Most of us have exceptionally good memories that nothing, and no one, can steal from us. These memories can be quietly splendid or hysterically marvelous. But one thing they have in common is this: they make us smile, even secretly. They remind us that no matter how bad things can get, life is still good. And that’s because God is the Source of all good things which He cascades onto us in His perfect time, and in perfectly-calibrated doses.
When I was in highschool, I’d spend some of my summers in Davao with my Chinese cousins. We were a noisy, easy-going, laughter-prone lot. We loved to go to the beach even if we didn’t like to swim. We loved to go bowling, biking, chill out in nice hotels, go to impromptu parties at night, go shopping in Aldevinco (hope I spelled this correctly), ride around the city on “errands,” and most of all, WE LOVED TO EAT.
This was way before food bloggers and food porn became a subculture. Food was always part of our daily agenda: unlimited grilled tuna, crabs cooked in at least three different ways, giant prawns swimming in coconut milk and chili, gooey beef tendon with black mushrooms (slow-cooked over wood fire), greaseless chicharon bulaklak, grilled or barbecued everything, and not to forget — our precious midnight lomi.
My girl cousin and I shared her room for the summer. We’d often talk till 2am about anything that blipped in our radar. She was a serious girl but fun to be with; intelligent, kind and soft-spoken, totally non-judgmental or rigid. I liked her a lot. And one of our safest, most comfortable cocoon-moments was when we’d order some midnight lomi.
I remember how we’d chat beside a pair of big wooden doors, waiting for the delivery boy to come. We’d eat the hot lomi on my aunt’s huge dining table, in comfortable silence. Just concentrating on how good it was. Happy and content as we slurped down our lomi. Our midnight lomi was the perfect ending to our day. Everything was good in our world. Everything.
But as we grew older, went to college, worked, got married, and had kids — we faced our own rude awakenings. Life, we discovered, wasn’t easy at all. Marriage could be such a painful, treacherous walk to Calvary. Raising kids was way harder than having pets.
My cousin and I never lost touch. Neither did we hide our woes from, nor sugarcoat our problems to each other. Chatting long distance wasn’t a problem, even if it made a dent in our budgets. One time, when her life was in shambles, she and her children stayed with us for a month. That was when we sat down to our adult version of midnight soup. Over big spoonfuls of my mom’s delicious, home-cooked lomi, we talked about the possible solutions to the predicament she was in.
One of the major solutions presented itself, according to God’s perfect timing. Our church was having a couples retreat then, hence my husband and I sponsored my cousin so she could attend it, all by her lonesome. The retreat organizers allowed singles (who were about to get married), or solo-marrieds, to attend if they wanted to learn about God’s blueprint for marriage. Well, it’s never too late nor too early to do things right.
In His mercy, God used that couples retreat to save my cousin’s marriage. We asked my cousin’s husband to come over to our house and listen to our suggestions. By God’s grace, he listened. In a few weeks, they reconciled. While it wasn’t a perfect marriage (well, whose marriage is perfect, anyway?) it was a marriage that God Himself restored.
When we last visited them in Chicago, we gave this couple a chance to make sure they had truly committed their lives to Christ. They both did — without any hemming and hawing. It was the perfect antidote to an imperfect marriage. It was God’s finishing touch to a visit that was going to yield eternal benefits. We left Chicago triumphant as Tom Cruise at the end of Mission Impossible.
Most of us have unforgettable, priceless moments that we’ve shared with some special, hand-picked people in our lives. Moments that are strong, almost palpable, and can withstand the test of time. We must use these moments — these shared experiences, these strong ties forged by meaningful exchanges — to lift each other up when we fall headlong into pits of danger, depression, or despair.
In retrospect, I know now that those bowls of midnight lomi were meant to give my cousin and I not just happy, comforting memories — but also bonds that were so safe, so strong, that we could help each other survive the storms of our lives.
Use your beautiful, shared experiences to help others in their time of need. God just might use you to be His arms and legs!
