Two weeks ago I found myself dumped in a manhole.

It started while I was closely attending someone on the rooftop in the office where I work.  Looking constantly upward as I was on the ground, I didn’t notice that I was stepping on a square cement-made cover for an opening – a hole.  It seemed that the weight of my body was too much for the cover to bear and at the slight moment the cover fell off with me still on top of it.

As I was on my way down, I had the presence of mind to use both hands to push against the ground so that it would somehow break the momentum of my fall, but it was kind of a second late because both my feet were already soaked on the dirty, smelly, murky water.

I immediately pulled myself out of that pit and headed straight to the closest source of running water around and washed my sneakers and some portions of my pants. I got some minor bruises on my hands and legs so I asked my colleague if I could go home for a while to change my clothes.

I was back after lunch.

It was the most embarrassing moment of my life. Being in a situation that is least expected made me feel so uncomfortable. I felt that suddenly, all eyes were on me and I was helpless.

“What’s this?” I asked myself. The feeling of having your feet soaked deep on people’s dirt was so humiliating: and I will not forget the horrifying smell my socks bore that time.

But somehow that experience made me remember one important lesson in my life… I was reminded of a person who went through the same thing I did. Only, it was a hundred fold worse than what I experienced.

My embarrassment was no match to how degrading people have treated Him. The humiliation I felt was not even close to his when Roman soldiers tore his robe apart. And before he was nailed on a log, he even suffered wounds, cuts, and lacerations so deep he could hardly walk.

I was reminded of how God loves me that the Son had to go through all these because of that love.

Isaiah 54:10
God assured his people that even if the mountains be shaken and the hills being removed, never will His unfailing love depart from us.

A had a minor surgery yesterday for a mucus membrane cyst in my mouth. The growth was triggered when I fell flat and bumped the right side of my face on the floor during the Bread of Life Visayas prayer and fasting at Bohol Plaza last month. It was a very appalling episode considering that my roommate, though from BOL Bacolod, was a complete stranger to me. To top it all, I had slight blacks and blues on my chin and a wound in the inner part of my mouth that failed to bleed. The blacks and blues have faded but the wound that failed to bleed turned into an unwanted cyst that, though not painful, created discomfort and ignited deep inside of me a little bit of paranoia.

As I was musing over this experience to search for God’s message, I remembered Lucille’s email last Tuesday reminding me to love every breaking moment God allows and to enjoy each time when bleeding happens while being broken. I couldn’t really help but smile (or maybe I chuckled) while reading her letter. Before, she was only talking about brokenness. Now here comes bleeding.

This is so very Lucille, our youth pastor. Honestly, I’ve never known anyone whose passion for suffering is as intense as hers. It really amazes me and also fortifies my conviction that brokenness is my journey. And, having found this new knowledge that bleeding is a necessity when broken, I now embrace it as part of this life God sets aside for me to trek and live.

I am grateful for all the moments I bled while going through my brokenness. They made me journey into depth with Him and know Him not from a distance, but closer than a heartbeat.