Whenever we feel lost: Four truths to navigate life, despite

By Beloved Abigail Madlangbayan and Marc Gochuico

Marc and Abi look back on their respective relationships with their parents and how their personal relationship with God allowed them to mend past hurts and appreciate the people in their lives.

Hey! We are kuya Marc and ate Abi, two persons navigating through life, just like you. You might be feeling lost, or generally life is just not that exciting for you. It has been for us too. So, we’d like to share four truths that have helped us pull through, despite.

We are imperfect people; we can be wrong sometimes (if not most of the time 🙁 ) and that causes us to hurt others.

Growing up I had a normal relationship with my family. I loved each and every one of them, especially my dad. When I entered high school, I went under a lot of stress and my dad became busy with work and we didn’t spend as much time together. As time went by, I started to become angry towards him because I would see his hypocrisy. I became angry, dishonest, and I started disrespecting him in my own way. I never even gave him the chance to improve. Our relationship started to fall apart until I found myself, in my last year of college, barely even spending time with him. Our relationship was civil at best. I had a lot of excuses so I wouldn’t have to spend time with him. I even planned to move out and cut off all communication with him.

I, on the other hand, had an imperfect relationship with my mom. After my parents separated when I was seven years old, my relationship with her was close until I entered high school. I always wanted things to go my way, and that led to me keeping secrets, disobeying her, and breaking her heart when I entered into a relationship she was not aware of and disapproved of.

We are very selfish people and we can be chained by it. Because we always want to do things our way, we end up hurting other people – especially those whom we love and those who love us. Even worse, the bible says that there is a perfect God who is right and just. You might not have been disobedient nor disrespectful as us, but no amount of good works can make us measure up to the perfection of this perfect God. We have fallen short of His glory (Romans 3:23).

Despite our imperfections, there is a Perfect God – perfectly just and perfectly loving.

Right before graduating college, my family attended a retreat that I did not know will literally change my life. There was an activity where the fathers will listen to all the hurts that they’ve done to each of the family members throughout the years and they need to listen quietly. No reasons. No excuses. I didn’t want to say anything at first but after a while a torrent of emotions from hurts and pains flooded out. My dad thought everything was okay between us but I burst that bubble that our family was living in. He asked for my forgiveness after that and I forgave. He also forgave me for being dishonest with him.

Before graduating college, my mom found out about the relationship I had and she was heartbroken because of it. We had a huge fight that almost led to me not being able to attend my classes. Even so, after a few days, she forgave me, reached out to me and counseled me about it. She even went as far as encouraging me to go back to my mentors and friends from church to get guidance. I knew that my mom loved me but it was not clear to me at the time because I had my own plans and I wanted them done with or without her approval.

You see, before we even came to this point, there is a God who has always been in the picture. He is the God who created the beautiful heavens and the earth, the God who created mankind. He is the God who created out of love for His Son. He wanted to extend that love to creation as this love overflows. He is also the perfectly just God who also loves His creation so much, despite the consequence of our imperfections, that the freedom we experience right now is out of the ultimate act of love He has done for us.

This Perfect God made a perfect sacrifice for our freedom: His Son gave His life for all of us.

A huge weight was lifted off me after years of carrying that burden. I was free and it was thanks to God. It is only by experiencing His love and forgiveness can I truly forgive my dad. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have forgiven my dad and just left.

Never would I have realized that my mom truly loved me if it was not for the love of God. It sometimes felt like she did not want me to be happy by restricting me from a lot of things, but I wasn’t seeing the whole picture. My mom wants the best for me, and so does God – and He knows that being in his presence is best for us.

This perfectly just God who created us could have just, in a snap of a finger (Thanos?), sent us all to hell as He could not stand our imperfections. We are just too dirty compared to him, but this perfectly loving God, in his grace and mercy, chose to forgive us. He did not just forgive us in a snap, no. He is just – there needed to be someone who would bear the consequences for us, and who else could? Not us, his unloving, disobedient creation. So, who? His son, Jesus Christ. (John 3:16)

Christ went through suffering to dying on the cross because of our sin. That is how much He loves us. The thing is, anybody can die for anybody. What sets Christ apart is that He didn’t just die for our sins but He overcame death and gave us victory. He was resurrected and it is in this truth that we hold our hope to and it is because of this that we change.

Because Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected on the third day, we are freed from the chains of our past mistakes, the weight of our burdens, and we can also extend the same love and grace to other people.

This perfect love ought to change us.

We’re almost at the end of the article, and you may be asking, “so ano na, kuya and ate? How is that supposed to help us?” – Well, the short answer is that we should be compelled by the love that overflows through us when we trust in Jesus.

When we experience the love and forgiveness of God there is change. For example, when my dad and I were restored, we committed to be conscious in our effort to change our responses. He is now more sensitive and stopped doing the things he did in the past to hurt us. I, on the other hand, would be honest and started to genuinely enjoy my time with him and our family.

Because God has been gracious to us, my mom reached out to me, and we mended our relationship. We decided that if we loved each other, we would put honesty and communication at the foundation of our relationship as mother and daughter.

This change has also extended to the way we view other things and relationships in our lives. We treat our work as a grace from God because that is one of the ways He provides for us – we aim to work honestly and excellently everyday, and we do it by His grace. It is our joy to counsel people and remind them of the same truths we are sharing with you so that it can help them navigate life too.

The love and forgiveness that we experienced made us change our ways. This is more true with our relationship with God. When we experience His love, we are not forced to change but we are compelled because our eyes have been opened and are truly free.

So, we urge you. Experience His love and forgiveness and share that to those around. Experience true freedom in God and live your life as He ought you to – overflowing with His love.