It’s Thanksgiving Day and something is resonating within me that’s pulling me in completely opposite directions, faith or fear. Despite the distress in my soul, I’m thankful with hope for the future. About ten years ago, I thought I might die. I remember crying out to the Lord in my distress. That night I had a dream that I was carrying a backpack full of currency from around the world, later realizing that I was an old lady in my dream, around the 70s. God knows I’ve always had the desire to travel the world before I leave this earth. That dream was a confirmation that I would be fine and soon after, physically, I was fine.
There’s been many times in my life where I’ve felt so blessed, walking on clouds with everything working out for me, but life always has it’s storms, some that can drive one to the ground just waiting to die, but I can honestly say that if God’s hand wasn’t there to pull me out, I’m not sure where I’d be today. Even in the toughest times, I know that I’ll get through it because my life is in the hands of a good God.
I’ve had my share of lonely times having spent some holidays alone, feeling like the world is against me or completely misunderstood. Even though harsh seasons come, the sun will eventually come out. At times it feels like the hard season will never end, but I have to trust God through the season, even if it doesn’t make any sense. I know He’s shaping me through the flame as fire pulls out the impurities of gold making it rise to the surface.
What I’m most thankful for today is my Lord and Savior Jesus, without Him, I would be dead on the inside, lifeless, empty and without hope. Because of Him, I don’t have to fear the future as He will give me the strength and tools that I need to take on the storms of life as they come and always be my backbone. I’m thankful for life and good health. I’m thankful that during uncertainty, I can put my faith on a faithful God full of mercy and grace.
I pray that HOPE, JOY and PEACE will come to anyone struggling to be thankful today, but to have hope for the future and to know that they’re not alone, God that you let them know that you are there with them and that they are loved by you, God that you would let them see the light after the storm and bring healing to their soul. In Jesus name.
It’s hard to face pain. It’s hard to forgive someone who hurt, corrupted, manipulated, stole…etc. from you. How rotten that person is to do such a thing! Or if it’s not a person, sometimes it’s anger toward God for allowing it to happen. Whatever the case, as much as we feel some person doesn’t deserve it, we must let go and forgive. We may not forget or let that person in our lives again, but we need to forgive. Matthew 6:15 says, “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Bitterness or un-forgiveness is like plaque in our heart. In a similar way, bitterness is like the plaque, not so much clogging up our arteries, but when it sits in our heart and keeps storing up, it blocks up all the love inside of us. We become angry inside for so long that we begin to loose remembrance of why. Instead of thinking about how someone doesn’t deserve your forgiveness think about someone who needs to forgive you. If you want to be forgiven by that person and or by God, then you should also forgive others, even if that person does not deserve it, but do it for freedom in your heart.
If it’s too hard to forgive, pray for a miracle, that God will give you to ability to forgive that person/s. Sometimes in doing so, He will help you understand that person & things will change. I pray that anyone who’s been harboring un-forgiveness will find the strength in God to release it and be set free.
I lived in many places in and outside of this country, but mostly in the Bay Area and I’ve seen changes throughout the years, mainly involving density in real estate development and a huge influx of people, but there’s one city that has definitely changed in other ways.
San Francisco by the many Piers has been an area with high pedestrian traffic, street performers, fresh air from the sea and bay, and seafood laid out on display with a smell that dominates the streets. I love walking down Pier 39 and looking at the shops, buying ice cream, crepes & chocolate. It’s still as enjoyable as I remembered, but deeper into downtown, the atmosphere has shifted.
What I remember the most about market street was the smell of garbage or steam coming from a grate on the sidewalk and the many cars and pedestrians moving through. Years later I find myself working in downtown San Francisco and many things have changed. When I would walk down Market Street on my way to work, I would see many obscene things. First off, Market Street is now a dwelling for the homeless and the next street south of it, Mission is even worse. Not to say that homeless people are terrible, but they’re in a position where they don’t have a choice, but to pee out in public because they don’t have their own bathroom.
There were days I would see someone in the sidewalk peeing exposed to the public and later wiping their butt after pooping on the sidewalk. That wasn’t the only time, but it was often enough for me to no longer be surprised when it happened. Then there was the daily serenade of the drunk homeless man walking the sidewalk with a scream at the end of his song.
But homelessness and the use of the streets as a public-open toilet wasn’t the worst part. There’s a lot of people shooting up & walking around drugged up, screaming or talking to themselves, a poster of a person or screaming at people that walk by. If they weren’t tripping out on the street, they were passed out on the sidewalk. One can find used needles out in the street. On top of all this, one can see naked people biking or walking around the streets. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen naked people in San Francisco, but residents have tried to pass a law to make it okay to be naked in public. What about the children in the city that see all this?
Oh, but it gets worse. The City of San Francisco allows an event to be held out in the open in the streets where people wear black leather, spikes holding whips to perform kinky sexual acts. Lastly, in the midst of the popular Castro Street where many gay men live, there’s black magic and witchcraft performed behind the exterior walls of the buildings.
Wickedness brings a curse on the land. Many times in history, the curse came as a famine, a yield on the harvest. Some native tribes would sacrifice their babies, believing that would bring the harvest. Currently, babies are being slaughtered through abortions and if it doesn’t involve the blood of a baby, there’s also the blood of animals used in wicked rituals. There was also Babylon that came down because of the wickedness in the land.
The curse goes beyond just San Francisco, but throughout our Nation. We’ve discounted the faith of our founding fathers of this Nation & want to take all associations of God outside of our National Anthem and the founding document of our country.
I believe that the Earth can be affected by our physical acts that cause pollution but we cant blame climate change for everything. We can’t blame climate change for the corona virus, especially since there were worse plagues back in when cars didn’t exist, fracking, mining, burning massive amounts of coal, power plants, airplanes, etc. And what about the dinosaurs becoming extinct and all the volcanoes erupting? Why would we blame the earth changing on the acts of humans?
People are still blaming climate change for the fires. Many of them started from the thunder storm. We can’t blame thunderstorms on climate change. They’ve always been there. There’s a curse over parts of this land & there’s a solution. Stop the wickedness! God has blessed America, but society wants to forsake what the Lord has done, they want to hide in their sin, never bringing it to the light. We need to stand and pray together that this plague, lawlessness and fire will cease and once again turn our heart to God and bless Him.
Leviticus 26:1,3-6,10 NKJV [1] ‘You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God. [3] ‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, [4] then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. [5] Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. [6] I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land. [10] You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new.
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.
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.
I grew up in a religion that believes in praying in repetition and reading scripted prayers. A religion that prays to Saints and Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Statues of baby Jesus and Mother Mary are placed together on a throne where prayer happens. The root of the religion goes way back to the Vatican where a man that wears an ornate robe and funny hat are reverenced on a throne.
Having never read the Bible as a Catholic, I was clueless of the truth. I thought God would be moved if I kissed a statue of baby Jesus & maybe it does something, but if you read the Bible, that’s not what God wants from us. As tangible human beings it’s hard to show emotions towards people or things we cannot see so we create statues that we can see and touch, but that is not God’s will.
I remember one time when I stayed in the Philippines for the summer. My family and I stayed in a villa where all family members can lodge. It was a two story, about 10 bedroom house, historic, used as a hospital for dying soldiers during World War 2. My grandfather’s brother was a doctor and still his office remained in the house, skeleton model and all. Soldiers died in that house and paranormal experiences have occurred.
There’s a shrine of Jesus, Mary and angelic statues in the upstairs living room. One day, a bunch of nuns came to the house, knelt down and prayed to statues. When they left the house, my Uncle told me that demons live in the statues to be worshiped. I didn’t believe him. I thought worshiping statues was the normal Catholic thing to do.
Several years later, I was taking a class at church. One do the pastors of the church from the Philippines taught and he brought up the same thing my Uncle told me about in the Philippines. The pastor had a true story behind it. His relative had a throne of statues, crazy stuff was happening in the home. He told her to get rid of the statues. They threw the statues in a pile and set it on fire & they heard screams coming out of it. Creepy.
Then I have my own story, not nearly as intense, but while in college I used to stay with my parents on weekends. They had several statues sitting on top of a shelf. The house they lived in was converted from a convalescent home. I would be working on the computer in the living room, feeling like someone is staring at the back of my head. It would feel like it’s coming from the same place and that place was where the statues were located. Creepy. I got tired of the eerie feeling and eventually put the statues in a box to go out to the Goodwill. After they were boxed up, I stopped having that feeling.
At nineteen years of age I found a priceless treasure. It was different beyond any treasure that anyone can find. This treasure was intangible, ever-lasting, something that no one can steal away. Holding onto this treasure, I was tempted countless times to discount the value of it. The pressures of the world from heartache to disappointment and sometime even distractions left my treasure on the shelf, neglected.
The more I got to know this treasure, the more I realized how much I needed it in my life. It became my strength in times of weakness and hope in times of despair. This treasure came with a manual that contained basic instructions before leaving earth. Reading the manual helped me reset my wrong ways of thinking and healed the broken pieces of my heart.
That treasure is my Lord & Savior Jesus. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” There is no treasure in life like Jesus…free…everlasting & will never leave you, even after death. All it takes is inviting Him into your life, then the treasure comes.
vange 
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