My Greatest Miracle

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.