2014: THAT BIG SURPRISE AND ALL THE IN-BETWEENS

Talk about surprises.

December 31, 9:00 PM.  We were attending a Church service before the New Year comes in.  The Pastor asked us to take the time to talk with God.  Things were running in my mind but I wanted to be specific.  I knew I can never dictate God.  But that night, I was His little girl - honest and outspoken.  And He gave me His words,

“Over and over, you've told me to take charge.  This year, allow me to give you my sweet surprises.”

Surprise.  I love the word but I am not so patient, Lord.  I want to know!

Minutes.  Hours.  Days.

Silence…

Then came the first week of January.  Out of nowhere, in the most unexpected place, I had my first surprise (this, I will have to write when the right time comes). 

I look back on that day and realize that surprises are indeed beautiful.  Had God told me about it earlier, it wouldn’t have felt that way.  There could have been no heart-pounding moments, the could-this-be-true reactions when I had to blink my eyes over and over just to make sure it’s real.  And God, for the nth time, proved Himself right - He knows!

So this year, I resolve to wait for the second, third and the many more surprises that He prepared for me.  But I know there’s one thing I must not forget: 2014 has 525,600 minutes and the big surprise may happen at the 525, 599^th .

So in between…

I will wake up earlier than 7 to appreciate how the sun slowly colors the sky when the day breaks in.  I will stare when the world is covered with a head-turner sunset and be in awe when darkness takes a different form of art as the stars and the moon take their place. 

I will be more welcoming to pain and heartbreaks and heartaches because it’s in those that I will learn more of forgiving and giving and loving.  I will prepare a room to deal with frustrations and anger and failures because I know that I will never be spared from those.  I will allow myself to breakdown when life gets hard and shout when circumstances get a little out of hand.  I will shed a tear.  I will cry knowing that crying is also healing. 

While I wait, I will love.  Sometimes, talking just doesn’t make sense.  But silence does.  And in my silence, someone can speak.  And I can listen. 

Love needs no words, at times.  Presence is enough.

And when the world becomes too demanding and busyness makes me forget that I belong to a family, I will slow down.  I will take time to sip coffee with daddy, sit and do nothing with my siblings and share stories with mommy.

Time.  Nothing beats it when it comes to love.

In between the waiting and the unfolding, I will live.  I will get lost in places I’ve never been to.  I will cross islands and mountains and forests and rediscover the beauty of creation.  I will take my books and read them in a beachfront.  I will learn to ride on waves and know that my life is more of an ocean: sometimes it is steady and sometimes it is not.  I need to learn how to wave with my own waves and learn when to go out from the water world and kiss the seashore.  Yes, I’ll have to learn that I am connected to something bigger and wider so I have to feel the sand and allow other people to also step in my world.  And though I believe in the goodness of man, I have to accept that they, too, can hurt me.

So while many can be merry, there will be times when I’ll have to take my time alone – to do the mending, to listen to my own voice, to look at myself in the mirror, to study nothing else but myself.

I will scream, go crazy but I will know more about ‘me’.  I will live.

And I will write.  Not just for me, but also for you.

I want you to also believe.  I hope, you, too, will believe in the beauty of the unknown.  That you will never lose the excitement for what awaits you.  I want you to believe that they will come.  Not in your appointed time but in God’s perfect will.

Above all, I hope that while you wait like I do, you will never be consumed by what you’re waiting for.  You will live.  You will realize that there’s so much more in between the waiting and the unfolding; that there are small but equally beautiful surprises for your taking.  I hope that while you have that joy for the future, you will never forget the now, the first 525, 599 minutes of your year. 

And when you get to see your surprise, know that I will be smiling with you. 

And your story will be an added bonus to God’s sweet surprise for me.

photo from the web

P.S. I’ve been compiling several things in this blog and it took time before I decided to finally open this to everyone.  But here it is now, still part of the ‘I will’ list and the in-betweens J