Thank God for 2008

2008!! Thank God for another year with all the opportunities to live and enjoy life at its fullest. After all the festivities, which included meeting old friends, eating to a maximum gut capacity, enjoying family and sharing presents, I am now back to meditative mode and… wham… I am hit by a realization that brings me to tears, and in deep gratitude I look up to the heavens with an overflowing and thankful heart.

What was it? Oh, it was just simply my past coming back to me in a HiFi LCD sensurround playback, which showed the roller coaster ride that my life took up to the present. It was not the roller coaster that hit me, but rather it was the realization that after all the kids had successfully finished their courses and were now employed, I still have the luxury of having them under my roof or they having me under their roof. Whatever it is, I count it providential that we are still intact as a family.

Modern families tend to disintegrate physically as soon as the children finish school and have jobs. Filipino children would rather look for employment abroad and leave their parents behind, which means that when the youngest is gone both parents are left in an almost empty and quiet house. I knew that one day this would happen to me and my wife, I was preparing for it.

This reality would’t have been much appreciated if it were not for something that happened to this family four years ago. At that time it seemed that only a thread held us members together. Thoughts like divorce, running away from home, burning the bible, etc, were being entertained in our minds and there was no peace at home. It was due to my discovery of some bible truths that stood against our religion, the church that I brought my wife into and that my kids grew up in.

Three years into that situation and God blessed me with the decision of my wife and kids to embrace this biblical truth and join me in one spirit. Now we praise God from a higher level of spirituality and faith. To top it all God blessed me with the chance to maintain a united family in a great country, with all the opportunities to work as an evangelist while I look after the needs of my family domestically, and while I enjoy bringing up a granddaughter.

What more can I ask for?