PRAY

This is just something I need to do. LIFE IS SHORT. I took on the plane to San Francisco with an open mind to test if I will like it there, considering I have family living there for centuries. But I’m Filipino. Who doesn’t? Armed with my key purpose to see family and friends, I set out my pursuit. It is going to be a long haul journey by myself for the very first time. Unlike with MRT/Five Star, my love affair with PAL is to a foreign land. My affair aboard PR 104 has been with ease. Seated at the middle isle clutching my most treasured possession every time I travel – my rosary, I prayed the full round of mysteries.  Then I sleep soundly. Only when I need to go to the toilet do I make a swish. I only became half-conscious when the flight steward asked me to choose between chicken and beef. The plane’s descent spurred excitement amongst the other passengers as seen from their faces as they struggle to view out the window. All I can utter is a brief “Thank You, Lord” for bringing us safely to the ground. My trip to CA was a delightful occasion in my life as I have become spontaneously giving. I just went with the flow. I had no itinerary. Just flights on impulse. I had the grandest time. I did get to just have ample dozes and eats, watch a movie, go to masses, take walks, do laundry, go for a car wash, see Andre, go to Target, drive on long distance, and so on. So plainly simple, and yet it gifted me with serenity. Gosh, I was so happy. I came to fulfill my objective to see every individual I wanted to see, and that exactly happened. Every occurrence happened with no difficulty. Setting one’s clock by God’s time is always 100% accurate. Booking this trip in August and leaving the P.I. a week before Christmas seemed liked I’ve been doing this regularly and acted as casually as if it weren’t a first time. My humbling stay in Millbrae made me realized how happy it made me to be doing simple daily tasks and yet enveloped with overwhelming peacefulness. My close-knit family was as supportive in my quest for my discernment, and to think in our younger days we never projected that they too will find their home in a foreign land so settled and steady. Further on to my hunt, being with a cousin of an Opus Dei friend, and to which Work I belong made it the more memorable as I was inspired with the way she keep at life in the US with wit and endurance. Don’t they all possess the same attribute of being joyous regardless of the burdens? In finding my line with God, are the people I met. They have been very patient and understanding through the struggles of my exploration for piety and belongingness. Though the Work indeed made me whole again and complete to marshal whatever comes my way, still, I digress into a witch, that being bitchy becomes second nature. Well, I am human. I succumb to my weaknesses. I personally feel the need to be authentic. When then, I was full of myself; I was all different when I returned. Until now, the US may be the unlikely place for conversion. But it was at that time that I strongly felt God embraced me with His extraordinary love that it is only Him I ponder. I can’t explain what it is, but I felt it within that indeed God is taking care of me. All the antipathy, disappointments, and letdowns of the past vanished and replaced with so much hope and security with the Lord. I so desired to be held firmly in the palm of Thy Father’s hand. I believe that letting go to give one’s self the chance to receive the grace of God and letting Him take control made the difference. I am no longer the same person I was. However, I still cannot say I no longer wander off into being Cinderella’s creepy stepsisters, but rather, I’d say, am a work in progress.