It’s been a while since I opened my
email subscription from Soulfood by Bo Sanchez and actually read it. The
message today in the mail was “ God Believes You can Prosper”. I have already
listened to the talk from Bro. Arun Gogna at the Alabang Feast, but reading it
from the email subscription brought back memories of my life-changing encounter
with the Light of Jesus family. Looking back, I’ve realized that after being
introduced to the community by attending the Kerygma Conference 2010, I’ve come
a long way since.
I remembered the day I entered the
PICC Hall for the Inner Healing Stream. I immediately felt blest and I had a
vision. I saw myself standing onstage and all I could remember was seeing
myself singing. I did not know then that it would start the change that God was
going to do in my life.
Yes, I am only human and I have used
this excuse over and over again to justify everything that I did wrong. More
often than not, I knew what I was doing was wrong but because of the needs of
the flesh, carnal desires, I give in to temptation. I did drugs, something that
my whole family did not know of. The worst thing was I asked people to try it
too including those close to my heart. I thought that I would be sharing
something special with them if they joined me in doing what was one of my
self-gratifications.
I did not know then that God was
already protecting me. To stop me from falling deeper into the abyss that I
made for myself, God took me away from the place where drugs and sex were so
easy to have.
My sinning continued, I was
promiscuous and the self-gratification continued if only to fill the void that
was in my heart. Even when I was already with children, I became worse. I was
longing for love, which, even my partner and children could not fill. I was a
mess. I was seeing psychologists to help me cope up with my problems.
I became depressed to the point that
I committed suicide and did not want to live anymore. I did everything to die,
I slashed my wrists, my arm is full of scars, I would even bang my head against
walls, hoping that I die from head trauma. Only in January 31, 2009, almost
three-months pregnant, did I finally made the worst of my suicide attempts,
overdosing from prescribed sleeping pills. And waking up after being pumped
with carbon to expel the toxins from my body, I heard a deep, beautiful voice
telling me something like it wasn’t my time to die yet. I thought that it was
my partner but I saw him sleeping like a log at the other side of my bed. The
room was filled with a beautiful white light. Doctors told me this was an
effect of the sleeping pills and also because of my depression. But for me, it
was something spiritual and deep.
It was only later on that I
realized, I was not really looking for attention from my loved-ones, but I was
looking for something to fill the emptiness and worthlessness inside. I felt I
was nothing, somebody whom no one wanted.
After that incident, a series of
suicide relapse happened and I lost count of how many times I did it, including
trying to die from an overdose of Pamprin, a pill for preventing dysmenorrhea.
I was crazy and worse, I drove the rest of my family, especially my partner
crazy. They do not know how to handle and take care of me.
I started blaming people for what I
was becoming, my family, my partner, my children. I blamed everybody, not
knowing that the one who brought the problem to my self was nobody but me. I
even blamed God for giving me a miserable life.
I remember how many times I tried to
reach out to people to help me. I know I needed help, but in what aspect, I do
not know. Eventually I realized that I needed something spiritual.
I took the first step to looking for
a spiritual community by subscribing to the Soulfood by Bro. Bo Sanchez. I was
starting to understand that I needed more than what I was reading.
I then tried the live counseling
chat in Bo Sanchez’s website. And there, I was able to pour my heart out to one
of their counselors. She said she’ll pray for me. Still, it wasn’t enough for
me. I started to have the hunger for something deeper. I became hungry for
God’s love and I went seeking for it.
It took a while before God answered
the counselor’s prayers.
So many things hindered me from
being fully active with the Feast (weekly gathering of the Light of Jesus
Family), and still I felt that I was standing in a quicksand that was pulling
and burying me anytime. I got afraid, so I called on to God to help me. Like a
child, I implored and cried my heart out.
That started what was to be my
bittersweet life changing moment. Bittersweet, because, something bitter
happened in my life, my children was the sacrifice I have to make; and sweet,
because I came to know God more personally.
For a while, God took away the
hindrances so that I can fully focus on Him. And that gave me the time to be an
active Feast attendee. But still, God’s calling me to serve Him didn’t stop
there. The vision of me singing on stage did not leave my mind. I grabbed the
first chance to join the auditions for the Music Ministry.
Now, God is still molding my life
with His hands, and I am receiving everyday miracles and blessings from Him.
For things that still hurt me, I asked Him to lessen the pain so that I may
continue to live and love.
The emptiness in my heart is gone.
The love of God has filled what was once a deep black hole that was swallowing
my whole being from the inside out. Gone are the negative emotions that once
crippled me. Yes, the pain still hurts once in a while, but I already have the
best medicine for it.
Looking back from the day I reached
out to God when I went on the live counseling on chat, I believe I’ve come a
long way. It didn’t matter how long it took God to answer my plea for help,
what was important, I live to see the day that I was spiritually changed the
way I am now.
The email subscription I saw in my
email today reminded me how far I’ve gone and how the challenges that I went
through were difficult. But with renewed faith and hope, I was able to live
through it.
The road to righteousness is full of
deep heart-wrenching, character-destroying situations that challenged me to the
fullest. And with the love of God and His mercy, I was able to overcome it. The
hardest part of it was having my faith ridiculed by the person I used to love.
God has prospered me in so many ways, with new friends, new career and a newly
discovered gift of writing. He is prospering me now with an abundance in
blessings and miracles.
The Feast is the greatest miracle in
my life.
I am thankful for everything that
have happened, good or bad, embarrassing or something to be proud of. I’ve
learned my lessons. I pray so hard that I do not fall back into sinning.
Temptations sometimes are still so hard to resist. After all, I am just human.
But then again, I have already overcome the greatest temptation in my life. And
that, in itself, is another milestone of my renewed faith in God.
