Forgiving Myself

After everything I had said and done, it seemed to me that God couldn’t use me because I myself am struggling just like every other human on this planet. I am not an exemplar of anything; people see me as someone to look up to but they had not known what I had been capable of, of what I had done.

So I underwent training as a witness under the Campus Crusade for Christ. We were asked to witness on the street, I was having a hard time for it, fearing rejection. I talked to one or two people though and at the time, I thought it was miniscule and pathetic. Most of the persons who were at the basic level shared to more people as opposed to me, who was at the advanced level of the evangelistic course. It lowered my self-esteem and further deflated me from witnessing work, resulting in failing to link up with the rest of the Campus Crusaders in my own university.

For so long, I evaded the responsibility of trying to share to other people directly as I preferred the indirect approach of showing others what a Christian life is. It was still difficult though as my life isn’t an exemplar of what a Christian truly is. This is in conjunction with my struggles that I’ve been trying to get through. Then it happened I was chosen by our church congregation to lead our youth group.

It led me to changes in my life that I had to make in order to prepare teaching them. As I cannot face them and tell them to do something without me doing it myself. In every time I teach, I always hurt myself as I never forgave myself for my sins I had committed against God; that I didn’t deserve to lead anyone to Christ because I was so unworthy. However, I believed in those young people and with them, the youth group expanded into approximately 70 people. I never acknowledged that it was my doing but theirs, and that they were an instrument of God’s will as I frequently excused myself for my academics. It was like I left them on their own. But they were never alone.

I had doubts of my own as to my leadership of the youth but I believed in them. God took me to Thailand and to Third Wave 2012 with other young Nazarene leaders. Third Wave 2012 made me realize something: it doesn’t matter how many sins you have committed, and how many witnesses that you have possibly shared to but didn’t. The most important thing is that you forgive yourself as God has forgiven you. One can beat himself for his past or he can get past that and start believing that Jesus Christ is there to keep saving you, to keep holding on in spite of everything.

Reflecting on things that were…

Hello, there are many things to talk about but one thing that nags at me is my relationship with the opposite sex. It is true that my friends are mostly female but that isn’t the point of discussion. I have been reflecting on how I lost these friends of mine to others, to their relationships with their boyfriends. I practically never had a girlfriend and probably never will: it just exacerbates the feeling that I have of feeling alone.

Me and Cladette

The person beside me in this picture is a dear friend and I admire her dearly. Several failures of trying to raise a relationship from a platonic one to romantic one has caused to try prevent myself from ever getting into such a relationship. I am afraid I’m still hung up on the past and I cannot let go…it isn’t ideal but it will be how I deal with such things. However, I know for a fact that in spite of that, in their presence they make me smile because they’re rays of light shining down in the darkness I am in. I have several pictures of my friends whom I truly admire and also know it’s impossible to reach them.

Me and Jilliane

Me and Angelie

I just hope that no other follows my example of loneliness. There are some worst places in the world however, the worst is a prison of one’s own making. I made a prison cell of my own, where I’m surrounded by familiar things. All those girls that I’ve known for most of my life. My friends. I only prefer to keep those friendships rather than lose them in my bid to raise it higher. However, I also know not trying again isn’t good just because I’m afraid.

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I’m skeptical of the various things people tell me about the subject.Trust in God as you always have, as they always say. God always had my back all my life in everything…even though when I fall. I would like only for things to go back the way things were. At the time, my desire was to serve God…was so innocent back then…didn’t count the cost back then or rather didn’t know the cost. Now, it’s still the same game but with a new perspective.

I don’t blame God for my problems because I know for a fact that they’re self-inflicted. That it is pride to try to solve them myself first; only when I fail will I go to him. It seems that in this arena of relationships, I would like to convince myself that I’ll be alone forever, to deaden my emotions and feelings, to detach myself from all those things. That way, I’ll be more objective and I think I’ll accomplish more through that. But these things have a way telling me that they’re here to stay.

No matter how much I try, there will always be emotion in me and I will always be affected by them. I hope that God decides to send someone already, to save me from this utter loneliness. Though it is difficult, I pray for strength in this difficult time of mine.