unwavering belief

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.
But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.
He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.
“He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, ‘Here you go,’” Diaz says.
As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”
The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, “like what’s going on here?” Diaz says. “He asked me, ‘Why are you doing this?’”
Diaz replied: “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.
“You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help,” Diaz says.
Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.
“The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi,” Diaz says. “The kid was like, ‘You know everybody here. Do you own this place?’”
“No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz says he told the teen. “He says, ‘But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.’”
Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”
“Yea, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way,” the teen said.
Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. “He just had almost a sad face,” Diaz says.
The teen couldn’t answer Diaz — or he didn’t want to.
When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, “Look, I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill ‘cause you have my money and I can’t pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.”
The teen “didn’t even think about it” and returned the wallet, Diaz says. “I gave him $20 … I figure maybe it’ll help him. I don’t know.”
Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen’s knife — “and he gave it to me.”
Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, “You’re the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch.”
“I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”
- via hislovewillconquer.tumblr.com

"What He wants of the layman in church is and attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise-does not waste time thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any other nourishment that is going. ... There is hardly any sermon, or book, which may not be dangerous to us if received in this temper."

"... concerning himself with the Present because there, and there alone, all duty, all grace, all knowledge, and all pleasure dwell.."
- The Screwtape Letters, by C.S Lewis

on another note.. i'm almost done packing. it's really hard to pack my whole life here into just ~40 kg including the space my sister allocated for me in her bag. i've run out of space in my big bag and i don't dare to take the weighing machine up yet! confirm overweight wan. SIGH. it scares me that i'm not filled with warm, good feelings like some of my friends are, or like i was when i started college. i'm not as daring or brave to make new friends again, and a whole new environment terrifies the life out of me. i know that it is likely that in a few months i'll be saying completely different things, especially when i am able to immerse myself into studying once again, instead of just pretty much bumming. i miss my books, and learning and even tests (which i studied for only!), and there is a deep desire within me to make all the people that made this possible, that believes in me, proud. everything still feels surreal for me, but when i think about being there, i'm really afraid of not acheiving what i could have out of everything, of coming back the same, with nothing gained, nothing taught, no one helped, no one inspired. and as i was 'talking' to myself yesterday, i was talking about how i wanted to make a difference there, i know God's sending me away and i want to make him proud, and fulfill His will. but why was it so hard to even see that future now, to believe it? and i answered myself, if you can't even go back to God's word everytime you feel discouraged, or upset or tired or happy, if you find that difficult already, then how can you hope to acheive those dreams, without being strongly rooted in God? that was a total slap in my face answer. but yea, it's been hard to go back to the Bible for me, to wonder what passage to read next, or be patient enough to wait for God to answer. yesterday though, i started again. and i told myself to just try my best, give it my all day by day. In the Screwtape Letters, C.S Lewis wrote, "He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity.. or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure."

so is it as simple as that? to stop worrying about the future, to stop playing all possibilities in my head, especially the negative ones and to just.. live, one day at a time?

leaving on a jet plane,
candice :)