My path to the light

I wasn't sure if I wanted to stop and stare or run away. Magnificent and terrifying at the same time. This photo from the Dolomites perfectly captures the emotions I felt when I was grappling with what was inside me as the poem was written...

“Why did you leave your country?” My mother often heard this question from me. “For you and your brother,” she would always reply, and then she would tell the dramatic story of how she emigrated with us from her homeland of Vietnam. It was the winter of 1993.

I wondered how Nathanael could know that: "You are the Son of God, the King of Israel." Not because I don't believe the content of the statement - hopefully we've settled that once and for all since Egypt. No, I doubted that Nathanael actually said that.

It was a hard time, but without this part of the story there would be no story. In my imperfection God's perfect goodness and greatness should be revealed. He does everything out of love: hard graces.

The path to the desert is quick and gradual. I would first have to tell you how I ended up in the desert in the first place. A place with no life, no water, no prospect of growth. Drought and emptiness. Yes, how did I end up there? The year is 2023. Freshly converted two years ago, baptized one year ago. I thought I had the hang of it.

Yesterday reconciled, today in the Holy Land, Thursday, February 9, 2023 - It was on the third day after the first session with you, Jesus, on Golgotha on the cross. The sun shone every now and then through the clouds, which have discharged in the form of rain over the last few days...

For mum. Beloved, I know you are sad. Things will change for the better after they have gone bad. You haven't lost me to Him. But I found you in Him. You have not lost her with no return. They are yours in Him, you can stop to mourn.

Do you see the scar on my chest? When I was 4 years old, I had a hole in my heart. And I don't mean that metaphorically - a real hole. They opened my chest and closed the hole. My heart has been repaired, physically...

The same crap over and over again...Do you know that? No matter how beautiful and good or how painful a situation was, after a while everything is put into perspective in the mind and in the end there is only a hint of what it actually was like...