New Life

I was born to a family where Religion and Religiosity are the legacy. My mother had once been a devotee of the Lady of Lourdes. I used to look up to her devotion to the faith and vowed that I would be in her footsteps someday. My sisters and I never failed to join the yearly “Flores de Mayo”, where little girls offer flowers to the Virgin Mother. When I was in my 4^th grade, I became one among the youngest members of the Legion of Mary for that batch. Sunday mass was something that I eagerly looked forward to.

However, despite all those activities and devotions I believed something was not right. Young as I was, I knew something was missing. The confusion whether God was pleased with me or not, or if I was truly a good girl to meet God in heaven had been the questions that kept ringing in my head. I was not sure of the things I thought were good, and every time I did something wrong, guilt was all over me. Fear was the dominant emotion I had those days. I could vividly remember one night when I just cried and cried silently for no apparent reason. There was a deep hunger inside me despite the supposedly normal life I had with my family, intact and faithfully going to church every Sunday. As I was growing up physically and mentally, the turmoil and confusion within was also growing until one day I lost interest in the religious activities I was so accustomed to do. I stopped going to church. I was rebelling inside and anger was eating me up.

During the intervening years, something happened to my mother. I saw her read the Bible which she never attempted to before as far as I could remember. She had changed. She lost interest in the religious things she usually did. She was telling us something I didn’t understand. I knew she was attending a Bible Study in school where she was a teacher, but I did not suspect that could be the reason for the changes I saw in her. One day she vouched the idea of inviting the Pastor who happened to be her relative, to conduct Bible study in our home.

Meanwhile, the vacuum was there, persistently paving its way to put me in the dark. This time it seemed very deep perhaps because of the increasing guilt I felt since I never attended Sunday mass anymore. But one night as I was struggling with emotion, God touched me in a very special way through the song that I so often heard my mother sang. I found myself crying while singing in my heart over and over, absorbing the lyrics for the first time, the song that says:

If you want joy, real joy, wonderful joy
Let Jesus come into your heart.

If you want peace, real peace, wonderful peace
Let Jesus come into your heart.

If you want love, real love, wonderful love
Let Jesus come into your heart.

Your sins He’ll wash away;
Your night He’ll turn to day;
Your life He’ll turn it over anew.

I slept soundly that night although I did not fully realize what transpired in me that time. Then the day came when I understood what God did to my heart.

On August 8, 1981 during the Bible Study, my father, two elder brothers, younger sister and I surrendered our lives to God. We all received Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. It was the best experience and the happiest moment I ever had in my life and for the whole family. On September 13, 1981, just two days before my 15^th birthday, we all had our water baptism. What a wonderful birthday gift God has given me- a NEW and ETERNAL LIFE.

Since then peace had taken the place of fear. Emptiness became history. My life has never been the same. Everything that I am and now have is all because the Lord of lords and the King of kings lives in me. In Him I live and move and have my being. To God be the glory.