Larger than Life

I made a pact with myself that 2010 will be a year of new challenges and new discoveries. And one of those is opening myself to a more frutiful and intimate spiritual relationship with my God.

I have long been a follower of Bo Sanchez ever since I was in high school. Let's not delve anymore in the year it was. I started to know Bo Sanchez through the Catholic magazine Kerygma. My classmate used to bring these monthly Kerygma journals with her at school and I happened to like the stories and the articles in the journal. That led me to be a fan of Bo Sanchez. Years later, I went to Manila and started my career in the metro. I have heard of the ministry that Bo was leading, The Light of Jesus Community, long before but it was only last year that I was introduced and started joining the Catholic Sunday ministry through my friend, Bro.

I was really biased against Catholic or Christian ministries before. It was because the only way that I knew of praising and preaching was by attending the 1-hour mass every Sunday. And that was it. All other methods of preaching that includes singing and dancing were just not my ways. I do not have anything against it actually. It was just the way we were brought up. But part of growing up is also having a wider representation of different things and becoming more open-minded. And I soon realized that it wasn't that bad after all and singing and dancing are one of the many ways that can be done to praise and worship.

Last Sunday, I was able to attend the Sunday mass and service in THE FEAST. The theme last week talked about "Your Future is Brighter than Your Past". I was really touched by the theme because it reaffirms the purpose of our lives which is to serve the Lord and not only ourselves. No matter what our past is, a bright future still holds for everyone of us.

This Sunday, the theme talked about "God's plans are bigger than your past mistakes". I reflected on this for a long time and realized that this affects everyone of us. At some point in our lives, we had some downfalls, made bad decisions, did crazy things and suffered the consequences of our ill actions. But what the statement tells us is that whatever errors we did in our lives in the past, it should not be the reason for us to stop believing that our lives will be better in the future. Sometimes, we tend to wallow in self pity because of guilt and the sin of our actions. We think that because of this, we will not be blessed anymore in life. But what Bo shared was that no matter how big these past mistakes are, God will always find a way to bring us back to him. When we fail God in his PLAN A for us, He will always have an alternative plan prepared. He never leaves us to rot in guilt and shame. He always gives us options. All we need to do is hope and have faith.

I remember the story last week about a rat experiment. The experiment was to test how long a rat can survive in a room without a light and with a tiny hole of light. In the first test, Rat A was placed in a pail of water and stored inside a very dark room without any lights. It only took the rat 3 minutes to stay afloat in water before it died. In the second test, Rat B was also placed in a pail of water but was stored in a dark room but with a tiny hole of light. Surprisingly, Rat B was able to stay afloat for 36 hours before it died. Rat B's faith kept it alive longer and can be interpreted that somehow if it struggles to stay afloat and swim, it may reach the small tunnel of light. This is a very amazing testimony that if we have a strong faith, we can go where we want and go a long way in our lives.

Happy Sunday everyone! ;)