SOS

In a previous article I mentioned that my family had been going through a bit of a rough patch. But through God's grace and the support of relatives and friends, both my dad and my grandmother have finally come home from the hospital. And this year, my sister and her family are coming home to spend Christmas with us, too. Things are definitely turning brighter and it's looking to be a meaningful and solemn Christmas celebration for the family.

But over the course of these difficult past two months, I began to understand in a much deeper way the true meaning of giving and receiving help.

Whenever I used to offer help to someone in the past, I focused a lot on what I could do-what form of help I could offer or when I could offer it. And in retrospect, it seemed as if most of the time I was concerned, well, about myself. I thought about what help I could give as opposed to what help the other needed. When my family was in the midst of our "crisis," I noticed that family and friends offered the help that we needed, even if it was sometimes inconvenient to them. 

And while this was going on, I followed the relief efforts for the victims and the survivors of both the earthquake and the typhoon. I began to see how those with more experience with helping sought to gather materials that others might need rather than ones they had  to give away. The true essence of giving, I'm beginning to see, is really not focusing on the giver but rather the "givee." We might be ready to comfort, but our friend might need space and so we ought to give in. We might be ready to give, oh I don't know, canned goods, but perhaps what they need is a warm meal. We might want to hand out blankets but perhaps what they need is a shoulder to cry on. The point is, giving help is about looking out and not in.

Another thing I've also learned is that help ought to actually be received, as well. Maybe it is the Filipino trait of not wanting to inconvenience the other that causes most of us to think twice about asking for help. Or if not that, it might be a misguided sense of independence that borders on pride. It took me a while to beg for prayers for my family-partly because I did not want others to see that I was at my most vulnerable and partly because I really did think I could handle everything by myself. And yet, when I took the step and reached out my hand for help, I was happily consoled by the fact that my friends were only too happy to offer. I was not alone. And I didn't need to be.

Throughout this whole experience, I have learned to see how even suffering too has its purpose. Oh I knew that on a cerebral level all these years, but until I went through all these, it was all just a theory. This whole experience has strengthened my faith, deepened my gratitude for my family and friends and reawakened life lessons that I had begun to take for granted.I have never felt more completely dependent on God's grace and on others' generosity than I have these past two months. And though I would not wish anyone (not even my worst enemy, if I ever had one) to suffer through what I have, I would not trade this experience for anything in the world either.