I was surfing the net after a very tiring day practicing the Alumni Homecoming Parade this saturday. When you are a cadet in PMA, surely you will understand what I'm saying, the Alumni Homecoming is perhaps the most tiring activity we have here every year sometimes even competing with graduation week. So after eating, I decided to go to the Computer Laboratory and just surf the net. With no new message from friendster or in my e-mail, I just surfed trying to go to familiar sites that I have been visiting. Then I reached jzone which was the site of the youth ministry of my church back in manila. When I go to this site I usually read the testimonies of other young individuals who were touched by God and decided to follow Him. I fall in that category and I am continuously amazed by the things that happen to young people like me who are still in the process of learning things in this world and, for my part, trying my best to follow God's will. I realized how life can be so much different when we become conscious that there is a plan for each of us. I was reading so many stories until finally it came to me how my life is living a story like that. I am not saying that I am some kind of a religious person and all that because really I am never religious, I am simply one person who has come to a point of understanding that life here on earth is never about us but about God. If you won't believe me I'll start telling my story just like how they did it in that website:
I am Alex Cabales, presently a cadet of the Philippine Military Academy, and someone who was touched by God's Grace and is trying his best to be worthy of that grace.
My family is not something that you can call typical. It is a family tainted with so much problems in so many areas. My father is now a high ranking officer in the military while my mother has already passed away about 6 years ago (gosh it's been that long). They separated when I was really young and somehow that spelled the difference in the way I experienced childhood. My father went on to join his other family while my mother left for the States so that she can support us. We had everything financially because of that but none of the tender loving care any normal child should experience. After 8 years, my mother goes home dying of cancer while my father lives a life as if he never had three children from my mother. There was simply resentment on my part to my father and a deep sense of hatred to God for allowing my mother to die and allowing me to have a life that is never normal. To top it all, I was discharged from the PMA with no hope whatsoever of finishing school. At 18 years old, I hated the world and my future was bleak. And then God called me, suddenly he sent me people who told me stories of God's grace. They told me stories of God moving and doing the impossible, they demonstrated to me outstanding faith that I can not understand and they showed me love that overflows despite of everything. In the end, my heart softens and little by little I begin to entertain the idea that something must be done and since I was at the point of no return, I just did it.
There was nothing really great that happened after that. I was still confused what to do with my life and I did not how to begin rebuilding it, I was replenished with new life and I was just hopeful. The next three years became the most important part of my life because in that span of time I was able to define who I really am, reevaluate my belief system about life and God and find my place in God's plan for me. Unexplainable things happened in a very swift sequence and by the time I realized it, I was in a bus bound to PMA.
Today, there are times that I feel sad, confused, lonely and sometimes I just hate the world. I find comfort in writing everything that I feel and just put it out in the open. I would say that my life is basically found in the internet but not really trying to make something out of what I write. Modesty aside, I know that I am good with the pen and I know that God made it that way because it is part of His plan for me. I am in the military despite of my seemingly unmilitary manners because this is where God will use me. I still do not understand many of the things that are happening in my life but I really do not care. I believe that the life given to each of us is not to be understood but a sacred trust from God that should be lived to the fullest for His greater glory. I know that when the time comes it is not my knowledge of how the world works that will matter but with the faith I have in the God that placed me where I am now. I will be happy to face my God in due time and tell him that I lived not by anything else but simply by faith. I just love the Lord and I thank him for everything. TO HIM ALL THE GLORY.
So that is my story... hope that like me you will also say that you have a story like that to tell.
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