To the man I married

by Angela Manalang-Gloria

I
You are my earth and all the earth implies:
The gravity that ballasts me in space,
The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries
For food and shelter against devouring days.
You are the earth whose orbit marks my way
And sets my north and south, my east and west,
You are the final, elemented clay
The driven heart must turn to for its rest.

If in your arms that hold me now so near
I lift my keening thoughts to Helicon
As trees long rooted to the earth uprear
Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun,
You who are earth, O never doubt that I
Need you no less because I need the sky!

II
I can not love you with a love
That outcompares the boundless sea,
For that were false, as no such love
And no such ocean can ever be.

But I can love you with a love
As finite as the wave that dies
And dying holds from crest to crest
The blue of everlasting skies.

With open hands

A recent news of an old friend having a girlfriend, after years of college and now, medicine school surprised me. “Ah finally he has one now, and all his songs and poems of love have been given a face”. This same man, i tell you, happens to be the first man i ever prayed for, and considered, to be my lifetime partner. Loyalty is my banner, and three years of faithfully loving, adoring, praying, begging God for this man gave me one hardcore lesson: God indeed answers prayers.

All of the prayers I have asked the Lord have been given. He has grown to be a wonderful man, leading some to a knowledge of Christ, even becoming a leader of his orgnization in medicine school. He now has a church, of which before was an impossibility! His parents, prayerfully, are also coming to a relationship with our Maker. And now, the woman. I prayed before that God would give him a woman whom he shall be blessed. And that is my prayer still now that he is in a relationship with someone. I am happy for him.

And I am happy for, myself, too.

After all the prayers, the verses, the books and the seminars attended; hours and hours of listening to love chatters and stories, I have come to a point when, I am content with what the Lord has provided for me, now. I am single, and I am happy, and actively pouring all my energy to whatever he has laid down before me, embracing every opportunity to know more about God, with hands open to whatever he has asked me to give, and to receive.

——–
Lord, I receive with an open heart, with my open hands, Your love. I want to live creatively, pouring myself in whatever You have laid down before me, asking nothing else but Your beauty to come through in my life, and in other people’s lives. Come forth, shine.

A note on prayer

A note on prayer

Lord I run to Your feet
My favorite place to be
So eager to sit with you

There has been been this deeper desire in me to pray. It is beginning to become like a song, a song I keep on singing the whole day which I carry in my heart. It is by prayer that I come alive; only by prayer that can I breathe and gladly rest and say “In Jesus’ Name!”. May God use me to be a bearer of this song, and come in as a bridge between the places of pain and the healing love of Jesus.

I am forever grateful to the Lord because He has chosen me to bear the most beautiful Name in the whole creation.

Love gives up itself

It must be his strong will that attracts me more and more. But bigger than that is his love for God that keeps me wondering. I wonder and marvel at his heart. Such a beautiful heart, too precious in God’s eyes.  Such a blessed lady is she whom he will ask for from the Lord. But, these, again I give unto God’s hand. “The will of the Lord will prosper in His hands.” Way too  lofty for me to understand, yet in this I stand, I hope, as frail as my faith can be.

If God has revealed to me the man He has decided for me to marry,  I, in faith, will do my best to respect him. In all the ways I could ever think of. God has given me His word, and that shall be my guide. As Ruth and Sarah called there husbands my lord, so shall I say ‘I shall serve you my lord’.

May the message of our lives, our union, will only speak of the Triune God we serve, and echo shouts of Hallelujahs to Jesus, heard unto the most distant nations. I yearn to dance with him, with the throng of tribes that we have been family to.  May we be partners in reaping the fields of those who have gone before us, faithful servants in the fields of God.

Yes, come magnify the Lord with me. Make my heart your home.