Inner Strength in Low Times of Life

This is going to be a controversial issue since not everybody in this world believes in God, or if ever, even those who believe in God have varied and conflicting concepts of what God is. With this premise, I won't discuss God's nature according to my understanding, I rather share some things I did when I created a goal and was committed to achieve it; achieving it with that spiritual strength that everything happened like a miracle.

The choice of that picture with Jesus is actually just symbolic of my strong belief to the cosmic forces that govern the universal conspiracy of events and phenomenon both in the personal level and the collective universal incidents.

Man can do everything within his own discernment and capacity and if he succeeds on whatever he endeavours as a result of his knowledge, skills and applications of everything that he is and does then he is considered successful; but what about if after all he does he still fails?

This situation reminds me of what I did during my "dark ages", yes that is what I call those years when everything that happened in all major areas in my life were simultaneously depressing; my only son, a school drop-out and a father at 17, I was jobless, my husband just died and my only daughter, younger of my two children, was in college; to mention just a few.

It was like a dead-end of my existence but in my introspections I just did three things; first I remember who I am; second, I remember only all my feelings of love and the feelings of those who love me; and last, I enhanced my faith in the Universal forces.

"I remember who I am."

Remembering who I am is my core belief and perception about my self both as being alone and as my belief on how people see me.

For this belief in myself to work in my life at the time when everyone in my situation would have gone around asking for help from friends and relatives, I spent some hours every day listing down and writing in narrative every major past event of my life where I felt like I was a superstar; I remember my achievements in school, my position in my family, my home, my friends and colleagues and my promotions and commendations at work. I kept myself busy "metaphorming", drawing, sketching, colouring and writing down beautiful memories of my hey days. I remember in details, repeating and hearing in my mind the appreciations and admirations of the people around me when they believed in me, then I thanked my God for creating me the way I am.

I remember only all my feelings of love.

I remember everything, both hurt feelings and the beautiful feelings of love but I chose only the feelings of love to focus on in my memory; I had learned to effectively dissolve all the hurt feelings then forgive the people including myself.

To do this; I listed down the names of those who hurt me both intentionally and tactlessly, then I tried to feel again the hurt that I often cried to wash off the bad emotions before I released the bad feelings and let go of the offenders. These are difficult tasks but I put effort in purging myself from the energy that was preventing me to move on.

When all the hurt feelings were released, I was amazed by the resulting beautiful feelings of love that replaced them. Only then did I to love myself and others unconditionally. This also reminded me of the depth of God's forgiving love to humanity. Whether this is a fact or a fiction, this method of seeing God as the source of an unfathomable love works for me. This process also caused me to see the beauty in nature and life.

I enhanced my faith in the Universal Forces and put my trust in God.

This is actually the core of all that I call miracles in my existence.

In my family, as a little girl and until I left for the missionary school at 15, I used to hear my mother sang these "...love lifted me...when nothing else could help.." and "...His eyes are on the sparrows and I know He watches me..."

To enhance my faith, I used words; powerful words, especially those wonderful words that I lived by. Most of these words are inspiring words from the Bible and some are in songs, poems and verses I learned in school. In particular situations, I used affirmations such as; "Where ever I am, God is and all is well." "I, Jenny, am health, wealth and success." in first, second and third person; I borrowed this affirmation from Shakti Gawain's book "Creative Visualization".

The goal I had when I made the commitment was stated these ways; "I, Jenny, now have a wonderful job with a wonderful pay." and "I, Jenny, am now back to my position as the Department Head of BSBA in SPCF."

Then I did the spectacular, I made a commitment to myself and to my God. In those times when I had stopped going to church for a decade or so, I remembered to visit two churches every Sunday without any absences for a year; three hours in the morning in a Baptist Church and one hour in the evening in a Catholic Church; I did everything in the spirit of fun and to test myself on whether I am capable of abiding with my commitments; and to make it more difficult, I vowed to bring Ma'am Veron with me every Sunday in both churches. Ma'am Veron is my best friend for 17 years now and she was the Dean in the Computer Science Department in our school, SPCF.

I am not sure if it was a coincidence that after a year of my consistent church visits, I was summoned by the administration in our school; my position as a Coordinator of the Social Science Department was given back to me. I did not deserve that because due to the circumstances of having my late husband being bedridden where I was the sole caregiver, I was too depressed to even ask permission for a leave; I left my position in school 5 years back with the bad reputation of AWOL or absence without leave and breach of contract.

Now I can see how a strong belief could make a difference in our lives even in a way that is unique to us.