i refuse

to be robbed...

i refuse to allow anybody or anything rob me from my joy, my peace, my sense of self...

but every now and then, as things happen and events take place, i begin to wonder... is there really something in me that can be stolen? after all, what i don't have, they can't steal.

i received this gray "sack-shaped" dress from my sister...and a very price-ie dress, might i add. For some reason as i wore it, my sister and my mom has this (usual) "wooooow" expression that is (usually) followed by "dalaga ka na" (you're a lady now)...

then when i looked at the mirror, i fixed my hair, i pulled the dress down and fixed it and TRIED MY BEST to see it on me, and i realized how i hate it. i don't want near me, i hate it... i look like someone pulled off from a junk yard, dressed in a sack. whoever designed that dress should be sued for creating something awfully wrong. the shape, the style, the fit, the color, everything in that dress was all wrong for me.

and now i feel so guilty because i don't even deserve a gift for every miserable thing i have ever done, and this dress is really an act of kindness and love from my sister because she bought this from her own hard-earned money and i realized how ungrateful i am... how awful and how miserable and wretched i truly am...

and it's saddening me. =(

for every accusation my mom and sister have against me, always about being ungrateful, could it be that they were right and i was merely too stubborn to admit it? could it be that i was too blind to see it?

i refuse to stay like this.

***

FATHER GOD,

You said there is nothing too hard for You. You said nothing is impossible for you to accomplish. May You not find this sincere prayer disrespectful, but I challenge Your power to make things happen...

...God, through Your son Jesus Christ, I come boldly to Your throne of grace.... CHANGE ME. Make me Christ-like and please Lord... Change me...

Amen.

in the fifth commandment....

....of the ten commandments of the LORD,

when God said,

"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you."

God didn't say honor them because they are honorable.

He said HONOR THEM whether or not they are honorable.

It's not about respecting the respectable.

It's about OBEYING GOD despite the difficulty to do so.

oh how i wish i could swallow my pride and ask forgiveness from her,

but every cell comprising my body wish i did go to manila this morning and left her for three days for her to wallow up in her own misery. This way, i am not miserable, and i am not breaking the 5th commandment. because today, i am simply fed up. enough is enough.

why did i consider her? why did i stick around when she said, "wag ka nang umalis... wala akong kasama", even though the very reason why i didn't want to stay here is because SHE IS HERE. damn. stupid, stupid, stupid me.