In The Middle Of Abandonment

“And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” — Matthew 28:20 (NIV)

Every time we visited Nanay Asun, she cried. At first, we thought her tears were simply the tears of a woman who had endured too much. But after several visits, we began to notice something different. She was no longer crying because she was hurting.

She was crying because, for the first time in a long time, she had found joy.

Four months ago, we first met Nanay Asun as a Bible student. To be honest, we never expected her story to unfold the way it did. When we began studying the Bible with her, she was quite clear about one thing: she did not want to become an Adventist. We respected her decision and simply continued to visit, listen, pray, and share God’s Word with her. But beneath that resistance was a life filled with pain.

Nanay Asun was living through a painful and difficult marriage. Even before our Bible studies began, her relationship with her husband had already been strained. Arguments had become part of their daily life. Her husband frequently came home drunk, and the words spoken during those moments became increasingly hurtful. Over time, the verbal abuse escalated into physical violence. Her home, which should have been a place of comfort, had become a place of fear. Yet every time we arrived, Nanay welcomed us with a warm smile.

We would sit together, open the Bible, talk about God, and sing songs of faith. Sometimes, she would quietly wipe away her tears as she listened. Little by little, something began to change. She started telling us how different she felt after every Bible study. Whenever she heard the Word of God, she said her heart felt lighter. Whenever she heard us sing, she felt comforted. In a home marked by conflict and uncertainty, she had found a peace that could not be explained by circumstances.

She had found a Comforter. As the months passed, something we never expected happened. The woman who had once told us she did not want to become an Adventist made a decision of her own. Nanay Asun chose to be baptized. For her, baptism was more than simply entering a church.

It was a public decision to follow Jesus and place her life in His hands. And that decision came with a painful cost. When her husband learned that she had chosen to be baptized and follow Jesus, he left her. Her faith came with a cost. She was left to face loneliness, uncertainty, and the painful reality of starting again without the person who was supposed to stand beside her. Amidst all of that, something remarkable happened. She did not walk away from God.

Instead, the woman who once told us she did not want to become an Adventist began embracing the very faith she had once resisted. Through the Bible, she came to know Jesus—not merely as a name in Scripture, but as Someone she could trust in the middle of her darkest days. And that is why her tears began to look different. It was no longer because of pain, but tears of gratitude. Tears that came from realizing that, even in the midst of everything she had lost, she had found someone who remained.

Perhaps that was the greatest change we witnessed in Nanay Asun—not that her circumstances suddenly became easier, but that she no longer had to face them alone. God does not promise a life without pain. But He promises to be present in the middle of it. Nanay Asun's pain did not disappear overnight. Her circumstances did not suddenly become perfect. But she found something greater than an easy life. She found hope and peace. And, in the middle of abandonment, she found Jesus.

Name: Jemaima Catingub/66th Batch

Mission Field: SM-Catanduanes