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To Love not Dictate : My Testimony

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For as long as I can remember I always felt in my heart that God exists, but my thoughts of who He is changed throughout the years.

My first experience of God’s answered prayers was when I was five years old. We were locked out of our house and as my Dad went to try to find the way of getting the spare key, it started to rain. As we were all standing underneath the eave outside in the rain, I felt a push to pray for it to stop raining so I looked up to the sky and I asked God to make it stop raining. Shortly after, it did. That could’ve been a coincidence, but interestingly, I can never forget about that moment.

My parents were Catholic and forced my siblings and I to go to church. I felt like it was a waste of my time, as I could be at home watching my favorite cartoon TV show, the Simpsons. Eventually I was forced to go to Saturday school at church for classes that would lead to being “confirmed.” I went religiously, but instead of learning, I slept in class. I never got confirmed. Actually, I stopped going. Somehow I convinced my parents to stop bringing me.

Even if I stoped and my “confirmation” didn’t happen, I still reached out to God, but not with repeated prayers or what I read from a book. It was a normal conversation. It didn’t make sense to pray in repetition it’s like talking to someone repetitively…that’s annoying, that’s not a real conversation. I kept on having conversations with the Lord for years until my freshman year in college when I started an anthropology class. I didn’t realize that my faith was dwindling and I wasn’t praying much. That same semester I met a girl named, Yanni who asked me if I know what the meaning of life was. She invited me to church and from there, I met other women and studied the Bible with them. I was so surprised at the words in the Bible. I’ve always read the King James Versions and never understood the old English, but studying with others helped make the meaning behind the words clear to me & started to gain an understanding of it.

They seemed to emphasize sin and confession and to me it seemed like I needed to submit my life to Him because I was too weak to stop myself from sinning. I started to hide myself from theses women as I felt they were pushing bible studies on me without even asking if I wanted to or not. So I ran away from them and as I continued to read the Bible, I kept seeing contradictions. I made an attempt to not turn my life over to God but looking for words that I can use to justify not following Him. Living for God in my perspective was about living a tight path with dos and don’t rules. I didn’t want to live like that. I wanted to stick to the idea that I have full control over my life, but not too long after, I realized that I don’t.

I went to University in the South Bay, but lived in the mid-Bay Area. My commute to school took about 30 minutes. For two weeks I felt that I was going to get into an accident. Every time I felt that I would pray for God to protect me. Then one morning I woke up to take a placement test at school. As I was getting ready to go, I felt a push to dress with sturdy clothes so I wore my denim jeans, a hooded sweater and most importantly, my boots with a thick sole.

As I merged into the freeway, there we’re a few cars closely surrounding me. As I turned the wheel back and forth, my car spun around with each turn. It wasn’t raining but somehow, I seemed to have lost control of my car no matter how I turned the wheel. There I was, thinking I had full control over my life. When I realized that I didn’t have any control over my car, I reached out to God, surrendered control to Him and put the protection of my life into His hands. I saw my car going straight to the tail end of a van and letting go, I prayed, “God, please protect me,” then shut my eyes.

I don’t remember feeling much after that except my car tumbling around and a heavenly embrace. All sounds disappeared around me except for the sound of chimes. When my car stopped tumbling , it landed upside down and when it stopped moving, the sounds around me came back, the traffic and everything else. I opened my eyes to shattered glass everywhere and hanging from my seatbelt upside down. I moved my legs to step on all the shattered glass on floor of the freeway. With sturdy boots, my feet were heavily protected. As soon as my feet touched the ground, I was able to release the seat belt I was hanging from.

Shortly after I got out of the car, there were people that came asking if I was ok. A man put a blanket over me to help with the shock. Eventually the paramedics came and the people that were there to help me disappeared. I don’t even remember them leaving, but as soon as the paramedics arrived, they were nowhere to be seen. I still wonder from this day if some or all where angels.

I remember being in the back of the paramedic van. There was one man in there, telling me how my condition was a miracle, that car accidents similar to the one I’ve just been in, usually result in death or in critical condition, usually an eyeball or brain left behind on the freeway.

When I got to the hospital, they tested my urine for internal bleeding. The results showed that I was completely fine. The only marks I had were tiny red dots on my hand from the broken glass and small bruises on my knee that hit the steering wheel. The doctor said it was a miracle, as did many other people involved. My car was totaled. The van that my car hit flipped to the side. The couple inside was perfectly fine. Thank God!

This was a turning point in my life. While I was on the freeway being interviewed by highway patrol, that was my first proclamation that I was going to follow Christ from now on. That moment helped me to realize that God does not want me to surrender to Him so I can live a life of do and do not, but the truth that was made clear was that He loves me and that I don’t know what’s best for me. My surrender meant God taking my hand at times I’ve gotten off the wrong path and leading me back to the path leading to life, joy, peace and love. Who am I to doubt the one that created me. He knows me more than I know myself.

Several months later, I gave my life to God through baptism & I’ve never been the same. After I got baptized, I see, feel and hear the Lord with me. I’ll never forget sitting at the park the day after and instead of my mind being filled with life’s troubles, all I could hear around me was nature: the birds singing, the water moving and the leaves swaying in the wind. That was the first time I felt God’s peace and when I stepped out of the totaled car that day, that was the first time I felt God’s love for me & my faith came that day as I realized that what the Bible says about His love for us…is the truth. His love is as a Father to His child in a pure and incorruptible way.

Foundation Boundaries and Curses

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Life can be frustrating when hard-times rain down. Sometimes devastating events in life happen cause a turn in our direction, possibly in ways of doubt, fear, anger or self mutilation in one form or another. Most of the times the pain spills out and hurts others around us. As everyone hates the person gone mad at a public gathering and needs to be punished for life.

Believe it or not, God loves everyone, even a psychopath gone wild. I’ve never come across a perfect person in life and I am 100% sure I never will as we live in a world where there are people in pain, children being ripped apart on the inside by people that are acting out in pain, having also been hurt. It’s a cycle or sometimes known as a curse that runs down the family waiting for a breakthrough.

Life will always throw fast balls and if you don’t move fast enough, you’ll be hit hard, bruised, maybe never heal, toppled down, never able to stand again.

With the best outfit and hair style, we can look like a million bucks from the outside, but bleeding on the inside or empty with nothing to keep us grounded.

What is your foundation? What keeps you grounded? Acceptance is a good thing to an extent, but how far do we go? Sometimes limits can keep us from falling off the edge, from losing ourselves or our path in life. What keeps us from crossing over into paths of destruction?

Matthew 7:24-27 says, “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

A strong foundation will keep one grounded during the storms in life and wisdom from the God’s Word sets the boundary to keep one out of a life of darkness. Generation after generation a curse can be broken at the cross.

Paths of Life

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Born so innocent without a clue of what’s out there that can damage you. Then as time passes and the aging continues, life throws many surprises at you. As you try to follow the right path, you are steered in the wrong direction through temptation, pressure, force or simply…deceit. After walking in the darkness for so long, you loose your way, you begin to forget about who you are. The media becomes your compass along with the majority of the crowd, mostly negative, and when you realize that you’re not at the mark of society, you feel like you’ve failed, desperately seeking justification or approval from external factors or the words of others. Now, you are more deeply lost.

That dark long road was wrong after all and it’s too hard to turn around and go back.

Look to the light that shines in the darkness. As long as you’re not in hell, that light is around, waiting for you to turn around and surrender your will.

It’s hard to surrender when you still think you can save yourself, but the most powerful thing, is surrendering to the one that loves you so much that He died for you. He took all the despair and grief in exchange for you to have hope and joy.

He’s there…all you have to do is surrender, place all of it at the feet of Jesus. He will carrying you out of the darkness and into the light…the right path, full of purpose, peace, joy, strength, forgiveness and love.

End Times Chaos

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Photo by LT Chan on Pexels.com

Thinking and seeing all the chaos in the streets brings me back to dreams that I’ve had in the past that seem to be very similar. In my dream there’s chaos in the streets, people running around every where in panic. The streets are filthy, trash everywhere. It’s dark with the only source of light being the street lamps. People are screaming and running for safety and I find myself in the midst of all this.

My heart is pumping hard and I’m running from something after me that means harm. I’m running up stairs, up to rooftops and jumping from the top of one building to the next. As I continue to jump, I realize how long I’m able to stay in the air, in fact, I am able to fly. My vision is now far above the streets, as a bird looks down from the sky and I can see the crowds running in fear.

As I fly further away from the chaos, I find a tree, hide and rest. With a big breath of relief, I sigh. Shortly after I’d wake up and thank God it was just a dream. For all the times I had that dream, I would wake up thanking God that it wasn’t real, but these recent days with the riots and looting, that nightmare doesn’t seem too far away. Another thought after waking up from the nightmare, would be the thought of those events occurring in the last days as it is written in the Bible, that maybe it’s coming close.

Chaos in the Streets

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Photo by LT Chan on Pexels.com

Thinking and seeing all the chaos in the streets brings me back to dreams that I’ve had in the past that seem to be very similar. In my dream there’s chaos in the streets, people running around every where in panic. The streets are filthy, trash everywhere. It’s dark with the only source of light being the street lamps. People are screaming and running for safety and I find myself in the midst of all this.

My heart is pumping hard and I’m running from something after me that means harm. I’m running up stairs, up to rooftops and jumping from the top of one building to the next.

As I continue to jump, I realize how long I’m able to stay in the air, in fact, I am able to fly. My vision is now far above the streets, as a bird looks down from the sky and I can see the crowds running in fear.

As I fly further away from the chaos, I find a tree, hide and rest. With a big breath of relief, I sigh. Shortly after I’d wake up and thank God it was just a dream.

For all the times I had that dream, I would wake up thanking God that it wasn’t real, but these recent days with the riots and looting, that nightmare doesn’t seem too far away.

Another thought after waking up from the nightmare, would be the thought of those events occurring in the last days as it is written in the Bible, that maybe it’s coming close.

Dreams Under Certain Circumstances

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The other night I had a dream. I don’t even remember what I dreamt about, but what I remember was feeling an unseen presence in the room. It didn’t feel like a dark presence nor a holy presence. It just felt like something was there starring at me, watching me sleep. I didn’t freak out, as I’ve had other dreams where I struggled to wake up, felt chills up and down my spine and some unseen force pushing me down. I could not discern if it were a dream or not, because I saw everything in my room, but I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

The worst was several years back, when I woke up to the word, “demon” coming out of my radio. There were times when I would wake up with a deep scratch underneath my arm and one night when I was having another freaky dream where I struggled to wake up, seeing everything around my room was a small creature beside my bed holding a lamp stand. Whenever I had these dreams I would call on the name of Jesus and the lingering dark presence in my room would go away and I would wake up feeling extremely exhausted.

I remember the night when I slept, after I gave my life to God through water baptism, I had a similar dream. I could see everything in the room, but this time, there were no chills up and down my spine. In my dream, I was laying down in water that went right past my ears and can hear and feel the movement of the water. I felt nothing but peace and God with me and the dreams I had previously of a dark presence trying to stop me from waking up never occurred after that.

Unhealthy Vegetarian Ways

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fake meat

Vegetarian sounds healthy and in many ways it is, but when it comes to fake meat, it becomes very unhealthy. I remember looking at the back of package of fake cheese and seeing all the chemicals used to make it taste like cheese. For those that are lactose-intolerant, I get it, but if you’re eating fake cheese to be vegan, your eating unhealthy and better off eating the real thing.

After reading several health related books written by doctors who believe in the science of food and how it heals our body, the worst thing to do it eat food that’s not real food. For example, the package of “beyond meat” typically used on impossible burgers contains ingredients that doesn’t belong in the body. It contains highly processed ingredients with the addition of chemical preservatives or what makes it bind together to act as a patty. Our bodies are created to receive and use nutrients from food. The more processed the food, the less nutrients and the more preservatives, the longer it will store up in our bodies.

When food is closest to its raw form, the more nutrients it contains and if the body is using the nutrients, the less of it gets stored. Eating food with chemicals will damage it in different areas. If you’re vegetarian to be healthy, you might want to stay away from the fake stuff. Not too mention there are nutrients that our body needs that is mainly found in meat, which brings up the importance of feeding the body with natural food from all food groups.