Far Away From Home

By MARK JOSEPH TANECO

COUNTLESS times are the moments of struggles I’ve experienced during the COVID Pandemic starting last year, and even now.

I would not deny that they still happen and come in various ways and forms. I would not say either that I entirely lost hope. But there are moments when I feel extremely tired and weary— anxious about the uncertainties.

Especially now, being far away from home, studying and working here in Australia, out of my comfort zone. Just nurturing hopes to have a better future, I cannot help wondering if I will ever be with my loved ones again.

Through time, however, miraculously, by God’s grace, I have learned to embrace these struggles and accept them as part of my life now. I have realized that what we call perfect or flawless life is just an illusion. There is no such thing. What I can aim for is to unravel a purposeful life.

As a Christian, I firmly believe that the good life is the one where you try to follow Jesus and become His disciple amid the trials and hardships. The one who triumphs is the one who becomes selfless just as how He is. The one who fully trusts and submits to our Lord– as our saints also did before us– to win souls. This life is a different kind of struggle that changes a whole lot of my perspectives on life. We do not need to be perfect. To turn around our ordeal, what we need are only the five loaves and two fishes Jesus turned into thousands to feed a multitude.

For me, the Pandemic has been a redirection to self-examine and realign my priorities. God uses the people around me with whom I journey to help me cope with the situation and feel that I am not alone. Their experiences, struggles, triumphs, and brokenness have blessed and inspired me to keep going on. They remind me that God never really left us and our humble homes.

Jesus has taught me to use this situation and turn it into opportunities and hope. I have learned to lean on Him even more and be humble to seek His help. That if all else fail, after doing all that I can, it’s then the trusting part that will do the magic — an act of surrender. Believing that God knows everything and that His ways, time, and plans are always the best is humbling, resembling that of an innocent child trusting his Father fully.

Amazingly and beautifully, God uses the same perfectly imperfect people for me to feel His undying love. They are all with me– my friends, family, loved ones, workmates, colleagues, Bible study mates, and my Light Group members in my Feast family in the Philippines and in Australia, where God magnifies His blessings.

I can hardly believe that for the past months this year, I now feel more alive again. I feel more motivated to attend the Mass and connect with my loved ones. It is Jesus’ Presence in the Eucharist that reminds me of the sufferings He bore for us.

I feel sinful and sorrowful, yet saved and renewed by His loving grace. I feel Him embracing me without judgment and shame towards me. He sees the person that I am that the world refuses to see. I feel redeemed and living again.

Jesus indeed meets us where we are. It is not all about our title nor our status in life. It is about the little things and our weaknesses that He elevates and strengthens. He does not force us in any way to love Him back but He just consistently and selflessly pursues us so that we may be delivered through Him and only Him, even if it means Jesus sacrificing at the Cross as the cost.

Here I am serving with the Worship Team of Feast Sydney, and encouraging words at The Feast that I bravely declare in times of despair.

I am so thankful to God that even far away from home, amid the Pandemic,

I still get to serve Him. I am nowhere perfect and may never be. I am God’s work in progress, just like everybody else.

But I think that humility and consistent yearning for Jesus, despite our failures and difficult past, the acknowledgment that He is our Lord, and that willingness to nurture that relationship with Him are what truly matter.

Now I could say that in times of challenges, I pray to God, surrendering and remembering those five loaves and two fishes. We are all in this, my dear friend!

I persist in praying for blessings and miracles for all of us!