It’s funny how messages keep coming the week before one’s milestone birthday.

 

This year I had three life-defining moments that shaped the landscape of coming into the fifth decade of my life. Last January, a very good friend I had lost touch with suddenly passed away after a lingering illness. She was younger than I, and her death shook me in the sense that it made me look at my own life. Sitting at her wake and watching the videos of her life, I was very happy to see that she had loved and lived well. Thank God for that.

 

In February, a couple of days before Valentine’s Day, I found myself in a health crisis, flat on my back in a hospital bed. The time spent there again spoke to me of the brevity of life, and how each day we are given must truly be considered a gift. It also strengthened my resolve to remove the drama from my life and the negative relationships I found myself in.

 

In June, on a trip to Tacloban to inaugurate a playground for Johnson & Johnson, the colleague I had spent the day with suffered a brain aneurysm on the flight back to Manila. Though I had heard of her from friends and colleagues, I had not really met her until that day. Her sudden illness and eventual miraculous recovery resonated with me very deeply.

 

One of the topics we talked about before she fell ill that evening was about bucket lists, and how, at age 50, we both had very little time to fulfill all the dreams and goals we had set out to do.

 

Thanksgiving

 

A week ago, I attended a thanksgiving party in her honor; the love, faith and devotion showered upon her by her husband and her three sons did not leave a dry eye in the house. There she was, smiling and socializing with everyone, like nothing had happened.

 

It was clearly God’s hand and His amazing grace that brought her to that day.

 

Her husband, a very successful business executive who had been her boyfriend since high school, put it perfectly: “We can plan as much as we can, but in the end we realize that nothing is truly under our control. And it’s when we surrender everything that the miracles begin to take place. So today I thank the Lord for bringing her back to us.”

 

It was both humbling and heartwarming to see this man, at the top of his league and so well-loved by his peers and colleagues, speak of total surrender to the Father who makes all things possible.

 

The invincible summer quote from “The Stranger” by Albert Camus has always been, and will perhaps always be, one of my favorites. I used it in the opening page of my book “Between Loss and Forever” because it resonated with the ensuing grief, emotions and strengths that a bereaved parent experiences and unlocks in the months and years after the loss of a child.

 

Reading through it again, I realize upon closer scrutiny and reflection that it applies not only to losses resulting from death, but to any other form of loss or major disappointment, many of which I’m sure we have all experienced at one time or another.

 

This gem from Camus reminds us to always keep a heart of gratitude, even for the greatest pain, because in God’s infinite wisdom and grace, the experience, if we allow it to, can be a wellspring of amazing strength that may surprise us.

 

By the time you read this, I will be far and away ticking off one of the items on my bucket list for turning golden. Early this week, I stumbled upon this beautiful passage again on my young friend Tippy’s wall.

 

Wistful

 

I thought it came at the perfect time, because I read it on one of those days when I was a bit wistful (people on the verge of 50 tend to do that a lot), so let me now share this from Camus in remembrance of all the challenges (and challenging people) that have shaped me; in gratefulness for the memories left behind by all those I have loved and lost. I have no regrets, and I want to thank you for all that you brought into my life, and for helping me discover my strengths.

 

My dear,

In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.

In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.

In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.

I realized, through it all, that…

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger—something better, pushing right back.

 

Truly yours,

Albert Camus

 

This morning when I woke up, a quote from Anne Lamott also came to mind: “I do not understand at all the mystery of grace, only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

 

How truly awesome God’s love is for all of us. There are periods in our lives when the abyss seems endless—most especially those times we are rejected, disappointed, or lose someone we love.

 

Often, and I’m guilty of this, we pray and ask God to change the situation we are in, not realizing, while we are in the fog of sadness, that perhaps we were placed in that situation to change our hearts instead.

 

All change begins with us. But because He is an all-merciful and loving Father, He sits patiently with us while we struggle sometimes in our cocoons. When the Master sees that our hearts are ready, it is then that He equips us with wings and sets us free.

 

Grace never leaves us where it first finds us. Again and again He finds us, and though we are imperfect and undeserving, He never, ever lets us go.

 

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