I can’t smell anything. I’m feverish. I don’t like to eat. I always love to sleep. Sounds familiar? Yes. COVID got me!
I was quarantined for almost a month due to COVID. But before the result came, before even knowing that I contracted the virus, God asked me, “Anak, what if you’re positive with COVID, will you question my love for you?”
God’s question left me speechless. Will I really question His love for me? I was thrown back to my past. During the time when, yes, I did question His love for me.
It happened after graduating from high school. My father, who used to work abroad, became jobless. And so, in an instant, I became an out-of-school youth. I was just 16.
I was sad. I love to study. I wanted to be in school. But, instead of becoming a student, I became an employee.
I don’t want to work yet. I wanted to be in school to learn, not to be in a company to earn. But things didn’t just happen my way. When my batchmates met their first college professor, I met my first employer.
My love for school started when I was little. I think it’s because my close cousin and friend, who is 2 years older than me, started to go to school. She was seven while I was five. I went with her to school one time and I liked the experience. The next day, I told my mom that I want to go with my cousin to school. Their kind teacher permitted me to be there as a visitor. The teacher liked the idea, my cousin liked the idea and I super loved the idea of going to school but my mother did not like it. She did not permit me. She said, I was too young to be in school.
Well, I love my mom but sometimes I don’t understand her methods. She would allow me to play the whole day but she wouldn’t allow me to go to school. Despite a lot of pleadings, my mom being my mom, did not permit me. But me being me, I decided to do something, I made a plan.
The next day, I bid my mom goodbye and told her that I’ll play with friends outside. She told me to take care. I smiled. I actually didn’t go to see my friends. I went straight to my cousin’s house. She let me borrow her dress. And we both went to school.
I went home and told my mom I’m done playing. She never had any idea I actually went to school that day. It went on that way. Sometimes I borrow clothes from my cousin, sometimes, I would sneak in the house and bring clothes for school.
The next year, I turned six years old. I asked my mom if I could go to school this time and she permitted me. I still went to school as a visitor. I am with my brother this time because my older cousin moved to the next grade level. I was more than happy. I just love to be in school.
Fast forward, I am now a high school graduate. I looked back to those years and I still felt the same feeling I had for school when I was five years old. I love to go to school. But being in school now is impossible. My dad, who used to work abroad, is now jobless. I know that my parents could not afford to send me to school so I asked my mom if I could be a working student. She did not permit me. She said being a working student is so hard, I will not be able to cope with it.
It seems like a “dejavu”. What happened when I was five years old is happening again. Here I am asking my mom if I could go to school and here she is saying NO. I pleaded with my mom but, my mom being my mom, had her final word, NO. This time, I could no longer pretend to go to school without her knowledge. With a painful heart, I obeyed her. And so I got a job. The plan is I’ll work and save for school.
The dream of going to school never left my heart. I just waited for an opportunity. Days become weeks, weeks become months and months become years. I turned to God this time and asked Him, Lord why? I love to go to school but why did you not give me opportunities to be there? Lord, why did you let others have all the opportunity when they don’t like to go to school? You know how much I love to go to school. Don’t you love me Lord?
This is the first time I asked God if He loved me. That time, I didn’t really think God loved me.
Whenever I go to church, all I do there is ask. Lord, do you really love me? This time I also question his character. I put a question mark on every worship song that is being sang,
The Lord is good,
All the time.
I turn it this way,
The Lord is good?
All the time?
And I do it most of the time.
This proved that I still don’t know God.
The way I question God is the same way we question our parents whenever they withhold seemingly good things from us. We think that our parents did not really love us. But our parents, just like God would not bother to explain why. And it’s because our puny minds will not be able to grasp it.
I wasn’t able to get a stable, well-paying job because I’m just a high school graduate. There were times when me and my friends decided to apply and I was not allowed to enter the company because they are not accepting high school graduates. They only allow college-level inside. So I was left there outside, standing beside the security guard. I waited for hours until they were done. My desire to go to school doubled that time.
Four years after, I went to see my mom and told her and asked her if I could go to school this time as a working student. She said yes. I’m very happy!
The moment my batchmates left the halls of the university, I entered college. When they met their first employer, I met my first college instructor.
Years passed and I am already a degree holder. I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology. I am also a Licensed Professional Teacher. I work in a place where my heart resides- the school.
God did not have to explain to me that I need to become first a student of life before I become a student in school. He doesn’t need to explain to me that there are lessons that I could only learn outside the four-square walls of the classroom. He doesn’t need to explain to me that learning does not stop within the halls of the university. God doesn’t need to explain anything to me.
Those four years enabled me to become face to face with life. I learned so much in the University of Life. But my favorite lessons were all about God. I learned so much from Him. I was able to get to know Him.
I learned that He created me for a purpose. I was not a mistake. He has a reason for creating me. And He has a reason for creating you, too. He has a reason for creating all of us.
I also learned that He loved me a long time ago, even before I got to know Him. That He already made a way for us to be together not just here on earth, but after death, yes, in eternity. He gave me the gift of eternal life.
He loved us all equally. When He gave opportunities to the other youth so they could go to school, it’s because He loved them. When He did not give me an opportunity that time to go to school, it was also because He loved me.
But His love was best displayed when He laid down His life to save mine. When He carried that cross to Calvary to pay my sins.
Looking back, I now knew God’s answer to my question. Even before He gave me the opportunity to go to school, I knew He loved me. And even if He did not give me that opportunity, I still believed He loved me!
Now, that I contracted the virus, will I ever question God’s love for me? Of course not. I will never question God’s love for me again. It doesn’t mean that because I got COVID, God loved me less and just because you didn’t get COVID God loved you more. God is beyond these external circumstances. He loved us all the same.
Well, my love for God is questionable. Your love for God is questionable. But God’s love for us, that is never questionable.
When asked, do you love me Lord? He answered by stretching out His hands and breathed His last. On the cross, He showed me His love. On the cross He gave His all.
“Dreams delayed are not dreams denied,
When you live by faith and not by sight.”
I hope you accept this love. I hope you get to believe this unconditional love that only He could give. But whether you believe it or not, whether you accept it or not, He loves you still! Yes dear, He loves you! (Cecilia G. Benlota)
