2013: MIDNIGHTS. MIRACLES. MORNINGS

"...weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Psalms 30:5c

The year 2013 can simply be summarized with three M's: Midnights. Miracles. Mornings.

Before I anything else, I would like to begin this year-ender article with an attitude of gratitude and praise to the One who created and orchestrated it all.

All praises be to God whose love and mercy and grace did much abound this year. 2013 truly made me love Him more, because He has been pursuing me and loving me even before I turned to Him. And this is also the reason why I was able to share and spread His love more than I ever did. True enough, His love has been shed abroad in my heart, overflowing enough for my heart to contain it, that it radiates inevitably to the outside. This glow comes from Him. This light is His. And 2013 is the perfect manifestation of it all. That is why this may sound like my year, but really, it is His.

Also, I would like to thank Him for the previous years, the prequels, especially the historical year 2012. Without 2012, there won't be 2013. Everything in 2012 has been a pre-requisite for 2013, this do I understand now. 2012 was both an awakening and a transitional year for me, from one step, from one stage or chapter of life to the next, which has dawned this year. 2012 made me realize the need of such transition, such permanent change for a better, stronger, and braver child of Him. Therefore, I thank Him for 2012.

I've prayed and hoped that 2013 would be a better than best year, and it happened, but not in the way I imagined. Indeed, "God moves in mysterious ways." The catch is, as always, I did not understand the mystery of His ways at first....

....and that was the season of MIDNIGHT.

Not everything I've planned 2013 to be happened at the first quarter of 2013. In fact, the opposite happened. How can I appreciate it? I had no idea why, neither did I hear anything from Him that time. All I did was to wait...for some light at the end of the tunnel. I clinged on to the verse that says "Joy cometh in the morning." I knew God was preparing something grand for me, and I need to have enough faith to claim it in an attitude of trusting Him. However, time came where I grew weary, even holistically weak, and those were also the months where I have become far from Him, as I've lost sight (ironic enough, when you lose faith in Him, you technically lose sight. That is the wonder of faith. Ironically beautiful). I began to drown....

....until I cried out to Him for all I knew was that I needed a MIRACLE from Him.

I did not have a huge amount of faith in Him to really embrace such fact. But He used all that I had that time, even my faith with a size of a mustard seed, to move mountains, to rescue me, and to pour down miracles on me. Yes. I thank Him for "Total Surrender", for Summer 2013, for the arrival of "18: the Sweetest Year" --The season that surpassed expectations, torn judgments and broke walls made by pride and superiority. I personally first saw the need for that idealistic, even legalistic and materialistic side of me (that made me so critical and judgmental for 4 years) to be obliterated way back at camp. My eyes were first opened to a bigger world God has for me, and this awakening lead to the creation of many wonderful bonds, memories, and blessings.

As I moved on in those times, residues of resentments were all swept away by the flood of miracles that overwhelmed me. And finally, no more blockage in the drainage system for His love to flow so freely and passionately. Still life wasn't perfect, as soon as my majorship year began, the world tried to lure me back to where I used to be, and going against the tides became harder. I fell. I got drowned. I lost strength, but God lead me to the Rock that is higher than I, telling me to look at the horizons....

....for finally, the MORNING has come. Ironic again, this happened in the midst of Habagat. Indeed God has His own ways of reminding His children of His purpose for them, of their worth in His eyes, and for me, it was this high time where God showed me the need to eradicate my ideals on life, on myself, on my future, on my surroundings and situations, and that I need to walk in the reality--this. This life which He gave, which He wants me to walk in. It is a life far from humanistic expectations, from worldly views and aspirations. It is a selfless, understanding, compassionate, forgiving, and peaceable life, governed by the very essence of the simplicity of Him, His Word, the only Truth in this life. I realized that the life God wants for me is not a life where I put so much expectations on yourself. I knew I will never achieve them because you I was the one who made them, and God didn't design our Christian life to be expectations/human/society-governed. He wants our lives to be simply governed by Him and just Him alone. He wants us to see things the way He does, not the way other dictates it to be. He wants to do His great things through us, and so we must let Him. His work transcends everything, and whatever He has begun, He shall surely finish. Whatever He has promised, He shall surely fulfill. People may not understand the work He is doing; society may not even accept it, but should it matter when God is the one working and using such humanly unimaginable circumstances to make His children stronger, better, braver, and nearer to Him and His purpose for them? Humans made life complicated when God intended it to be simple. Let us not further complicate life but rather live in the simplicity He has originally designed for His children.

This made the last 4 months of the year a breeze and a bliss for me. Because I was no longer carrying an unnecesaary weight filled with ideals, others' opinions and expectations of my life, unnecessary stress and pressures, man-made plans and ambitions. All forsaken. All I'm now embracing is a simpler, happier life, where adversities and circumstances and situations in life are all seen from a top-view--that is--from God's perspective--a view from Above.

This is the morning, where you feel as light as the clouds, as alive as the wind blowing the trees and the chirping birds too, and as passionate, radiant as the early morning dawn, shining with the Bright and Morning Star.

2013 is where weeping endured for a night, miracles followed, and joy came in the morning.

Now we are all looking forward for the rise of more mornings this 2014. Yes, it needs more midnights too, but as His Word says, mornings come after the night. More miracles shall transpire, and we shall see a brighter morning dawning.

Thankful for this better than the best year of 2013, and hopeful for the even better, even more miraculous and brighter 2014.

"Would you dare to believe that you still have a reason to sing?'Cause the pain that you've been feeling is just the hurt before the healing...'cause the pain that you've been feeling is just thedark before the morning..."

This year, I want to thank God in advance, for 2013. To God be the glory!