Pondering all these stress in my heart

Oh how events turn out after I wrote a post this morning. It was like a peaceful rainy weekend until the weather shifted into a weekday storm. While preparing my daily lesson “struggle” plan, someone called me just to see in a Facebook post that I was publicly reviled and I don’t even know what was the reason. I. Was. Stunned. I don’t know how to react about this that I cried for a while and just stayed in a state of shock the whole morning (I haven’t cried like that for decades!). 

Later, the not so expected happened. Agnus (a fictitious name) sent me a message request to confront me since we are not “friends”. Of course, to get both our sides, I accepted. I was called a not-so-good name. I was told to act better because I was a psychology degree holder. It turned out to be a “I’m okay, you’re not okay” game. Agnus won because I let Agnus win. 

But I admired that Agnus was exerting effort to become tamer as we exchange messages. Is it because it was pointless to argue with me in the first place? Because I was not really arguing or defending myself? Because Agnus thought I was denying? 

I still said sorry for not knowing what I should be sorry for. Though I was treated uncharitably, I tried to be fraternal as possible in my approach. That’s because I will never play as a victim. Pardon for being cryptic here.

Though I’m not in the mood to eat lunch, I ate. Maybe because of the stress, I was able to focus and make a week long lesson plan. I was really out of focus that I forgot that our class should be in the gymnasium for the outreach program. What an exhausting effort it was to show a smile in front of my students only to change into a sorrowful mood when I turn my head when no one’s looking. My consolation is to be able to share my sorrow to one teacher, who knows Agnus, though that was in a middle of an outreach program this afternoon. For the second time in my life, I felt what it’s like to receive a bad news during a festive day. 

Looking at my students’ clumsy way of involving kids to play in the gymnasium and seeing the kids have fun, I was able to somehow defocus from the “curses” I received. 

I was out of focus the whole day. But I did it prayerfully; pondering all these stress in my heart. When I joined our night prayers in the chapel, we have the usual examen where we recited the Confiteor afterwards. And it just so happened that we prayed Psalm 86, a lament of David. Oh the feels when we were reciting that. Too bad my fellow brothers doesn’t have a clue about my personal stuggle this day. Night prayers are always about letting go and letting God work. And here I am, this writing is my way of letting go.