Not My Will

Ever wonder what God’s will for your life is? The whole idea of total will surrender to God have always fascinates me.

When talking about God’s will, it is just hard for me not to think about Jesus’ last night. Jesus knew all along that he had to die. I believe he have imagined how it will play out over and over again in his mind; and every time he does, dread creeps into the inner chambers of his being. The clock ticks, each second bringing him closer to insuperable pain and humility. I could imagine Jesus, eating the Passover meal with his disciples, the people he have spent three years together, the people he have grown accustomed to - Peter with his short temper but teachable heart, John the disciple very close to Jesus’ heart, and of course, Judas. How it breaks his heart, knowing that very moment Judas is thinking of turning him in for thirty pieces of silver. The disciples are all laughing and merrily enjoying each other’s company, ignorant to the fact that within hours, Jesus will endure the most painful day in his life. He tries to enjoy the feast that is in front of him; however, the thought of the path ahead of him triumphed over all appetite and hunger. Restlessness slid to his heart and perspiration dampens his hands as he holds the cup containing wine. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you,” Jesus said, hoping that his voice would not betray the fear and sadness that overwhelms him. That night, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus talks to his Father. He knows that this is his mission; he has to die. But the thought of all the things they can do to him brought him to his knees. The fear and the dread of his encounter with death gave pains him to the point where he can no longer stand. Tears no longer can communicate the stress and the anxiety that conquered his mind and body. He touches his forehead to wipe the perspiration off and saw that his sweat was no longer clear. It was crimson. Jesus cries out with anguish, and unable to contain this torture, he cried out to his Father. “If you are willing,” he cried, “take this cup from me.” As he pleaded to his Father, he knew that this is his part, written in the Great Book of his Father, the Author. He can simply get up and leave, turning his back on all mankind - past, present, and future - and avoid this agony. But this is not a matter of what he wants, Jesus realized. It is a matter of what my Father wants. With complete surrender, Jesus yielded, “Not my will, but Yours be done.”

Choosing God’s will over our own is never an easy task to do. Especially for me.

I am a planner. I plan everything. About three years ago, when I was a junior in high school, I had my life all planned out. After finishing high school, I was going to study Music Performance in New York University. After four years of studying a subject very close to my heart, I was going to do what I enjoy doing most: sing. I planned to get married by the age of 24 and I planned to have three kids - a boy and two adorable girls. I know exactly what I wanted, and I thought that was exactly what I needed. My prayers to God were not anything close to Jesus’ prayer. Mine was more like a restaurant order: this is what I want, and this is what I need you to do.

There is one lesson that God wanted me to learn: that I am not God.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return to it without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth.
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Isaiah 55:8-11

Learning that lesson - believe me, I am still learning - is a painful process for me. But now, three years later, I find myself in Kirkland, Washington, studying Youth Ministry in Northwest University. This is not part of the plan, at least not part of mine. When people ask me what I plan to do after I graduate, I have to be honest: I have no clue. Three years ago, that answer is not in my vocabulary. Now, it is, and I am okay with it. When people ask me when I want to get married, the answer is also: I have no idea. And I am okay with it. When my girlfriends ask me how many kids I want after I get married, the answer is: three. But I will be as content and as grateful to God if he gives me four, two, one, or even no children at all as if he gives me three children.

After three years of disciplining me in the area of “letting God be God,” I no longer have the need to be the planner of my life. I figured out that it is too big of a task for me to handle, so I just give it up to the creator of my life, the one who has the blueprint entitled “Tirza” in his hands. Now, he has another aspect of the lesson for me to learn: how to figure out the will of God in my life.

These past four weeks have been a great struggle for me to figure out God’s will in my life - actually, it is to figure out God’s will in a certain aspect of my life. I really want to do God’s will, but I did not know what God’s will is. If I know what it is, I will gladly choose it. The problem was: I did not know what God wants me to do. I knew what I want, but I wanted to know what God wants.

I was confused, frustrated, and depressed.

After much agony and tears, I decided to live my life and see where God is guiding me. As I go through the days following my decision, I thought that everything would go like how I wanted it to because it looked perfect. I enjoyed every single moment of it.

Yesterday, I felt something in my spirit. I do not know why or how, but I felt no peace. I had to sit down and think about everything. I knew that the Holy Spirit is nudging me to make the decision to do what I did not want to do.

I gave in. I knew that God is revealing his will for me, and I felt at peace because he revealed his will and now it is time for me to obey. I knew exactly what to do.

Today, as I stood outside in the sun, it felt as if God was smiling at me and said, “thaddagirl”

I am broken, but it is oh so wonderful.

“At the cross you beckon me
You gently draw me to my knees
and I am lost for words, so lost in love
I’m sweetly broken, wholly surrendered.”

Finding My Wings

“As is the mother, so is the daughter.” What a ridiculous concept! Of course, I disagreed. “I have nothing in common with my mother,” I repeated over and over again. My mother and I, we repel. As a kid, growing up, I could not stand my mother. She was really tough. She always seemed to be upset about something I did. At least once a week, there was some catastrophic, world-endangering mistake I made that ignited her rage. When I was facing my mother’s wrath, it was like being in an inferno. I usually started crying, but my mother does not like people crying. I would try to suppress the tears, and as a consequence, I would end up with terrible hiccups. I grew up to be a pretty tough girl, not to mention a rebellious one. Any chance I got, I would put up a fight with my mother. If she yelled at me, I would yell back as loud. However, I am proud to say that it was my mother who got me where I am today, and she played big role in making me who I am today. In the last three years, our relationship has changed due to three significant things: how I started to become more mature in my perceptions, how I realized that we are similar in a lot of ways, and how I began to understand her as a person as I spent more time with her.

I got some first-hand experiences on Newton’s third law of motion, that to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I made a few big mistakes and I ended up with a handful of problems. I have tasted a bit of what life is outside of my family, and through all that, I grew up. I accepted the fact that my mother never got mad at me if I wasn’t in trouble. I was a pretty naughty girl, and I really needed my mom to discipline me. I remember one time we went to a church retreat. I was so eager to swim that I changed into my swimming suit and jumped into the pool, alone. The adults and all of my friends were up having service, and I was down there playing in the pool. My omniscient mother realized that I was not in the service. She looked out the window and saw me playing by myself in the pool. I was in big trouble. She marched down and dragged me out of the pool and spanked me a few times. Up until now, I have never forgotten that day. I used to think, “Wow! My mom was really mad that day.” Now it suddenly clicks. My mom had a reason to be mad that day. It was dangerous, what I did. I could have had cramps or accidents swimming without supervision. It took me some major growing up before I realized that my mother was really disciplining me. Solomon says, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him” (Proverbs 13.24, NIV). My mother was showing her love when she disciplined me. I remember her always saying, “I would rather have you lose one of your legs and go to heaven than have you healthy and fit but end up in hell.” I have changed drastically. Manning described a similar situation by saying, “I am no longer a rebel in the household, wanting to stand up against the master with clenched fists and tensing jaws (Manning 146). Now, I am really grateful that my mother disciplined me the way she did.

After I was old enough to understand why my mother did what she did, I began to notice some similarities between us. We love to cook and eat food. We love all kinds of food that contains chocolate, cheese or milk. Doing the things we love best together “has proved to be an excellent tension-reducing measure” (Staples 207). We react similarly towards certain circumstances. For example, how we both react to my father. My father is a great man of God, but sometimes he is pretty close-fisted. My mother and I both hate that. She is an ambitious person. I am too. That is why she understands me. She knows how I feel when someone in the church scrutinizes what I do. She understood when my best friend left for Canada. She understands when I get into unresolved fights with my father. Now I know what it was that made my mother and me fight a lot. We were made of the same material. I am tough, and she is tough.

I have spent more time with my mother in the last two years than I have in my whole entire life, probably excluding my toddler years. My mother works as a teacher in my school, and my last two years of high school, she drove me to school. I spent a lot of time with her in the car, just chatting. All those rides to and from school opened my eyes to who my mother is. I learned about her struggles, her hopes, her fears, he prayers, and her life through those car rides. My mother is a small woman with hopes, dreams, and love much bigger than herself. She was the one who wanted me to go to college in the United States. My mother could not bear to see me go, it was “Mother’s greatest fear” (Cofer 165). It was she who prayed day and night for me, and it was her love that brought me here. She has her weaknesses, but still, she is a strong woman.

Lately, I have fallen in love with Mark Harris’ song, “Find Your Wings.” Every time I hear that song, I always think of my mother. I look back and see how I have grown, how I have come to understand my mother, and how I’ve come to realize her love in my life. Like the lyrics to that song, it was her love that “gave me roots and helps me find my wings.”

Roomies: Reevaluated

“I am here for my B.A., not my M-R-S degree,” I commented when I was told that I am going to a university that has well earned its nickname as Northwest Bridal College. During my first week in the college, I heard all kinds of comments from returning students. The comments range from the Ring by Spring Policy that states, “Ring by spring or your money back,” to little jokes like, “In Northwest, they don’t date. They get married.” Some of the students would observe that a few activities they do in the college encourage the whole bridal school idea; take Roomies for one. Roomies is a biannual event that gets guys to ask girls out on a date and vice versa. Originally, the roommate is supposed to ask a member of the opposite sex out for his or her roommate, hence the name Roomies. Now, only a few still abide by the tradition. Most will directly ask the person he or she wants to go out with. I had the chance to ask a respected member of the student body whom he’s going to Roomies with this fall. He answered that he’s not asking anyone out to Roomies, and this response got me to think about the whole meaning behind Roomies. I came to the conclusion that Roomies is supposed to be something more than a matchmaking event: it is supposed to be an event where people have fun, where they get to know more people in the student community, and where they have a chance to make other people feel special.

To begin with, Roomies is supposed to be an event where people have fun, away from the stress and pressure of studying. College is not easy. If people don’t have fun once in a while, they will burn out like a car running out of gas. That is why activities like floor dinners, football games, and Roomies are like gas stations along the way, refilling students' tank with energy and motivation to get them safely to their destinations. One doesn't have to have a date to have fun. If students did not get asked to Roomies, or they don’t feel comfortable going out with someone they don’t really know, that should not prevent them from having fun. The awkwardness and “the scarceness of words exchanged” with someone you’re not comfortable with is definitely not fun. The 400 Cadets went out together as a floor for Roomies, and had a blast! The point is to do something students enjoy doing, taking their mind off of work for a while.

Roomies is supposed to be a medium in which people could get to know more people in the student community. There are 1,281 students in this university, and no one knows every single person. Roomies is a chance where people can get to know others they might not usually spend time with. Tannen states that “women and men often have . . . different ways of speaking,” but that should not limit us from getting to know more people, different people (Tannen 390). Students might find people that have gone through the same things they are going through, and others that are going through the things they went through. Through events like this, we can find people who will take our hand and walk the journey with us, one small step at a time.

Finally, Roomies is supposed to be an opportunity to make other people feel special. Putting into consideration the two to one ratio of female to male students, and the assumption that a guy will only ask one girl out for roomies, half of the girls in Northwest will not have a Roomies date. Sadly, there has been, and there will be, a lot of girls who will go through their entire college experience without having been asked to Roomies, while others are “blissfully ignorant” of what these people might feel (Mitford 306). Northwest University might seem like a bridal college, but more importantly, it is a Christian college. One of our main tasks as Christians is to show love to everyone and make them feel welcomed. It is not a crime to ask more than one girl to Roomies. It’s even a good idea to do that if you do not want to give them the wrong impression. Asking someone out to Roomies does not say that you are romantically interested in that person. Instead, it means that you are saying, “I’m glad that you’re here. I just want you to know that you’re special.”

A week before Roomies weekend, I was out with a few girls and we met two guys from Northwest. They already had Roomies dates, and we all thought that they were joking when they told us that we should all go to Roomies with them. They were serious. So all four girls went with them on Friday evening, without knowing where we are going. I told a few of my other friends that we were going with these two guys for Roomies, and they told me not to go, because one of the guys is supposedly a jerk. We went anyways. They brought us to a park in Redmond; they brought all kinds of snacks and McDonalds food and brought a picnic blanket. They gave us all roses; It was very sweet of them. We found out that they are not jerks, and that they are really fun to hang out with. My first Roomies experience was truly memorable. First, it was memorable because I had a lot of fun that day. It was also memorable because I got to know two guys and find out that they are really nice guys, not jerks. Finally, it was memorable because I felt that those two guys took the time to hang out with me and make me feel special. I realized that Roomies possess the potential to touch other people’s lives and let them see themselves the way God sees them: special.