Jesus said to his disciples:
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,
which a person finds and hides again,
and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant
searching for fine pearls.
When he finds a pearl of great price,
he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.”
(Matthew 13: 44-46)
This entry marks a rebirth for this blog, which, for four years I had been resisting to update. In hindsight I had been running away from continuing my discernment, as I had been fixating myself on other pursuits in life. I feel God was riding on that drift for quite a while, understanding that I was having the time of life. In fact, I really was.
One year after my last entry in this blog, I sat for the medical licensure examinations and passed. But this achievement was not without tears and desolation, as well as consolation and joys along the way. I met new friends, strengthened relationships with my fellow medical graduates, and waited in anticipation for the next step in my life as a newly minted doctor. God did not disappoint. He led me to the Doctors to the Barrios program, a deployment program for doctors, to be sent to faraway municipalities where there is no doctor to serve their sick.
I was a rural doctor for two years in the mountains of the Cordillera, in northern Luzon island here in the Philippines. During this stint I got to know more of my self and was given the grace to achieve some small triumphs as a community doctor. I was so inebriated with this experience that I wanted to move on to the next level.
I joined a health policy research institute after my stint in the barrios, motivated with the notion that I needed to apply what I learnt in the barrios as a health policy analyst and researcher. In the beginning it was heaven. I loved it. I was interacting with the best brains of the country as regards health and research. Soon enough I was setting my sights towards climbing up the academic ladder.
In the process, I created another blog, which until now documents all the things I have been doing for the past four years.
God has been following me all along.
Suddenly, it hit me: He was still not over with me yet.
On the eve of Pentecost of this year, 2014, I felt Him speaking to me during the elevation of the Sacred Host at Mass. It was a Voice that I know changed my life completely. It reaffirmed the authenticity of that call about which I had been writing here in this blog for the past six years. This Voice then made me reconsider all of my career plans, everything that I had held dear: a future in the academe and in health policy, a financially stable future. I was restless until I took concrete steps in discerning my call, and soon enough, I found myself in touch with my vocation directors, who had been following my life all along since I first got to know them in 2005.
God has been faithful. Until now, I feel unworthy of His faithfulness.
In the process of having the time of my life, I had been dabbling with a lot of things. I had relished in personal recognition and the desire to appear as a powerful person in the field of public health. In the first few months of my research job, I had been bent on getting published right away, and getting involved with as many projects as possible. But after that Voice made Itself felt within my heart, everything changed.
Following this Voice has become what Jesus describes in today's Gospel: selling everything one has to buy the Pearl of Great Price. Soon enough, I felt I had to concretize my feelings and move myself to action.
I soon informed my director at the research office I am working in of my intention to discern my calling further. I will not expose my specific career plans here, but I was ecstatic when my director expressed his support for my decision to explore my calling further.
I am still discerning, and praying for clarity in my life. But, today's Gospel gives me consolation, since now, I know, I am now on my way towards being able to purchase that Pearl of Great Price, and follow that Voice, my reason for being, my life and joy.
Dear reader, please include me in your prayers.
Our Lady of the Way, pray for us.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.
(Image source: http://www.destinywordoftheday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Pearl-of-great-Price.jpg)
