Re-post

Earlier, my sister sent me this...and I must say that it's really inspiring for me. As what I replied to her, "swak na swak sakin!" Haha!

BEAUTIFICATION

By Nova Arias-Sevilla

“Are you single by choice?”

I got that question a lot — and I mean a LOT. Usually I would reply with a “yes” if only to end that topic of conversation, but after years of being asked that, I resolved to give an honest reply to humor the asker… and me: “I’m single by fate.”

Like any hopeless romantic, I dreamed that my love life would be a fairy tale. That’s why it was such a horror to see my adult life unfolding before me as a nightmare. I wish I could share the details of my unfortunate love life here, but trust me when I say they were sordid. One broken heart after another made me lose interest in dating. Waste of time, I thought. Worse, I almost believed that no one would take me seriously. I was always the dumpee, you see. And so I worked like a horse to be productive and keep my mind preoccupied. At the end of each day, though, I was drowning in misery and insecurity. I lived like this for more than 10 years.

One day my best friend lent to me an audio CD. She told me it was a live recording of Neale Donald Walsch’s talk when the bestselling American author of Conversations with God visited Manila. I haven’t read any of his books, and I was aware that the Catholic Church advises Catholics to be discerning about literature of this kind, but I listened to the CD upon my best friend’s insistence that the talk would lift me up.

“Do not seek the one,” Mr. Walsch advised the lady who asked him how she could find Mr. Right. “Instead, be the one you would like to find…. And when you’ve become the most beautiful person you could ever be, the one who is right for you will find you.” Wham! He’s right… I need to find myself again, to love myself again…

In the process of resurrecting and beautifying me, I learned to enjoy being single. I was free to do things that I wanted to do: I went out with my barkada (friends) any time at any day, I went on out-of-town trips with my church choir, I pampered myself with weekly trips to the spa, and I spent quality time with my family, to name a few. I also learned to appreciate myself and see me for who I really am. Amidst all these, God revealed His glory to me through the people that surrounded me at work. He became my new best friend who kept me company in my alone time, so much so that I found myself telling Him that if He alone truly suffices, then teach me to embrace singlehood if that was His will for me. Oh, it hurt to give up my deepest longing to get married and have kids, especially that I was approaching the big 4-0, but my heart told me it was time to let go and let God. I served God through my work at SVP, through my church service, and I welcomed doing other apostolic work.

Three months after I turned 39, God gave me the biggest surprise. I got reacquainted with my childhood sweetheart on Facebook, and little did we both know that we would end up together as husband and wife. We have been married for two months now. The most bizarre thing was that we led similar lives and suffered the same heartaches through the years, almost at the same period of time. Maybe now I can say that I’m married by fate, tee-hee.

I see now that God must’ve wanted me to fix myself first so that I could be the person He created me to be. For how could I be fit for marriage when I was filled with insecurities? How could I be an encouraging partner when I felt worthless? How could I make my husband happy when I was unhappy with myself?

My biggest learning: No other person can complete me. I needed to work on myself, to discover my full potential, to be the one I wanted to find, so that I could be found. I needed to be complete so that I can wholly love another. And it was God’s presence in my life that helped me to become whole again. Truly, He suffices.

Starting Fresh

Today, I've decided that I'm going to make this blog what I want it to be. It will reflect on who I am now, different...better.

I'm going to write or re-blog all positive things I think or read. I noticed that all I wrote before are just negative. All I do was to whine and that's the reason why the same things keep on happening over and over again. And I refuse to settle for that feeling.

By the time I made a decision that I won't go through what I went through over the past, I started to become happy and peaceful. The things I thought matters most, just seems like non-sense now, my vices, the unnecessary night out with the people who I thought are my friends, etc.
I learned to lean on God, among other things. I pray to become the woman God planned me to be. It has been two months since I made that decision and I never looked back. I learned so much from my past and I acknowledge all my mistakes, I promised myself I wouldn't go back to that...ever again, I wouldn't even want to feel that way again.

On my birthday (29 September), it was a month after I decided to move forward and leave it all to God, to let His plans for me take place. That time, I was talking to my sister, and she told me how proud she was that I'm a totally different person than what she witnessed a month prior to my birthday. I told her that I felt so much better, I feel complete (rebuilding my relationship with God and my family), it's heart-warmingly good, that I'm crying because I feel truly happy. I realized that I was chasing after the wrong things and I make decisions based on my emotions...most of the time, while what I needed after all is to trust God, to trust that He has bigger plan for me than what I have for myself. My sister said, if you feel happy now, what more after a year, or two, or in the future. I should be more excited about what's going to be in store for me after a year. I'm really looking forward to see what God planned for me.

I'm still a work in progress and I know that the challenges will not stop here. I'm still dealing with a lot of issues, but I know that I'm so much stronger now and I know I could face all those weaknesses. I take it one day at a time.

In the future, I'll be posting about what I'm learning. I hope I could be an inspiration to some people, for them to know that you can always turn things around and we always have God who saves us each and every time. It's never too late.