Surrender / Entrega

Most people who quit smoking become nightmares to those who still smoke, and that includes myself.
Today I will talk about something that by the same token with smoking and quitting, hopefully will help somebody else, like it did with me.
When my son was diagnosed with autism I spent a long time going in circles, resentful, hurt, and primarily disappointed with God. I felt that after all his promises he had abandoned me.
It took me 7 years of banging my head against the wall to come to the realization, thanks to the words of two good friends whom I value their opinions, that I could not go on the way I was.
One of them in a conversation over a cup of coffee, and of all the things I had to say, he turned around and said: “You said that you hold a grudge against God, and when we hold against a grudge against somebody the right thing to do is settle it with the person, and then as God forgave us, we should forgive.”
In this case it meant forgiving God. He had forgiven me first, so obviously there was no question what the right thing to do was.
The second person, a friend, former missionary, and, as I call him, my adoptive father, and I call him that because my parents live 5,000 miles away and it made it easier at the time to talk about things that were on my mind. He said: “The weight that you are carrying on your shoulders it too much to bear for one person. You need to ask God to help you carry that weight, and as Christians, we believe that Jesus Christ is the one that can do that for us. And this one meant surrendering.
For 7 years I had been trying to do it my way, wrestling not with God, because he is the almighty, and there is no way of winning, or beating him, I was wrestling with myself, like a child, thinking that I could have it my way.
And when that day came it was like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. The wrestling was over. I had been stuck for seven years. My attitude, my perspective, had changed. I accepted that God was at the helm. Now I could go on with my life, and looking at my son not like a burden, like a talisman, but as a blessing, an instrument of God, which we all are, and a way for God to communicate with me, to teach me.
Again the whole key is SURRENDER. There is a hymn that as Christians we sing that says: I surrender all. You can understand that as giving your possessions. I thank it's great, like St. Francis did, give all your belongings away. For me they are just material goods. I view it as surrendering our most precious possession, us, to his will, whatever that may be, wherever it may take me, because at the end of the day God is in command.
Now somebody can come and say easier said than done. I never said that it was easy for me. It took me seven long years of pain, struggle and hardship to realize that I was going nowhere. I think that that shows that it was not easy for me. But it is the only way. Sooner or later we come to that realization.
Once a week I meet with a person who God put in my path to teach me, to look at myself in the mirror through this person. And many times I’ve felt like giving up, and now I see that God has used me to his benefit as an instrument to help this person. We talk about life, Jesus, God, work, and many more things. Recently he’s been more focused on trying to develop a relationship with his creator. And it gives me great joy to see that, because I feel God’s power at work. For those of us who are Christians the Lord’s Prayer says it very clearly: THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. Jesus taught us that to pray to the Father we have in heaven, but it clearly states that his will will be done here as well. God sent his son to die on the cross for all of us, Jews and Gentiles, and the only thing that he wants in return is our total surrender, to surrender to his will. By doing that we have the weight lifted off our shoulders, of all the burdens that may afflict us, health, finances, love, loneliness, etc., and by then we can then become instruments for his glory.
Many times when we have a relative or a friend who is need, in poor health, who could pass away, we pray for their health. We also need to pray for God to give us his comfort, the peace of mind, like he gave Jesus, to accept his will, regardless what that may be, and to know that in the midst of the storm we are not alone, that he is always with us, until the ends of the ages.



Normalmente siempre escribo en ingles, salvo casos excepcionales, o por pedido, pero me parecio que este tema nos afecta a todos. Reconozco que me he vuelto un gringo, no tanto al hablar pero si para escribir.
Lo que sigue es la “adaptacion” de lo que escribi en ingles.

La mayoria de la gente que deja de fumar se vuelven una pesadilla para los que todavia fuman, y en eso me incluyo.
Cuando mi hijo fue diagnosticado con autismo me pase un tiempo largo dando vuelta en circulos, resentido, dolido, y primoridialmente decepcionado con Dios. Senti que despues de todas sus promesas me habia abandonado.
Me llevo siete años de golpearme la cabeza contra las paredes hasta que finalmente llegue a la conlusion, la realizacion, gracias a las palabras de dos buenos amigos, a los cuales les valoro la opinion, que no podia seguir de manera en que estaba.
Uno me dijo durante una charla, café de por medio, y entre todas las cosas que le dije, el agarro y me dijo: “Dijiste que tenias una bronco con Dios, y cuando uno tiene una bronco con alguien lo que corresponde es que lo hables con esa persona, y despues, de la misma que Dios nos perdono a nosotros, debemos perdonar.”
En este caso significaba perdonar a Dios. El me habia perdonado a mi primero, asi que era obvio lo que debia hacer.
La segunda persona, un amigo, ex-misionero, y como lo llamo yo, mi padre adoptado, y lo llamo asi porque mis padres viven a 8.000 kilometros de aca, y se me ha hecho facil en muchas ocasiones de hablar cosas que tenia dando vuelva en la cabeza.. El me dijo: “Estas tratando de cargar mucho peso en los hombros para una sola persona. Tenes que pedirle a Dios que te ayude a cargar ese peso, y como Cristianos, tenemos la fe de que Cristo es el que lo puede hacer por nosotros. I esto significaba entrega.
Por siete años habia tratado de hacer las cosas a mi manera, luchando no con Dios,porque es todo poderoso, y no hay forma de ganar or vencer, sino conmigo mismo, como una criatura, que queria tener su capricho.
Y cuando llego ese dia era como un peso que se habia levantado de mis hombros. La lucha habia terminado. Habia estado estancado por siete años. Mi actitud, my perspectiva, habia cambiado. Acepte que Dios estaba en el timonel. Ahora podia seguir con mi vida, y mirar a mi hijo no ya como un carga, como un talisman, sino como una bendicion, un instrumento de Dios, como somos todos, y una manera de Dios de comunicarse conmigo, de enseñarme.
Al final del dia la palabra es ENTREGA. En ingles hay un himno que Cristianos cantamos que dice: Yo entrego todo. Uno puede entender eso como dando todos sus posesiones. San Francisco de Asis hizo eso, y me parecio maravilloso. Para mi esas son cosas materiales. Yo lo veo como entregando nuestra mas preciada posesion, nosotros, a su voluntad, cualquiera ella fuese, cualquier lugar que nos llevase, porque al final del dia Dios esta al comando.
Ahora alguien puede venir y decir eso es mas facil decirle que hacerlo. Nunca dije que fuese facil. Me llevo siete largos años de dolor, lucha y dificultad para darme cuenta que no iba a ningun lado. Me parece que eso prueba que no fue facil para mi. Pero tarde o temprano llegamos a esa conclusion.
Una vez por semana me junto con una persona que Dios puso en mi camino para enseñarme, para que me mire en el espejo por medio de esta persona. Muchas veces pense en abandonar, y ahora veo que Dios me ha utlizado para su beneficio como un medio para ayudar a esta persona. Hablamos de la vida, de Dios, de Jesus, y de muchas cosas mas. Ultimamente ha estado mas interesado en entablar una relacion con su creador. Me gran alegria poder ver eso, dado que veo el poder de Dios trabajando. Para todos los que somos Cristianos El Padre Nuestro nos dice: HAGASE TU VOLUNTAD EN LA TIERRA COMO EN EL CIELO. Jesus nos enseño a orar al padre que tenemos en los cielos, pero claramente dice que se haga la voluntad aca tambien. Dios envio a su hijo a morir en la cruz por nosotros, Judios y Gentiles, y una de las cosas que nos pide en devolucion es nuestra entrega absoluta, de entregarnos a su voluntad. Al hacerlo sentimos el peso que tenemos sobre nuestros hombros removido, de todas las cargas que nos puedan aflijir, salud, finanzas, amor, soledad, etc., y al hacerlo podemos convertirnos en instrumentos para su gloria.
Muchas veces cuando tenemos un familiar o un amigo que esta en necesidad, tal vez en mala salud, que tal vez podia morir, oramos por su salud. Lo que tambien debemos hacer es orar a Dios por su espiritu, por la paz interior, como le dio a Jesus, de aceptar su voluntad, no importa cual fuere, y de saber que en el medio de la tormenta no estamos solos, que el nos acompaña, hasta el fin de mundo.

Romney talks about appeasement

Romney, in his latest speech said that Obama has pursued a policy of appeasement that betrays a lack of faith in America.
"Obama doesn't understand America," Romney said. "This president appears more generous to our enemies than he is to our friends. Such is the natural tendency of someone who is unsure of America's strength – or of America's rightful place in the world."
This sounds like a speech of a desperate person who sees his “guaranteed” candidacy to the Republican Party for president slipping away.
I guess we should remind Mr. Romney that it was this president who got rid of Osama Bin Laden, not Bush, that it was this president who got rid of Kadafi, not Bush, that even though the Palestinians (whom I will talk about in another blog) tried in the United Nations to get statehood it was this president who blocked it, and had the British and the French rally behind the United States in this measure.
The word appeasement is in reference to what Mr. Chamberlain, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, had towards Nazi Germany in the 30s, when he asked the president of Czechoslovakia to give up any region that had a majority of Germans to avoid war. We know what ended up happening.
He says that he will stop Iran from getting or building nuclear weapons. He says that if need be he will attack Iran. I guess he doesn’t know that we are still involved in two conflicts at a very high cost in terms of life and money, thanks to the previous administration.
If we base ourselves on Romney’s backbone, and how he stands and defends each of his positions we know how that will end as well. He is the king of flip-flops. If you look in the Webster Dictionary for the meaning of the expression “flip-flop” it says Romney.
Romney should be ashamed of himself for using the word appeasement and trying to scare Jewish-Americans.

Another useless bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives

Yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives passed new legislation.
One would assume that they dealt with the extension of the payroll tax holiday, or maybe that they passed a jobs bill that would put Americans to work.
Unfortunately that would be wishful thinking.
They passed another bill that would cut the powers of the Executive branch, and its supposed group of bureaucrats who pass new regulations.
This has been possibly the most do-nothing Congress in history.
They have worked arguably the least amount of days in the history of country, and have passed bills in the House of Representatives that they know perfectly will never make it to the floor of the Senate. And the reason that they will never see the day of light in the Senate is because they do nothing for the millions of unemployed in the US.
This bill would actually give the party who only runs one chamber of the U.S. Congress the power to veto regulations that supposedly would stop business from creating jobs.
I should clarify that the actual do-nothing is the House of Representatives. These are the same members who wanted to push the country into default and who ended up causing the lowering of the credit of the country. They are a group of extremists who want to see the safety net of this country dismantled.
This same group will hurt millions of Americans as of January 1st of 2012 because they don’t want to touch the pockets of the ultra wealthy. Almost 70% of Americans say that they believe that the wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes.
This people are a disgrace to this country.
And when last week they saw that the unemployment had gone down from 9% to 8.6% they went berserk. The unemployment has gone because of the stimulus that was put into place in 2009, and now we are starting to see the effect of it, with people spending more. Housing saw in increase of over 10%.
These are all bad news for people like Mitch McConell, U.S. Senate minority leader, and who said almost at the beginning of the current administration that his main goal is to defeat Obama at the next. Republicans are more concerned in blocking, stopping, and potentially damaging the country as long as they can defeat the current president in the next election in 2012. That is truly pathetic. These representatives should start representing the will of the people, and not their own agenda, they should start governing, not passing useless bills that do absolutely nothing for the country. The U.S. is in a financial bind, with high unemployment, high deficits, and a bleak future, and these people are only worried in bringing down the current administration at whatever cost.
Let us not forget that many of the same people spent precious time over a decade ago impeaching a president for infidelity, while many of them where being unfaithful during the process.