By Michael B. Arevalo
“We wouldn’t be this strong if God is not with us. We often forget His presence because of the concerned things we do. But still, God is there to remind us how beautiful life could be with Him.”
My childhood years can never be complete without series of unfortunate events and misfortunes. I was an accident-prone boy, better yet, the king of great disasters. I do not seek accidents - they just seem to follow me.
When I was a kid, I accidentally bumped into a glass wall which was instantly broken into pieces because of high pressure that I personally caused. I had caused me bruises and scars. My face bled when one triangular shaped piece of glass was loosely stuck above my nose, just between my eyes. Mom said I was brave enough not to cry as they tried to clean my face with a clean towel and slowly removed the glass off my face.
I also had a “not-so-good” encounter with a meter-long snake. For a second, I thought was Harry Potter, doing paseltongue with a basilisk. It happened while I was silently asleep. A huge serpent rushed over my foot, probably with a purpose other than befriending me.
I was almost hung by a rope. I fell off a two-meter-high bed and then rolled towards the stairs adjacent to the room. I even bumped my head so hard on the chair in the middle of a mass, and had been bitten by a brown dog when I was ten. Not to mention the time when I stumbled so hard on the ground, hitting my head on a big rock, causing doctors to put a stitch on my forehead (for seeing a part of my skull I felt so miserable and even pitied myself).
Some would say that I wasn’t lucky and I really couldn’t blame them. Considering these “not-so-lucky” tragedies, some may really arrive at a conclusion that I wasn’t loved by God, that He wasn’t concerned about me and that I was a person of great misfortune.
Contrary to such possible beliefs, I personally think that God has always been with me. I feel His very presence in everything I do. I feel Him in the air I breathe, in the water I drink, and in the things that brings a lot of joy to me. I feel Him standing beside me when I screamed my way to my first jeepney ride and when I saw “The Rocketeer”, the very first movie I saw in a in a large screen inside a Theater house. I feel a deep personal connection with God and I am secured that He stands by me taking part in my wondrous life. He guides me towards making right decisions and ultimately towards attaining my very purpose in life, which I don’t really know yet.
I feel that I am a blessed that God protects me in His own special ways. I may have experienced terrible incidents in the past but I solemnly believe that the fact that I am still alive suggests a genuine personal intervention from God. The glass that once hit my face and left a scar which I shall forever bear, proves that He was there at that moment perhaps controlling the glass as it flew towards me so it wouldn’t injure me badly, better yet, by damaging my eyesight. With the swift occurrence of the event and my own proven recklessness, there is a great probability that I could have been hit in my eyes and could have been blind, living the rest of my life in a surrounding of full darkness, a state that gives me a great appreciation of intensity of sound- nothing more, nothing less. The great unexplainable event that it had hit me exactly between my eyes gives me an idea of His divine presence.
In the same way, it was also a great mystery, or should I say miracle that the serpent have not bitten me when in fact it had a chance since I was weak and helpless lying in bed. Thus, other miserable events of my life may have caused me to suffer from numerous wounds, painful stitches, obscure scars, and a few bruises, but I like to believe that God’s intention was to help me become tougher and never to exercise His power to prove His great superior attributes, neither just to play tricks on me.
There are a lot of other events in my life that would prove that I indeed encounter Him everyday. He is with me because he rewards me. I am among the few who believe in the karma, which states that every good thing one person does come with an expected future reward which is shown in varied forms. My ‘occasional luck’ proves this. After an in-depth contemplation I came to realize that oftentimes something good happens to me whenever I exercise a good deed to others. I remember I won Php2,000 in the Bikol Medical Center Poster-making contest, Php2,200 in Bingo at ALDP mall, a new Sony Ericcson W300i walkman phone in the Pepsi Raffle Promo and various first place certificates in poster-making contests. I like to believe that these are rewards from God that stem from my genuine desire to touch other people’s lives..
God guides me towards great opportunities, leaving me nothing more to do but to decide which option to grab. You see, I never really had any plans about my future precisely because I hate being frustrated especially whenever I wasn’t able to attain such laid out plans. When I graduated in Elementary, I never had experienced being in a “caught in the middle” situation, I mean, when it comes to choosing which school should I enroll into. I felt being indifferent and unsympathetic from my other colleagues who were really thinking a hundred times and excitedly trying to assess which school would best showcase their potentials.
As for me, the only school where I took the entrance exams in NCSHS, leaving me no choice but to spend my high school years in such school. God was there guiding me as I was taking the exam so hard that from the ten examinees from my elementary school, only two qualified. I like to believe that He intervened by showing me signs that it was my fate to be a full-fledged Naguenian. Naga City Science High School uplifted my spirit towards learning, further developed my artistic inclination, and gave me more than a thousand reasons to enjoy life since it was in Sci-High that I experienced the great bond with my peers, and the feeling of truthful belongingness.
When I graduated in NCSHS, God was there giving me a lot of choices with what to pursue in college. I was given a 50% scholarship in Brentwood College of Asia, passed the Department of Science and Technology exam, was among the top 20% of the Naga City scholarship program (Skolar Kan Ciudad), and was able to pass the gruesome interviews to qualify for the Business Management Honors’ Program in Ateneo de Naga University. The fact that I ranked one in the roughly 400 examinees in the entrance exam for Mechanical Engineering course at the Bikol Colleges of Arts and Trade, may have been one of God’s sign. But I have chosen to be a blue blooded Atenian because I reconsidered some suggestions of my family and friends, a decision which I never regretted. It has been a great honor to be an Honors’ Program student, and it gives me a lot of joy that I was able to pass all requisites to be admitted as one.
I encounter God everyday because He gives me a number of reasons why I should thank Him. I greatly appreciate every blessing He bestows me- every meal I eat, every smiling person I bump into each time I walk along the street, and all other small things that mean a lot to me. God gave me a “worth-to-be-proud-of” identity- a person in the care of a perfectly understanding and loving family, and a person with superb qualities of being analytical, result-oriented, responsive and artistically inclined. The gifts of astounding talent and skill, honor of being recognized as a four-time Dean’s lister and three-time President’s lister, and chance to be surrounded positively influential individuals give me the major reason to live each day with a smile on my face. The amazing people I share my life with, my family and friends, shaped the Mike that has always been a person of lasting faith, hope and love.
God warns me by giving consistent signs and by somehow bestowing a part of His divine capacity, more of a power, to foresee the future. Whenever I would face or about to face a major dilemma, an extraordinary storm or a heavy rainfall would come unexpectedly after one bright sunny morning. Being able to have a brief glimpse about the future, seemingly with the occurrence of such catastrophic events, I am able to achieve a mindset and an emotional readiness to accept the possible outcomes that may create a huge impact in my day to day living. The warning signifies a small detail about my incapacity to do a certain work, inability to pass a minor exam even if I studied so hard and even personal fortuitous events relating a loss of penny. It also foretells a happening of a miserable event such as huge consequences of my bad luck and even death of a relative. This proves that God loves me and that He never forgets my welfare.
God rendered me to this world as a gift as a response to eternal desire of my parents to bear a child. My parents have not been given a child for three long years of their marriage, until they have resorted to seeking the divine blessing from God for them to have one. They joined immense processions, endlessly prayed and prayed, and talked personally to God about their personal cravings of becoming a family complete with at least one child. God was probably touched by the heart-felt devotion and answered their prayers. On the dawn of the 27th of December 1987, while half of the world was asleep in the comfort of their homes experiencing an enormous typhoon, I was born and have brought great excitement to my parents. That is why even I am a living proof of God’s genuine care and love. God is indeed the reason for my existence, thus, it is rightful to live life for His glory.
I think of God in every decision I make and I believe that that is one approach of being morally upright. I always think whether my action would make Him happy or not. I think a number of times whether I am able to exercise me full humanity by being just and somehow being utilitarian. For this, God truly has caused me great transformation for He is an influential, though not physically present, figure in my life. I owe God my life, and I look forward every morning as I wake up to having an encounter with Him again- probably when I meet a hilarious chick in my tricycle ride to Ateneo, or maybe as I help a really gorgeous lady picking up her books which accidentally fell on the floor.
“We wouldn’t be this strong if God is not with us. We often forget His presence because of the concerned things we do. But still, God is there to remind us how beautiful life could be with Him.”
My childhood years can never be complete without series of unfortunate events and misfortunes. I was an accident-prone boy, better yet, the king of great disasters. I do not seek accidents - they just seem to follow me.
When I was a kid, I accidentally bumped into a glass wall which was instantly broken into pieces because of high pressure that I personally caused. I had caused me bruises and scars. My face bled when one triangular shaped piece of glass was loosely stuck above my nose, just between my eyes. Mom said I was brave enough not to cry as they tried to clean my face with a clean towel and slowly removed the glass off my face.
I also had a “not-so-good” encounter with a meter-long snake. For a second, I thought was Harry Potter, doing paseltongue with a basilisk. It happened while I was silently asleep. A huge serpent rushed over my foot, probably with a purpose other than befriending me.
I was almost hung by a rope. I fell off a two-meter-high bed and then rolled towards the stairs adjacent to the room. I even bumped my head so hard on the chair in the middle of a mass, and had been bitten by a brown dog when I was ten. Not to mention the time when I stumbled so hard on the ground, hitting my head on a big rock, causing doctors to put a stitch on my forehead (for seeing a part of my skull I felt so miserable and even pitied myself).
Some would say that I wasn’t lucky and I really couldn’t blame them. Considering these “not-so-lucky” tragedies, some may really arrive at a conclusion that I wasn’t loved by God, that He wasn’t concerned about me and that I was a person of great misfortune.
Contrary to such possible beliefs, I personally think that God has always been with me. I feel His very presence in everything I do. I feel Him in the air I breathe, in the water I drink, and in the things that brings a lot of joy to me. I feel Him standing beside me when I screamed my way to my first jeepney ride and when I saw “The Rocketeer”, the very first movie I saw in a in a large screen inside a Theater house. I feel a deep personal connection with God and I am secured that He stands by me taking part in my wondrous life. He guides me towards making right decisions and ultimately towards attaining my very purpose in life, which I don’t really know yet.
I feel that I am a blessed that God protects me in His own special ways. I may have experienced terrible incidents in the past but I solemnly believe that the fact that I am still alive suggests a genuine personal intervention from God. The glass that once hit my face and left a scar which I shall forever bear, proves that He was there at that moment perhaps controlling the glass as it flew towards me so it wouldn’t injure me badly, better yet, by damaging my eyesight. With the swift occurrence of the event and my own proven recklessness, there is a great probability that I could have been hit in my eyes and could have been blind, living the rest of my life in a surrounding of full darkness, a state that gives me a great appreciation of intensity of sound- nothing more, nothing less. The great unexplainable event that it had hit me exactly between my eyes gives me an idea of His divine presence.
In the same way, it was also a great mystery, or should I say miracle that the serpent have not bitten me when in fact it had a chance since I was weak and helpless lying in bed. Thus, other miserable events of my life may have caused me to suffer from numerous wounds, painful stitches, obscure scars, and a few bruises, but I like to believe that God’s intention was to help me become tougher and never to exercise His power to prove His great superior attributes, neither just to play tricks on me.
There are a lot of other events in my life that would prove that I indeed encounter Him everyday. He is with me because he rewards me. I am among the few who believe in the karma, which states that every good thing one person does come with an expected future reward which is shown in varied forms. My ‘occasional luck’ proves this. After an in-depth contemplation I came to realize that oftentimes something good happens to me whenever I exercise a good deed to others. I remember I won Php2,000 in the Bikol Medical Center Poster-making contest, Php2,200 in Bingo at ALDP mall, a new Sony Ericcson W300i walkman phone in the Pepsi Raffle Promo and various first place certificates in poster-making contests. I like to believe that these are rewards from God that stem from my genuine desire to touch other people’s lives..
God guides me towards great opportunities, leaving me nothing more to do but to decide which option to grab. You see, I never really had any plans about my future precisely because I hate being frustrated especially whenever I wasn’t able to attain such laid out plans. When I graduated in Elementary, I never had experienced being in a “caught in the middle” situation, I mean, when it comes to choosing which school should I enroll into. I felt being indifferent and unsympathetic from my other colleagues who were really thinking a hundred times and excitedly trying to assess which school would best showcase their potentials.
As for me, the only school where I took the entrance exams in NCSHS, leaving me no choice but to spend my high school years in such school. God was there guiding me as I was taking the exam so hard that from the ten examinees from my elementary school, only two qualified. I like to believe that He intervened by showing me signs that it was my fate to be a full-fledged Naguenian. Naga City Science High School uplifted my spirit towards learning, further developed my artistic inclination, and gave me more than a thousand reasons to enjoy life since it was in Sci-High that I experienced the great bond with my peers, and the feeling of truthful belongingness.
When I graduated in NCSHS, God was there giving me a lot of choices with what to pursue in college. I was given a 50% scholarship in Brentwood College of Asia, passed the Department of Science and Technology exam, was among the top 20% of the Naga City scholarship program (Skolar Kan Ciudad), and was able to pass the gruesome interviews to qualify for the Business Management Honors’ Program in Ateneo de Naga University. The fact that I ranked one in the roughly 400 examinees in the entrance exam for Mechanical Engineering course at the Bikol Colleges of Arts and Trade, may have been one of God’s sign. But I have chosen to be a blue blooded Atenian because I reconsidered some suggestions of my family and friends, a decision which I never regretted. It has been a great honor to be an Honors’ Program student, and it gives me a lot of joy that I was able to pass all requisites to be admitted as one.
I encounter God everyday because He gives me a number of reasons why I should thank Him. I greatly appreciate every blessing He bestows me- every meal I eat, every smiling person I bump into each time I walk along the street, and all other small things that mean a lot to me. God gave me a “worth-to-be-proud-of” identity- a person in the care of a perfectly understanding and loving family, and a person with superb qualities of being analytical, result-oriented, responsive and artistically inclined. The gifts of astounding talent and skill, honor of being recognized as a four-time Dean’s lister and three-time President’s lister, and chance to be surrounded positively influential individuals give me the major reason to live each day with a smile on my face. The amazing people I share my life with, my family and friends, shaped the Mike that has always been a person of lasting faith, hope and love.
God warns me by giving consistent signs and by somehow bestowing a part of His divine capacity, more of a power, to foresee the future. Whenever I would face or about to face a major dilemma, an extraordinary storm or a heavy rainfall would come unexpectedly after one bright sunny morning. Being able to have a brief glimpse about the future, seemingly with the occurrence of such catastrophic events, I am able to achieve a mindset and an emotional readiness to accept the possible outcomes that may create a huge impact in my day to day living. The warning signifies a small detail about my incapacity to do a certain work, inability to pass a minor exam even if I studied so hard and even personal fortuitous events relating a loss of penny. It also foretells a happening of a miserable event such as huge consequences of my bad luck and even death of a relative. This proves that God loves me and that He never forgets my welfare.
God rendered me to this world as a gift as a response to eternal desire of my parents to bear a child. My parents have not been given a child for three long years of their marriage, until they have resorted to seeking the divine blessing from God for them to have one. They joined immense processions, endlessly prayed and prayed, and talked personally to God about their personal cravings of becoming a family complete with at least one child. God was probably touched by the heart-felt devotion and answered their prayers. On the dawn of the 27th of December 1987, while half of the world was asleep in the comfort of their homes experiencing an enormous typhoon, I was born and have brought great excitement to my parents. That is why even I am a living proof of God’s genuine care and love. God is indeed the reason for my existence, thus, it is rightful to live life for His glory.
I think of God in every decision I make and I believe that that is one approach of being morally upright. I always think whether my action would make Him happy or not. I think a number of times whether I am able to exercise me full humanity by being just and somehow being utilitarian. For this, God truly has caused me great transformation for He is an influential, though not physically present, figure in my life. I owe God my life, and I look forward every morning as I wake up to having an encounter with Him again- probably when I meet a hilarious chick in my tricycle ride to Ateneo, or maybe as I help a really gorgeous lady picking up her books which accidentally fell on the floor.
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