Repost: IN HIS STRONG ARMS

He's been calling me, but i never answered to His call...He was stretching His arms, but never did I hold on to it...! One question that have been playing in my mind before was, "why He just let it happened? Oh! poor little faith of mine! 

After my long quest on searching for the answers to my question, finally i found it...He was molding me! I admit, there has been a point of my life when i had loose grip on my faith...i always ask Him, why let these things happened to me in just a spur of a moment...all i can feel at that time was things are really out of my control! 

Just a week after my graduation, a resident gave me a book, it was a nice book...(I suggest you'll read it too!). She told me it was something to keep me ready for my internship, at first i thought it was the new edition of medical blue book!!! hahaha! but it wasn't... I never thought it would be of great help in my quest! Remember the poem Footprints in the sand? Of course! I do! I have read it for so many, many times in life, but I didn't appreciate it before...
 
Now I understand why He let it happened. He was molding me...He was calling my attention...He was showing to me how strong is His arms and how safe I am in His arms! Just as the father would pick up his own child and carry him over the rough ground, God carried me when the going gets tough. I'm finally at ease now! I'm finally home! I'm finally back to His strong arms!

the river piedra

By the River Piedra, I sat down and wept. There is a legend that everything that falls into the wates of this river - leaves, insects, the feathers of birds - is transformed into the rocks that make the riverbed. If only I could tear out my heart and hurl it into the current, then my pain and longing would be over, and I could finally forget.

Perhaps love makes us old before our time - or young, if youth has passed. But how can I not recall those moments?
That is why I write -- to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance.

So that when I finish telling myself the story, I can toss it into the Piedra. Only then - in the words of one of the saints - will the water extinguish what the flames have written."

-words from a book by Paulo Coelho,

my favorite author

Now, my story...

There I was.
Lamenting in my own River Piedra

Mourning for the transformation

of love into loss,

of hope into aridity,

of magic into illusion,

and of tears into stone.

"All love stories are the same."

I, too, have written my tale.
I, too, have let my tears run me dry.

Let the poignant remnants of reminiscences be carried away by the current.
Let the water cleanse me of the hurt, pain and regret.

For by the River Piedra,

Solitude is my salvation.

Truth is my comfort.

Tranquility is my peace...

By the River Piedra, I sat down and wept..

Focus

For almost a year or 11 months to be exact in my fellowship training, I am still on the verge of coping to things and the system around here..I'm not lost, but there's still a feeling of inadequacy inside me. As my other co-fellow might have adjusted already, there are still times that I feel so empty and bored.  I might be missing my comfort zone, which I guess this have played a big role in dragging me down.
In my lonesome times, I'm asking myself, Am I in the right tract? Or Am I really called for this? With these activities I have, waking up so early, making rounds with the patients, do a little chit chat with them, asking them if they're okay, accompanying our consultants during their visits, going to OPD for consults, doing procedures, I think all these stuffs were  merely a routine for me now.
The sense of fulfillment of being a physician was lost. I guess I need break from all these routines I have. I need to get back to my very own purpose, why in the first place I took up medicine.
I pray to God above, to help me seek that reason again. I am what I am now, because of His greater plan for me, and that is to glorify Him by being His instrument in healing the sick.
I hope this boredom will get away as soon as possible.

Trash Bin Resurrected!

It's been years since I have posted here.  I guess blogging at that time was my least priority.
First and foremost, Medical Residency had consumed all my time. After 3 years of residency training, our training officer decided to extend me for a year to help my junior residents, though not as busy compared from previous years, still blogging never came into my mind.  Secondly, after residency training, here comes PSBIM exam, I had to spend so many hours reviewing Mr. Harrison's. Thirdly, after the exam, here comes a new milestone of medical profession, which had also consumed my time...the Fellowship training.
Just to keep my sanity and autism mode, I opted for other options just like posting my mild rantings on Facebook. A simple sigh can give a slight relief, and thanks to my earphones, which had separated me from a world full of stressors.
With all the negative vibes that I face every now and then, I guess posting entries on my blog is the answer. In this way, I can keep my sanity intact. Since this site is more "private" compared to other sites, I can freely post those negative thoughts I have. I am free to express my thoughts and my feelings.  I guess resurrecting this page is a better way, I mean aside from shedding out those negative and careless thoughts I have, I can inflict no pain to anybody..unless they read this intently....

WELCOME BACK TO THE BLOG SPHERE AGAIN!

CROSSROADS

Heavy with ambition, lofty dreams, and the pounds I packed for the past 15 years, I fumbled through my first year of being a doctor. The routines of being a student have been stripped of my system, in the sense that I have ceased to enjoy the privilege and security of waking up in the morning knowing exactly where I will be for that day and the next. I am not denying though, that the profession I have chosen automatically guarantees a permanent status of “student.” I am sure that doctors all over the world will agree that this is what in fact Medicine is – a life-long acquisition of knowledge. In other words, once a person becomes a doctor, he remains a student of Life for life. I remember an old mentor who morbidly told us during brain-cutting that a doctor who stops studying is as good as dead. I must be sounding like someone condemned. Once I passed the licensure examination, there came the uncertainty. The next stage and the next step to my career as a health professional lay before me like a dark, barren crossroad without warning signs, stoplights, or even street lamps. What to do next would have been easy for others who are fortunate to have already known which direction to take even before reaching this same juncture. But for me and a few others who have varied interests, sensibilities, and priorities, it is more difficult. Compounding the situation is this dreadful factoid of my so-called life: I may have proven my worth in the class room setting but with regard to the intricacies of the real world, I feel naïve, inexperienced and, to tell you the truth, retarded. The world outside the sheltered walls of the class room is a realm to which constant practice is a necessity, if only to grasp at the edges of mastering how to live well.

CLOSING CYCLE (PAOLO COEHLO)

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end.
If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time,
we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters whatever name we give it,
what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
Has a loving relationship come to an end?
Did you leave your parents' house?
Gone to live abroad?
Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.
You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will befinishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us.
What has passed will not return:
we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.
That is why it is so important (however painful it maybe!) to destroy souvenirs,
move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home.
Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts
and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go.
Release them.
Detach yourself from them.
Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.
Do not expect anything in return,
do not expect your efforts to be appreciated,
your genius to be discovered,
your love to be understood.
Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again,
the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss:
that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off,
work that is promised but there is no starting date,
decisions that are always put off waiting for the ideal moment.
Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished:
tell yourself that what has passed will never come back.
Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person.
Nothing is irreplaceable A habit is not a need.
This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult,
but it is very important.

Closing cycles.
Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.
Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

Connected In Silence

No communication

Total silence, a black hole, an endless abyss.
It hurts my ears, it hurts my eyes, it hurts my heart
I yearn to hear, to know, to feel.

Where are you? Where have you gone?
What are you doing, thinking, dreaming?

I used to know.

There is such a void where the words used to live
A loneliness only you can fill.

The words have gone, but the connection still lives.
You're in my thoughts, my dreams, my heart, my soul.

We may be silent but forever connected.

Reminders for myself!!!

1. life is a constant change...learn to deal with it!
2. no one can bring me down except myself...
3. some people may hate me...(i can't please everybody, anyway..)
4. i have a life to face...why get stacked with my past?
5. be independent and responsible..hahaha..I know, I MUST!
6. my bestfriend is myself...(talk to yourself everyday rhea, it's quite refreshing!!)
7. be autistic when you can't take it any longer!
8. i can't let anyone shatter my protected world!!!
9. dont forget to take a deep breath...it's relaxing!!
10. mind over heart...you'll never get hurt!!
    

* quite selfish huh??? it's just for now!!! i'm a little bit hurt!

i release all my doubts and fears,

there is no past, there is no future.

There is only here and now.

I am filled with joy here and now

I am living my life’s purpose here and now

I am loving my self and all others here and now

I am calm and contented

I am thankful for everything

I am Here…Now.

letting go

When I was a kid, I easily got attached to things, which sooner or later I had to let go of. Saying goodbye was always hard. The items were already rotting with age, begging to be put to rest in the recycle bin.

Now that I’m older, I still find it hard to let go of things wherein I grew quite attached to. Be it a faded shirt or old tattered cards. I still make up excuses about how I’m not yet ready to give them up or throw them away. I sometimes wonder if it has something to do with being a very sentimental person; one who finds comfort in even the shallowest of things.

Take my trying to let go of him, for example. I’ve been trying to do this for the longest time, and yet I still cannot will myself to do it. Stupid? Yes. Every night I pray for his face to fade away, but I find myself unable to fall into slumber without thinking first that he is with me. I wake up uncountable times during the night just to check my phone in case some miracle has interceded and he has decided to get in touch with me. At a bird’s point of view, I find what I am doing rather pathetic and no-doubt-about it stupid, but it is something that has been wrapped and sewn into my subconscious. There are days wherein I become proud of myself for not thinking about him too much, but then I tend to dream about him in my sleep.

I sometimes marvel at my capacity to hold on. To those reading this, I may sound weak for loving someone who is no doubt not in love with me. But I think of my stupidity as a character of a person who loves unconditionally. After all, I do not love him just so he may love me in return. Unconditional love — to love without expectations, no questions asked.

I once came upon a quote that went, “It is better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all.” I find the saying quite comforting, albeit I disagree with it. It isn’t better to have loved than lost. Not when you love him every morning, thinking that this might be the day when he finally cares for you, when he finally sees you and loves you. Not when you think all this, only to have it all come crashing down, everything you expected destroyed at the end of the day. Not when you know that even though you felt all these things, all this pain and hurt, you will expect to feel the same way again tomorrow. That tomorrow you will love, and lose him again. It’s not better when you love, and you lose, every single day, and know that you will come back for more.

It is discouraging, disappointing, painful. Yet, my love and silent longing for him knows no boundaries. It feels the pain, at the same time motivated by it. My ego, bruised and tattered, has long been begging my hypothalamus to give up. Still, I hope.

A good friend once said that letting go of someone is not letting go of the feelings that you have for the person but accepting the fact that the person can never be yours. There will come a time wherein, sooner or later, we need to stop wishing for someone not because you are no longer in love, but because you know that that someone will be better off without you. If this were the case, I guess it is time to finally let go of him. So like my old stuffed toys that needs to be thrown away, or ragged blankets that were washed, I must say goodbye one last time. Never to the love I have for him, but to the longings of wanting him to stay in my life.

As I write this, tears are uncontrollably falling down my cheeks. Part of me still longs to hold on; to keep on fighting. But I now realize that this is the part wherein there is nothing more I can do but to smile and be happy for him, even if his happiness means his absence in my life.

After all, that is what unconditional love is all about…

i'm finally back

So, I'm back to the blog sphere. It used to be a necessary thing for me to do but things changed. I lost my way, i couldn't even compose a paragraph just to express what i feel. I guess I'm a little bit empty at that time...(hahaha crazy woman!!)....whew! They were partially right... I was scared of losing people who have been a part of my life...I'm afraid to fail and I'm afraid that I cant meet the expectations of my family....a lot of things had pushed me away and whatever are those I'm glad they have made me realized what life is all about and I'm grateful that I'm finally back to myself....hahaha...

On my journey of finding myself, I wrestle with God, I cried with Him, I have bargained...(see how little faith I had?) but it made me realized that God will bring me to a point of weakness if that's what it takes to bring me back to Him. He was not concerned of my comfort, He was more concerned of my inner being and my relationship to Him. "Nature abhors vacuum". Human nature abhors vacuum too that is why we avoid feeling empty and find ways to fill it. God had made it that way, in order for us to seek Him and let Him made us whole and complete.

homeless no more

i used to think i was lost, because i had no home to return to. because things have changed while i was gone, and there were no open arms to welcome me back. but now i realize home wasn't where i thought i had left it. it wasn't merely in the presence of a special past. it's right here. in the love of my parents, in the warm hugs of my siblings, in the sincere smiles of my trusted friends.

now i don't have to go looking.

i was home all along.