Into the Light

This is my testimony of God’s wondrous ways. It was written on my third birthday in the faith (February 2005) and was posted on my first blog. It underwent some editting for posting on my second blog and for the church membership data sheet. It retains the “atmosphere” of my birthday so you’ll still find the thanksgiving part as it is. I simply condensed the original one (yes, you are lucky you're reading the shorter version already!)

I was raised in a Catholic family in a Muslim country. I can remember going to Mass in my school's gym. Most of the congregation was Filipino. I remember the very kind priest we had. He was Filipino and he looked like those friars in my picture books, a round belly, hand serenely resting on his tummy and a jolly face. He would always welcome us around him at the end of the Mass. He liked asking the kids how they were. I liked him very much. Church and God seemed nice. But he soon went away and his replacement was an old Irish priest, who looked so stern and cold. We moved to a bigger and architecturally beautiful church. I went to Mass with Filipinos, Indians, Africans and Britons. I got a little lost in the big structure and was more interested in watching the other people worship. God suddenly seemed big, cold and oh so far away.

My mom always told us to pray. So every night when I was young I'd say the typical kid's prayer: Hello Father God. Thank You for everything. Bless this and that person. It didn't really make sense praying to the ceiling but I was a good little girl and I did what Mom told me to. Most of the time, it felt good to know that there was someone who was watching over me and who, I was told, cared for me deeply.

When I was eight, I became aware of how my dad wasn't around for us in the way he should be. When I was around nine until I was eleven, I was abused by some men. It was difficult to picture God the Father. It was hard to believe that God loved me. Somehow I couldn't connect with a God like that. I stopped praying to the ceiling and lied to my mother. Wherever He was and whatever He was supposed to do, He simply did not care about me. He was probably off somewhere trying to fix the starvation in Somalia or trying to fix the war in Iraq.

The british international school I attended shut down and moved five hours away from our community. So my parents decided it would be better for us to go to school in the Philippines. So my mom and three of us kids came home and she enrolled us in a Catholic school. So I was back to hearing about God and how He created the world and how He sent His Son to save me. But I also began to learn that He had all these rules and commands. That made me mad. For someone who didn't care, He some chutzpah to tell me what to do and not to do. (I stand incredibly amazed and humbled that He didn't zap me with a death ray just then)

Time passed by. Through high school, He remained a cold, aloof character up there. I didn't get very excited about Him. I still went to church because my parents would take us and it was pretty useless to argue with them. Besides, I was a good person. I didn't drink, smoke, gamble, have sex with anyone (my boyfriend then just had to deal with this), or do drugs. I was actually one of the four girls in our batch that the rest called "The Victorian Ladies". Who needed God?

I probably prayed to the person up there only when my family was having problems or when I was heartbroken. But He didn't seem to be around. My prayers for my family, for my amibitions and my relationship with a guy seemed to fall on deaf ears. Okay, if You’re not going to help because You don’t really care or don’t really exist, I’ll have to figure things out on my own. So I turned to my reflection in the mirror. I got interested in the New Age stuff of spirits and gifts. I liked hypnosis. I liked the idea that I was perfect being, capable of so much, that if I could channel my energies to the right place and find my center, I'd be fine.

If I was honest to myself back then, I'd say I felt like I didn't belong, that I was no good , that I was "damaged goods", and that I had no purpose. But I covered it up somehow. I was popular, I was wanted, I was going to be a great, compassionate doctor. I held fast to that ambition because it gave me a sense of purpose in this world. It gave me a sense of significance. Someone once wrote that some people wanted to become doctors because it made them feel good. Afterall, you were literally giving your life (in sleepless nights, expensive education, etc.) to help others live. I liked the idea. I wanted to buy my salvation through it.

I got accepted into the premier state university, UP. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I didn't get into the course I wanted as a pre-med. So I got stuck in Physics. I felt cheated but was determined to get good grades to shift courses and go after my dream to become a doctor. It was an ambition that defined me and covered up my cluelessness as to where and why I was.

The summer before I went off to university, my mother made me promise that I go to church. She knew I hated going but she insisted. She didn't want the university's liberal ideas and atheism/agnostisicm to get to me. Little did she know I had long shoved God into a corner of my mind and was comfortable with that. But I did promise because I loved my mom and wanted her to have some peace of mind when I was six hours away.

And so the first semester of my freshman year found me going to church religiously after about three years of skipping. My roommate was a Catholic too and she seemed to love church and she seemed to love God. It was weird but I learned to live with it. I found a barkada, a group of really interesting, funny and happy ladies. They were the people I wanted to be. They seemed so sure of themselves, so comfortable with who they were and what they did. They had this happiness in them that I was envious of. And they could handle the fact that they were sometimes clueless. I couldn't. As the semester wore on, I found out that these fun and kind people loved the God I didn't like hearing about. They lived like He was right there. When they had problems, they went to Him like He was right there. they seemed to know Him. They seemed incredibly free with this God of rules.

I got intrigued and jealous. And when that happened, every Sunday at church, I'd tune the priest out and look up at the gigantic crucifix in the middle of the church and ask the guy hanging there, "Who are You? Where are you? What do you do all day?"Yeah, I'd heard John 3:16 lots of times before but this time I really listened and I considered the words. By the end of the first semester, I was hooked on trying to find out what was up with this God that my friends took Him seriously and were actually having a lot of fun. They cried, laughed and lived in His presence every single day and that spoke volumes of possibility to me.

In the middle of my second semester, I was failing a subject and my dreams of becoming a doctor seemed to be washed up on another shore so far from mine. I had no more ambition to cling on to. I was frustrated and lost. I felt so useless, unloved and empty. I braved the days on but when one day, I couldn't take it anymore. I went crying to one of my friends. I knocked loudly on her door and woke her up just so I could rant against the world that had taken everything away. Anger is probably the best defense mechanism in the world. She hugged me and cried along with me, & why on earth she did wasn't important. It was a comfort to know someone could relate.

My shouting woke up another of my friends across the hall and she came, bleary-eyed, to hold my hand. They were silent as I shouted and cried and lashed out at people in my past and present, at how unfair the world was, and at how I hated myself. When I finally took a breather, one of my friends asked if they could pray for me. Ordinarily, I'd have laughed it off and thought they were such freaks. But that day, I was at the end of myself and was just about ready to try anything to take away the pain, loneliness and emptyness. So they prayed. I still thought them a bunch of weirdos for believing in God at the beginning of the prayer. I cried on but I listened to them talk to Him. They use no fancy words. They simply talked to Him and asked Him to come comfort me and show me that He loved me. That seemed odd to me and I was about to lash out on God, when, and I know you'll think me crazy, He came and made Himself felt. I felt like He was hugging me. I felt like a little girl finding her daddy's arms. And it was wonderful. He was silent at first, just sort of absorbing my pain in His embrace and being there. Then He spoke. "Daughter, I know all that you’ve been through and all that you’ve ever done…I love You."

I just had to cry more. Oh man, this is crazy, God speaking to me. But I could not deny Him any longer, nor could I deny the rush of a hunger to know Him that swept onto me. Could You say that again God? Oh man...This is not rational. But, oh my, God loves me!!! My friends finished praying and I was so calm. I felt so happy. I wanted the God they had. I wanted to know the Man who hung on the Cross. I knew I needed Him in my life.

God was certainly not letting me go. Later that day my roommate (who knew nothing of the incident that happened earlier) said she wanted to tell me something about God but that she'd tell me only after I read the Gospel of John. So I picked up the Bible for the third time in my life. Yes, I have kept count of that. The first was when God was slowly fading from my life and I didn't want that to happen. So I read Genesis when I was 7 yars old but thought that God was such a bore because of it and that didn't help His fading image. The second time was when a high school friend tried sharing her faith. I got curious again and this time picked up the Bible and read Revelation. It scared me stiff and I stopped reading. It still does scare me sometimes, by the way.

Anyway, I finished the Gospel of John in three days. I told my roommate and she was surprised. She asked if I understood it. I admitted it didn't make much sense but I kept pleading she tell me about God anyway. I was so impatient to hear what she had to say. So she (finally!!!) pulled out a tract (The Four Spirtitual Laws) and guided me through it. And at the end of it all, I prayed, admitted my sinfulness and asked for forgiveness. I prayed that I would know Him just like the disciples did and just like my friends did. I had never known a love so unconditionally and perfectly given until that moment and I prayed that He would change my life and make it His. That happened on February 16, 2002.

And while, it would be three months later (it seems like three's the number of the day) that I would find a church where I could grow, a Bible, and someone to follow me up, I never forgot the day when God became real to me. I'll never forget how I first realized that He loves me though I no more deserve it than dung deserves a burial plot and tombstone.

Years later, here I am loving Him because He loved me first. I am incredibly free in Christ, free from my past and my own sinfulness. I am forgiven though I never stopped sinning even after I believed in Him. Who I am isn't dictated by what I can do and what I can't do. My identity doesn't lie in that dark corner where I lost something precious. My identity doesn't lie in what other people may think of me or even what I may think of myself. My identity lies in Him and who He says I am. I am never alone. I am loved by the One who knows me through and through. I am happy. I am free. I am thankful.

I'd like to thank God for my garments, God for my dwelling up there, God for being my Best Friend and Lover, God for being my Holy Father, the Holy Spirit for being my Counselor, Jesus for being my example, Jesus for being my Savior, Jesus for being there when I was lonely, hurting and cold. This Three Years Mark is Yours and was made possible by You. Here's to more years with You Lord!

Thanks for allowing me to play some part here on Your Stage. Thank you for being my audience, for being on The Stage with me and for being the Spirit in me. Thank You that when I leave this theater, I'll have a place and You to go home to. And that beats any applause here on earth!

All glory, honor and praise to God!