Riza Fortuna

I have been dreading the coming of this week. While I love my job and I perfectly like conducting (and even leading) trainings like what am doing this week in China, I have been attacked with lack of confidence. My background is chemical engineering and anything related to "electrical" has always been my waterloo even in college. Being the course leader of our training this week, it is my role to teach all those which no one will do including subjects I have never before taught.

This time, I am teaching an electrical-related subject for half a day! To me, that is equivalent to eternity. And that was on the first day of training, yesterday. Oh boy, I was so scared even several weeks before the training. I planned to prepare way ahead but my schedule just didn’t allow it. Plus I was attending the national conference of my Christian community the week before. I was almost tempted not to go to my national conference so I can study and better prepare for my training. But I heard God telling me deep within that I let go and let Him take care of my work concerns. And so I did go to my community conference.

I prayed to God to bless me with courage(among others). Courage to keep going and give my best amidst my fears. True enough, I had the grace to study my materials last weekend, up to the last minute and I was able to get ready just in time for my training at 1pm yesterday. When I was already doing the training, I myself was surprised. I was confident, passionate about the topic, and the points just came out of me smoothly. I was amazed that I have well-understood and well-communicated the subject. I was also able to answer well the questions thrown. Then I knew God was again demonstrating His faithfulness. He asked me to "let go and take care of my concerns" and true to His essence, He did! I knew very well that I have come to the end of my wits,  and I realized that God’s grace and wisdom freely flowed.

This morning I reviewed the written feedback of the training participants to yesterday’s sessions. Note that several of the participants are very experienced in the company. Most of them gave me the highest rating of "5" as the instructor, and the few others gave me a "4" which was the highest they gave for instructors. Wow, such a bonus! I felt the participants have been so generous of their evaluation. On second thought, I realized how God can still be never outdone in generosity. I gave Him my time in my national conference of my Christian community last week, and He made sure I still give my best at work.

All glory and praise be to God who is all faithful!

Today, October 2 is the feast of our guardian angels, and it is but fitting that I thank and honor my guardian angel as well as all angels of God. I cannot count the times that I have been saved by angels - my guardian and a host of other angels God has been sending to prepare, pave, protect my way. Everyday I pray to God for protection and blessing. I always ask God to surround me, my family, and loved ones with His holy angels. True enough my guardian angel and a lot of others have always been there for me.

I am used to going home and driving late at night. Mostly, I come from community activities. Belonging to a community of single, working people means being able to meet only after work which is at night. Living in Cavite means driving a good amount of time before I reach home since my meetings are usually 20-50 kms away from home. Several times I have fallen asleep while driving. Several times I encountered close calls which could have led to serious if not fatal accidents. One time I was driving at the zigzag upward portion of the road at Governor’s Drive when I fell asleep and suddenly woke up and saw a truck which was on stop on the middle of the road since it broke down. The truck was barely a foot in front of me! That means had I woke up a split second later I could have crashed into such huge truck! But I believe God’s angels stopped my car and woke me up. I believe they were with me to escort me as I went home. Another instance was on the road near home when I again fell asleep and woke up at few inches away from a tricycle in front of me which was full of passengers and unloading them. If again I did not wake up right in time I could have smashed into them and may have others hurt too since the tricycle is a small vehicle compared to my car which means I could have hit them hard. But again, I believe my guardian angel and other angels of God were there to wake me up and stop me right a few inches away from the tricycle!

Even in trivial things I ask God to send His angels to help me like when am catching up with an appointment or going to work in the morning. I ask God to send His angels to clear the way for me, give me the green traffic lights, and bring me on-time to my appointment or work. True enough I have always been "assisted" by the angels in these moments.

Everyday I also ask God to protect me not only from harm but also from any form of evil or temptation. True, the occasions for temptation and sin is abundant. But it is also true that God’s grace is always enough to overcome them, and He sends His holy angels to guard, protect, and shield me from them. In awkward situations where I don’t know what to do to evade temptations, I would just be surprised that I end up knowing what to do and do the right thing even if my nature commands otherwise. I believe my guardian angel is at work real hard, as well has God’s other angels are surrounding me and may even be actively fighting for me to drive the "enemy" away. For example, the spirit of depression which is definitely not from God sometimes attacks me and when I realize it is there I ask God in the name of Jesus to drive it away from me. I know my angel is part of God’s response to my plea - he is there driving depression and other negative spirits from me and then I experience peace that can only come from God.

Several times though I also fall and not heed my angel’s direction. And for those times, I ask forgiveness from God and from my guardian angel. I thank my angel though for never leaving me and always fighting for me.

I praise and honor our God for sending me my guardian angel and his host of angels not only to save and protect me but most importantly to bring me close to Him day to day!