Broken but not Destroyed

an enlightenment

Throughout this period of uncertainty and unrest, I've been thinking a lot about my entire situation. Tonight, I will be returning home to stay for the weekend before coming back to stay with my grandma during the week. But I've been debating how I should confront my parents. Should I ignore last week's incident like they are doing and just continue living life normally even though the problem is still unsolved?

I'm stuck at a crossroad with two options and neither of the two options are fantastic.

Last night as I was praying before sleeping, I asked God, why am I in this situation? Why me? Why do I always have to be the one to apologize, to forgive and forget? Why do I always have to feel sorry to someone or feel like I'm such a burden? Why me? Why can't they feel as crappy as I do?

Like always, I didn't get any answer from God.

But this morning, I was just searching for Bible heroes that I relate with to share for a meeting tomorrow. I came across Jonah, the dude who got swallowed by a whale. I knew his story since I was young, but I never had the opportunity to dissect the passage and thoroughly analyze what the message is supposed to be.

I came across a review article of the book of Jonah. Two things from the review stood out to me:

1) The article said that "the challenges we face may be a call to do something different, to do something better...to change directions".

This hit me and made me immediately reflect about my situation again. Was this another challenge God has thrown my way to wake me up? To tell me I need to be independent? I don't know yet.

2) The next thing that struck me was that "We get disappointed when someone is not punished as we think they should be. We expect God's grace in our own lives but not necessarily in the lives of others".

It is true. I felt unfair that I'm the only being punished but my parents aren't? They have no sense of guilt or anything and just continue life as if they didn't just alienate their own daughter. I still don't find myself accepting this though. I hate things that are unfair and unjust. I can't let it go by and that's why I always get into trouble for speaking up. I've done it many times already, letting things go and forgiving my parents, apologizing to them, trying to fix things with them but I can't keep doing that forever. B-but if that's what God wants me to do, then I'll try to do it.

The last thing about the article that didn't hit me as strongly as the 2 points above but made me relate even more to Jonah, was that he thought dying was better than living which was exactly my thoughts last week. I don't share this often and I hate to admit that I harbor such negative thoughts, but yes, I have thought of committing suicide many times before. It always seemed like the solution to my problems. So easy you know? In a flash, all my problems will be gone. I don't have to deal with all the shit thrown at me, I don't have to care so much about what people think or say. It was so so tempting. That's why I ran away. I needed to go somewhere that wasn't filled with such dark thoughts.

But in the Bible, God asked Jonah if it was right of him to get angry at one, God not destructing the city and two, the plant dying.

I guess in this sense, the self-righteousness applies here. Jonah was unaccepting of the grace God gave to the people Nineveh because he was self-righteous and thought he deserved God's grace but not others. After reading about this I too have to admit that I have been self-righteous. I thought I did nothing wrong and although my wrong actions may be lesser than that of my parents, God has forgiven me and has been gracious to me by blessing me with food and shelter at my grandma's. So I don't have any right to be angry at God for being gracious to my parents as he has done for me.

I'm sorry that if you're not Christian or religious and had to read that but just know that sometimes, lying on the couch and deeply reflecting about your actions and about the situation, no matter how bad it may be, can give you some enlightenment.