Author: Ting Trongco

There are instances when my past mistakes come to mind. Sometimes I intentionally think of them, because by doing so, I noticed I become more patient, understanding and wanting to help others rather than judge their actions. Sometimes they come as an encouragement for myself, “Ting, you did a good job turning away from those things”.

 

I have learned to teach myself and encourage others to do what is right by Heaven’s standard and not what is easy by the standard of the world.

 

When I am asked how to forget a wrongdoing that caused too much pain and is impossible to forget even after hearing confession, I always say, I do not know because I do remember too! and besides going to confession is our way of acknowledging before God we made a mistake, not necessarily to forget things. But I praise the Lord for allowing me to remember, because of those memories I also am reminded of God’s grace to humanity. Because He is love, He will keep loving us. The memory is there but LOVE takes the pain away, then the memory becomes both a lesson and a reminder of our destiny, Heaven, a place where we are all invited to see by conforming our ways to The way, The truth and The life.

I cannot give less to the people I care less and more to those I care more, simply because the command was to ‘Love one another as I have loved you‘.

Honestly, I am not sure if the day comes that I will be able to love like my Creator but what I know is I was made with the capacity to love and I must have the capacity to embrace the cross. For now, what I can do is to intentionally choose God and it is He, whom I gauge what kind of example I will be to the people around me. People are imperfect, they are bound to disappoint but they are undeniably beautiful too. I cannot gauge the kind of a person I will become to the kind of people I am around with. What I can do is to strive hard to improve myself by Heaven’s standard, in the hope that others may see Christ in me.

When I pray for my desires, I pray that it will not turn into feelings, because feelings have the tendency to evaporate and I lose it.

 

The key to answered prayer is desire. When we desire we hunger, when we hunger we find strenght.

 

Lord, let the desires in our hearts that do not belong to you evaporate and help us to always hunger only for the desires that you have planted in our hearts. Amen.

Every single day I feel God’s personal invitation to choose Him in everything I do, invitation to learn from my mistakes, invitation to trust Him when things do not go according to how I planned it. I believe you’ll agree when I say choosing God is easier said than done. It is hard but it is possible. To learn, I have to love discipline. Discipline accompanied by prayer does not make me perfect but it allows me to recognize the presence of the Lord in my life.

It will take some time for someone who has been sitting in darkness to see the light. We should help them and should have confidence to ask them to step out into the light because if we truly love people, we’ve got to love them where they are. We were created with the capacity to love the unlovable.

Purity of heart demands prayer and practice. We keep our communication to the Lord open through our prayer and we practice to be pure. This is our defense against the world… to have a pure heart. The battle lies within the human heart and it demands practice….. If we want the intention to be pure, we practice it. Above all, submit to the Holy Spirit, do not resist.

When we desire to become pure, we teach ourselves to be attuned to the demands of God’s holiness. It enables us to see God and be like Him. When we desire to serve, it demands time on our part. Our desires are accompanied with demands but when the heart is pure the demands that accompany in serving our neighbours and the community, no matter how hard, become love.

We experience physical, emotional and spiritual challenges when we serve, but it is also through serving that we overcome these difficulties in life. We have to keep in mind, troubles and temptations are present in this world. God did not die on the cross so we do not experience tribulation but for our heart to keep the faith and remain hopeful despite the pain. Regardless if we are part of a community or not, actively serving or not, the good news is that God overcame the world and told us to take courage. For us, taking on the mission to evangelize, this is very important. We need courage to obey. Obedience can be hard and painful sometimes, if not most of the time. Hard and painful when it entails loving another person who wronged us or when it requires us to ask for forgiveness or to forgive people. Love hurts, but it is also through loving that the soul finds healing. God overcame the world because He loved us. So amidst the pain and discomfort, when we truly love, healing finds us.