The Gift

I was greeted this morning by a text message from one of my "fans" she complimented my write-ups in the recent Corps Magazine, and although compliments on my writing is not really new, I was flattered because she herself is a writer. But the best compliment I received in writing is a compliment from the judge in the Feature Writing Contest of this year's Regional Press Conference. He was so pleased with my piece that he had it published in the local newspaper here in Baguio after that competition. Some of the people I know saw that piece but due to the scarcity of that local newspaper inside in the Academy I can just wonder how it was presented. But nonetheless, somehow, that compliment allowed me to think of the things I like about writing, why it gives me so much joy and why I can keep on doing it even if nobody is really reading.

Take this blog. I have been blogging for like five years of my life. The two years has been archived in this site in The Pen section and the rest is in this site. Blogging first came when I began to be fascinated with creating websites. I did not know that I would learn to love writing but when I created my first website, I figured I had to put some content, so I invented some. I then asked people to come to the site but they did not comment much in how I made the website, they simply asked me to write some more. So I wrote until finally I have poured all of my feelings in that website and I enjoyed it. Noone can really blame me, I was always the honest type when it comes to my feelings and at that time I was just full of anxieties. I wanted to go back to PMA, I hated my father, I did not know what to do with my life... I did not have a clue and all those feelings only came out the moment I sit in front of the computer and let my fingers play with the keyboard. When my website became third in the Most Informative Blogsite of the Pinoy Bloggies in 2003, I realized that there was something in the things that I write and with more and more compliments from people who have read me, I understood that I had a gift.

So what then? Why would people care if I have some gift to put so much emotion in the way I arrange words to come up with something? For most of us, there comes a time where we come to the realization that we are endowed with a gift. Some people can open their mouths and make the most beautiful music, others can hold a pen a create wonders on canvass. As for me, although I often tell myself that I could be some great singer, or desperately try to make art out of colors, mine is with the pen and paper. In each of us, we have been showered with some gift. Some of us know it while others still have to find out. I believe that these gifts are manifestations that there is some purpose in our life. Being good at something must really have some reason. I do not know how to reconcile being a writer and a soldier, what I do know is that I will have to use my gift to do something worthwhile, something noble. In each of us is this rare gift that we should treasure and use to do something that does not only make us better people but also creates something that allows the world to feel the blessing that God has given us. All of us have this some kind of a light, the light in Art, to music and to others and it is a betrayal of that light not to allow it to shine and be seen by the rest of the world around us.

Now, as for me I will continue to write, just write to my heart's content and in my own little way I am able to share my gift and not betray it. I hope that each of us will find our gift and that we learn to use it the way it was intended to be.