Smelting

16 February 2013

I am usually in a good mood. Since after I’ve been employed, I rarely feel bad. I did today. With just one call, all those that potentially would bring my spirits down crashed on me in a head on collision. One issue had penetrated the barrier and all the others saw the breach and made their way in. I am made aware again of the scope of God’s protection over me. He kept from me those that would’ve robbed me the mechanisms for being forgiving and finding happiness in simple things. He wanted me to retain the spark in my eyes.

What should I do with this gloom? Should I call upon it to sit with me in my den or let it up in the balcony to serenade the garden below with melodies of destitution, injustice, filth and denigration? Should I lead it to my table, eating my scones and enjoying my tea while I shift uncomfortably in my seat? Would I be uncomfortable before it? Isn’t it a friend who happened to visit, much like the seasons that come unbidden but are put up with? It settled on me and changed me as if the me that was always on, the dominant me, was off for a long vacation (it felt as if it won’t come back) that the recessive me had the chance to manifest. I was no longer cheerful and hopeful, capable of amusing myself or brimming with security from my innate entitlement as a being. It’s as if that person was a distant relative I only remember as someone I played with one holiday when I was five, not even knowing how she looks like now or remembering what her name is.

How come after one unfavorable event I became so attuned to seeing only the negative side? I mentioned that question and asked for discernment in my prayers. Whatever it was that came, it was overpowering; it gave me the urge to cry and vomit for how vile things turned out and how un-human people became. I resisted both urges and decided to sleep instead after praying. I know very well that not thinking of being in arrears will not stop interests from compounding or dissolve it altogether. Sleep doesn’t either but I was fast asleep.

I felt I was the laziest person alive when I discovered the nap extended to a six hour sleep. I will not underrate sleep; that extended nap restored my dominant self. I acknowledge I need money badly but as of now I have no idea how I would meet up the amount mom asked me to provide. I no longer know what I should do but I am not filled with dread or the worst, with hopelessness. I must be so dumb but I still believe that that amount will be met even if I do not know how that would come to be. What is money to my Father who owns every mountain and sees all things even those in the dark recesses of the earth? What is money to the Sovereign who allows people to afford life regardless of their qualities? What is money to my Dad who makes all people populating the earth respire at this very moment? I remember thinking awhile ago how small I am; how unimportant, useless and completely forgettable. I thought that not even a pipit would cry when I die contrary to what Levi Celerio’s composition says. What is the value of my life in a multitude of peoples?

No matter how many people there are, how much many more people are better than I am in innumerable ways, how much the world would be better off without me on its back or how inhumane the conditions of others seem, my Father sees me. He loves me and would not love me any less. This realization is more worthy to cry about. I will not regret shedding tears for this truth. I will not see His promises as nil, ineffective, late or petty. I will not label them that. His promises of love and protection are outspoken and are greatly eclipsed by His actions. I will not limit their application in my life. I believe He will meet my needs.

Awaking from that sleep, I felt I was gold coming from the furnace. (My surname is Matira. [ma-ti-ra not mah-tay-ra or ma-tee-ra. ]We have a call phrase here in the Philippines saying: Matira ang matibay – the one left standing is the tough one. I have to stand by my father’s surname and be the tough one who is left standing.)