This story originally appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on June 20, 2006.
My life, I believe, is a wrestling match with God. I like to think of myself as Jacob who wrestled with an angel of the Lord before reckoning with Esau and his past. I do not know if God will allow me to overcome Hi `m. But one things ifs certain: I will not let go of Him until He blesses me.
I have a vivid memory. I can recall almost everything in my past. I specially love to recall the years when my life revolved around playing games and being cuddled by my mother. But despite all the pictures I have stored in the photo album of my mind, I cannot pinpoint the moment I lost my innocence.
I have learned that innocence does not break as suddenly as a glass shatters. Rather, the process is gradual and innocence is removed layer by layer by every event in our life. Then suddenly it dawns upon us that we are naked and vulnerable to the harsh realities of the world.
It is really sad when, devoid of innocence, we come to know that life is more than who we are.
Without my innocence now, after 19 years of living, I know I am wrestling with God. I wrestle with Him because I believe that what my life is going to be I must choose, not accept. God has given me my share of trials, and I accept the tragedies and the sufferings. But I will choose how my life will go and my choice will not be dictated by any 4event that has happened or may yet happen.
God has been generous to me with His blessings and trials. During my grade-school years, my father, who was drunk every night, often hurt my mother physically. Our house was foreclosed by the bank and my mother lost everything she had because my father insisted on doing what he pleased with her property. Then my sister, the eldest of us three siblings, got pregnant at 19.
I used to ask God what sins we had committed. If He was teaching us lessons, I said, why did He have to be so hard and cruel. I cannot describe the trauma I suffered during those times. Most of all, I pitied my mother who is closest to my heart.
There were the times when I thought God was evil. I read the Bible and it struck me that God did not tell Moses that He was a good God. All that He said was,
”I am.” My mother was very religious person and I did not share my doubts with her lest she reproach me.
I am now in my third year college, and looking back, I realize that all the events in my life are not random happenings. It seems that there is an Invincible Hand that arranges all the events like pieces in a puzzle. When tragedy strikes and things look hopeless, something happens to right the wrongs. But the saving event only solves the problem in part, and the rest depends on us.
My older sister gave birth to girl whom my parents adopted. My parents then sent her to one school after another, but she never finished a course because she eloped with another guy and then just dropped out.
When I was in fifth grade, my mother left for the United States and worked as much as her weary body allowed. After six years, she was able to redeem our house.
But those six years were the hardest and saddest years of my life. I had to deal with the other members of our family, whose principles did not match my own. I cried every night for my mama to be back. During those years, my sister used the assets my mother had acquired with her saving to get a load. When my mother came home my sister just disappeared. After six years, my father and my sister had nothing to show for the money she had been sending over. But my mother accepted this fate with resignation.
My father still gets drunk every night but I do not allow him to hurt my mother anymore. Sometimes I wonder how she can put up with him. I know she pities him. She knows that if she throws him out of our house, he would have nowhere to go. We have to bear with him when his behavior becomes obnoxious. Sometimes I have to swallow my anger when I see him carrying bottles of beer, knowing it is mother’s earning that keep our souls and bodies together.
From all these events of my life, I can see that God merely give us the blocks to build our lives. What we make of our live depends on us.
From everything that has happened in my life, I have come to believe that God is telling me: “Why cling to an existence that is filled with suffering and short of joys?”
I have known people who merely accept their fate. They are the cowards who cannot cope with changes because all they want is the life they have grown accustomed to. They do they not see their true possibilities because they are afraid that they may not be capable of overcoming the trials that come their way.
But then there is the example of my mother who has suffered and endured so much and yet still managed to save us from poverty. I think she challenged her fate and the fate of her family. She did not accept it, she chose to change it and mold it according to her own design.
That is how I want to live my personal legend. I want to choose what I will make of God’s gift and trials. I believe that by choosing,, I will be able to forget a past that disappoints and that pains by looking back at the things that I have achieved to give me strength to carry on.
I finished high school with honors for both my academics and extracurricular activities. I strived hard even if I knew that when I received my medals, my mother would not be around to share the joy with me. I did not allow my depression and my loneliness to get in the way of the goals I set for myself. These were the times when I almost forgot God and I merely depended on my personal strengths. But I know that He never forgot me.
I wrestled with my God and will continue to do so. Because no matter what He sends me, I will determine my own fate and the fate of my loved ones. Free will, after all, is best gift He has given to His children. But I pray that He will smile at me and bless me.
