I picked up Mum's sunday Missal to rehearse the First Reading for the celebration of Holy Mass, the fourth time that morning. Not minding that it is the same portion I had been practising for uncountable times on days that Mum gave permission. That sunday morning making it the last day of three complete weeks.
Just then, I remembered that I had not even prayed. Swiftly, like a football pass, I dropped the Missal, clasped my hands and shut my eyes. Before I could end my usual prayer starters "Father,Lo...", a current of guilty thoughts illuminated my mind, forcing my eyes open for a brief second as I recalled that I only prayed to God when I needed His help and the Omniscience God, as my Mum loved to refer to Him especially when she was trying to stop us from telling lies, would never succumb to such flimsy needs.
My worry ripened to fright. So I quickly forced my eyes closed again and tried harder to focus on God. Not on how while on the altar, something as ordinary as breathing would feel like continuously gasping for air when the universe had just sentenced me to death, not on how unstoppable my now normal voice during rehearsal would become the creaking of rusted hinges that opening a door of an abandoned house makes, but focus solely on God. Just God. As plenty of my Dad's stored away Awake articles by Jehovah's Witnesses illutrates Him. Engulfed in fog and mist, that only allows us to see from the gold embroidered crown on his Head, to His torso. Seated in a marble throne and seeing all at once of this giant world symbolised in a shape as small as a table tennis ball. Or as my Mum imagines Him during our family prayers on every new year day in renewal of a covenant with Him, always present where two or more are gathered.
So I focused on Him right in front of me, right hand raised in the air, head slightly tilted to the left. I started praying. As fervently as I once remembered doing when I was asking God for Admission into the higher institution. I asked Him for only a little of the confidence I was presently imagining Him with, the type with some mysterious calm, the confidence when He was sitting among the elders in the temple, preaching and asking questions at 12 years old, the confidence He must have exumed with authority in the Bible when he ordered the legion of unclean spirits into the swine!
After some more sentences which I felt were long enough and prayer worthy, I picked the Missal. Not to rehearse again but to return it to my Mum's altar with a remote intention to exercise my faith when I was already dressed for church, in a way that was not going to seem like I was directly challenging God to grant my prayer requests right away.
So, I brushed, gulped a cup of tea that was not as sweet as I would rather have loved it, ocassionally dipping inside my share of two pieces of sliced bread that even ten more of it would still not fill me. I then had my bath, unevenly creamed my body and wore a blue background polka dot blouse, and the three quarter slightly big blue skirt I had pressured my Mum to dash me by begging her for it countlessly, particularly on times when she was extra nice as reward for running her sometimes, very annoying errands. Tied my scarf with the ends of my braided hair intentionally left bare and wore my favorite basket-hole-like-feet-showing shoes. I applied only brown powder on my face as mum got outrageous at any other make up when one was to proclaim God's direct word on the altar!
I sprinted to the altar, picked the Missal and walked more slowly to the mirror, cloaking my steps with the confidence I strongly believed God had minutes ago granted me. The time had come for me to guage the confidence I prayed earlier to Him about! I read from the Missal. Saying some of the sentences offhand with my eyes off the Missal. I was impressed . To my ears, I sounded like some sophisticated female Radio presenter. I closed the missal and did the sign of the cross. Then I looked back in the mirror, forcefully personifying myself as confidence.
Afterall, no one can ever truly tell what it looks like. Many pretend to have become it but very few have managed to see it.
You are but one of such few. and yes, It is only a choice away! Walk back to your mirror, look more closely, squint a whole day if you must. There. It stares back. You. With a slight frown at first. You've got all it takes. Dont worry about being different because your uniqueness is really what counts. As different as fraternal twins whose existence, though characteristically distinct, still qualifies the other a twin. As popcorn for a Thriller, though varied in sizes but all still making up the porncorn pack...