I watched a few episodes of ATBG, one of the cartoons of my childhood. I promised I’d be productive tonight, but it’s almost 2am and I haven’t finished a single thing I had planned to do today. 

And now, because I believe in what Lourd had said, let me write —I’ve lived, and so now let me write. 

Weekend came. 

I was feeling a little upset, as if something was amiss. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I just knew I was in a place that I didn’t want to be in. Maybe it was this home, maybe it was the circumstances, the fact that I keep tripping, I keep falling. 

I read up on Hebrews on Saturday morning, Heb5:7-8 —“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered”. 

And what shook me was that, Jesus too, was offering up PRAYERS and PETITIONS WITH LOUD CRIES and TEARS. Sounds very much familiar. And then, that line: “he was heard”. He was HEARD. He wasn’t taken out of that situation instantly. He wasn’t risen up right then and there. He was heard. The sufferings weren’t instantly mitigated, even altogether made to come to a stop. Because obedience needed to be learned. 

I remember this one time when I was speaking with Bro A., one of Tito Rene’s friends from Baltao. It was the first time that we met, and yet while looking at my brother’s wedding pictures, he suddenly asked me, “So, are you …?” And that went off as a big surprise for me. Few days after I asked him what he meant, and why he asked in the first place. I told him my situation, and he told me plainly, “Now I know, it was God who prompted me to ask you that, not so I could give you advice, but just to let you know that He hears you.” 

And like Jesus, I was heard. I am heard. But obedience needs to be learned.