emoticon on her posts. I knew it was childish but I had to vent out my disappointment towards her. But I retracted the angry emoticon later on when I surrendered the anger and disappointment.
The result was negative. Praise God! I thanked and prayed to Him. She was also advised to be x-rayed and the film showed that she had phlegms in her lungs which was still alarming. The doctor prescribed her some medicines for her fever and dry cough.
On the second day of taking her medicine, my mother was dissatisfied with the effect of the medicines. She still had difficulty with her coughing and felt like she could not breathe properly. She borrowed a nebulizer from her sister who was also my aunt and thanks to God, my very own sister assisted our mother in operating the nebulizer.
But my mother was far from being okay after the check-up and taking all those medicines. She did not feel any better. I was sad and hope seemed to be losing my grip. I held on to the promises of God.
During one of our DGroup meetings and of the days of the online True Life Retreat 2021, I had the opportunity to tell my predicament in a conversation/Bible study with fellow believers. They were compassionate and very willing to pray with me as my family went through health problems at the time of the pandemic. I was humbled and grateful for God's answer when He said 'yes to all of our prayers.
To be continued...
A sad news is never a good news. It is heartbreaking and tear-jerking news to receive early in the morning, and processing it entails wisdom, prayer, and surrendering to the LORD.
It is a truth that everyone will die. Each of us has a time destined to meet with our Creator, and also when and how He planned it to happen. But no matter how much truths are there in death, we as humans are not exempted from the fear and anxiety that comes with it.
These past few weeks have been filled with anxiety at home. We were all sick and have similar symptoms of CoVid. We had colds, coughs, lack of appetite, and everything we ate was tasteless. My mother had it the worst. She was weak and could no longer do the things she used to do at home during those moments. It was very hard for me to see her eating so little and being so weak that she ended up laying on the bed. My father and I tried our best to function at home and did the household chores my mother used to do for us. The whole situation took a toll on me that there were times that I just cried while looking at my mother, during webinars, or while doing paperwork. I even got angry at my sister because she acted like she did not care at all about the whole situation we were in as if we were not part of her life.
We tried taking over-the-counter medicines like paracetamol and expectorant, and multivitamins. They worked for me and my father, but not for my mother. Her fever and the persistent cough kept on pestering her for days. She could not even eat properly to nourish her body and give her strength.
My father was hesitant to bring my mother to the hospital due to the pandemic. We have this notion that if someone has symptoms similar to the CoVid there is a big chance to be admitted to the hospital and stay quarantined away from us. Hospital expenses are one thing to be concerned about, but I was more afraid that my mother had to stay in a hospital where nothing was certain and she was not with us. I was praying to God to heal my mother and never to go to a hospital, but He stayed silent and I never ceased praying and crying out to Him.
To be continued...
I don't know where to start, all I can say is that I was hooked.
Hooked by Ernie Hollands with Doug Brendel is a book testimony about transformation. The kind of transformation that is only possible through Jesus Christ.
A man's life that once was lived and rejoiced in the evil and darkness transformed drastically when he met Christ. His life journey was never easy just like how most of us made it through before knowing Jesus.
Reading Ernie Holland's story will remind us of Romans 8:28: And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. That in hopelessness there is hope in Jesus Christ, and we have an assurance that all things will fall into their rightful places in God's perfect timing. He is sovereign, in control. He can make all things new in our lives just like how many of us were transformed through Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
All in Jesus' name!
It is harvest time! At last, the time has finally come that I get to reap some fruits of our humble Calamansi Tree. I have been eyeing those little round green fruits for quite some time, maybe months. I thought I would never see our Calamansi tree bearing fruits again. Thoughts like it were just a one-time fruit-bearing tree flooded my mind, and that discouraged me from hoping I would ever see a single fruit in that little tree.
We bought the Calamansi tree from my mother's churchmate. Though I planned to gain a tree by planting seeds and that did not push through. Instead, we decided to grab the opportunity of buying a grown-up tree.
I was fascinated with the fruits it already had upon getting the plant and hopeful for a fruitful future for the Calamansi tree. There were only a few fruits when we acquired the tree, not more than 7 fruits I guess. After harvesting the initial fruits of the newly bought plant, months passed yet it did not show any sign of bearing fruits. I didn't see flowers. I kept on telling my concerns to my mother and father from time to time and the usual response I got was that it was not yet its season. I understood it but that didn't stop me from asking them when it was going to be its season. I was getting impatient which was not a good sign.
Days, weeks, and months passed by and I completely discarded my issue with the Calamansi tree, I got busy with other important things.
One time at school, I heard my colleagues discussing plants since it has been a trend during this time of the pandemic. Plantita and Plantito have been all over the places and the trend also gave opportunities for some to start a small business by selling plants.
I acquired some useful tips from their discussion about fertilizers. I am for organic fertilizers. One of my colleagues mentioned that she used tea as fertilizer. I thought that was perfect since we have and usually drink tea at home.
At home, I gathered all the used tea in a mesh I kept in the refrigerator and went upstairs where our plants are located. I was so oblivious as I confidently sowed the teabag on the soil. That was an easy job I thought.
But I did wrong. I realized that one time when my colleagues were having a small talk again about plants. Well, it had been a consistent topic among them for quite some time. I was supposed to remove the mesh and let the ground leaves dry. I should have not just throw them on the soil. I learned my lesson and removed the mesh when I got the chance to do it at home.
If my schedule permitted me, I watered the plants every morning, trimmed dried leaves or stems, and whispered some encouraging words to them, especially the Calamansi tree since I was looking forward to getting the fruits.
Before March ended, I did not miss the opportunity to harvest the fruits of the Calamansi tree with joy and excitement. I only picked the ones that I thought were ready for this season.
I also learned another lesson from my father, he was happy when he saw the harvested fruits, yet he noticed that I cut some fresh sprout leaves which could have been another set of fruits for the next season. There are still some fruits left to ripe and grow a little bigger and rounder, so next time that it's their season to be harvested I'll be careful not to pluck any potential fruit-bearing leaves and stems. In total, we got almost a quarter of 1 kilogram. Not bad.
What I realized from this experience is that waiting isn't such a bad idea if done properly. Waiting isn't doing nothing. Waiting requires patient. And patient is long-suffering while you wait expectantly with joy, hope, and faith that everything will work together for good for those who love Him. Your waiting season is never wasted, so keep on moving towards Him.
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