I continued attending the Sunday service. Aside from the usual Sunday worship service, there were other Church activities during weekdays. Other activities were announced during the Sunday service, we were encouraged to attend our respective group designation. There was a group for women, youth, and also prayer meetings during Fridays. I once attended a prayer meeting. I didn't have the slightest idea of what would happen, but one thing I was sure of, we were going to pray, and that was because it was called a prayer meeting. Wasn't it obvious?

I attended a prayer meeting. I was nervous. I arrived on time thinking that I didn't want to have any conversation with other people. I just wanted to reserve my seat and listen or pray or whatever I must do during the meeting. I didn't intend to meet and greet others, it was never easy for me to do that. It always felt like all hell break loose in my mind when I met strangers.

The prayer meeting started late. While I was waiting, there were only three of us, and a woman whom I knew during my childhood days and tried her best to engage me in a conversation. Mostly, she was the one who did the talking. She tried to show me thru her stories how blessed she was, how wonderful her family was. I listened to her patiently while I tried to put on the appropriate expression on my face on everything that she said.

I arrived at 7:30 in the evening, but the prayer meeting started at 8 or 8:30 the most. There was a lecture about a story from the New Testament. I remember something about Bethpage from the discussion of the Bishop, I am not even sure. At the end of the lecture, we prayed by a partner and some solo. I was with a partner and I was nervous, as always. She was kind enough to pray for me, and I didn't pray for her. Why? Because I didn't know how to or more like I was afraid that others would hear my prayer and discover how ugly the way I pray. After she prayed for me, I told her I would go home though I knew that the prayer meeting had not yet reached its conclusion. Others were still praying, but I was determined to leave. I felt insecure. That was the first and last time I attended the prayer meeting.

After that incident in the prayer meeting, I still continue attending the church. There were times that I missed the Sunday service because of my graduate studies. I listened to the message every Sunday and felt blessed every day. I knew I was on the right track. God wanted me to be where I was during those times.

During those times when I felt satisfied with my faith in and relationship with Him, there was a friend of mine who kept on insisting that I attend their D-group. Discipleship group or D-group is like a Bible study meeting. I rejected him a few times but eventually gave in because he was so persistent. I also started to seek more. More of Him.

It was a couples' D-group. A group composed of less and not more than ten, they were welcoming and accommodating, but I felt a little out of place since I was the only single in the group. I learned a lot from the discussion and looked forward to attending a D-group. I attended twice if I remember correctly. But eventually, I stopped attending the D-group session. I was not comfortable that I was the only single in the group. 

Few months had passed and that same friend of mine nagged me about attending just one service of the church he and his wife was attending to. Again, he kept on bugging me, but this time I didn't give in. I was busy with my graduate studies and already attending a church why I would bother going to other churches.

One day, at the end of my last semester in my graduate studies and that, was November 2019, I just decided to grant my friend's request, I attended one service on a Sunday morning. After listening to a live-stream service from the main church, I was blessed. I was convicted. Since then, everything was never the same. I was never the same. 

While I was getting acquainted with my new local church, adoration and praises would not cease coming out of my mind and heart. They just overflowed. I was able to compile them in a book that I just recently released on my birthday this year. I feel blessed. God never left me. In my trying times, He was there with me, always. He provided kind human beings to support and understand me. I am forever thankful and grateful. I am saved. I am redeemed. 

And good news! I belong now to an all-girls D-group for singles.

This is the book I mentioned. 

Click the photo if you want a copy.

~the end~

I have always been intrigued by the works of Paulo Coelho. I have always been seeing posts about his books on some of the Facebook group pages I belong to. Most of the books are raving about how good his books are. It was only during the Big Bad Wolf Manila 2020 I was able to purchase a copy of his books. I bought The Deluxe Collection with 12 of his books. It was such a joy that I finally got hold a copy of his books.

During the fourth week of Enhanced Community Quarantine or ECQ in Luzon due to CoVid-19, I decided to unpack the book set. It was another moment of happiness for me. I like books, and I like them more when they are brand new and freshly unpacked from their protective seal.

The Deluxe Collection consists the following works by Mr. Coelho:

The Alchemist

Veronika Decides to Die

The Zahir

The Valkyries

The Witch of Portobello

The Pilgrimage

By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Eleven Minutes

The Devil and Miss Prym

The Fifth Mountain

I was thinking about what book should I start with. After taking some moments, I decided to follow the order of the books, by how it was arranged in the box. I began reading with The Alchemist, which is also his most famous work based on how readers from the Facebook group page fan about.

Compelling, Spiritual, and Nostalgic. These three words definitely describe my experience as I read the book. It is compelling, demanding to be read, to be paid attention to. The philosophy behind the theme of the book is something that I also strongly believe in. It feels nostalgic that I had the same thoughts with the book's theme or maybe the same with the writer. As I grew up and became an adult, I decided to tuck in that belief under the sheets of my forgotten or forced to be forgotten dreams. I believe in destiny, in God's given purpose in my life. More so, I believe in God. I thought He is just an entity to believe in, someone that needs to be recognized so I will not receive His wrath. I realized that my perspective and knowledge is just a speck of His true nature. I was missing a lot of who is God when I had not yet decided to seek Him more and desire for an intimate relationship with Him.

Reading The Alchemist gave a little boost in me of how amazing my God is, the Almighty God I am serving. I'd like the conspiracy of the universe. It is not black magic, it is not cult. It simply as it meant to be, that the universe will conspire to favor you, if you honestly and sincerely dream a dream and risk everything for that dream, it will even conspire to fulfill that dream of yours, if only if you truly desire it with all your heart and if it's anchored to God's original plan to your life. No matter where you are, no matter what happens as long you put your trust and faith in God, He will guide you to that path as you fulfill your purpose in life.

The shepherd sought his treasure in the story, he met people who were able to help him to fulfill his dream in the long run. It did not happen overnight, it took years, a long journey to fulfill his dream, to find his treasure. Along the journey he was able to meet the love of his life and discover that love is not taking possession of what is yours, rather it is letting go. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also is a significant line in the story. It has been mentioned quite a few times in the book and it is very familiar to me because it is something that can also be found in the Bible. It was mentioned twice from Matthew 6:21 and Luke 12:34. I love how this Bible verse was entirely the very clue to the shepherd where he can find his treasure. Have a heart that listens to God's plan in your life. A heart that is not deceitful, does not seek evil. Instead, a heart that is pure, made possible by Christ through the Holy Spirit. For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.

May we all fulfill our God's given purpose in this life. God bless your strong heart!

My mother had invited me many times to attend a Sunday service at the church she had been attending, and I always declined her offer thinking I was busy and it would just get in the way of my plans. I was satisfied with my relationship with God. I believed in Him. I read the Bible from time to time. I bought Christian-based books. I was a self-proclaimed Christian though He was never my priority. He was just on the sideline of my life. I was at liberty to include Him in my day to day life at my own convenience. I thought that was enough.

When everything fell apart, I realized how I was a jerk with that kind of mindset. I was ashamed and guilty of what I had done, of what I had been doing in my life.  I lived my life as if it's my own as if I didn't owe Him my life, as if I had made everything possible with my own strength and will alone. I was the center of my world. When my mother invited me again to attend a Sunday service during my trying times, I accepted it. I was taking chances. If it was only Him who could heal me, take away the pain, the guilt, and the shame that I felt, then I was willing to take chances and I had nothing to lose anyway. I was lost anyway.

I started going to every Sunday service and I desired to have a complete attendance even though I was attending classes of my post-graduate studies every Saturday and Sunday. I was determined to always write notes about the message. Most of the time, I always cried during worship. I couldn't help it. Tears were just there, and after I cried I just felt a little better.  I was regularly attending the Sunday service, and I came to like the new routine in my life. I decided to get baptized knowing that if I do it means that I would surrender my life to Jesus and He'll be the center of my life. It means that everything I do, I do it for Him, for His glory. I thought attending a church would be a burden, but it was not.

It was April when I was also volunteered in the Sunday school during one summer vacation. I was not sure if teaching in a Sunday school was the same as teaching in an academic school and I was afraid that I might not be able to teach the true message of Christ. But with God's grace, I was able to finish that week. Surprisingly, I enjoyed teaching the kids even it was tiring, I still got joy from it.

Enhanced Community Quarantine was implemented in March 2020, and it is already April. The first week of ECQ was exciting and felt liberated from the usual and occasional toxic life I had at work. As we went on the first week Luzon's ECQ, I acquainted myself with my family about the updates on CoViD-19 by regularly watching news on TV, but we got tired of the news. They were just repeated every single day in every news program and the continuous increase of CoViD-19 patient did not make us feel any better. I stopped turning on the TV and diverted my watching time to social media which was not really the best diversion I needed during those time. I even subscribed to Netflix to watch k-drama, Ghibli movies and documentary films, so I could have other options online during this ECQ. Watching Netflix and reading manhua/manga went on until the third of ECQ. It was on the fourth week ECQ that I decided to stop depending on online entertainment, I needed to get a hold of myself I was turning into a 'netizen' anytime soon if I God didn't intervene with my unhealthy routine. Re-calibration happened, I did some gardening after watching how on Youtube and getting free seeds from the office of City Agriculture of City of Santa Rosa through the office of our barangay; I compiled my prose and poems and published an e-book on my birthday; and I got back with my to be read books, there are few of them.