ULOG DAY 46: "LIVE YOUR PRESENT AND CHANGE"
Collecting our pictures is also recollecting our pasts. This picture was taken 15 years ago when I was eleven years old. I was not noticeable in the picture because of my dark skin. The girl in a white teeshirt behind my mother who wears red sleeveless was me. I sat down in the door because no chair available. It was fun. That time, the fad was the VCD player connected to the TV and we paid 5 pesos to our aunt for one song. My sister Clare was the star of the night. When she sang, people are silent listening her good voice. She inherited her voice to my father who was always the guest during fiestas in neighboring barangays. Along with my mother, father used to sing on stage because mother also had a good voice. Both of them sing but father also plays guitar.
If we remember our pasts, we really like to come back to again experience the old way of living. Now that my life is modernized, I can earn money online but the effect in my body isn't nice. I lose energy after exposing too much on screen and I can sleep late in the evening often, causes my hairfall to become progressive.
Last night, I traveled with my family to the neighboring town, Sibagat. Before we arrived, I was dizzy and sweated cold. Great that we finally got there for 10 minutes of dizziness. But when we went back home again, my motion sickness attacked, but I never vomited going home. Then I rushed to go to the kitchen to drink a hot coffee to treat myself. I took an anti-emetic drug but it didn't work. They said that maybe it's about my eyes. Then I agreed because since we have an Internet, my motion sickness even triking 5 minutes away attacks once again. During the old days when life wasn't modernized, I just listened to the radio dramas and news and imagined the pictures of events. I was away from radiation, temptations, and influence from social media and TV. I never had motion sickness that is as worse as now. I was always productive in learning new things because I always spent reading books and studying. Life was full of adventure and recreations. If not studying, my friends and I would go to the farm to look for guavas and papayas, or listen to the radio in the middle of the rice field under the nippa hut, or gathering together in the fishpond that my grandpa made and sang our favorite songs.
If you would meet a genie who asks if you'd like to travel back in time, will it be yes or no? The majority is yes. Many of us have many reasons why we like to go back to our times before. Not just the moments where we are away from temptations of the Internet, but because of our life situation in the present. We imagine especially during our darkest days that if only there is a time machine then we will like the situation we are in today.
Last night, in a continuation of my story where my family and I went to Sibagat, we visited our uncle who just died due to diabetes. He had a poor situation when he was alive because he was homeless without anyone that cared. His wife is paid as a maid and their children are scattered everywhere to find a job to survive. Then one day, my aunt (his wife) heard a news that her husband just dwelled inside the tricycle blind and disable. Uncle lived to his brother but he was casted away because they cope smelling the bad scent of his decayed foot. Then he fought a place to dwell and he picked the unused tricycle. When aunt knew it, she immediately went to the government officials, asked help if they could help bringing him to the hospital and paying the bills. The officials immediately brought uncle to Davao in which everything is free. Uncle was diagnosed with Diabetes and his lowet leg was cut. My aunt immediately sought a house for rent so he could live there with his 20 year old son who takes care of him while she works as a maid so she can pay the rent each month. Some of his children have a good life but they don't care. Time came that he stopped breathing. When he was alive, he usually left his family and never came back and my aunt can just get a news that he lives with another woman. When his job at the faraway place went downhill, he comes back suddenly, but when he went older, he tried hard to work to support his family until his health gave up. Then we went there last night for the vigil service.
On the service, everyone began to know the truth that when someone dies, no matter how often we pray for his soul to be saved from hell, it will never be heard. God will never listen to our prayers for the dead. The service last night was for the living because in the bible, it is clearly spoken that we can save ourselves from hell if we are alive. In just 5 minutes, we can be saved and how can we do it is by confessing our sins to our God and ask forgiveness. There are the few groups who believe that when a person dies, he will be saved through the prayers of the living, but it is distorted. The lesson for this is to always confess our sins to the Lord and repent while we are now breathing on earth. When we are in hell, we are still conscious to suffer the heated lak eternally and we pray for God to move us to heaven, but God will never give a favor because there will be no hope and pardons in hell.
Luke 16:19-31 New International Version (NIV)
The Rich Man and Lazarus
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
New International Version (NIV)
We don't know when is our last time on earth and it is uncontrollable but are you ready to face your final battle? While we are alive, we should make sure that we are always ready so the story of King Solomon and Lazarus will not happen to us. We should be ready so we will not always wish to turn back the past. In hell, there is no beggining to start a new life and new self, there is no ending of suffering, there is no ending of imagining "if onlys."
Let us use our times on earth for good things coz it is not late. As long as we live, there is a good start and hope, no more wishing to come back to the pre-era to change what we've done before but let's live in the present with a strong relationship to Him.
Disclaimer: The content and illustration are original.
Hey Lebron2016, Im so sorry for your loss. Stop hiding at the back and step up to the front and remember that people care about you!
Technology isnt the problem, we all just need to find a balance. You are still so young. I wish you could find some contentment and happiness :-)
You take care there little sister x