Broken Hearts and Hands

Yesterday I got my heart broken… again.  I found myself wishing for the old childhood cares - grade school heartbreaks and skinned knees.

That evening, like some divine joke (or wake-up call) I got not my knee but my finger wounded - almost broken actually, after it got caught in the car door. I blacked out for a while, hearing only the seemingly endless echo of the car door closing and my own scream. My only vivid sensation then were of the pain at the end of my left hand, the roughness against my forehead (which was the back of the driver's seat where I rested my head to get some sort of focus), and the smooth skin of Brian's neck against the fingers of my right hand (which had, of its own volition, reached around the driver's seat in the hope of conveying the message my tongue could not anymore: "Open the car door.").

Brian not only got the message and opened the door to release my fingers, when we arrived home he also got me glasses of hot and ice cold water in which to dip my fingers (not to mention helping in the soak by pushing my fingers into the water he insisted was not really that hot).

The pain eased and we were able to laugh at what happened.

Yet somehow, the hot and cold water treatment did not ease the pain in my chest, and I cried myself to sleep.

At devotional this morning, we talked about the need to let people know of their own mistakes, sharply if necessary, but always in love. I said, "the truth always hurts," and in a surge of wit added, "so do fingers caught in a car door." After the laughter died down, I continued to think of the truth that went on hurting me and I looked down at my still-hurting middle finger (the other two fingers had healed overnight).

Almost all of last night, I answered my own "whys" and "hows" and "what ifs" and I asked God for forgiveness and fortitude. The answers were all right, I know, but somehow they weren't enough.

Everything came into clearer perspective when after the devotional I went into the bathroom, thinking of broken hearts and hands, and I remembered this (from more than a year ago):

 

Then the lyrics to the old song, "And He died of a broken heart. It broke for you and me."

Suddenly, the heart and the hand didn't hurt that much anymore.

Lessons

We have many lessons to learn, and many, many to unlearn. God and heaven alone are infallible. Those who think that they will never have to give up a cherished view, never have occasion to change an opinion, will be disappointed. As long as we hold to our own ideas and opinions with determined persistency, we cannot have the unity for which Christ prayed.  {CW 37.1}

"let's help more people." -glorie

pasalubong

i have no idea what the english term for pasalubong is. :)

yesterday, brian gave me a much-unexpected gift he brought home from his recent trip to valencia. it made me so happy. and giving it to me lifted away his [very] bad mood. so hurray to happiness!

moral of the story: the next time you feel bad about something, give someone a gift. :D

my fifth grade garden

when i was in fifth grade, i did something i really thought would get me killed with a garden bolo.

our teacher had divided the class into groups and assigned each group a garden plot. we were instructed to plant whatever vegetable the group decides on, and on exam day he'll come to check the plants and grade us.

i don't remember what vegetable my group decided on, just that it was a leafy vine and it covered all of the three by ten feet of ground. of the group, one guy named Reli and i worked particularly hard on the garden. armed with bolos, we went to it each afternoon after classes, watered the vegetables, and pulled out weeds. soon, our vegetable and those of the nearby plots grew pretty healthy and nice-looking.

a few days before the teacher was set to come and inspect the garden, i was working alone on our plot and noticed how wonderfully fat the plants on the plot next to ours were. i talked with the classmate who tended them and she shared how easy it had been to grow the plants. i don't remember what kind of plants they were, not even what got into my head that gray afternoon. but i remember very clearly that i had pulled out our precious precious vine and planted in their place vegetables from that neighboring plot. and i remember going home much pleased.

imagine Reli's surprise and utter anger when he saw the garden the next day and saw, among the wonderful garden plots that belonged to classmates, our bald plot. all the years of my life before and after that incident, i have never seen anyone so mad at me. i can actually still see him bent over the plot, striking it again and again with his bolo. bits of soil flew in my direction along with a seemingly endless stream of "what were you thinking? the garden will be inspected in two days. what will we have to show, how clean our plot is? you are so stupid!"

call me silly. i actually had not thought about that till then. there was no way i could have grown the neighbor's wonderful plant on my own plot in just two days.

i don't remember how we got out of that one and how i managed to stay alive under Reli's glare. and i didn't recall this incident until a few days ago when i talked to the teens at church about building a character - the way you can't say "I'll change just before Jesus comes, and I'll choose Him when they persecute me, but for now let me be. I'm not exactly bad, y'know."

things like that need time, like planting a garden and growing a vegetable. you can choose to never leave your garden for two whole days, or even seven, watering constantly, pulling out weeds the exact moment they shoot up the ground, pleading with the plants to grow faster, but they won't. it just doesn't happen that way.

you've got to plant the seeds now, and come back to tend the garden day after day after day ever so patiently. growing plants and a good character takes time and effort. you can't plant your wonderful character just two days before Jesus comes. besides, the character you're choosing now will make you unfit to make that choice later.

occupy your soil today. choose Jesus now and every single day after.

lock in, lock out

no, am not promoting an anti-bacterial soap. but the line captures what i've been thinking about the past couple of days.

one of the older women at church has been sharing her experiences with me about how she has come to realize that Satan does find ingenious ways to the mind and heart. those little seemingly harmless thoughts, the tiniest shred of doubt, the questions, the seemingly valid fears, the worries, the countless insinuations he makes in the course of a single hour - all designed to strike where you are weak. 

we must never forget. satan is out to get us. really he is.  the Bible tells us, "your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). and he's smart, very smart. we'll have to give him that, which is all the more reason for us to feel our own weakness and take hold of the strength of Jesus. we must overcome as He did.

like Christ in whom the prince of this world hath nothing (John 14:30), we must have our hearts filled with the love of God at all times so Satan cannot have room in us. give him the slightest advantage, and see how easily the devil can steal Jesus' place in our hearts! every inch of ground must be fought for.

daily, we need to put on the armor that God designed for us so we can withstand the devices of the evil one (Ephesians 6:11). we must guard every avenue that Satan can and will use.

yield to Christ, walk in faith, read God's word daily, pray without ceasing. that way, we lock Jesus in, and the devil out.

Let us show in our lives what the truth has done for us. 6T 418

Study to Be Approved

And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. 2 Timothy 2:24, 25.  

Every one engaging in the work needs these words framed and hung in memory's hall: "We are labourers together with God" (1 Corinthians 3:9). Then there will not be so many decided failures in the efforts made to win souls to Jesus Christ. There is need of bringing them to the foundation, and building them into a firm structure, that will abide the fires of the last great day. The people cannot be reached, and their hearts broken, except by God's divine power (see 1 Corinthians 3:9-15). . . .

Let the men who are engaged in the solemn work of bearing the last message to the world, heed the exhortation of Paul, "Preach the Word." Not the science of phrenology, or the productions from human speculations, but listen to the words of inspiration addressed to Timothy: "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (2 Timothy 4:1-4). . . .  

The minister of the gospel is never exhorted to strive to be a smart preacher, a popular speaker, but is commanded to "study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness" (chap. 2:15, 16). Will every messenger of God give heed to these words? We are laborers together with God, and if those who accept the responsibility of holding forth the Word of life to others do not daily yoke up with Christ, and lift His burdens, and learn of Jesus day by day; it were better for them to seek some other employment.--Manuscript 29, April 20, 1893, "Laborers to Learn Lessons at the Foot of the Cross."

-Ellen G. White
This Day With God

The most difficult thing you will have to manage is your own self. LYL 43