I went to Cavite yesterday to tend to my house. The trip is a result of a third God-given (wake-up) call I received which is directly related to the goals I re-committed myself to a few days before.

Windward Home Feb 2012
Windward Home Feb 2012

My house has been uninhabited for around 5 months now. I evicted my previous tenant of 4 years because she hadn’t been paying rent. Ideally, the best thing was for me to immediately refurbish the house and market it quickly for a next tenant-buyer to come in. Because I knew that an empty house would easily degrade.

Yesterday, I visited my house. I walked into my house, saw how different it was. Some windows were broken into, the back door was opened easily. The power outlets were stolen as well as the electrical wires. Thieves took the wires which they would sell por-kilo. I knew that it was an eventuality, so I wasn’t really surprised. I just swallowed my pride, looked up to the Lord and took the lesson to heart.

Rejection is God’s redirection.
– Bo Sanchez

I was completely aware this would happen. I let procrastination and lack of creativity and resourcefulness get the better of me. Now my refurbishment costs are higher than if I had done it back in February. An expensive lesson. A lesson from God, nonetheless. When you know something needs to be done, just go ahead and *make* time to do it, before things get worse.

Like this tip from my Tito who says this about bird poop on your car:

Remove the shit while it’s mainit!

The Blessing of Presence

The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house;
yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
Matthew 7:25

Ka Edong and Ca Loy
Ka Edong and Ca Loy

In the same trip to Cavite, I took time to meetup with my good friend Caloy Ang (a new father to their second son, just 8 days old today!) . He’s a business owner of the fastest growing laundry franchise, Suds Laundry. As we were exchanging stories and ideas and experiences, I just said a silent prayer and thanked the Lord at how much freedom I had to be able to spend time with my good friend on a weekday afternoon, listening to his words, and being blessed by our friendship.

I told him about how I made a comprehensive map of my expertise and interests – I call them “edWIN’s Gifts from God”. I described how writing is central in my core gifts, together with learning and teaching.

I was an early blogger back in 2005. I was among the few hundred Filipino bloggers who were at the frontier of blogging in the Philippines. And for a few years, I was passionate about blogging on Technobiography.com . Slowly, I lost my interest. I wasn’t blogging regularly. I opened a couple more blogs, including this one www.edwinsoriano.com and eOFW.Net . And I never really got back to the rhythm of blogging. Now I’m on my 5th day blogging daily. And I see myself going and going until daily blogging becomes a habit for me.

Coming home

Blogging for me is like coming back to heeding God’s gift, God’s calling. I experienced this powerfully two days ago when I allowed myself to be lead by my inner voice. I was moved to write about healing and annulment. I felt it might have been a bit too early to be revealing my knowledge about annulment. I just moved with the inner voice and allowed.

And when I started writing the other day, everything just flowed. The words just kept flowing from my heart and mind, to the tips of my fingers, to the keyboard to the screen. I was like a painter, filling the page with images. I was like singing a song that just kept flowing, like I was dancing to my song, a song that the Lord had put in my heart when I was born. I felt the power of God’s love, pushing me on, telling me to keep going.

And I allowed God to speak through me. And as the words flowed from my heart to the painting in front of me, I just felt an overwhelming sense of joy. As if I was being watched by a proud parent above and was being told: “Finally you’re doing what you are meant to do.”

Even before I could read the words on the screen, I knew in my heart that those words are going to be a blessing. To someone, somewhere out there. I knew that the pain and joy  and love and forgiveness that I had experienced in my life is now being used to bless other people. I knew that all that I had gone through was designed by our good Lord to be a blessing for me and for people around me.

And I kept still at the magnificence of our Lord.

I am building my life, my house on solid ground. I heed your call, dear Lord.

My friend, are you being present with our Lord?
Are you being “present” with the core-gifts that God has given you?
Come home.

Builder, 
edWIN

3 thoughts on “The Blessing of Presence

  1. And after writing the article above, I find this message via http://www.sacredspace.ie :

    Awareness of the Presence of God

    If someone asked you to give them another word for ‘God’, you could use the word ‘Presence’, for that is what God is. When Moses asked Yahweh his name, Yahweh replied, ‘I am who am’ and this means ‘I am present’. God is really saying, ‘I shall be there for you.’ God is intimately present to everything, and especially to us. Jesus’s name is Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us’. Matthew’s Gospel ends with the marvellous statement: Know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.
    (from Finding God in All Things by Brian Grogan SJ)

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