I Thirst, Too

A reflection after 33 days with Mary

Today is my 33rd and last day of 33 Days to Morning Glory, my 33-day consecration to Mary’s Immaculate Heart, and tomorrow will be my 40th day of prayer and fasting. I thought I would reach these last days with some big realization about Mary, about the fast, or about what God wants me to do next. Instead, God apparently decided to reveal something to me last night, before I even reached the final day.

Nag-breakdown ko gabii.

It started with something so ordinary. Abi nako akong ka-chat kay daughter sa akong ex-boyfriend, only to realize nga iyang mama diay. Hehe. Hello, Tita Fe. Nagchika mi a little about how things are going, and somehow our conversation brought me back to last December, when I spent Christmas with their big, happy, warm family. I remember how happy I was then, thinking, YES, finally, I belong. For a little while, I really thought I had found something I had been looking for all my life. Tapos flop.

As we were talking, I suddenly remembered that feeling of being with them and thinking that finally, naa na pud koy family nga akong ma-feel nga ako. Then the emotions started flooding in, and I found myself asking questions I had somehow never really sat down with before: Ngano jud ganahan kaayo ko ma-belong? Ngano man jud ko mangita ug person, or people, nga akong maingon nga “these are my people”? Why does it matter so much to me?

I think I’ve always wanted that feeling of being someone’s person, or at least being part of someone’s people. Ganahan ko anang naay mangita nako, kanang naay moingon, “Asa naman si Tin ron?” or “Invite nato siya.” I want to know what it’s like to have people who genuinely want me around, not because I am useful or because I was the one who initiated everything, but simply because they enjoy having me there. Maybe some of you know that feeling too, especially if you’ve ever been part of a big group but somehow never quite made it into the smaller, closer circles. People have their people, their best friends, their usual companions, their group chats, their spontaneous laag, while you’re somehow always the one reaching out.

I’ve felt that in so many different places in my life. In friendships, in relationships, in communities, even in religious life. I remember wanting so badly to belong with the Clarisas Capuchinas. I loved being with them, and I felt that they were happy to have me around, but eventually I had to leave because I got sick. There were also relationships where I didn’t just fall in love with the person; I became attached to their family too, because somewhere along the way, I started thinking, Maybe this is it. Maybe I’ve finally found my people. When those relationships ended, I realized I wasn’t only grieving the person. I was also grieving the feeling of belonging that came with them.

That explains why being left has always hurt me more than it probably should. I grew up without knowing where I truly came from and only learned about my adoption when I was 21, so somewhere deep inside me there has always been this longing that I never really knew how to name. I’ve been asking the same question in different ways all these years: Where is my home? Where are my people?

I don’t want to repeat everything I’ve already written about trying to be useful or good enough to make people stay. I’ve written about that before, and I think I’ve already understood that particular lesson. What I realized last night was something different. Beneath all those things, beneath the need to be accepted or appreciated, there was simply this enormous longing to belong. I want a person. I want people. I want a place where I don’t have to wonder if I’m wanted.

And then, while crying over all of this, something suddenly hit me.

I thirst.

Hala.

Just like Jesus.

One of the things that struck me during 33 Days to Morning Glory was Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s reflection on Jesus’ words, “I thirst.” The retreat invites us to look at those words not simply as something Jesus said from the Cross, but as an expression of His thirst for our love, for our souls, for us to receive the love He is constantly offering. And suddenly I thought, I thirst too!

I’ve spent so much of my life wanting to be loved, wanting to be chosen, wanting to be included, wanting someone to say, “You’re one of us.” And for the first time, instead of simply seeing that longing as some emotional wound that I needed to get rid of, I started seeing that there was something in it that allowed me to understand Jesus a little more.

Also my childhood dream of having the stigmata suddenly came back to me. Grade 3 pa ko when I first thought about that, and somehow that idea stayed with me even into adulthood. I used to think, How cool would it be to actually share Christ’s wounds? Of course, even in my imagination, I knew it was a long shot because I didn’t think I deserved that kind of honor. But last night, while crying, I suddenly thought, Lord, imong humor ba.

All these years I thought sharing in Christ’s wounds would mean having physical wounds like His. I never realized that there was another kind of wound I already carried: His heart. A heart that thirsts for love, a heart that continues to love even when that love is rejected, a heart that wants people even when those people don’t always want Him back.

Because when I look at my life, hala, mao gyud. I’ve longed for people who didn’t necessarily want me. I’ve loved people who didn’t always love me back. I’ve wanted to belong to families and communities that eventually weren’t mine. I’ve been left, excluded, betrayed, and cheated on, and yet somehow, I still have so much love in me. I still want to care for people. I still want to write. I still want to gather people together. I still want to help. I still want to make people feel welcome because I know how it feels not to be welcomed.

That realization hurt.

I remember crying and thinking, “Lord, I don’t want this. Dili ko ani.” I don’t want to keep hurting like this. I don’t want to keep longing for people who don’t choose me. I don’t want to keep wondering why I’m not someone’s person, why I’m always the one initiating, why I seem to care so much about people who don’t necessarily care about me in the same way.

Note to self: “I’m not too much.” There is something beautiful in being someone who prays for people, remembers people, who misses people, who gets nostalgic about people who aren’t even part of her life anymore, who wants to gather people and make them feel like they belong. God can actually use that part of me instead of asking me to become someone who doesn’t feel so deeply.

Because Jesus knew what it was like to love people who would reject Him. He knew what it was like to welcome people who would abandon Him, to give Himself completely and still be betrayed. He knew what it was like to thirst for people who would not always receive Him, and still, from the Cross, He said, “I thirst.”

That changes something for me.

Jesus didn’t stop being Love because people rejected Him. He didn’t become less generous because some people didn’t appreciate Him. He didn’t stop welcoming because He knew He would be abandoned. So, I don’t have to stop loving simply because I’ve been hurt either. I don’t have to become cold because some people were unkind, and I don’t have to stop giving because some people took advantage of me. But I also don’t have to keep begging people to give me a place they are not willing to give me.

Although my mind says, “But Lord, I’m not You. I can’t just keep loving people who don’t love me back and pretend it won’t hurt me. Mahurot gihapon ko.” I am still human, and there are wounds that can become so deep that I’m afraid of what they might do to me if I keep putting myself in the same situations. I don’t want to become bitter, but I also don’t want to keep getting hurt until there is nothing left of me.

I think that’s why part of me has always been afraid to love freely. I know how much I can give, and I also know how badly it can hurt when that love is not received.

That is the part I still need to learn. I can love people without needing them to choose me. I can care without needing someone to stay. I can serve without needing to become indispensable. I can reach out without interpreting someone’s silence as proof that I am unwanted. And most importantly, I can finally accept that belonging is not something I have to earn from another person.

Because I belong to Christ.

Before anyone chose me, He chose me. Before anyone called me theirs, He called me His. Before I found a family, a relationship, a community, or a group of people I could call my own, I already belonged to Him.

I thought Marian consecration was about giving myself to Mary, and it is, but the more I learn about her, the more I realize that she doesn’t keep anything for herself. She always leads us to Jesus. So even this longing to belong can be placed in her hands and brought to Him. I don’t have to be ashamed of it or spend my whole life trying to get rid of it. I can simply ask God what He wants to do with it.

Because I know what it feels like to be left out. I know what it feels like to wish someone would invite me, to want someone to initiate, to look at other people’s friendships and think, I want that too. And because I know that hunger, I can recognize it in other people. I think that’s part of why I want to write, why I want to gather people, why I want to create communities, why I want Helping Hands Davao to become a place where people can help one another, and why I want people who feel alone to know that somebody sees them.

I don’t want people to feel like they have to earn their place with me. I want them to feel welcome. God can take this wound that has hurt me for so long and turn it into a place where I can understand other people’s wounds.

I still don’t know why some people had to leave my life. I don’t know why some relationships ended just when I thought I had finally found home. I don’t know why some communities couldn’t become the home I hoped they would be. And honestly, I don’t think I need to pretend that those things don’t hurt anymore. They do. But I don’t have to spend the rest of my life asking other people to heal that wound for me. I can finally bring it to Jesus.

So, when that old longing comes back, when I find myself asking again, Where are my people? Why don’t I have someone? Why am I always the one reaching out? I can remember that there is Someone who has never stopped choosing me. Someone who never required me to be useful before loving me. Someone who never asked me to earn my place. Someone who simply says, You are Mine.

I spent 37 years thinking I was looking for love. I was looking for home.

And all these years, Jesus has been slowly teaching me where home actually is. Not in a relationship, not in a family, not in a community, not in being someone’s favorite person, and not even in being needed. Home was Him.

Today is my 33rd and final day of this consecration. Tomorrow, my 40-day fast ends. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that before I could finish either one, God allowed me to see this part of my heart. I think that is the reward, not that He suddenly gave me the people I’ve always wanted, but that He finally showed me the One who has been there all along.

I thirst for love.

Jesus thirsts too.

And this heart that has spent so many years aching to belong is not something I need to be ashamed of. It may be the very place where Jesus is inviting me to meet Him.

I belong to you, Jesus.