GRACE TUCKED IN LETTERS

Just when 2018 was about to end, something unfolded that left my heart in perfect awe of how God can do immeasurably more. I was one of the medical students who were deployed in the remote places of Zamboanga Peninsula. Having a sandwich curriculum of MD-MPH in our school, being immersed in the community is indispensable. It is something that you have to have the heart for it if only to survive. Having the taste of living in the outskirts for four years, not only did I come to know their culture but I had a firsthand experience of it. Not only did I see their depriving situation but I partook on the fight. Not only did I impart knowledge but I also gained their wisdom. I have heard a lot of moving stories of communities being empowered, of doctors being changed, but as a Christian first who just happened to become a medical student, what God had planted in my heart since the first day I set foot on that far-flung barangay was for His Gospel to reach and be preached in the comm...

All at once, my heart shifted to its fullest gear that prompted tears to puddle around the corner of my eyes when my mother cracked the news over the phone that my brother passed the Physician Licensure Exam 2018. What we kept on claiming as our simple mantra as siblings: “Puso at Dasal” yielded its fruit. Surreal is an understatement to the immeasurable greatness of God. Through the years, one of my constant faith goals was that more than the license, my brother would come to know Jesus personally, come to love Him deeply, and come to worship Him fully through the Bible. Little did I expect, everything took place during his review. A reviewee from my school met my brother at the review center and shared the Gospel of Jesus to him. From that day onwards, every bible verse posted, every Christian song listened to, every fellowship photo shared, every online bible study, every act of asking, clarifying and sharing of certain verses from him…I fell on my knees to worship Jesus! ...

They say that failures do not define a person. While it holds true, which I believe myself, however when face with one failure after the other, when everything just turns upside down, its sting of pain permeates to your core and leaves you nothing but feeling of inadequacy. As I look back from the past three years of my journey in the medical school, I have to face the gut-honest realization that in one way or another failures made me feel inadequate and incapable, which frequently and unintentionally displayed even in an ordinary “PBL” class wherein I talked with low pitch shaky voice, and somewhat pushed me to settle being at the bottom, the least, and the last. How does one prepare for the unknown? Countless times I wished I had a glimpse of what was coming, that God would just allow a huge turn in my academic life. Growing up, it was seemingly glorious from a worldly perspective. I had number of successes that failure was almost not in the picture. ...

I came across this classic Christian hymn by Robert Robinson and reading the word in between the lines, I found solace because it was close to what my heart could not speak. The exact thing that kept me awake at midnight, silently weeping over my pillow with no other words except my weak, broken whisper— Father. O to grace how great a debtor Daily I’m constrained to be! Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above. "Prone to wander. Prone to leave the God I love." This is such a heartbreaking reality that i, myself, struggle so hard. My heart has the easiest tendency to get enticed and be attached to a lot of things especially with people. Such attachment that I hate and I wish to escape from, but unfortunately, its grip seems to paralyze that i find my way back to its repeated cycle...the fleetin...

It had been days turned into weeks when I should have been wrapped with an overflow of joy for such a time as this, when I should have been seeing stars, when  I should have been beholding a clear horizon. However, in the silence of my room each night, as I lay on my back watching the stars I put at the ceiling slowly losing its glow before my eyes, the weight of my present reality sinks deep leading into such pain hitting with a sharp force that feels like it cuts through my skin and bone. The agonizing fear rooted into this repetitive whisper, “God, will You still carry me through?” The reality of my remedial exams will speak of a hopeless blur. My heart is silently overwhelmed for what may come ahead. Down to the recesses of my heart, I am desperate for God, but too broken to pray. How can you keep up the hope for better year when 2017 turned out to be heartbreaking one? “It is not easy but it will be worth it” — Like a mantra, I carried that as I set my first footprin...

Have you ever been broken, guilty, and distant from God? Have you honestly asked if God could still save and redeem you if you keep on returning to the same sin you have vowed a number of times never to get back?  Truth of the matter, I am not an exception to that. I have been a Christian for quite some time already, surrendered my life to Jesus years back. I have been claiming one Promise after the other, holding one Truth after the other. However, Satan’s “lies”  are undeniably real and at times leave me consumed with so much unworthiness.  How do I overcome such seemingly helpless falling into the same sin? How can I fight the feeling of being powerless of its grip? Am I really a “new creation?” That the old has gone and the new has come? This is where the real fight comes in and this is the whole point of  WHY I LOVE JESUS.  With reverence, I boldly repeat, the whole point of...