When I was younger, I didn’t care much about life in general. I was an adolescent after all. All I needed to do was wake up early, eat breakfast so I will be able to ride the school bus to  and get to school on time. My sole responsibility at that the time was to study hard so that when “Class Cards Day” comes my parents will be proud of me. It’s not something I have perfected. I had my own share of PTCs (Parent Teacher Conferences: a meeting of teachers and parents who are not performing well in a specific subject every quarter). I did flunk some of my subjects especially the ones that particularly focus on numbers and formulas. Needless to say, I was not a straight A student.

And why is that? It’s not because I’m dumb. It’s not because I don’t understand. No. It’s the acceptance I had my weaknesses. I lacked the willingness to learn and help myself improve. I was too stubborn and proud. My thinking at that time is that it’s my cruise, my life. Thus, I was in control. I didn’t understood then that part of my responsibility is was to work on the “holes” and “glitches” I had as to  and understand why as I was getting failing marks. I was busy thinking that I can pass it my subjects with out any help. That I could do it all by myself. Little did I know that things were never in my power. If only I understood that then.

Now that I’m past formal education and I’m in the “real world”, as they say, things are more complicated. Responsibilities are bigger, problems are tougher, people are not that easy to get along with. Despite this, I learned that the trick with life is acknowledging that things are not entirely in our control. It may sound weird but it’s really not.  It’s easy for me to accept things now not because I have someone or somebody to blame. It’s because I know I did my best. Whenever things don’t work out even though I want them to, I just know that it’s not for me. Tough, I know. But that is where acceptance comes in. They say that you get what you make out of life. True. But it’s not solely “us”, there is Someone that decides, depending on our intention, depending on the pureness of our hearts.

The challenge is accepting and believing that God is the one in control. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are. Different situations have the same steps to a happy ending. First, we need to embrace our vulnerability and accept that things don’t always go our way because our plans do not coincide with God’s. Second, we need to realize and believe that the one that is planned for us, the one written by God, is the perfect plan. It is the one tailor made for us.

Remember, it’s not what we make of life; its how we make of it.

Picture taken from: Flicker