Chasing Shadows

August 29, 2014

Me and a friend of mine at my university sat down together to have a nice catching up conversation during lunch time. Needless to say, my frosted flakes were quite soggy due to my lack of attention for them. Haha, my oh my was this conversation much needed, and far too profound to not record on to my blog.

The most genuine and meaningful relationships to me are the ones that allow myself to profoundly connect with the other person on an intellectual, real, cognitive correlation; to be in tuned with the other person while connecting our personal levels of intuition and discernment based upon personal circumstances. 

This friend means so much to me, and I have so much respect for this person and the things that this person has gone through.

We talked about the heaviest moments in our lives that reached to the point where I was almost in tears listening to my friend's stories.

The amount of darkness, frustration and anger that was felt to our religion was mutually understood.

For the first time, my friend felt ashamed for the circumstances that she was born in. She felt ashamed to be as privileged while there is a completely dark world full of rape, failed police systems, and abuse. Ashamed for being a woman who can't physically help any of these circumstances, and ashamed for being the ethnicity that she is.

It even got me to feel the same way. It makes me feel terrible to see how I am able to attend a 41,000 dollar private university with my intellect going somewhere; while somewhere in this world, there is a woman who is just as smart, just as capable- but is unable to go anywhere with it.

It's not fair that my brother's life was saved with high-tech medical attention while families are losing each other from terrible diseases without even a chance to fight.

Summer 2014

I can't answer the question, "why do bad things happen"

I parked in the middle of some parking lot near my house, rested my head on the steering wheel, and cried my eyes out. I cried as hard as I could, and I prayed to God to somehow reassure those who are lost and confused. I prayed for Him to show me that He is real, and that my salvation was not for nothing. I sat there for a long time, gasping in between my sobs and turned the radio on to Christian worship.

I stood still and listened, silently coughing tiny sobs and let the tears roll down my flushed cheeks as the radio went on about this loving God who is always faithful.

But then I remembered, my salvation did happen on a specific day, but it was not the end of the hard times I would have to go through in life.

I was looking for answers so fast that I was so distraught to not see them in an immediate response. 

There is spiritual holiness, and worldly wickedness. When there is good, there is evil. When there is no evil, how would we know what is good? When there is only good, how will we learn to be genuinely grateful and appreciative? God has these detrimental experiences for us so we can learn; to feel. To allow us to be angry over something. To allow us to wish empathy and love for others.

Even though these events are absolutely not part of our human desires, we tend to get angry with the things that the world can't give to us.

And this world is wicked: there is death, there is rape, robbery, diseases. This world is not our permanent home, but the world that we will grow, struggle, and learn in.

-Reyna Michelle

"As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” John 9:1-5

"Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor; let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised. For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord. In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.” His ways prosper at all times; your judgments are on high, out of his sight; as for all his foes, he puffs at them." Psalm 10:1-5

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"If the first and lowest operation of pain shatters the illusion that all is well, the second shatters the illusion that what we have, whether good or bad in itself, is our own and enough for us. Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us. We ‘have all we want’ is a terrible saying when ‘all’ does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St Augustine says somewhere, ‘God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full—there’s nowhere for Him to put it.’ Or as a friend of mine said, ‘We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it’s there for emergencies but he hopes he’ll never have to use it.’ Now God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as he leaves us any other resort where it can even plausibly be looked for. While what we call ‘our own life’ remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interests but make ‘our own life’ less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible source of false happiness?" -C.S Lewis