The Day Our Lives Changed Forever

Five years ago, My wife and I both felt that we have a picture-perfect life for our family. Career-wise, I was then employed in a China-based foreign company whose owner is kind enough to be a second father to me. I have good working relationship with everyone in the office. I was actively participating in the small virtual group of Kerygmafamily expressing and exchanging faith ideas and experiences with other fellow-believers. I was also contributing articles to the e-ministry of Bro. Jun Asis’ Mabuting Balita. And above all, my family of four was always together, a special situation that a lot of OFWs around the world continue to wish and hope for. At the end of each day, my wife, as a full-time homemaker, never ran out of stories about the fun stuffs to tell of how her day went with our two active and bubbly kids. Each moment was pleasant, memorable and fulfilling to us being young parents.

Little did we know that we were actually threading through the eye of the storm and the whiplash of wind gusts would hit us when we least expected it.     

A few weeks after moving to our new flat, the very intense heart-piercing tragedy struck us – within few overnight-hours of contracting fever, our 22-month old daughter passed away in our arms at the break of dawn. It happened so fast that by the time I brought her to the hospital, the expressions on the faces of the doctor and nurse confirmed that it was already too late to save her. 

We were devastated to our very inner core and were totally lost in pain.

We desperately searched for answer and despaired when no answer seemed to come from anywhere.

When a child loses a parent, he/she becomes an orphan. When a spouse loses his/her partner, he becomes a widower or she becomes a widow. But when a mother loses her child, there is no known societal status for her to be known or called. It is as if she died also with her child. As a husband, my greatest fear then was if and how my wife would be able to recover considering that she already went through a lot of tough times during her growing years.

In Rick Warren’s recent e-article “You Need God’s Presence, not His Explanation” he wrote, “When God is silent in your life, you’re going through a test. When you don’t hear God and he feels like a million miles away, that is a test! The teacher is always silent when the students take a test. When God is silent in your life, your faith is being tested. Will you let go of control, or will you grab on more tightly? Will you learn to be content?

Slowly, it dawned on us that God was actually talking to us through the support and comforting words of family members, relatives and friends. He was not only talking to us, but He was embracing us to make sure our faith that He put to the test would not falter. We were not able to and most probably will never understand in our lifetime why it really had to happen to us but by His constant presence and grace, we learned to accept His will. We let go and let God. 

When you’re going through pain this next week or next month or this year, you don’t really need God’s explanation. You need God’s presence” - RW

We love and miss you a lot, Maia.

We will see you again in God’s appointed time so for now we will let bittersweet memories remain to remember you by. And we will keep refuge with the knowledge that you are now an angel in heaven and that God is always in loving control of our lives.

Giving Despite the Hurts

I heard a priest’s story about their small community that contemplated to give free sandwiches to the poor street people in their area. They went ahead with their plan, buying loaf breads and sandwich spreads with their available fund. They organized and coordinated their outreach with the local authorities. They free-up their personal schedules to make sure that all hands are on the deck for a smooth and effective feeding program. On the day of outreach itself and while the poor people where all lining up, the first two persons on the line asked one community leader, "Ano po ang palaman ng sandwich?".Upon knowing the type of sandwich spreads used, they moved away from the line, remarking,"Ayy, ayoko ng palaman, di bale na lang."

Lowly 10%.

After curing ten lepers only one Samaritan man came back to give thanks to Jesus. It inevitably saddened Him that those who recovered from the physical and social stigma of leprosy of those times failed to give thanks. Not that He needed acknowledgment or praise from them, but that it meant to reflect the deep and personal faith-change of those who were cured.

Nevertheless, Jesus, instead of castigating the ungrateful nine, took that opportunity to preach about the virtue of gratitude.

And then what?

Jesus continued His preaching and His healing. He knows His mission is not to be dictated by the good or bad reactions, by the praise or persecution, by the faith or lack thereof of whom He blesses. His obedience to His Father’s mandate took precedence over these distractions..

We live in a time where disaster and calamities abound in which a lot of people need our assistance. We answer their call but at times lost that desire once negative situations surfaced – government mishandling of calamity funds, selective distributions, politicking, abuses or malpractices resulting to spoilage or misuse of relief goods, proliferation of bogus foundations, and upfront ungratefulness of some recipients are to name a few. We use these unfortunate events to make sweeping justification that nothing good can come out from our small good deeds.

But the truth is, we must not be disheartened when these things happen and when people do not appreciate or even acknowledge our kind assistance. God who sees our deepest heart’s desire to extend help is truly happy with our good deeds, with our generosity. He knows how we are trying our best to fulfill His commandment to do these things to the least of our brethren.

So the challenge remains – do we keep giving despite the hurts or do we distance ourselves eventually? Hopefully, we keep choosing the former.

By all means we should choose our medium of generosity in order for evil not to take advantage of our kindness.

But we must all be spontaneous givers, not calculating.

We must be naturally generous.

We must keep on giving.

God bless po.

Galatians 6:9 Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up.