• Home
  • About Us
    • About the Publisher
    • Advertise with Us
  • Contact Us
  • Login
  • Subscribe

Grimag

  • Editor’s Notes
  • OSM! Video Gallery
  • Biting The Big Apple

Life Essay: Living Plan C

By Janet B. Villa

 

“I’m now a missionary,” I say. He frowns. He knows me to be—and still calls me—an attorney. “How did you get there?” he asks. “Did you go through a crisis? Did someone get sick?”

He considers my life’s detour puzzling.

 

One afternoon I attend the burial rites for my sister-in-law’s father, Daddy Cani, who was much loved. Family and friends wilt in the heat but stay for the final farewells, committed to honor the life he had led and those whom he had cared for. We watch as two workers heave a stone slab, twisting and adjusting it until its edges fit squarely into the burial chamber. They plugged the cracks with wet cement and smoothen it with a trowel. The scraping and the rasping fill the air as the body that Daddy Cani left behind is sealed in.

 

His leaving underscores the brevity of my own days. My life is just a prequel. Knowing how time betrays us all, Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, commissioned a servant to stand in his presence each day and say, “Philip, you will die.” It helped him remember to live his life in perspective.

 

After the memorial service, my older brother’s friend, Eugene, asks me to sit with him and share Shamrock meat pies. I must have been seven or eight when I started pestering him, as little girls are wont to do with older brothers and their ilk. More than forty years later, it is probably his turn to pester me.

 

“How are you?” I ask. He takes a long time answering. “When I get to this age, I find that I don’t know how to answer that,” he says. “Do I talk about my health? About what I do? What does that question mean?”

 

So he throws the question back at me. “How are you?”

 

“I’m now a missionary,” I say. He frowns. He knows me to be—and still calls me—an attorney. “How did you get there?” he asks. “Did you go through a crisis? Did someone get sick?”

 

He considers my life’s detour puzzling: no one in her right mind leaves what is familiar and favorable for something that, in his eyes, is triggered by trauma.

 

Perhaps in some ways he’s right. We confront God only in a crisis. And I have to be slightly a nut job to follow Christ. There is neither fame nor fortune nor health insurance. Borrowing Paul’s words in 1st Corinthians, I am a fool for Christ. How do I explain to Eugene what I didn’t even think twice about? God called, and we leapt, and His net appeared. This leaping and catching—this happens every day. How can one live like this?

 

I used to think that life was too short to be doing something I was not passionate about. So I left a lucrative law practice (Plan A) to pursue teaching and writing (Plan B), requiring me to go back to school to overhaul my education. Then a bigger truth emerged: Life is too short to be doing something without eternal significance. Enter Plan C. (My friend Giselle said that I was running through the entire alphabet.) I tell Eugene, “My success is only as good as my legacy.”

 

“No,” Eugene says. “Give that to me in terms I can understand.” So I tell him about how the film Gladiator opens. Before the men head to battle, the Roman general Maximus Decimus Miridius rallied his troops. “Brothers,” he said, steel in his face. “What we do in life echoes in eternity.”

 

My nephews are also nonplussed. “A missionary?” Gino says the word as if it were the first time the syllables had rolled off his tongue. My family’s love for me—their hesitation to say things that might hurt me—I feel it.

 

“Did you tell the rest of the family? What did they say?” Gino asks. Ours is a family of doctors, engineers, accountants, nurses—our successes are measurable. How would they measure mine? Maybe I should tell him that while I have no pay, my retirement (heaven) is “out of this world.”

 

“So what do we say? What do we tell you?” Gino asks as we bid each other goodbye. “Good luck?” He sounds tentative.

 

“Sure,” I say. I accept the love behind his sentiment. Love, after all, is the ministry gifted to me. I imagine that if I were to ask Jesus how much He loves me, He would probably say, “This much.” And He would spread his arms wide and die for me. What I do now is a response to that relentless, preposterous love.

 

Here, in this place memorializing the dead, my heart jump-starts with this truth: My job—God’s Plan C for me—is to help those who would listen to find Life in the land of the living. Eternity begins today. And someday, at the appointed time, a stone slab will also seal my body in. I pray that when that time comes, I would be able to say, as Paul did, that I have finished the race, that I have fought the good fight, that I have kept the faith.

 

Would Plan C be the most profitable use of my time? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But it would be the best use of my life. (Photo of the Ozarks Lake sunrise by Zurita Ibrahim)

 

About the author: Janet B. Villa is a lawyer and writer based in Manila and together with her husband, basketball coach Jojo Villa, has dedicated her life to building Christian faith.

 

Collage02

 

ENJOY THIS DELICIOUS, CHEESY ENSAYMADA. Magic Melt products are available at United Food of Asia, Ltd. on 287 Vandervoort Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11211. Tel. No. 718.3885570 Visit www.magicmelt.com

ENJOY THIS DELICIOUS, CHEESY ENSAYMADA. Magic Melt products are available at United Food of Asia, Ltd. on 287 Vandervoort Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11211. Tel. No. 718.3885570
Visit www.magicmelt.com

Sep 9, 2016Admin
Filipinos in East Coast Oppose Marcos' Burial in Heroes CemeteryPost 9-11: Juliet’s New Life is Another Miracle
Comments: 11
  1. Karen
    5 years ago

    Some people may not understand, but I say that you and your family have invested in eternity where the ROI is priceless.

    ReplyCancel
    • Janet
      5 years ago

      Salamat, Karen :) There is such a joy in serving the King!

      ReplyCancel
  2. tess
    5 years ago

    I thank God our path crossed and had known you both Janet and Jojo. People who are in same faith as we are may even question your decision much more those that are not. Your story is an inspiration that people like you and Jojo whose future seems so bright as the sun but traded it for the real Son will always be subject for a question. It takes faith and commitment to answer the call of God and your life says it all. People notion of serving God only when your undergoing difficult in life like sickness, financial bankcruptcy or many other things that we can think that may cause us to come and surrender to God and to point to even commit to be a pastor, full time worker or missionary. But your story wasnt like the rest because of were called and responded it when your in the top. Glory to God indeed!

    ReplyCancel
  3. tess
    5 years ago

    I thank God our path crossed and had known you both Janet and Jojo. People who are in same faith as we are may even question your decision much more those that are not. Your story is an inspiration that people like you and Jojo whose future seems so bright as the sun but traded it for the real Son will always be subject for a question. It takes faith and commitment to answer the call of God and your life says it all. People notion of serving God only when your undergoing difficult in life like sickness, financial bankcruptcy or many other things that we can think that may cause us to come and surrender to God and to point to even commit to be a pastor, full time worker or missionary. But your story wasnt like the rest because of were called and responded it when your in the top. Glory to God indeed!

    ReplyCancel
    • Admin
      5 years ago

      thank you for your feedback.

      ReplyCancel
    • Janet
      5 years ago

      Salamat, dear Tess! Such an honor to be called by the Lord. And, truly, it is only by His grace that we were able to say YES to His call. Not of ourselves so we cannot boast. :)

      ReplyCancel
  4. Bong Agravante
    5 years ago

    Beautiful? you told me the story already but I thought it was Joe who asked you...it was Eugene pala. So happy for you. God bless you always!

    ReplyCancel
    • Admin
      5 years ago

      thank you for your feedback.

      ReplyCancel
    • Janet
      5 years ago

      Hi, Bong! Yes, it was Eugene :) I'm glad I shared this story with you, but I can't remember why I did. I wonder what in our time together prompted me to talk about it. :)

      ReplyCancel
  5. Sylvia Hubilla
    5 years ago

    This is so beautifully written! Thank you for posting this, Vir! It leaves me questioning my purpose, and my response to This Awesome Love which led to my salvation.

    ReplyCancel
    • Janet
      5 years ago

      Thank you for the affirmation, Sylvia :) I pray that the LORD will direct your paths. Amen.

      ReplyCancel

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Admin
5 years ago 11 Comments Special Feature1st Corinthians, Maximus Decimus Miridius444
0
GooglePlus
0
Facebook
0
Twitter
0
Delicious
0
Linkedin
0
Pinterest
Forums
  • OSM! has a new look. What do you think?
Categories
  • Main Feature
  • Features
  • Feature Event
  • Diane Fermin Roeder: Bamboo Stilletto
  • Debbie Almocera: Cranial Corner
  • Sylvia Hubilla: Granny Gorgeous
  • Ruth D. Ezra: Kit’s Kitchen
  • Leani M. Auxilio: Le Fou’s Stories
  • Janet Villa: Mothering Heights
  • Arlene Donaire: Lensanity
  • Resto Rendezvous
  • Your ZEN Health
  • OSM! VLog
Email-subscription

Sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest news and event postings.

Most Viewed Posts
The Baby didn’t Come with a Manual
8 years ago
9,682 views
Vanette’s Secret: Cooking Yummy Dried Fish Without the Smell
6 years ago
9,266 views
Maguayan, brother of sky god Kaptan.
The Visayan Creation Myth
10 years ago
7,056 views
FilAm Lt. Christal Theriot: Newest US Army Apache Pilot
5 years ago
6,892 views
Filipinos Known to Take Care of Their Elderly
7 years ago
5,657 views
Recent Posts
  • NYC Commissioners urge NY State Assembly to include Health Coverage for All in State budget March 28, 2022
  • US East Coast Kakampink ask for clean elections; endorse VP Robredo as true servant leader March 28, 2022
  • Filipinos & Filipino Americans Call For Justice at March 30 Rally March 27, 2022
  • Comm. del Castillo to OSM!:  Thank you for the commitment to spotlighting FilAm contributions March 21, 2022
  • OSM! Online Magazine celebrates 10 years of reportage of FilAm communities March 18, 2022
Archives
2014 © OSM!