If you love someone, you can really get hurt ...

Love is a risk. It's a common reality I share with you as I experience loving and trusting people and then really get hurt. C.S. Lewis is right when he writes, "Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken ... The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all dangers and perturbations of love, is hell." These past months, I've learned to forgive in a deeper way. I've learned to respond in love even if the other continues to break my trust. At the very least, it helps me to also examine where God wants me to grow in my relationship with Him and in my own attitudes and behavior. During these times, I sense so strongly God putting His hand in my hand. Can there be any other better and more loving, healthy place than that?

Writing as Healing Therapy

I've always found writing as therapeutic. Writing is a way of healing, having been researched since the 70s. It's a medically recognized safe port in the physical, mental, relational, and emotional pains of life. By writing about your past, your struggles, and storms, you may discover a sense of personal freedom and healing. In my own case, when I wrote my book, "God's Inner Healing," a lot of my motivation was to document what the Lord was doing as I went through a wounded heart and how it may in turn help many others heal. In writing, I discovered that I can really be good at lying to my self! So with the help of the Holy Spirit, I was helped to be more deeply honest to God, others, and my self. I believe if I had not written, I wouldn't be nearly as open, freer, and whole as I am now. My writing in my book, alongside my online journals and articles, did develop a kind of life of its own.... If you are currently struggling or in pain right now -- whether physically, emotionally, relationally, financially etc - , try "writing therapy."

Resources:

Writing as Therapy (from Wikepedia)
Writing as Therapy for Immune-Mediated Physical Illnesses
Writing as Therapy for Mental Illness.
Writing to Erase Effects of Trauma
Writing About Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process

What's With Katrina and Kho?

Does an individual who commit wrong really get away? If you're a net citizen, you've possibly heard of the latest big moral scandal in Philippine show biz. A sex video of popular actress Katrina and a medical doctor, Kho, has been spreading like wildfire online and offline. Now, a senator filed a public expose condemning the immorality and dishonorable conduct of the doctor against women like Katrina. In the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper today, it was even reported that the said doctor has 40 sex videos with different women. Katrina, the "victim," gathered enough media and public support to file a case too to strip doc Kho of license to practice professional medicine .... Well, what can we say. It takes two to tango. More likely, this seems a case again of sin both "done to me" and "done by me?" It's so sad to witness such an embarrassing spectacle -- supposed-to-be "role models" committing indignity and dishonor before the public's eyes. Even if the wrongdoing is not publicly exposed, does one get away scot-free? No. What appears to be pleasure or reward is short-lived. God gives us a choice: do right or do wrong. Choose good or evil. The Lord is teaching us that for every choice, there is a corresponding consequence. "You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked" (Psalm 91:8). At the end of the day, whether or not the gavel is slammed down on evil, the wrongdoer will stand before God. And God is just. That's the big picture.... In the meantime, there is hope and healing for Katrina and Kho if they both turn away from their former deeds and turn to God. It's saying to God, "Lord, I ask for Your forgiveness for my sins. I ask that you change my heart and save me. I receive You as my personal Savior and Lord of my life. From hereon, I will obey and live for You." This sets both Katrina and Kho truly free, healed, and restored to wholeness.

Is Your Church A Healing Community?

Of all places, I believe that the church is still better equipped to care for the needs of the weary, lonely, and suffering. The church offers not just spiritual support, but also emotional, mental, practical, and social support. To be rightly related to God and warmly related to His creatures is the best medicine for life's ills.

Now some reality check. Unfortunately, you will not find the warmth and healing you need in all churches.

Let me quote Paul Tournier below before I make some comments about the present state of the church as a healing community:

"It is the church alone, nevertheless, which can answer the world of today's tremendous thirst for community. Christ sent His disciples two by two. The great body of the early Christians, according to the Bible, were "of one heart and soul; they had all things in common" (Acts 4:32; 2:44). Instead of demonstrating the way to fellowship to the world today, the church seems the embody the triumph of individualism. The faithful sit side by side without even knowing each other; the elders gather in a little partliament with its parties and formalities; the pastors do their work without reference to one another."

The church is called to be a "healing, therapeutic community." It is called to carry on the ministry of our Lord Jesus who said, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11: 28). It is therefore sad and tragic when hurting people attend our church services and leave without a healing touch.

Author Gary Chapman said that some churches have become a "mutual aid society for those who pay their dues, rather than a lighthouse for battered ships." You would even find individuals in churches who'd exploit, abuse, or betray you. As Jesus said, "the wheats and weeds grow together until the time of the harvest" (Matthew 13).

One lonely, old woman remarked: "I sit in a pew next to a warm body, but I draw no heat. I am in the same faith but draw no act of love. I sing the same hymns with those next to mem but I hear only my own voice. When it is finished, I leave as I came in, hungry for a touch of someone, someone to tell me I am a person worth something to them. Just a smile would do it perhaps, some gesture or sign that I am not a stranger."

But don't give up. Search. Reach out. Take initiative. Be concerned for the well being of others. As you do, you'll find that concern returned to you.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you." (Matthew 7: 7-8)

When Others Have Never Been Through What You Have

Haven't you noticed? Times when what you've experienced in life separates you from others? I mean from "others" who have never been through what you have. Paul, in writing to the Christians in Philippi, once talked about the "fellowship of His suffering." The early Christians were together members of an "exclusive fellowship" who knew pain, hardship, and persecution in Christ's name. They loved and supported each other out of that common bond ... One time, a church member approached a "high-end" pastor because of family difficulties. The church member lamented that, no matter how much she tried to explain where she was, it's meaningless to the pastor whom she described to be indifferent. What were just mere words to the pastor were a language to her! So she stopped trying. The pastor was not a member of the "exclusive fellowship!" ... Very few, including pastors, if any, voluntarily enroll in this fellowship. Indeed, this is one of those things I never learned in the seminary or academic classroom. And that is, part of God's medicine for His children's spiritual health and growth is to be enriched, purified, and changed into His image through pain, brokenness, and suffering. God feeds us through this exercise until the world sees His reflection in us.

Paul and Alice Blackmore, one of my earliest disciplers

In the late 80s, I got to work with a Canadian missionary, Paul Blackmore, for some brief time. He was one of the firsts to usher me into discovering my gifts in ministry. After about a couple of years, he had to return to Canada with his family. Now, after a long time, I accidentally bumped into him in cyber space! I had fond memories of bro Paul because he used to "argue" with my Dad whenever we pay him a visit in our Makati house. And I used to eat "balut" with him!

When Marriage Becomes a Moral Crisis

Many years ago, when I was still a young Christian, I was briefly mentored by a neighbor in Makati who was an American missionary. He and his wife worked as church planters and authors in Asia under the supervision of a large Christian denomination. After a long time serving together as Christian missionaries, the wife confessed that she was not a Christian when they got married and became one only just recently. It's a kind of shock. But at least, it had a happy ending.

In the lives of thousands around the world, men and women live life in that most difficult of all relationships: life and marriage to a non-Christian. Some survive and manage better than others. For a lot, it was a long, hard road, even a disaster instead of a delight. Its truly hard to share a life with someone when you don't both love God, serve and obey Him. One's spiritual life is the most important part of a marriage relationship.

Biblically speaking, read the apostle Paul who exhorted Christians not to be "unequally yoked together with unbelievers." Read also Ezra who warned a lot of men on marrying "strange wives" because they dilute the faith. And they cause children and people to stray from God. Or even see the example of king Solomon. Despite his wisdom, he fell from faith and put up idols due to his wives, inviting God's anger.

What about this case? Enrico (not his real name) married a fellow church worker. After many years of marriage, the wife committed adultery and has been continuing the sin and living a non-Christian, worldly life since then. Did Enrico marry a non-Christian woman in the first place? He thought he married a Christian woman but now he's not sure. How does Enrico live life as a believer from here on with an unrepentant wrongdoer for a wife?

I Dreamed a Dream So Different From The Hell I'm Now Living: Everyone was laughing at 48 year old, single, jobless Susan, but she's now #1 UK Talent!

Like millions of others around the world, I listened and was teary-eyed watching a video this week. It's a lesson God has been showing all along in His Word -- and that is, how wrong snap impressions can be.

Meet Susan Boyle, an unlikely global singing sensation. Everybody laughed at her when she joined a top singing contest in UK and faced the crowds. It's a common mentality of culture who "judges by appearances." In a world of superficiality, people tend to judge a book by its cover. She's 48, single (never dated or had been kissed!),and unemployed who took care of her aged mother for many years till her death at age over 90. A church volunteer, she shares a flat with a cat. But now, Susan Boyle has become a global superstar!

Watch this biggest surprise you would ever have, a multi-million hit, now at youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent
by dwarthy

====
Here's the lyrics of "I Dreamed a Dream" from musical Les Miserables sang by Susan Boyle:

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high and life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving

Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they turn your hope apart
As they turn your dreams to shame

And still I dream he’d come to me
That we would live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from the hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed."

============
Amazing, a wake up call for all of us. Do you have a dream? Everything is possible... no matter how things look!

Know more about SUSAN BOYLE here.

CNN Sees A Growing "Motherless Generation" in the Philippines

What happens when a mother goes abroad to work and leaves the children behind?

While listening to a pastor today sharing a message on mothers, a number of my feelings and thoughts on "OFW mothers" got confirmed. He made mention of and read a recent CNN news feature calling the growing numbers of children in the Philippines a "motherless generation." CNN explains that, with the world's ever-increasing demand for "female labor," there are now thousands of Filipino mothers leaving their homeland to work. According to the statistics, an unprecedented half of the new overseas job hires from the Philippines are now women and mothers.

According to the latest CNN news, here's the fruit of this: "What people don't know is what the Philippines will look like when the millions of children these workers are leaving behind grow up. A UNICEF-commissioned study estimates that roughly one in four kids — about 9 million children nationwide — have at least one parent working abroad. More and more, that means a mother living halfway around the world for 10 or 15 years at a time. The government rightly applauds "Overseas Filipino Workers," or OFWs as they are commonly called in the country, as heroes for the sacrifices they make for their families. But while children whose mothers are nurses in Canada or housekeepers in Hong Kong often go to good private schools and have MP3 players, there is a growing sentiment that trading global dollars for a generation raised on cell-phone minutes is a raw deal. Carandang, who works with families of migrant workers, named her most recent book after one boy's lament for his mother working as a caregiver in the Middle East: 'The light of the home is gone.' "

It's heartbreaking. Not something to be proud of. The Philippines is creating and has created not just a "father-less generation" since the start of this unprecedented exodus of OFWs. It is now increasingly developing a "mother-less generation" of Filipino children in the country. Indeed, as labor migration increases, broken families surges. This brings the question of whether or not being an OFW (overseas foreign worker), leaving the home behind, is moral and ethical.

Though I've worked with OFWs in the countries I visited, I've never been an OFW. Primarily, it's because I believe what God considers most important and I choose to raise my family and children here. Contending with culture, I've to check where my highest values lie. I know it's tough. And mostly the issue for millions of Filipinos is family financial survival. But still, with that reality recognized, wouldn't God be above all that and provide for His own? God has a way where there seems to be no other way. Ultimately, it's a matter of true faith in God and obedience to His will.

Do you Possess "Sozo"?

"Sozo" is an interesting Greek word. Jesus used it when He turned to the woman hemorrhaging for 12 years and said, "Your faith has made you well" (Matthew 9: 22). This Greek word means both "health" and "salvation." In Jesus' mind, faith and health are flip sides of the same coin. He is holistic. Jesus did not separate people into body, soul, and spirit. Throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus teaching, preaching, healing the sick, and casting out demons -- all at the same time (Matthew 4). Persons healed by Jesus found more than relief from physical illnesses. They received both salvation and physical healing.

WHO and UN Call Spirulina the "Superfood"

My eyes are being opened to a lot of things these days. One time, I was posed this question, "Do you know that an overwhelming majority of what you eat each day is poisoning you?" That makes me wonder about the meals I eat each day in the house, in the malls etc. Processed foods, meat, fried foods, and snacks take a big chunk -- and I discovered how much I regularly take in are actually nutritionally empty! In fact, most of them can lead me to disease. Hippocrates, Father of Medicine, is right when he said his famous dictum, "Let food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food." The good side of the news of all these that I'm discovering only now is this: I can protect myself by changing my food habits from here on. WHO (World Health Organization) and the UN (United Nations) name nature's longest living food (3.5 billion years old in fact!), SPIRULINA, as "superfood" of the century. It has a noble purpose -- to answer the health and wellness dilemmas of modern man. Spirulina is a high alkaline seaweed, natural food. It can be taken for a long time for it is non-toxic and has no side effects. Among many other things, it can change the weak acidic body condition to a healthy alkaline condition. Acidic body condition may cause many modern diseases like hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, gout, rheumatism, cancer etc. (http://holisticchristiancare.webs.com)