For 23 years of my existence, God never failed to make me feel blessed and loved. He gave me innumerable gifts since birth. However, I always search for contentment and happiness. And, this perhaps is the reason why i always have failed relationships. ..because I always search for true meaning of contentment. .. Then, God led me to the SFC community. I became involved with religious assemblies, community services...beautiful friendships.

And, last February 15-17, I was able to attend the 15th International Leader`s Conference at Clark Expo in Pampanga. It was amazing. Well, I admit some of the circumstances were quite challenging (having to sleep at around 1 am in a trade hall with 3,000 other women and waking up 3 am to take a 10-minute brain-freezing shower, having to suppress your bowel habits due to water shortage, trying to keep your sleepy eyes wide open during the talk...) but the whole experience was incomparable. In fact, there are no right words to describe how great I feel. We had an Acoustic Night where brother Alex asked Sis Alet to marry him in front of thousands of people (aww...isn`t that sweet?). We also had our dinner sharing during the Lord `s Day, had creative and sports
competition, had heart-breaking, mind-enlightening talks... and of course, who will forget the highlight, the tear-jerking praise concert.

It was one of the best moments I ever had in my entire life. I suddenly found myself having goose bumps all over my body, tears flowing endlessly, hearing people glorifying God in tongues, seeing six thousand people raising hands in worship...then I suddenly recalled the painful roadblocks i had in my life and I became aware of the pain I`m carrying inside my heart...how it caused me to doubt my self-worth. Now if you`re anything like me, that seems to be only half the battle. For me, the hardest part is forgiving myself. The mistakes I`ve made tried to haunt me, follow me and remind me that I`m no good. The failures of yesterday became my regrets of today; the regrets of today became the discouragement of tomorrow, and before i knew it, the future started to look more and more like the past.

Then, I realized that God does not intend my pain to cripple, distort and consume me and that people come in and go out of our lives to teach us lessons. And that moment, God made the "unstucking" possible. I sung at the top of my lungs, raised my open hands before God and gave Him everything: my pain, my hate, my bitterness. Then, I offer Him my life: my mind, my will, my emotions, my agenda, my dreams, my past, my present, my future...all of it. And I gave it all up to him and I let it go. Right that very moment, I felt I was healing. I felt I am surrounded by the ocean of God`s presence. He was all over me, enveloping me, immersing me, drenching me with His love. He gave me a glimpse of heaven. He granted me the contentment I`ve been yearning for all my life. And finally, I found home in God`s love.