To Pray or Not to Pray?

About a few months ago, someone challenged me to pray for my future husband. She advised me that it's a genuine prayer and that with God, it's never too much to ask for.

But to be honest, it seemed like a silly prayer and at times, it still does. I'd say because it's too much of an open book. I was clustered with questions before I could even start to pray. And let me tell you now that there is no "How To:" manual on this one because it's simply.. very simply, faith.

So as I began praying for this man of mine with no expectation or knowledge of what should and will happen next, I felt dumb. The more questions I had, the more apprehensive I started to become and the more doubtful, the more complacent .. it started from "I'm only 19" to "I'm not even dating" to "I don't want to grow this fast because the more you learn, the more that's expected of you". Purpose started to lose itself in my doubt like quicksand.
But surely enough, God never fails to get his message through to me.

I realized that my habit and attitude towards this wasn't just about my future husband.. it was about everything I attended for in my life.. everything I prayed about. He showed me through my lack of faith and my precarious prayers that I come to our God underestimating His will. I mean, I know eventually I'll get to the whole marriage ordeal.. but if I can't solidly pray for what I know is already going to happen, how can I ever believe that God will do something for me that is unseen or uncertain?

When comes those mountains hidden by clouds, I'll need bigger faith to let God take me to the other side.

Faith is perseverance and perseverance is faith.

This Is Life

I come in empty, I leave filled
Bring my sickness, I leave healed
Broken-hearted, You mend every piece
I come in captive, I leave free

You are all over
You are around
You are inside
This is life, this is life




Note to self:
Never settle for second best. Complacency claims too much of what we could have.. it is the "success disease".

The Jolly Beggar

Is there such a person to be so desperate as to beg yet jolly in their state?
The meaning of this oxymoron has been in my question for some time.. only to realize that it's much simpler than I had thought. The world births beggars but it's the ones who meet God that make them different from the rest. You see, although mortal life proves to be viciously disappointing, there is admist darkness a reason to be grateful and joyous. That is, God's gift of grace is the reason to happily beg at the feet of the king and not of some meaningless idol. We're happy because we know we're saved... that even though we lay out homeless on the streets we know that it's only temporary and that on destiny's day we will beg no more for eternity.

Chapter One - Backwards

Are signs and convictions really real or is it self-imposing?
Is it that we doubt too much or we're just afraid to admit one truth?
And what makes us miss every wave of the sea?

Time is a forward continuum but I've been stuck in its most torturesome dimension... the past.
And finally now I am determined to break free. I've got no energy left to doubt anymore. What I've come to understand is that the moment you recognize the past is the unchangeable and the future is a possibility, the present becomes your best friend and your defining moment. So why can't we stay in the moment? Why do we worry about tomorrow and the past when today has its problems of its own?
What you choose to act on now, the things you hold on closer to, and the things you let go will take you as far forward or backwards according to your efforts. In all sense, it's the danger of expending our own free will and the fact that our choices could take us somewhere horrid. But if we can choose to admit God's truth I think that's when the present will be most meaningful and we'll be able to face it in stillness and.. without fear. Hence, it's not the fact that we can't swim out, it's the fact that we've been fooled into thinking we weren't capable of doing so.