Praise You in this Storm

A good friend of mine told me about the song and how significant the song is in his life. He said that it helped him through one of his biggest storms– the death of his father.

Every one of us in our lives will go through a storm. Oftentimes when we do, we normally ask God why and feel abandoned by Him. This song teaches us to have faith in God even through our trials, our despair and our sufferings. To praise the God who gives and takes away. Yes, not only the God who gives, but the God who takes away.

It has always been easy for us to praise and give thanks to our God when we receive a blessing and when everything good comes our way. Yet, it is so difficult for us to do the same when God takes away something of value to us like good health, a precious job or our material wealth. Worst, when God takes away someone we hold dear in our hearts especially a loved one. In those dark times, many of us begun questioning God, some of us even turned our backs from Him as we failed to understand why we must pass through the storms and why He needs to take away.

God feels our sorrows, our pain and every tear we shed. God is a merciful one and is with us through every trial. He has a purpose for everything even the events we called our “misfortunes”. I believe that to our Lord, these are not misfortunes, but a “must towards our good fortunes”. These are placed by God to harness us, to strengthen us, to learn to love more deeply, to share unselfishly, and to draw us closer to those around us and to Him, our creator.

The next time when things don’t go our way, we must remember that even though we feel all alone, God is there with us --- to help us through our worst sufferings and deepest sorrows. So to God be the glory at all times as we learn to praise you not only through good times, but also through our every storm.

Airport

I recently volunteered to pick up a friend from the airport.She went on an exciting and memorable trip from the south.Her flight was delayed for several hours.

While waiting, I recalled the times when my parents would fetch me from the airport every time I traveled.They would insist on doing this. I could never talk them out of it. For them, it was not a question whether it was an international or local trip, whether it would just be a trip for a day or for several weeks, but it was a matter of being away from home.

So upon every arrival, I would always be quick to get out of the airport knowing that my parents would be there patiently waiting for me.Each time, I would always look for them and they would always welcome me back with happy faces and open arms as if I went away for such a long time.

Never then did I think that I would miss all these.After they passed away, it took me quite a while to get used to the thought that they won’t be there to pick me up anymore.After they passed away, I appreciated what they did for me and understood them more.

These experiences made me reflect not only of my parents love for me, but also of the love of our Creator.We are here on earth on a journey.Some of us may take only a short while to complete our mission and some may take a longer time. But regardless of the period of our travel, we can be assured that there is someone who loves us. Someone cares as to what we are going through in our journey.Someone hopes that we will be reunited with Him and that someone is our Lord.

If we then accomplished our mission as He has planned.I know that after our journey here on earth, it would be like the times when my parents would be there at the airport. He too, would be there patiently waiting for us to finally bring us home.


by lulu topacio

A Planner and A Faithful

I have a friend who is quite the opposite of me. Our differences have not put us apart, but have drawn us even closer.

I normally see her as the faithful one. She shows strong faith in God and total dependence on Him. She lives one day at a time, has no worries about tomorrow, and trusting that the Lord will take good care of her. On the other hand, she often refers to me as the worrier, sometimes the planner. She always points out that I worry too much and plan too much.

However, as I began to look back, I noted that the biggest struggles in my life were placed in the most unexpected time, places and people. The hurdles were beyond my forecast, my likely scenarios and unfortunately way beyond my control. I believe that most of us had or once will be placed in an uncontrollable situation. It may be a situation of having a terminal disease like cancer, a loss of a loved one, a declaration of bankruptcy, or simply suffering from a broken heart. But whatever it is, there will be a period of awful helplessness. You can try doing all things within your power, but nothing will ever seem to work out right until you are left with one last thing to do --- that is to “let go and let God“.

I guess nature has its way to put us out of balance, out of our comfort zones, and out of our control or maybe it is also God’s way to put us back in the right path and teach us that it is not us, but He who is in control. If we truly love God, then we must let him not only in our hearts, but also in control of our lives. We must acknowledge that He indeed is the greatest planner and we must act only as faithful followers.