My life’s version of penitence, an early Holy Week trial (today, Friday, April 11)


Indeed, God has His way of calling our attention and testing us how well we have learned, willing to follow, and how to forgive and understand in the midst of man-made disaster. And to this writing, I am still displeased from the incident.

It was almost lunch time, my partner was wrapping up her online-meeting since she was working from home, when I heard an overflowing water but could not identify where it was coming from, our faucet was off, no one was using the water. 

By the way, I am living in a bachelor-size ground floor room with my partner. It is an old semi-wooden apartment compound. On top of us there are two other units.  Anyway, soon enough my partner hang-up and did the same. She was searching where the huge sound of water was coming until it one-by-one created its entry and dug holes from various parts of our ceiling that we two could no longer contain and attend to. Instinct dictates, my partner went up and asked the unit directly on top of us and checked if they were using the water and explained it's leaking to us, and the guy replied, no. 

So, my partner called on the other unit, it appeared it was from them since they were having their aircon cleaning service. But it wasn’t an easy admission that the cleaning process they did was all wrong and affected us due to the huge water leak. We went through an exchange of words and had the housewife of the other unit enter our room to see the damage they have caused us. After a while she called on us and said sorry. My partner also apologized not for her behaviour but for the anger it brought to her, to us, because of the effect of their actions, as she had to stop working and attend to everything—cleaning the mess, shutting down the electricity, saving whatever could be saved from possible damage, and look for our flashlights and a lot other things. For those who still don’t know me, movement is part of my lifetime challenge being a stroke survivor myself.


     You see, I have been asking and encouraging everyone, especially those who dropped by my Tiktok account and read my posts on REFLECTION and FORGIVENESS this Holy Week season. Truly, it is hard to forgive when the moment hits you—and ALL we could say was “OH GOD, OH MY GOD!”  Then I kept asking my partner to keep her cool because it was already too humid and hot, and I do not want her blood pressure to kick in and further aggravate the situation we were in. 


     At least for myself, I realized that despite the irritating and infuriating challenges the situation had given us hours ago, I am thankful that rather than cursing, my partner and I both managed to say the name of the Lord. 

Yes, until now I am still not okay and so is my partner, but despite the trouble, we try hard to keep our cool at least for our peace and perhaps, as a way of responding to the message of God this season of penance---not just to do a little  sacrifice but to the
 KEEP and propagate PEACE.

 Admittedly, we are far from being good children of God because we are still a work in progress. Hopefully, with God’s help we will get there.


Have a safe and meaningful Holy Week season to all!