Not Fully Awake Yet

Have you ever been sleeping and someone walks in the room and call your name, not too loud, not to soft, and in your sleep you're wondering whether or not someone is actually calling you..? It's happened to me that once I was sick and I had taken some medicine, afterwhich I was as drwosy as I could get, and went to sleep. Well, it looked like I had just came from the outside on a rainy day and just dropped on my bed. Because I was so wet, my sister then decided to change my shirt so that I wouldn't get more sick. She walks into my room and calls me to wake me up.

I was so drowsy (and we all know how good that drowsy sleep is) that in my sleep I heard my name being called but at the same time I didn't.... and yet I did.... but didn't; get it?

Long story short, when I awoke the next day, I was told, by my sister who was laughing hysterically, how she had managed to get me to sit up on my bed while I was still asleep to change my shirt and how, in the process, she taunted me and mocked me in my sleep - siblings!

Well, my life up to the previous year was very much like this: I was sleeping and drwosy and caught in between sleep and drowsiness and reality. You see, I always knew God had a plan for me and that he wanted me to do something in specific for Him, but in my (not so) previous condition I kinda' heard him but not really.... but kinda'... but not really; get it?

Unlike my sister, He did not moch me; however, he did manage to get me up on my bed and is now currently trying to change my clothes - let me explain:

Last year my family was shaken up by an experience I know many families have gone through, are going through, and I will go through: infidelity. My father (or the man who helped my mother conceive me..) abandoned his family for his second family. When I confronted him about the situation, he was clear in showing that he took his decision and was not backing down from it. Obviously, my two sisters, my mother and I were affected by the news; but God is good, and He will never let His children dwell in shame nor sorrow, so we got over it pretty quickly (and NO! we ain't frottin').

In the middle of all of this is when God managed to get me to sit up - still confused?.... Good!

Check it.

It was always my mother's prayer, starting from the moment she was in labor of her only son, that God would take him into His service and deliver her from her pains. God did just that: deliver her from her pains, I mean. Ever since I can remember, I've been told that one day I would become a soldier of/for Christ. Of course I didn't think so. My goals were to first become an architect, then that changed to a graphic designer and computer scientist, then that changed to a camera man for ESPN - I know, the youth these days!

In one way or another my mind was set on the final career path, so I begin attending a school which had a program specializing in filmmaking and video production (that sounds so cool!). Throughout the years, however, even people I didn't really have any sort of relationship with would tell me that I "looked like a preacher" and things along that line. My girlfriend at the time (now fiancee) even told me that she could imagine, better yet, see herself as "a pastor's wife"....

WHAT?

So in my quest for doing things my own way, the man who helped my mother conceive me decided that we (his first and ONLY TRUE family) were not good enough and decided to go to his second family, period.

The day of my confrontation with the man who helped my mother conceive me, on the phone, I asked him a very serious question: "Pop, do you realize that you're playing with your spiritual life? Do you realize that when Jesus comes back He will ask you account of YOUR family? Do you realize that the choice you're making can make you lose your eternal life?!"
His answer was chilling: I've made my choice and I'm standing behind it...

It was at that time, where I heard God's voice calling me in my sleep, in the midst of my drowsiness. Finally, I began accepting the task that God had already set out for me even before I was conceived. Silently and privately, I took the decision to do what I am born to do: prevent someone from throwing their eternal life away for earthly pleasures. If I achieve such difficult task, even if it's ONE person, then I have done my work and I can rest in peace.

However, I'm not fully awake yet. Day by day I become more and more aware of the need this world have of someone and something real: Jesus and His word.

If you're asleep and/or drowsy..... WAKE UP!