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Strong and Faithful is My God ♥

Our hearts know no fear
Strong and faithful is our God
We are His precious and dear
A rock unmoved, He is our God

For though a thousand may fall
And mountains may crumble
We shall continue to stand
For men who are mighty and tall
May falter and tremble, we shall possess the land
For strong and faithful is our God
For strong and faithful is our God

Clouds of night may fill the sky
Storms that rage may blow the day
But let your hearts rest in your God
He will shield us all the way

That is my song for today. :) 

Today is Lola's birthday, and no, God did not surprise me with a ticket to Iloilo. Sad, yes. But I have chosen to SMILE. See Miracles In Life Everyday. :)

I spent the whole morning talking to my God who, for quite some time, seemed silent. This was my prayer: 

PIETA
God, my Father,
Create in me a heart that hungers for Your will alone -
a heart to accept Your will, to do Your will,
to be whatever You want me to be,
to do whatever You want me to do.

When You chose to create this world,
You knew the blueprint and the design of my life:
the moment of my conception,
the day and hour when I would be born.
You saw from all eternity the color of my eyes
and You heard the sound of my voice.
You knew what gifts I would have
and those that I would be without.
You knew also the moment
and the circumstance of my dying.

These choices are all a part of Your will for me.
I will try lovingly to build an edifice of love
and praise with these materials which You have given me.
What I am is Your gift to me.
What I become will be my gift to You.

As to the future, I ask for the grace to sign a blank check
and trustfully put it in Your hands,
for You to fill in all the amounts:
the length of my life, the amount of success and the amount of failure,
the experiences of pleasure and of pain.
I would tremble to do this except for one thing:
I know You love me.
And, of course, You know much better than I
what will truly and lastingly make me happy.

In response to Your will, I want my life to be an act of love.
Wherever there is a choice, help me to ask only this:
What is the loving thing to do, to say, to be?
To make the decision that love must,
I seek and need Your enlightenment. 
Touch my eyes with Your gentle and healing hands
that I might find my way along the winding course of love.
Strengthen my will and direct my feet
to follow that course always.

And whenever there is something special
Your love has designed for me to do in my life,
let me be found ready and waiting.
Help me to become a sensitive instrument of Your grace.
I believe that You have a providential master plan for this world,
and I want to be a part of it.
I want to make my contributions to Your Kingdom,
the contribution You have entrusted only to me.
I want You to use me to help love this world into the fullness of life.

Finally, my Lord and my God,
let me be faithful in my commitment and dedication to Your will,
faithful until the end. 
Let "faithfulness" be the summary of my days and of my nights.
Let the inscription on my tombstone read: PIETA.

Then there was silence. 

Then I broke down before the Lord, telling Him all my frustrations, disappointments, everything I've been keeping inside. Medyo marami na talaga sila. 

Then there was silence. 

Dahil napagod na ako, nanahimik na lang ako.

I thought God would remain silent. But He directed my attention to the shadow of the tabernacle. There I saw an image similar to this: 


Jesus, crowned with thorns, hanging on the cross, and was looking at me with all sincerity in His eyes, saying, "Ganito kita kamahal. Nagdududa ka pa rin ba?" 

I opened my journal to take note of His message. And I saw the token that I recently got. It's a card which says, "Keep calm. God has a promise." Slowly, I was being enlightened, and I came to realize that indeed, God has made a covenant with me, He has promised to stay with me until the end of time, and His promise, His pledge of love had not been and will never be broken. 

Then I SMILEd. :) Like I said in my previous post, I never doubted God and His great love for me. But sometimes, I tend to forget. Or I just choose not to remember. But God loves me so much He doesn't want me to feel unloved. And so He made a way to remind me today. 

Finally, I was led by the Spirit to write: Anuman ang pinagdaraanan mo, ano man ang kinakaharap mo, ano man ang nararamdaman mo, ang pagmamahal ng Panginoon para sa'yo ay mananatili at hindi magbabago. 

Whatever road you are going through, regardless of your present circumstances and realities, no matter how good or bad you feel, one thing remains true: God's love for you is constant - unchanging, unending, unconditional.

I left the chapel with a light heart and a peaceful disposition having the conviction that God loves me and He will never ever abandon me. 

In the words of Fr. Benedict, Mahal ako ng Diyos, hindi Niya ako pababayaan... kailanman. ♥
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