In the Midst of an Uncertain Future

I once read that the purpose of faith is to fully trust God's will and not to rely on soothsayers and fortune tellers. To try to know the future is to try to be God ourselves.

I remember way back in college when my roommates and I would go to the local typist who doubles as a palm-reader and fortune teller and we would ask questions about romance as to who among our classmates would become our suitors or who could be our soon to be boyfriends or future husbands. At times we would ask for our academic outcomes, whether we will pass a certain course or not. But over the years I have learned that such actions are manifestations of our lack of faith...and oftentimes our lack of self-esteem.

I was on my way home today and I saw that Aling Norma, one my mother's fortune tellers has passed away and is lying in state in our neighborhood. I once remember my mother telling me that her faith was weak after she panicked while being locked-in inside the Adoration Chapel of our Parish. But for me, her lack of faith was manifested by being notoriously known in our place for seeking fortune tellers to know whether my father was womanizing or not.

The relationship lacked the trust and faith necessary to establish a God-fearing family or even just a happy family. She had caught my father in the act many times in their forty years of marriage until she passed away and I don't think anyone would need a fortune teller to tell my mother that my father's womanizing is a deep rooted chronic behavioral anomaly that needs intensive psychotherapy and my mother's action is an act of codependence to my father's addiction to women. Some of these soothsayers would give her terrible advice, when I was 10 years old while playing in my parent's room I found under my parent's bed black candles and strings wrapped around my father's picture, I guess it was something that would stop my father from straying away and thank God our house didn't burn because my mother would light the candle under their wooden bed at night while my father is sleeping!

My brother once told me that I almost died in one of my mother's search for these fortune tellers. When I was seven my mother took me to Mt. Halcon to look for an "albularyo" (faith healer) whom she said would heal my father's womanizing. It was a place infested with the New People's Army who could shower any intruders with bullets anytime. She took my uncle with her and some of my other relatives, I remember being carried in my cousin's back while trekking to the mountains. I could faintly recall that we stayed in a hut with no electricity and no water for three days. There are no roads in site only trees and faint paths in the grass. No NPA attacked us but being the youngest I was struck with malaria. Again, thank God I survived the ordeal.

I was already in college the last time my mother told me she went to see a fortune teller. This by far is the most famous story among my relatives because it is often recalled in our family get togethers. She was once riding a taxi to go to a famous fortune teller somewhere in Bacoor, Cavite. While looking for directions she spotted my father's car passing by the area and told the taxi driver to trail the car because she knows the driver of the car (who is my father) and he might be familiar with the place and give them directions to see the fortune teller. They followed my father until he parked in a duplex. She waited until he went inside the house. She stopped and gathered up all her courage and followed my father inside the house. When she came in, she found my father, with three children (two are twins) and a woman who is supposed to be his mistress. She never had the chance to see the famous fortune teller she initially wanted to see that day since she already found out what she was looking for.

Years of psychospiritual therapy had taught me never to rely on the tools of my mother. When we are sick, we have to admit that we are sick, it is only in admittance that we finally find the tools to heal.

The future will always be uncertain, but trusting God gives us a kind of peace of knowing that whatever happens is for the good and we would finally gain the wisdom to accept things as they are. Whatever doubt we have in our relationship with our significant other is a signal that we are losing faith or God is finally revealing something to us that we must accept.