Arrival at Sinai



MORNING PRAISE
March 9, 2020
Monday of the Second Week in Lent
Arrival at Sinai | Exodus 19:3-8

PERSONAL REFLECTION
“Tumatakbo ang oras naiiwan na ako ng panahon. Di na nagbago bawat araw, pare-pareho parang kahapon. Tumatakbo ang oras (Time is running and I am being left out. The days are not changing, they’re all the same, just like yesterday. Time is running.)…”

Those words are from the song “Tumatakbo” (Running) from Filipino pop-rock band Mojofly. Those words pretty much sum up the dominant feeling I have been having these past few weeks: feelings of being left out; feelings of stagnation; feelings of uncertainty.

My MBA classmates have completed their coursework and are now gearing up for their comprehensive exams. At work, some of my closest friends have celebrated very important milestones: a promotion that took 9 long years to happen, a 15th year service anniversary, and a friend that I have trained intensively while she was a new hire has decided to leave the company after enduring her boss for so long. At home, my mother and niece are no longer initiating chats with me unless I message them first. Even so, their responses would be so disinterested in keeping a conversation. At Ateneo, I saw two of my former colleagues at the P&G recruitment booth. Both were bibo fresh grads: Ateneo achievers whose energetic presence at the office used to make me question whether I really belonged there.

Life went on outside of Arvisu after welcome day, and now that announcement day is only 75 days away, I can’t help but worry about how I will re-integrate myself to the life outside. Arvisu has changed me in ways that make it really hard to even imagine how it will be like to pick up where I left off when I entered the house last July. Similarly, time had its way with the people in my life. They too have changed, and it is daunting to imagine how well the new version of me will jive with the new version of them.

Day by day, I feel the control freak in me starting to wake from its slumber. This early, it is prompting me to seriously inspect the job opening emails that Jobstreet sends me every day. It is enticing me to update my LinkedIn profile already and add the connection requests I’ve been getting from headhunters. It is moving me to once again dream about the Exchange Student program in Paris I was supposed to enroll in last year. In the face of uncertainty of whether I will be accepted to the novitiate or not, I am starting to feel compelled to come up with the necessary safety nets of my own to catch me if I am not accepted, as though God will not be there with me should that happen.

And so dear brothers, I would like to beg for the grace of complete trust and surrender to the Lord in these anxiety-ridden times. I pray for the grace of calmness and serenity in the present, in the midst of the brewing uncertainties of the future. I pray for the grace to let go and let God – to live by the day and make the most of the remaining ones; to not take matters into my own hands; to remain focused on God’s words; and to never lose sight of His promise to always be with us.  

Amen. 

Thought for the Day        
“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” - 1 Corinthians 10:13

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