Month: October 2019

Life

Deceived to Holy Matrimony

Today I heard a beautiful sermon about relationships. Follow this link if you would like to hear it: https://audiover.se/2oQBd8g

Someone recently advised me, “now that you have seen the options, (that there aren’t any), wouldn’t you reconsider him?” I smiled, and kept silent. But it made me wonder… is one supposed to choose quickly and marry fearing single old age? It seems peaceful and safer to be single and in love with God, than married to the wrong person. 

My only hope for singles contemplating marriage is to really seek God and search for wise counsel. If one is not at peace with a particular relationship, he/she should seek God before hurting and wasting someone else’s time.
I forced myself to be in two serious relationships (when marriage was the goal) and both of them ended. This idea of settling down sometimes deviates our purpose in life. To live fully, is to be happy within one’s own situation.

I’ve witnessed unions that were troublesome from the beginning who moved forward with marriage. Most of the time it seems like, marriage made the relationship worse.  The verse found in Matthew 6:24, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other…” reminds me of the union we ought to establish with God before anyone else. If our relationship with God is weak, we will place our partner before God, contradicting the meaning of true love.

I believe with all my heart that marriage is about serving God. I’ve concluded that the devil matches people all the time – pushing them to marriage, to interfere in the goal that God had for one of them. Does it make sense to you the reader?

Time, time, and time again, it seems like we are all rushing into decisions because of time. Life on this earth cannot be compared to eternity. People advise me, “You have to be intentional! Tell them that you like them, seat by them, talk to them, become friends with his friends! Do something about it… you are running out of time…” I say, “I’m going to die as one (hopefully happy) old maid.” It seems really easy to choose the one you like and make conversation with him, search for him, catch him by the neck and force him to like you back. But it is actually pretty terrifying for some of us. I was born in the wrong era, I still hope that if a man finds something positive in me, he will make an effort to make his interest known. Sometimes I lose faith in what I hope, but the Bible reminds me of the promises of eternal life and I consider how beautiful life already is. God is love, I think of how I could have matched myself up when I felt lonely, but that would have brought pain to the other person. So I knew I could only be strong in the Lord to make someone else happy, not to be a burden. See the Bible says, “It’s not good for man to be alone,” I agree, because we never are, God is always with us, and His time is always perfect.

Poems

Señorita

Aspirations were ahead of me each school year
My role model, my sister, was very accomplished at age 14
She obtained first place in her class year after year
I admired and looked up to her as she wore “señorita” clothes and shoes
My fancy clothes, at age ten, were my dad’s dress gifts
I don’t remember choosing what to wear
But my sister, she had earn the right to choose her clothes!
She was mature, lady-like, and old enough to make her own decisions
She was in the varsity volleyball team and was part of the Youth Committee at church

I still admire my sister’s strength and courage
Especially when it came to living on her own, not by choice
My parents had decided to relocate our family to the States
Both my brother and I joined them six months after they left Peru
But my sister’s visa was rejected, so she moved to Argentina
There, my parents thought, she could live closer to my mom’s family
There she would attend university, but the plan was always for her to reunite with us
She was only 17 when my parents left Peru, and 18 by the time my brother and I left

I remember spending more time together with my sister as I got older
She finally took me on her trips with her girlfriends.
During the six months, while my parents lived in the States
My siblings and I moved to Chiclayo with our grandparents from my dad’s side
There, we spent one of the best and longest vacations we could afford
My brother had to hang out with 6 girls, grandma, aunt, two cousins, and us sisters
My grandpa entertained us with Chinese checkers, and army whistles each morning
We hang out at the beach, walked on the streets at night, talked, and laughed very much

After attending to change our visa status, the lawyer advice our parents to retrieve our paper work, we could no longer leave the country.
Back in Argentina, my sister’s visa had been rejected for the third time.
We were separated not knowing for how long.
Our grandma in Peru got ill, so my sister flew to Peru to take care of the responsibility of the oldest son of the family, our dad’s.
She got to see our grandma in her worse conditions, and stand with the rest of the family at the funeral.
While in Argentina, she got to experience our mom’s side of the family
There she became very close with our grandma, mom’s mom
Our grandma loved God dearly, on one of her bible study visits she was hit by a drunk driver causing her early death.
Again the responsibility and honor to be with the rest of the family at one of our family’s funeral became my sister’s, she had to bear severe pain

Eleven years went by, and our family was finally ready and anxiously waiting at the airport for my sister’s arrival from Buenos Aires, Argentina!
That moment was a living testimony of God’s love for us
We cried, we laughed, we kissed and hugged
And it felt like my sister had always being home
Nothing was awkward, everything was beautiful and emotional
From that year 2013 and the next years, she visited for Christmas and New Year’s
Until she was able to relocate to the States in 2017

We won’t know why God allowed this separation to happen, it’s irrelevant to ask why. But to believe and trust that miracles can happen strengthens our faith and our willingness to serve Him. Praise God for my sister, she can now experience the love of my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and the awesomeness of our nieces and nephew!

This text is dedicated to my sister, Nathaly Danna Tapia Ramos, who continues to carry the señorita role model to the next generation, our nieces Marcela and Milani