"YOU will always have a special place in my heart"

Yesterday my brother called me and we spent long hours chatting with each other. How I miss those times when we had our non-stop conversation in our humble home. He told me that he will go abroad and that struck my heart it made me think that my younger brother is now a grown up man.I felt the same feeling 5 years ago when he told us over dinner that he will enter the seminary and eventually become a priest, a vocation he ever dreamed of. 

 

Early in the morning I checked his account and my attention was caught up with his writing which says"YOU will always have a special place in my heart" and it made me cry because I know exactly what it means. He already finished the first step of becoming a priest when he decided not to continue with the second stage. I'm very awed with his decision because I know and I can feel it that he really like to serve God in that way. But I also know that his keeping his promise to our father before he left us that "he will take care of our family". I remembered one of our conversations when he told me that "Becoming a priest is not a contest, it doesn't mean that there is a certain finish line that you have to reach in a given time, as long as your keeping your dream alive in your heart you will achieve it in God's time". He wanted us to be secure first before he will fulfill his dream. Thus, I explore his life in the seminary to be able to share with his dream.

My brother loves children by nature and during his stayed in the seminary he became the "Kuya" of those kids that needs love and affection. Every vacation period he had a lots of gospel, teaching and even stories to share with us in our family.And he always asked me philosophical questions that would let my mind keep on wandering.

 

The seminarians in their congregation had been chosen in the entire Philippines and my brother was one of them. But after how many years,they were only 5 of them that survived the test of God. Truly, the way to follow the footsteps of God is not an easy way you will face unimaginable storms, unconquerable trials, and experience loses as well as defeats. But my brother always pray to be tough when he experienced trials, to be strong  when he is weak, and to be happy when sadness came. He believes that God is a refuge when you know how to call on His name.

His stayed in the seminary is the best days in his life which he encountered his true friends. It's true that seminary is a silence place but it's also true that only in "silence you will be able to find the serenity of your true self". They were one big happy family in that place in which they share to their fellow brothers what they had for themselves. I know that the memories they had shared in that place will be carved forever in my brother's heart.

He may go to other places, meet other people and experience the true challenges of living a life outside of his dream but one thing is for sure he will always go back to the place where he can walk with God and can hold His hand instantly. And now that he will begin his journey in the other side of the road I always pray that God will continue to nourish my brother's calling of becoming a priest and may God always bless His dreamer because I know that  "YOU" will always have a special place in my brother's heart.