It’s been a while since I last posted my last blog entry. I’ve been busy this month in school (for the reason that I am a graduating engineering student) and in church. I miss the blogesphere! Since I’m back (finally) I want to share my life testimony after I encounter Him. I’m on fire! And I want to keep that fire burning inside of me, the fire which I want you to experience as well when you fall in love with Jesus Christ. I’m in love with Him so bad and I celebrated my 3rd month with my church, so I think this is the time to come out and share the hidden me. Here it goes:
Hi! You can call me Vincent or Vince for short. I stand 5 foot and 7 inches tall, and I’m just like the typical guy you see on a daily basis in this society. I’m a self-confessed EMO i.e “Emotional Motivated Output”, I hate myself! I hate everything about me. I don’t like to hang-out with other people, having a quiet time at the corner of the room is my past time. I don’t usually talk instead I write what I felt in such situation I am into. My rough childhood experience led me to this kind of attitude that the other people cannot understand.
I am sexually abused in my younger years by my cousin and an older relative of us. It lasted for almost 4 or 5 years? I don’t want to elaborate it any further. So that time, I treated myself as a trash. I’m getting used of it, and I can’t complain to them because I’m afraid. It stopped when I’m in my 2nd year in high school, for the reason we moved to other place to live. That experience tortured my self-being and my mind as well.
The feeling is different that I needed to hide my true self. I isolated myself to others when I was growing up especially from boys because of my fear to them. I didn’t have the chance to relate with them. This is the start of rejection and I hurt myself again asking: “Why should I receive this kind of treatment?”
I rejected the feeling of being abused, and wasted and turned myself in pornography. I remember an old joke in high school that: “99% of men admit to viewing pornography on a regular basis. The remaining 1% are liars.” As a young kid, I was exposed to pornographic materials when I discover VCD’s under my father’s closet. I am curious that time so I watched it when everybody was asleep. For the next couple of years, I consider myself as a porn addict. I’m supplying my lust with the daily viewing of the many VCD’s of my father, and when the internet comes it open my eyes to the never-ending possibilities of the sexual related stuff: from nude pictures to streaming videos to live chat. I notice that I became so addicted to porn that whenever I go out, I mentally undressed people that I saw. I don’t care who it was, whether I saw a girl or a boy I just pictured them and imagined them in an filthy situation with each other. I thought this addiction will never end.*
I don’t know what path I am going to take, I am ashamed of myself. I know Jesus, Yes! I admire Him, but I don’t live the way it supposed to be (a Christ-like person). He wasn’t my priority. I once surrender my life to Him when I was invited in a youth service, but it made me more miserable. I follow Him and I’m still in this addiction that led me to double life between God and Satan. It’s killing me.
Sunday afternoon last 24th of June 2012 at the Robinson’s Galleria, I was invited by my friend to attend their church annual celebration. And that moment I feel that even I am unworthy, God never leave me alone. I remember Pastor Jon’s message: “Kapatid, Mahal ka ng Panginoon. Gusto naming kayong tulungan dahil hindi madali magbago, hindi madali sumunod sa Diyos.” And that moment I accepted the challenge to believe that I can make an exceptional impact! One month later, from July 20-22 I joined the 3rd batch-2012 of EGR (Encounter God Retreat) delegates at the Camp Jabez, Dasmarinaz Cavite. That was the best experience of my life. I feel so free! It is between me and God alone.
Do you know such feeling called: “Grabe!?” I experience that when I encounter Him. If I relate that grabe-feeling to a mathematical sense, it is raised to the power of infinity. I felt for the first time that the Lord embraces me whole-heartedly. I’m in the cloud nine with the angels singing in my head. I will never forget that moment. Woah! Grabe! That was the beginning that I fully understand something important, that I must leave the old me because loving Jesus means dying to my own selfish infatuation. I transgressed a lot and I don’t want to be the same anymore.
Jesus changed my life, for I know now my purpose here on earth. I don’t want to go back again in the old me instead I leave that scars of years and years of abused and addiction in the past. I keep on walking forward until I reach the finish line where Jesus is waiting. Having Him in our lives is the greatest experience and happiest feeling you will ever encounter.
The old Vincent which is an “emo”, loner, introvert, afraid of rejection, self-centered guy, a porno addict, and not a believer of God is now willing to face the world with his head up high saying that: “He is Victorious!” Lord changes everything after I fully surrender my all to Him. I have learned how to love myself, and the other people around me. And I know, by God’s grace, I will have a bright future together with Jesus, my lover, my friend and my savior.
Note: This is not the last time I will testify about my life being changed by Him, because until now He moves in my life in different aspects of it. So I’m excited for more! Yey!
*Inspired by the story: “Confessions of a Pornography Addict.”
mrbeancentdblogger 