Is suffering the very purpose of our lives?
I think one area where the rest of the world can misunderstand Christianity is in the area of suffering. While some spiritual concepts focus on the escape from suffering, Christianity seems to overemphasize its value.
We talk about our need to suffer for those we love and how we should embrace the crosses given to us. We fast and mortify ourselves. We esteem the saints who have suffered most, those who have died terrifying deaths. It can come to a point as though the very purpose of our religion is to make us suffer as greatly as possible.
But if…
“A word after a word after a word is power.” — Margaret Atwood
Just this once, write with complete abandon. Write as though you don’t need to earn a living. Write, write and write. Write with all of your heart. Write with everything that you have.
Just this once, write without fear. Write as though you have the courage to face anyone who’d ever dare to criticize your work. Write with passion and conviction. Write and say everything you want to say.
Just this once, write without limits. Write from another world, a world no one may ever believe in but those who can understand where you’re coming from. Write beyond the expectation…
What’s the legacy you’d leave behind?
- Only God can make you truly happy.
- Even the best of people will fail you. Don’t expect people to be like God.
- Forgive yourself and get up quickly after each fall. Let not your mistake bring you to despair, but towards the path of humility.
- Things will not always happen as planned, learn to be resilient. Do your best and let God’s beautiful plan for you unfold in His time.
- Worry is useless. We can never know what will happen next. Even if your worry comes true, remember that your worry never helped you at all. It just took away…
A lesson on letting go
There will always be a pain in saying “goodbye”
No matter how much we seem to understand everything, it breaks our hearts to ever see anything beautiful die.
It seems we weren’t really made for sad endings, and parting is hardly a word we recall when we enter into a relationship.
How do we know then when to say our goodbyes?
Should a relationship end even if you still love each other?
I used to think love is all we need to keep a relationship. It sounded so simple, so tested, and so romantic. But few of us dare try to answer these questions: What kind of love do we really need? What kind of love can make a…
There are certain methods we can use to investigate the existence of God
Is it really possible to love God like loving another person?
How can we even begin to love Someone we cannot even see? But if we say we can only love those whom we see, do we also say that the blind cannot love? If we say we can only love those whom we can hear, do we also say that the deaf cannot love as well? Yet we all know such things cannot be true. For all we know, those who cannot see or hear can love even far better than we do, for they rely not on such things to know a person well.
Ah, but some may argue…
A Poem and a Brief Reflection
“Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.”
— Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Sometimes we think we could get away with a little evil. We excuse ourselves thinking we wouldn’t do a great deal of harm. But what we fail to consider is that evil rarely continues to be little. Evil grows and multiplies.
We may deceive ourselves into thinking it’s but a little flame we could play with without getting burnt. …
The Samaritan woman’s encounter with Jesus
There is something about the story of Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well that never fails to touch my heart.
In many ways, while reading or simply watching a scene about it, I can’t help but imagine that I’m the woman He is talking to.
Could you imagine it, too?
Jesus, tired from a journey, sat by the well. While He’s there, a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well. She was just doing her regular chore, and she had no idea that Jesus was there. Not only was He there, He saw her and talked to her. He drew…
The tests that fortify your soul
“To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.”
― Harriet Beecher Stowe
“We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope: and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts…” — Romans 5:2–5, WEBBE
It is said that in order to follow Christ, we must take up our…
When a Hope Deferred Makes the Heart Sick
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick…” — Proverbs 13:12
What made us lose our hope?
When we were kids, we had so much of it. So much that even if we had nothing, we were so hopeful that things could change, that the world is like a big fairytale where everything is possible, especially a happy ending.
Whatever happened in between?
In between were many sorrows and struggles, and many heartaches that made it difficult to trust again.
In between were many dreams that failed, dreams that seemed to say we never deserved to have them anyway.
In between were…
