Author: Sab Espina

About two months ago, a couple I know was supposed to get married. I say was because two weeks before their supposed big day, they called it off. The bride to be asked the groom to be to sign an 8 paged prenuptial agreement and this didn’t sit well with him. As soon as news broke that the wedding was called off, we started having discussions regarding what and why it might have happened as well as the ramifications that came with it. We concluded that the bride does not seem committed because she’s already thinking of the marriage ending on a sour note  and how their assets are to be divided if things don’t work out. In the same way, if the groom really loved the bride to be, he should have lowered his pride and signed it; As difficult as it must be for him to do. For both of them, love should have trumped all and the need for the prenuptial agreement should not have been there in the first place.

Around this time as well, I was also asked to discern for a new service role. My reason for going to New Jersey was to attend the wedding as well as have some peace and quiet especially since the past few months were filled with events. I also wanted to spend time with my relatives who reside in the US and those visiting from the Philippines. But alas, discernment was thrown in the mix. As I was reflecting one morning, the discernment and the prenuptial agreement were the things I happened to focus on because I realized, when we are discerning for a new service role, we shouldn’t go into it with a pre-service agreement or thinking as such:

“Hey God, I’m going to say yes to serve you as (insert position here) but please give me an assurance, give me a sign that if I get bored in a role or it gets too hard, I’ll be moved after two years.” or “Hey (service head / household head!), I’ll say yes if I like who my new counterpart is. But if I end up not liking the way they do things, can you please move one of us?” Or  say yes to the service role with the thought that if it gets too difficult, then we should have a one on one with our household head and tell them we’re stepping down.

The “higher” our role in the service hierarchy is, more things will be expected of us. We will have to do more and we will be pulled in different directions: two meetings in one night, three one on ones in a span of two days, numerous emails we have to reply to. Sometimes, we have to make a call and cancel some things previously planned in order to accommodate an emergency meeting for an issue that is more pressing.  Add to that the things we have to do for school or work as well as our responsibilities at home, there will be times when it can get overwhelming and the thought of wanting an easier service role will constantly hound our thoughts.

Service is never easy. But it should not mean that we won’t exert effort to fight for it when things are too much to bear. We should not go into it with the mentality that we can step down anytime as soon as things don’t go our way. When things get hard, we do our best to exhaust all our options, try our best to resolve things, and seek to improve rather than give up. When serving, our pride should be one of the first things to go and we need to remember to ask for help from others because we are a community, after all. Our CCs and fellow leaders are there to guide and journey with us – all we need to do is ask so that they will know how best to support us. Even if we don’t understand why our leaders are asking us to do things we may not be comfortable with, we need to remember to trust in their discernment. More importantly, to trust God that He will be with us as we do His work and that He will carry us through it. When we serve or when we say yes to a new service, it should be with our entire hearts. Unconditionally because God deserves nothing but the very best from us. Above all, our love for God and nothing else should be the force that drives us to say yes and go beyond ourselves.

Lord, as the year comes to a close, I pray for all the potential leaders who are being discerned for and all the incoming and continuing leaders who have said their yes to serve You. May you guide them in their discernment and may they look to You as they lead and serve their members in the year to come. Allow them to remember to turn to You and Your love when things get difficult. 

Over the past few months, I knew what exactly He was calling me to do – to forgive and to let go.

I suppose He wouldn’t call me to do so if He knew I couldn’t. However, even though the call was a constant one I chose to ignore it. I not only let stubbornness get in the way but I also let pride take over. I rationalized it by saying that if I forgave easily, even I would question just how sincere it was because deep down, I knew if it would mean nothing. I justified my actions by telling myself that for forgiveness to mean something and for it to be genuine, time had to take its course. I convinced myself I would eventually get to that point of being able to forgive without actually doing anything concrete to reach  that state.

Instead of trying to attain that sense of peace that comes with forgiving someone, I held on. Holding on to anger allowed me to run away from the very thing I was being called to do and it gave me great comfort because it was the easier route to take. I became so used to the feeling and it became so familiar that even though I knew for a fact that there was still a need to forgive, it didn’t bother me that I still haven’t. 

But the more I held on to anger, the more I hurt myself. My pride led me to relive everything I disliked about the events that happened and I let it dictate how I acted and reacted to situations around me. I was only thinking about how I felt and so I failed to see how much the other person desired to make things right. Only now have I come to realize that some parts of my heart have become hardened and stone like; leading me to close myself off from a lot of things.

When the hurt you’ve experienced leaves too deep of a wound, forgiving is not the easiest thing to do in the world. But when I look at the cross and every time I go to confession, I’m reminded that Jesus did that for us. And still does every time we err and sin. It may have taken a year but now that  I have forgiven, I’m now able to make room for the things He has in store for me because I have finally let go of stuff that has been weighing me down. The parts of my heart that have become hardened are slowly becoming like flesh again and I know it will allow me to focus on Him and the people He will entrust to me especially as I enter a new service role next year; one that would ask me to understand and love much more than I ever have.

Very few people could be emptied and hollowed out and still choose to sincerely forgive. I didn’t think I could but His grace and His constant reminders allowed me to.

Be kind and compassionate to one another forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you – Ephesians 4:32

The biggest mistake that most of us make about God, the one that most consistently undermines our peace of soul is the idea that God demands a lot of us. More than fragile beings like ourselves could ever give.

Such a God is frightening.

God, in reality, is content with the little we can give because God knows and accepts the little that we have.

We need to do just three things:

• Do the best we can to find and honour God in everything we do
• Do whatever, however little we can to live this way
• Let God do the rest

If we follow these simple rules, we will not be disturbed. We will not be anxious. We will have no need to fear a God who never asks of us more than we can give.

– St. Francis de Sales

Through this passage, I have come to realize the danger that lies when we start thinking that in order to please God we have to tire ourselves out. The more things we’re doing at any given point, the more we’re making Him happy. We tend to forget that it’s not the amount of things we busy ourselves with but rather, what satisfies Him the most is when (as the passage says) we wholeheartedly and completely offer the little that we have and let Him transform it into something great for His glory.

* The passage above is taken from a book I’m currently reading called Set Your Heart Free. It contains select passages and texts from St. Francis de Sales’ writings and it encourages readers to find God in all that they do during the day despite the hectic schedule they might have.

…so how did I see Him rise?

I saw Him rise because during the week when it mattered the most, transpo&hosting didn’t have much glitches and mishaps. At least not as many as we were expecting. Prior to our D-day, everything and anything that could go wrong went wrong. Everything. It was so bad that minutes before I got picked up from my house to go to the airport, we were still in a meeting fixing the transpo&hosting list to make sure everyone was accounted for and the hosts’ requests regarding the amount of people they were available to host in their homes and the specific days they could host were honoured as well.

I saw Him rise through the hosts who so willingly opened their homes to delegates travelling from other provinces and cared for them as if they were their own children. I saw Him rise through the youth who took time off their busy schedules to drive the delegates around town and took it upon themselves to act as our personal tour guides so we can better appreciate the beauty that is British Columbia.

I saw Him rise through the volunteer drivers who didn’t complain about flights being delayed, throwing them off their schedules. Some were even forced to wake up in the middle of the night to make sure no one was stranded in the airport even though they had to go to work at 7 in the morning. These drivers  also didn’t mind the long drive and the multiple trips they had to take from the airport to the delegates’ host houses or to the UBC, and vice versa.

I saw Him rise through the team I was privileged to work with. Nikki, Gyan, and Kevin selflessly gave their time in order to make sure everyone who requested for hosting had a home to stay in and someone to bring them there. Due to the different time zones we were all in, our meetings would usually start 9:30 or 10pm PST and go until 2, sometimes 2:30am PST. Most of the time we would have to deal with people who would not reply to our emails/texts/requests to confirm and clarify their flight details and hosting needs. Through all the obstacles and road blocks we faced, I don’t remember hearing a complaint from anyone. In our meetings especially as D-day grew closer and closer, the stress and anxiety levels were unsurprisingly, at an all time high. Despite all that, we would manage to crack a few jokes as well as some sassy comments here and there to keep everyone’s spirits upbeat and to wake those who were feeling tired or sleepy. If one of us sensed that another person was having a hard time and was losing patience regarding the lack of responses, we made sure that we were there for them. As a group, we reminded one another to find Christ in all that we do and in all that we have to serve to make the service easier to bear.

It’s been about 3 weeks since the TNC and up to now, I’m in awe and am amazed of how He manifested His power not only because of how transpo&hosting turned out but also because of how He worked in and through us to take care of His people. Despite ourselves. Despite our limitations. I’m grateful because by asking me to serve in this capacity, I was able to discover just how patient (and sassy, LOL) I can really be and how much more I can love (metro region, especially). More importantly, it has shown me the wonders that can happen when one  puts all their hope in Him and in His faithfulness.

about a month and some weeks ago, we had our first campus based household. in the service meeting we had prior to it, all four of us (Niccolo and I plus our CCs) thought it was very fitting to keep it light – the consensus was we would try our hardest not to get too serious. It was the first household afterall, and the goal was to get to know one another better.

we basically had a predetermined set of questions that ranged from the ridiculous, as in, is Hash Brown the long lost brother of Chris Brown?, mundane ones like what’s your ideal vacation?, and a few that are more CFC-Y in nature. for example, which character from the Bible do you most identify with? before we started the activity, we allowed everyone to write their own questions. they were then placed in the fanny pack and as the fanny pack was passed around, everyone had to pick one to answer.

going into the household, therefore, my mentality was that it was going to be light and refreshing – something I sorely needed from the monotony of working with spreadsheets and things from the past that are making their presence known and felt yet again.

we had worship in the beginning and although I didn’t read it out loud to the entire group, the verse I first saw when I opened my Bible was:

There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. – Luke 12:2

so much for keeping things light.

the fanny pack for serious travelling became known as the fanny pack of truth because of the 6 questions I got, 4 were on the serious side (the people present in that household can attest to this). the questions really forced me to reflect and to dig deep within. some of the questions were so heavy that at one point, I was telling them to let me pass a turn or trade a question with someone else because I didn’t think I could answer anymore. eerily, the verse above precisely described how the night was for me.

later that night as I was reflecting on the experience, I realized that as uncomfortable as that household was for me, God used it as a way to remind me of three things I tend to take for granted. as an MV, three things I know He knows I need as I continue to discern for my vocation.

one, God always speaks to us but we have to be sensitive to the leading of the spirit in order to understand what He’s telling us. I should’ve taken the Bible verse as God’s way of telling me to be prepared to share. or a sign to excuse myself from the household and hide in the bathroom the entire night (LOLJK).

two, God’s timing is always perfect. it may have taken 6 months for me to open up but after each answer came a sense of relief and a feeling of peace; a feeling I know is only possible when God is guiding my steps and is with me. it may sound weird but it’s the exact feeling I got after I handed in my MV application, when I started my post grad program, when I said yes to service roles in the past, and a bunch of other stuff that led to nothing but the best for me.

three, I sometimes fail to see God’s answer to my prayers because it didn’t come in the form I was expecting it to come. see, ever since I became program head, I’ve been praying for the grace and courage to let me open up and tell my lower household stuff. I suppose picking those questions from the #fannypackoftruth and being forced to answer them was God’s way of telling me, “I know you have a hard time opening up. and I know you share when you’re asked directly or when you think it’s in the proper context. so here ya go, Sab! the perfect opportunity to tell them things without you having to initiate it.”

thank you for Your plans and being there for me. may I always remember that Your timing is perfect and Your answer to my prayers will sometimes be in ways I’ve never imagined or thought possible- but that’s okay; because Lord God, You know what’s best for me. may I be sensitive enough to hear Your voice and Your will for me amidst all the distractions and everything else that’s trying to divert my attention away from You.

a week or two ago, I decided to paint my nails. I don’t usually do it because to be honest, I’m not used to it. The reason being is that the school I attended in the Philippines for about 10 years emphasized simplicity. with that core value came a bunch of rules regarding how we were to dress while in school – no hoop or dangling earrings, only a wristwatch or a bracelet can be worn, applying nail polish was strictly forbidden, and a bunch of others meant to emphasize simplicity, modesty, and austerity in appearance.

I was almost done when my brother came in my room. I asked him how my nails looked and he said they were okay; they looked really blue. all I could see, however, were the imperfections – smudges of nail polish and all sorts of small, mundane things which can be fixed thanks to the wonder that is the nail polish remover. he said I was worrying over nothing because as he so kindly said, no one would inspect / look that closely. all that the people would see is the colour blue.

later that night, I realized that as sad as it was, the way I looked at my nails is how I sometimes look at myself – full of imperfections and flaws (which is a natural thing to do, I know). but what tends to happen is that I focus on my smudges and flaws to the point where I lose sight of the good that other people see in me, the good that I know is within me, and the fact that like the nail polish remover, I can still do things in order to better myself.

at the heart of it though, I think what bothered me the most was the realization that most of the time, I’m hard on myself. I find it hard to forgive myself for things that go wrong even if they’re fixable. or worse, even if I know it’s not my fault because it’s beyond my control and nothing I do can alter the situation.

I don’t know what it was but I became sad thinking about my situation (which makes me laugh now because ew, it sounds so pathetic). i realized it’s subconsciously affecting me even if I don’t say it openly and  for some reason, I had this inkling to re-read my old journal and through the random page I opened, God spoke to me clearly. the journal took me back to something I wrote in September 2013 – a few days after our cluster’s discovery camp. I was asked to do the first talk which was called through the Father’s eyes and written on my journal is this:

Sab, even if other people see you as a flawed and imperfect person, and you yourself come to believe that because of what they say, the Father still sees and will always see you as His child who is to be taken cared of. you are worthy of love. you are worthy to be loved. nothing you do or can’t do, for that matter, will ever change the way He looks at you.

with that though, I have to remember to recognize the fact that there will be days when it’s hard and tough and everything will just be unbearable. when all that I can resort to is to get angry at myself for things that aren’t even of my own doing. but even so and all the more when that happens, I should strive to seek not only the good in me but God Himself because in Him and through His love, I can feel and be whole once more. His grace and mercy makes me smudge free, so to speak, and it’s up to me to believe in that so I can see myself in that light too. that night, through the smudges in my nails and what the nail polish remover can do, I was reminded of how great God is. because even if we ourselves have given up on our very being, He has not and will never do so.

in my MV interview, I was asked about how I dealt with my best friend taking her own life. answering the question wasn’t the best feeling in the world and ever since that time, I’ve been grappling with the right word to describe the experience. by chance, I found it through my favourite Tumblr website. (:

Sankofa. it’s such a strange word. it’s not in the English vernacular nor is it a term that I would normally use in a day to day conversation. if you know me well enough, the very definition of the word is something I’m not comfortable with for it entails that I open up,  look to the past, and reveal wounds stored in the crevice of my heart as well as deep seated emotions I long to forget. after that day, I naively thought that would be the last of it and it would be the last time I get to explore that part in my life. but yesterday in class, I was forced to confront it again because we happened to discuss mental health and within that topic, suicide.  while not a pleasant feeling, I’d like to think that somehow, God was telling me to acknowledge what happened (yet again) so that I can finally see beyond it and focus on the good that came with it.

if I’m being honest with myself, I hated it. Not my best friend. I don’t know if I could ever hate her. But I hated what she did  and the implications that came with it. I’ve known her my entire life – play dates since we were three years old, Friday afternoons spent in her house, countless hours spent on the phone talking or texting. with all that under my belt, I thought I had her figured out. but obviously, I was wrong. because when I was told of what happened that February night in 2008, I’ve never felt so betrayed in my life. Ever.

I thought best friends were supposed to wait for you after a therapy counselling session; not the reason why you’re talking to a therapist counselor in the first place. they’re supposed to reassure you that you’re a good friend but what she did made me question how I am as a friend because I was so racked with guilt  and the notion that I didn’t do everything I could to stop her from committing such an act. that was the year I graduated 12th grade and I had plans to visit the Philippines. at the last minute though, I backed out. how am I supposed to come home knowing that two blocks down my street exists her house? a house that once echoed with so much laughter and is now a seemingly empty one because her absence is too loud to bear? I couldn’t stomach the thought of bringing flowers and candles and going to the cemetery to be with her either. best friends are supposed to write maid of honour speeches for her wedding day, not a eulogy for her funeral.

in a few days, she’s supposed to turn 25. but because her life ended that fateful day in 2008, she will forever be 18 years old. what she did hurt me immensely and it made me feel things I did not know I was capable of feeling. dramatic as this this sounds, it felt like a part of me died too. despite all that, I wanna thank her.

the reason why I’m going into and studying to be a social worker is because I wanna try and make sure that individuals who might be feeling the same way she felt know that they have someone they can turn to. I wanna make sure that they are heard and their feelings are acknowledged; perhaps validated. I want to be the person that tells them it’s okay to feel the way they’re feeling rather than discount it because to acknowledge it can be the first step that is taken in order to deal with the underlying issues they may have. I’m discerning to be a full time worker because I want people to find peace in Christ. rather than feeling irreparable and dejected, I want people to hope in His light and in His love once more.

I read somewhere that pain doesn’t change you. rather, it reveals who you really are. so here I am reclaiming my past and in the process of doing so, understanding the reason why I’m discerning and why I’m doing everything that I’m doing right now. I’m figuring out who I’m meant to be in the future and what role I’m supposed to play for the society at large. it may not be the most ideal and some people might even say I’m defending what she did but what happened to her and the way it affected me pushed me to really look at life and pain in a different way. see, I used to think of pain as something that can bring you down and hold you back (and it did, for a time), but the grief I felt has allowed me to examine my values and even my vocation in life.