Author: ChrisAnn Alvarez

I was sitting at my desk a few weeks back, browsing through a Vanity Fair magazine that one of my coworkers had left in the hallway for us to read. Yes, I know, the name of the magazine is “Vanity Fair,” and although it is a rarity for me to peruse a magazine rather than a book; when I do read a magazine, I go from cover to cover, making sure to read each article carefully. Surprisingly, the magazine had some pretty good pieces! I found myself reading about the evolution (and consequent decline) of the printed newspaper, to the war in Syria and missing foreign reporters. I was highlighting little glimpses of goodness and in my mind I was attesting these to God. Here’s an example:

“Former Times executive editor Bill Keller just quit the paper to help start a non-profit to cover justice issues. Paul Steiger, formerly managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, founded ProPublica – a non-profit that produces top-quality investigative journalism.” I nodded as I read these, yup, there’s God.

Goodness in this world of ours, especially here in the first world, is much rarer a find than I would like. A much rarer find than God would like. Among the clothing, make-up and perfume advertisements, here I was, looking for goodness. It’s okay, right? Reading magazines like this? To dip my feet into the world, and still be completely of God’s? But then I started to think… What if I were to become part of the world again, could I still be of God’s? I always fiercely believed it was one or the other, and this is a stance I try and advocate for. “We are not of the world, we are of God’s,” “if you stand with the majority, rethink where you stand,” etc. etc.

This is something I’ve been trying to come to terms with lately. (Note: this lack of busy-ness was pre-TNC prep) I had quiet lulls in my day and I found some afternoons free to meet up with old friends whom I haven’t seen in at least a year, if not more. I’ll write briefly about these two encounters here.

The first of these meetings was with my childhood bestfriend, who now has this beautiful almost-one-year-old. I had spent time with her last at the hospital, where I curled up next to her baby on the bed, giving her some time to relax and shower. As she took her seat in front of me, her first words were to ask me what my skincare routine was, did I change my foundation, did I start shopping at different stores now, etc. etc. But after receiving our large bowls of soup, I looked at her with awe and amazement as she patiently and lovingly kissed her baby boy’s nose and tickled him in between spoonfuls of broth. A lot has happened since we were young… our birthdays were a day apart and I had met her when I was five, since our moms had been roommates here in Canada. We went to the same elementary school together, and after every school day, she would be at my house. However, although our similarities as children were mild (I was very into power rangers, she… well… wasn’t), we started growing up and the differences became more pronounced. She started liking boys and wearing makeup eons before I did, and there were times, even up until our late teens, when I no longer thought we would be able to reconcile such vast differences. Time, distance, and different groups of friends only made the schism between us grow. After pho, we shopped together and she began “swatching” (the act of taking a lipstick and swiping it on your hand to see the colour) and telling me to get different shades, which although at first hesitant, I finally succumbed to. She’s always been girly, with different boyfriends, and up until today, she manages to look like someone who’s “youtube famous” (LOL, yes I just used that term).

The second of these meetings was with my highschool bestfriend. We were going to eat lunch at a Greek restaurant in Little Italy, where I work. As I sat in my seat sipping water, I glanced up and saw her walking to the restaurant from her parked car. At first glance, I was surprised to see her, as pretty as I had remembered. She had reminded me very much of Victoria Beckham, who she still sort of resembles, both subtly in her features, but more-so in the way she dresses and carries herself. Through the years, this friendship too endured its fair share of stressors. I was falling more in love with God and increasing my service, while all along, I was never really quite sure what her sentiments were about Him. Was she agnostic? Atheist? Like the first friend, I was unsure how to close the gap between us that had formed. We were too different now, right? But lunch together was just as it had been back when we were inseparable. We spoke about work, our aspirations about the future, travels… it wasn’t the same awkwardness that I had experienced when I was with her and our old group of friends. How they laughed and spoke of things I didn’t really… well, not that I didn’t understand… but more like things that I found unable to relate to. After lunch, we went into the store next to the restaurant, and for 20 minutes, I pretended to care about 200 dollar jeans and hundred dollar shirts.

So why did I go on at great lengths about these encounters? Because, as I had said up there: this was me, dipping my toes back into the world. We often refer to our non-CFC-Youth friends as our “secular” friends, and I am definitely guilty of doing this. And although I had made life-long friends within the community, I am now at a point where I wonder and worry about the relationships I had left behind. There must be a reason why God had wanted me to talk to them again… and with my first friend, I was able to speak to her briefly about God (and His love for us, hayyy talk 1), but with my second, I found it much more difficult. I’ve been praying for courage to speak about my life as a missionary (which is in itself, sort of difficult to explain), and perhaps suggest the idea of a loving God to her.

Shortly after these encounters and even more wondering on my part… God had answered me. I’ve been slowly reading the Imitation of Mary, and right there, smack in the pages, He answered me. Here is what it said:

“Find your delight then, in living far from the world and pay no heed to yourself apart from necessity. And when necessity does force you to take heed, be like the dove that, when forced to leave the ark, returned immediately because outside it could find no place alight… Bear in mind that never yet have you had dealings with the world without being worse off in God’s eyes than when you began.” – pg.35

“Can anyone breathe the poisoned air of the world without being infected by it? Pull back often into solitude and breathe its purer air.” – pg. 36

In those pages, I found my answer. No matter how we like to deceive ourselves, believing that in moderation, going back to our old ways and past indulgences would be okay, it really isn’t. If I went into these encounters without God in my heart, then it would have been in vain. My love for my friends does not mean that I regress back into my former self, or the person the world (or my friends) want me to be. My love for my friends means that I also want them to experience the love of the Father that longs and pursues them, just as much as he continues to long and pursue me.

“The world and all it contains is as nothing to the man whom God is everything.” 

Last weekend, I had the privilege of serving at Halton’s camp. Before I get into it, let me just say that I went into this camp without expectations. It surprised me nonetheless, to discover that 80% of the service team were first timers. It was every facilitator’s second time at a camp; the last time they were participants.

Where do I even begin?

The camp itself was amazing. The Lord continued to remind us to trust Him, despite all of the time constraints we began to feel. But this camp, from all the camps I’ve been to, was a little different. Okay, it was very different.

Despite the few bumps we encountered at the beginning, everything was going relatively smooth. A few very subtle glimpses of spiritual warfare, but nothing different from what would be experienced at most camps. It wasn’t until after Tongues Workshop where we started seeing not only red flags, but flashing lights. Three out of the four sister facilitators exited the cabin after the Tongues Workshop and to say they were distraught would be an understatement. They sat there huddled in a small circle on the grass crying, and one by one, myself and two of the other leaders took them aside. The sister I spoke to shared with me what she experienced and how it simultaneously terrified her and made her doubt herself. I cried with her as I held her, and then I began to smile as I told her that this means she’s doing something right. “It means that there is greatness inside of you, and he (the devil) is trying to keep it hidden.”

Directly after, we were called back into the lodge for an emergency service team meeting. We sang Fearless, but something different happened. Afterwards, in the silence, a voice came booming. Filling the room. It was one of the sisters, but as she spoke, I knew it was no longer her.

“I will never, ever, let anything touch you.”

Me typing that here did it no justice. How it sounded was like this: I WILL NEVER. EVER. LET ANYTHING. TOUCH YOU.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but you know Aslan (the lion)? Well for the past several months, God had embraced me, cried with me, held me, kissed my forehead, and danced with me. But at that moment, God… oh man… He was…God. GOD. It was as though we were getting attacked, and this monolithic lion jumped out in front of us and let out this massive, earth-quaking roar. A lion is still a lion. As I had gotten closer to God, and much as the children of the movie grew close to Aslan, they became comfortable (rightfully so), curling up next to the lion as they slept, embracing the lion, laughing with him, etc. But, when it was time for battle… the lion was still a lion.

Oh, how He protects us.
Stay close to Him and fear not.

I had recently come back from a trip to Philippines and South Korea. It was a wonderful experience and I should have been rightfully excited for it, but initially, I wasn’t. The last time I had gone to the Philippines was to bury my cousin – no, my sister. From my previous posts, you would be able to weave out a few things. 1) I’m fairly old (as I call the youth of my area “my kids”) and 2) I have younger brothers and cousins. In fact, out of 12 grandchildren on my mum’s side, I’m the oldest. My younger brother, Edward, is 6 years younger than me. So for 6 years I was an only child/grandchild, and thereafter, I was an older sister. Even in the community, since the time I joined, I always seemed to be one of the older ones.

Anyways, where am I going with this? Well… I just wanted to paint the picture of how, never have I really had an older sister. My older cousins on my dad’s side lived in the Philippines and it wasn’t until my early teens that the oldest of them moved here to Canada. She tucked me under her wing, and I became one of her 3 younger sisters. We had sleepovers, we would buy matching outfits when we shopped, she would do my nails, and we would talk about boys (LOL). Coming from a girl who played video games with her brothers, and then carried and bounced her baby cousins on her lap, taking part in these girly milestones with an older sister was something rather wonderful. She was incredibly strong, and even in our giggly conversations, this would always shine through.

A little over 3 years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Stage Three. What did that mean? How fierce the cancer was and how much it had progressed meant nothing to me. You can ask my family, I was so sure that she would push through. God is a God of miracles. This is it… I had stored all my prayers and this is Your time to pull through for me, right? I was so sure that she would pull through that even when it was time to say goodbye, the only thing I whispered to her was, “Just focus on getting better. I’ll see you soon!” I never had the goodbye that everyone else allowed themselves to have with her. In my care package that I sent with her I had included a prayer for healing and a shirt of mine she always liked (it has wings on the back) and I stuck a post-it to it saying, “for when you get better and lose weight, like you said!”

As my time for the Philippines grew closer this year, I wasn’t excited. It was difficult for me to even feign excitement, although I tried. The truth was: I was going to face the fact that she was gone. I had tucked away her absence in the back of my mind and somehow, went on pretending that she hadn’t really died. Each time I thought about going back home, I knew I would have to stand before her tombstone and face the hard truth. I wasn’t ready, I was never ready.

The morning of my arrival, the first thing I knew I had to do was go to the cemetery. During the car ride, every single molecule of my body wanted to turn back. As I exited the car and began to walk, my stomach was in knots and my heart was thumping so hard I could hear it. But as I stood before her grave, I felt… I felt nothing. I felt an absence of a feeling. She… She’s not here. She’s not here. I had expected the feeling to be exactly as it was when I was leaving Philippines the last time. The way I kneeled there and hugged her tomb (it was an above-ground box thing) and had placed my forehead against the cold hard marble and whispered to her that I loved her. I had thought it would be just like that. But it wasn’t.

I had left the cemetery that day with this over-abounding sense of peace. I remember walking back to the car, looking up towards the sky, closing my eyes and exhaling, “She’s not here.” And for the first time, rather than focusing on her absence, I was able to really understand the greater-than-Earth place that she’s at.

 “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” 1 Corinthians 2:9

                 Let me start by saying that never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be part of you. I have always considered myself, through and through, a small town girl from Canadienne Region. My kids, my home and my family are all in Ottawa… However, as God would have it, I was asked to serve in this year’s RYC Word, not as a member of Canadienne, but as a member of Metro. I was asked to head Promotion and Documentation (along with Arnel), which in truth, sort of terrified me. I was asked to create the event for RYC on Facebook and to start posting and promoting it and I knew what members were going to think… “Who’s this girl and why is she telling us to go to RYC?”

            

                I was pushed out of my comfort zone, and hesitant as I was, I dove in… and there He was, waiting to catch me. If you caught glimpses of me at all during RYC, you probably saw me wielding a camera (which I don’t fully know how to use… what’s good auto-mode!), juggling two cellphones (hi twitter and Instagram) and balancing a notebook and pen trying to jot notes as I listened intently. Busy as I was, God made it so that I was able to immerse myself fully in, both His Word, and this region.

                What can I say? As a veteran/dinosaur, I have had my fair share of RYCs, but Metro, did you ever surprise me. For one full day, we were not separated by delegation colours, but we were a sea of white (well, I was wearing black, but figuratively speaking). It was beautiful to see you, as one family. It was beautiful to see you cheering for each other, greeting each other, and kneeling and praying with each other. It was beautiful to see you with your hands high and your hearts soaring. I stood by the back wall during the final praisefest, and I watched you all, and I felt an overwhelming amount of love flow from you, and I extended my hands in prayer for this beautiful region… and as I did so, I whispered a quiet “thank You” to my Father who sent me here. Thank You, and thank you, for allowing me to witness the greatness within the GTA, Hamilton-St. Catharine and Windsor Areas.

 The heartbeat of Metro Region is strong, and I am so blessed to be taking part in your(/our) story.

 
God is great.

 
With love, from your sister in Christ,
ChrisAnn

During one of the quieter lulls of the work week, I had listened to a small snippet from NPR radio.

 I usually do this silly thing where I click on links that people swear are really emotional and will make you cry, and I watch/read it challenging myself not to. (If you’ve read any of my past posts, you’d know that my emotional threshold is rather low.) Anyways, the small snippet was this moving love story of a husband and wife, elderly, and madly in love. The story goes from when they first met, to getting married, and now… Through a back and forth between husband and wife, we are able to brush lightly over the intricacies of their love. The husband leaving short love letters on the table saying things like, “To my princess, the weather out today is extremely rainy, I’ll call you at eleven twenty in the morning – And I love you, I love you, I love you.” At the end of the segment, we find out that the husband is ill, and instead of taping him in a recording booth, they record Danny from his bed, where he laid next to his wife, Annie.

There was a sentence that, as I was listening, had latched onto my heart somehow. I couldn’t help but write it down, thinking that maybe I could keep it as a reminder of how I would want someone to love me. That great love God had promised me.

“I always said the only thing I have to give you was a poor gift, and it’s myself, and I always gave it, and if there’s a way to come back and give it, I’ll do that too.”
I thought it was so beautiful. I wanted love like that.

During Adoration late one evening, I was kneeling in the silence and darkness of the church, with only the Monstrance before me on the alter. And as I looked at Him, I felt such love… this overwhelming love both emanating from my heart as I reached for Him, and from Him sweeping, and covering, and filling me. I can’t explain it… But as I kneeled there, my arm reached behind me, to the journal which I brought. I flipped hurriedly through the pages until I found the part I was looking for. As I kneeled there, He said these words to me…

“I always said the only thing I have to give you was a poor gift, and it’s myself, and I always gave it, and if there’s a way to come back and give it, I’ll do that too.”

My Great Love.

 The one I thought I had been waiting for… was already before me. The smile that had spread across my face was so great, and the joy that filled me so abundant… He had already loved me enough that He gave Himself for me. And if He could do it all over again, He would. Despite the pain, all over again, He would. That is how He loves us.

 

             I’m turning 25 in a few short months and I have never spent February 14^th with a significant other. There were many times when I would spend this day licking my wounds and feeling more or less alone. Spending the day wishing I had let my guard down at some point in the year so that today I would have flowers, chocolates, and a hand in mine. As Valentine’s Day rolled around, I would spend my day staring angrily at the walls I had built, blinking hot tears away as I cursed the bricks of stone I had so neatly stacked. “It’s your own doing that you’re alone,” I would whisper to myself. Why had I not let anyone in? Why was I so afraid?

                There were even times when people would come close to the wall. I could hear them from the other side. A boy, placing his hand against the cold, hard stone. “How do I get in?” He would call out to me. “I… I don’t know,” I would call back, feeling defeated that my own fortifications were able to do the job in which I created them for. Then the boy and I would sit there, at opposite sides of the wall, talking, but never fully seeing each other. But as alone as I was, I had liked the comfort and protection that the walls provided. No one could hurt me from in here.

                Father, You have seen it all. You watched me as I tirelessly lugged the stone blocks back and forth, mustering all my energy as I heaved them on top of one another. Father, You saw how once I had completed the towering barricades, I stood there proudly crossing my arms and nodding as I marvelled its height. And Father, You saw how as the years passed, I grew weary of the echoes of my own voice as I called out to no one. You saw how even when I tried to break my own walls down, I couldn’t.

                Lord, I ask You now to help us… help us break down these walls that we’ve created. Take down the walls we might have built around ourselves, thinking that we were protecting our own hearts. Remind us that our hearts were never really here with us, but they have been up there with You all along… Give us gentle nudges when through our own fears of getting hurt, we might be closing ourselves off to well-meaning friendships. We know, Lord, we know, that You want our happiness more than we do, and never would you intend for us to get hurt.

                I sit here now smiling, because all this time You were always my Valentine.

It has been a few months now since my parents have begun their CLP. I have shared it a few times during meetings as one of my blessings, but I’ve only decided to write about it now, partially out of fear that my eagerness and excitement might backfire on me.

My dad had not grown up in a religious family, so when he had married my mom at the age of 30, he was so out of touch with his religion that he didn’t even know how to say the Our Father. My mom, more into her faith than my dad, came to Canada before us and began working. When I arrived at age 5, my parents began working extensively, even on weekends. I remember though, as young as I was, God still carried me to church in the snow and sleet in the arms of my mom’s younger sisters, each and every Sunday.

At the age of 5, I had joined the first ever KFC Camp in Ottawa, but as my parents were not CFC, I lost touch with the CFC community directly after. It wasn’t until years later, at the age of 14, that I attended my first youth camp. I was invited to gatherings and took part in events, but more importantly, I fell madly and deeply in love with the Lord. At the age of 19, I officially became the sister Area Head of Ottawa. My parents were not always supportive of this as my service role quickly proved to require a lot of my time and energy. In fact, there was even a time when they had asked me to step down.

But as you may know, I held fast and continued to serve. It has been a long while since then and I have been in the community for a little over a decade now and my parents have grown spiritually as well. We began to attend mass on Sundays as a family, although my parents would stay sitting in the pew as my brothers and I squeezed by them to go up for communion. One day, (with a little nudging from God) I was able to muster enough courage and meekly told them about the importance of the Eucharist. The following Sunday, no one was left in our row.. they began joining us in line.

Honestly, I was happy for this already. Not just happy, I was incredibly joyous! I watched as my parents, especially my dad, became more patient and God fearing. It was beautiful. We would eat out after mass and discuss matters of faith, of God, of what we just heard during the homily. I felt joy in being able to share this aspect of my life with my parents… I felt so grateful to God for calling them closer to Him and for bringing us closer as a family.

I had long left behind the idea of my parents becoming CFC members. They were always busy, and I was already grateful for the man and woman of God they became. They were hesitant as it was never really “their thing.” So how did God slowly bring my mom and dad to CFC when they were initially hesitant about me even being in the community, let alone being a leader in it?

Well, I think they started to truly understand the goodness of the community when I really started to walk my talk. In fact, they made it a priority that my younger brothers join too. Then I started including them in my plans. Before I would simply leave the house for an activity or event then come home afterwards, but instead I started asking them to come with me. I remember there was a GA and I was tasked to bring drinks, so my parents offered to drop me off before heading to run errands for the rest of the day. When we arrived at church, they helped me unload the car and decided to come in to say hello. To my (great) surprise, they ended up taking a seat and listening to the teaching. They stood there during the worship, and bought food that the youth were selling afterwards.

Months after, my mom volunteered for RYC and helped during registration. She stayed behind to hear my talk which was pretty special since this was the first in all my years that she has heard. Weeks afterwards, my parents were invited by my CCs to come to the park for a post-RYC victory celebration. My mom sat at the table with the moms and my dad was playing tennis and walking around with the dads. My heart was doing laps around the park out of joy.

Months passed again and I remember hearing the voicemail from my old CCs inviting my parents for CLP. It had already been 11 years since I joined the community and year in and year out my parents replied with a firm “no” to becoming a member. I thought this would just be another failed attempt and I felt almost bad that my parents were being asked again. One day, my mom matter-of-factly told me that they were going to attend “that thing at church.” As I was packing for Duc in Altum a few days after, I went into my parents’ room to retrieve thick wool socks from my dad’s drawer and I heard him on the phone with his work.  He told them that his family was coming over Sunday and he couldn’t go in. I asked him who was coming over and he said, “No, remember? We have that ‘that thing at church’.” LOL that thing at church. My parents are funny. Although I’m laughing here as I look back, at the time, best believe I was crying tears of joy.

And so CLP began and they were present weekly.  On a random evening after I came home late at night, my mom told me what happened that made them go. She said that she wasn’t planning on attending, but late at night after they received the call, my dad told her that he thought it was time to go. “We have everything now; it’s time for us to go back to God.” She said he was crying. (Sidenote: I’ve only ever seen my dad cry a handful of times in my life, when he found out his dad died, during his dad’s funeral… yeah, pretty much less than five.) During my conversation with my mom, she told me that one of my youth’s parents (non-CFC) were next. “Do you really think so? Their daughter thinks it would be a miracle.”

“Tell her we were a miracle.”

Sigh, God is good.