I finally made my newly purchased MP3 cell phone in good use. My husband loaded it with mp3 files of a series of messages entitled “The Master’s Design” and when I heard the first one, speaking about the kind of wife as God intended, it made a very striking impact on me, I was compelled to listen to the rest of the series. As I was listening, it made me realize the very pitfall of my marriage concerns, as if it was speaking to me personally after that unfortunate ‘breakdown’ we had recently recovered from. It was a hit right at its very core… led me to confession and conviction of straightening up with myself and my husband.
I shared it with Norman and he took the time to listen to it again, because apparently he already heard it before. But this time, I encouraged him to allow it to minister to him as it did to me. And it did.
Now, we have come to realize and agree of coming together to our marriage nourished and fed first and foremost by God. We took each other accountable in keeping our ‘quiet time’ with the Lord and agreed to go on a book study on Ephesians for our devotion. O, may we go beyond the mediocrity and legalism of just doing it for the sake of doing it but really take pleasure in the presence of the Lord and be fed by His word.

(apparently, the mp3 file is too big to be uploaded, so it’s unfortunate that I can’t share it here but I’ll ask my husband to find a link so that it may be accessible… it just might be useful for others as well.)

What I learned after our ‘breakdown’….
That when God designed marriage having two deprived people live together in one roof, he meant it for blessing, not a curse. Failing to acknowledge Him in the lives of each individuals (the husband and the wife) makes it miserable!
That I’m totally missing a great deal of blessing in my marriage by not being the wife that I should be the way God wanted me… blessing is in the obedience. That was a major for me!
That coming to realization of what I thought were non-issue for me but those thoughts translated to so many arguments and fights, and confessing those thoughts to the Lord, settling it before Him and coming to terms of what is right in the light of God’s word, then talking it over with my husband is THE solution, not just passive resolution of brushing it off thinking that ‘I’ll get over it somehow…’.
That love is never really lost… because it goes beyond emotions. Yes, I may not be feeling so romantic in times of contentions, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are one. Love is really committing to the very blueprint of God in marriage. We are one.
That my frustrations in my relationship with my husband reflects my destitute relationship with the Lord. I kept so many cruds, as in piled disappointment and resentment from my marriage after repeatedly being frustrated from failed expectations because I went to the marriage empty.
That I had to be filled and nurtured by none other but God and approach my marriage filled and even overflowing from the love and grace that He lavishly pours on me. How can I not love my husband if I’m overflowing, how can I not obey the Lord to submit to my husband if his love compels me to do so. The only thing left to say is, ‘Lord, if this is how You want it, I’m on it!’

The Lord is faithful… true to His words. When He said that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all our unrighteousness, He meant it and He does it. I know this for a fact, and I know that I have to be settled before Him first and foremost… I knew He would forgive. But for a moment, I lay silent, I just don’t know how to start, praying I mean… talking to Him. I tried to search for words from the deepest of my heart but I remain wordless… just ended up with deep sighs from a soul that is moaning from shame and guilt. I couldn’t even call Him Lord when I knew I didn’t acknowledge Him as such when I sinned… I literally became the lord when I gave in to what I wanted. But He is Lord. And I… I was a servant who failed my Lord. And there’s really nothing I can do but just to run to Him and say, “Lord, I am not worthy of even your attention, but please forgive me for falling short of your glory… for bringing you pain and shame, for not walking where I was suppose to walk. You have called me to overcome but I gave in to my sinful desires and failed. Forgive me, Lord.”

Victory was my destiny, but I chose to be defeated by my flesh. I didn’t walk in the Spirit, I chose to gratify the flesh. Sure I am depraved, but I was delivered, I have a new nature. And though my depravity is a reality that I struggle with for as long as I am in this flesh, it shouldn’t be an excuse to justify my offense. Christian life is not a defeated life… we are called to triumph over the flesh, we were delivered from the power of sin. Since Christ came into our hearts, His Spirit enables us to say NO to sin and do what is right. But in the moment we are caught off-guard, when we fail to remember our identity in Christ and discount our high calling for holy living, we give in and fail. How significant it is to walk with Him moment by moment, to be saturated by His words so that the mind makes no room for trash, to always be conscious of His presence, to always be mindful of our calling, to be constantly in commune with the Spirit and be unplugged with your own flesh, to always be alert on the bait of the enemy and not give in to its enticement.

I am grateful to the Lord for His forgiveness, and for teaching both me and my husband the hard way so that we would learn.
I trust that He is able to restore both of us… I know that He will.

How chaotic can it get? The mess is so filthy, I’m not even sure if it gets to be cleaned up! It so ruined, I don’t know if it will ever get to be fixed! We’ve been such a shame, to desecrate our profession of Christianity with such a gruesome display of resentment towards each other. We’ve been here… messing up again and again. We could have learned… we should know better. But the failure is so frustrating that it almost seems hopeless. We’re never going to change!
But that’s not how God puts it. God never gives up on us even if we give up on ourselves. It brings me all the more to my knees knowing that I’m not worthy of such forbearance. God, ever forgiving, ever patient! Even to a stubborn soul such as I am. For as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed my transgressions from me. O what mercy!
And that’s where we’ll start… from the ruins we’ve made after a bad fall, we’ll pick up from here. To agree with God on the stench of our sin before Him and to ask for His forgiveness. He doesn’t deserve any of these. It breaks my heart into pieces to drag Him in all of this trash! May the Lord forgive.
The Lord isn’t done with both of us yet, my husband and I. It’s good to know that from the wreck that we are, He is able to fix us, change us. That’s something we can’t do for ourselves! How will He do it, I don’t know, I guess I just have to trust Him.
For now, we welcome the counsel, the discipline, the love and the understanding from our brethren. We covet your prayers, dear brethren… that after all of these learning from the Lord, He may be glorified!

Got a very good news from my husband last week. He was hired for another school year in the school he’s been teaching for three years now, and that means having a regular status after three years of probation. Not that this was very surprising but we were quite anticipating that they will no longer be “in need of his services” because of some untoward events of theological contention with the school chaplain (on issues about the gospel) on his first year of teaching or for some adverse reasons such as private school’s strategy of easily kicking out teachers before they get to be tenured (teachers kicked out… how ironic!). So, for the past few months before the closing of this school year, my husband was contemplating on applying at other schools and even considered working at home. The thought of losing his job was distressing since he solely provides for our family (I quit work after giving birth so I can take care of our baby). I must admit it made us quite anxious for a time but we reminded ourselves of this: that our future might be unknown to us but we know God holds our lives in His very hands. The same God who saw us through our experience when we lost both our jobs at Grace High School a few years ago will take care of us now. Such assurance brought comfort and peace in our fretful hearts.

So hearing my husband getting his job for another school year and securing a permanent status should have been enough reason for us to be in glee. But the Lord made us realize that there’s more to it than it seems. He got interviewed by the school’s department head and in the course of the interview, she cited some of the feedback from the students of their evaluation of Mr. Rios as a teacher. That made all the difference! Hearing comments such as, “(He) is a good teacher, he made studying Physics fun, we learned a lot from him…” is supposed to mean he’s pretty good in doing his job as a Physics teacher but what really hit us were students recognizing his efforts in sharing the Word of God to them whenever he had the opportunity to do so. I guess his department head’s statement summed it all up in a very striking statement, “Mr. Rios, You’ve made Him known…”

That stopped me for a moment to think while my husband was telling me the rest of their conversation. How am I supposed to react on this? Should I give him a hug and say, ‘You did a good job, congratulations, you deserve it, your hard work paid off’? Or say, ‘I’m so proud of you, you’ve earned yourself a reputation.’? But then I thought, none of those were the right words. So I preferred to just keep on listening to him and after a while thought about it myself. I ended praising God. Thanking Him not just for the blessing of my husband’s job but more so, for His work in my husband’s life. We (my husband and I) both know that he doesn’t deserve such a reputation, that he would fall short of the character that they esteemed him. My husband has his flaws, sad to say sometimes or most of the time, I play a big part on them. But the Lord has His ways of preserving his testimony, of establishing his servants despite of their unworthiness. The Lord has given my husband such a reputation not for him to glory on himself and pat his back and say, ‘I’m good!’. No! And he certainly got this job for more reasons than just being able to provide for his family. He’s got more students to reach out to and share the Word of God with, more co-teachers to minister, more lives to influence. There certainly is more to do, so all the commendations don’t really mean the job is done or the work is over. And it is humbling to be of use for the Master when you know you’re not even worthy to remove His sandals… it is only God’s grace.

After such a reflection, I told my husband how I felt about him and his job. We’re both convinced that it’s not about him or just about the job, but it’s all for His name’s sake. We loose a job for His sake, we get one for His sake. Everything as to the Lord. May the Lord be continually merciful and gracious to use earthen vessels for His honorable cause.

Kharis’ first steps

March 20, 2008
At exactly a year ago, pass midnight, I still vividly recall myself twitching in immense pain, it was so great that I called it the mother of all pain (really, incomparable)! I was in the labor room, crying my heart out (my ob told me not to cry, or I’ll wear myself out, but I really needed to burst it out!) and the next thing I heard were people telling me to push… push real hard! It was the greatest three ‘pushes’ of my life, then I passed out.
She came out- Kharis, who just turned one today. Our little bundle of joy… after a long wait of six years, after bouts of several depression, frustration, fear of not having a child, to being accused of not having enough faith, my husband and I went through it all. Each delayed visit of my period is a suspense, but then would end up sadly- negative. Then I thought of the reasons why I have such a yearning- is it just because I’m pressured and tired of failing the expectations of people around me, or am I thinking that having a child would revolutionize our marriage and bring it to a different level, or do I feel incomplete as a woman not having bear and raise my own child? I’m afraid I have considered all those. The saddest part is, in my frustration, I questioned God why not allow me to have one… even one? Am I not good enough, don’t I deserve to be a mother? My heart bleeds when I picture myself back then, questioning His will for me and the worst, His very person when ‘I thought You would not withheld anything good from me?’. When I came to my senses and saw myself in front of a Holy God whom I belittled, I shrank in shame. I remember reading the last passages of Job in tears, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?… Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?”. Job answered, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted… therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things to wonderful for me, which I did not know… I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 40-42). I surrendered to God and my soul came to terms to the possibility of not having a child, knowing that it’s not lack of faith, but an act of submission- ‘Do Lord what pleases You for that is the best for me.’ Ah, what a liberation! Praise God for the deliverance.
That should have been the ending of the story, but a surprise came to us… I was pregnant! No work-ups, no medication, no medical intervention, just divine! The thought of having a girl as my own was both wonderful and frightening. But then I believe, she came in the right time for the right reasons. Grateful to receive such a beautiful gift yet feeling short to deserve it, we named her ‘Kharis’… from the Greek word ‘charis’ meaning grace. That’s everything she is to both of us, my husband and I. We are humbled by the opportunity given to us by God to mold a person and a soul into a life that pleases Him. As precious as she is to us, we know that she belongs to God. He may take her whenever, however he pleases, she is His. And wherever we will bring her, we will be accountable to Him who owns her.
Still being a neophyte in parenting, we are awed to how God has carried us through a year of taking care of our little darling. The things that He’s been teaching us are overwhelming. I didn’t expect it to be this exciting… nothing has really prepared me for this new experience. But I’m glad to go through it with my husband beside me, with our God leading the way. We still have a long way to go, but we’ll take a day at a time…

Finally… my very own blog! I’ve been looking forward to keeping one. I used to keep a journal and it felt cool reading it and realizing ‘this was how I felt then…’ or ‘this was my thoughts about this and that…’. But it was exclusively for my eyes only, perhaps because I value privacy or I just don’t want to be vulnerable to anyone.

So why blog? I asked myself exactly that… but then I thought, why not. So I worked my thoughts out to finding the right title of my blog. Why not name it after my previous journal… HEARTWORK, then with the tag ‘The Chronicles of a Transformed Soul’. And instead of first citing what it’s about, I listed what it’s NOT about. It’s not about me, what I did, or what I can do. I’m no extraordinary, my thoughts are not Pulitzer worthy and my experiences are quite short for a telenovela. When I say, transformed, I definitely don’t mean perfect. So this isn’t about a person’s perfection, the last thing I would want to highlight is MY accomplishments as a self-made person, because I’m never one!

I hope to share what my heart is going through… the supernatural work that God is doing in molding me to be the kind of person that He wants me to be. Genuine change that comes from within isn’t humanly possible. Who can change a heart of stone into a heart of flesh? Who can transform an indifferent soul to one that passionately burns in loving God?

I once was so in love with myself… and now I want to share my journey of God working to change the very center of my frail heart. HE DESERVES IT!

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to do evil.” Jeremiah 13:23 (ESV)

“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,” Ezekiel 11:19 (ESV)>