D R . E L R O I

A PERSONAL JOURNAL OF A MAN LIVING WITH HIV

Monday, January 2, 2012

The Year That Was

2011 was a great year for me generally speaking. It was a year of acceleration I remember as our church called it and indeed it was.

The ministry the Lord entrusted me has reached five countries from three. After my Bangkok trip on February, I was grateful to visit Singapore for communications training and spent time with my best friend. Together with most of my colleagues from the team, we attended training on Islam on May and saw the Petronas Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I went to Cambodia to visit some of the projects on HIV and was blessed to see the Angkor Watt in Siam Reap on June. My abstract entree to the 10th ICAAP successfully granted me a trip to Busan, Korea on August and finally, my Pastor asked me to take part on the E21 event in Jakarta, Indonesia. God set a platform to all these places for me to share how HIV & AIDS bring the ultimate glory He always deserves to His name!

On the other hand, the struggle and temptations has also increased which virtually turn my direction into the wrong path in the last five months of the year. Its culmination, which I still can't believe up to this time, was that I nearly got married to a Dutch guy! Through all these failures and sins, God has been faithful and poured out an ocean like amount of grace. It made me realize once more that I cannot truly live my life without Jesus so I stick with Him no matter how painful it was. I am just glad that all these are over now.

But the best thing ever happened to me in 2011 was the very recent revelation I got from the book "Cat & Dog Theology" by Bob Sjogren and Dr. Gerald Robison. It helped me to rethink my relationship with God and made me understood at last the phrase "pleasing God over pleasing self and people". Life is not design by God to revolve around us but it was designed to be a series of opportunities to point to and reveal God's glory! God has created and planned everything as in "all" including the good, worst and even the extremely painful events in our life and in this whole world only to bring pleasure and greatest glory to Him and His name! What a revelation! It's all about HIM! That is what a "Dog" Christian is and will work my way of becoming one all the time in every aspect of my life.

Honestly, I have never been excited like this in my entire life for something I am totally clueless about! If there is one thing I am sure of is that 2012 will be way better than 2011 for I will start living passionately for the glory of God! Whatever I do, I'll do it for His pleasure and glory!

A blessed New Year to all!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where do I start!! Just joking my friend.

In reality, you, like me, find ourselves actually thinking about something in 2011 which makes us now say, "I still can't believe up to this time, was that I nearly...." It is painful sometimes to say NO to something that at the time and surrounded by temptation looks plausible.
So glad you got through these months of struggle and temptation, coming out with a stronger determination to do all for the glory of God. Makes me understand more clearly how much we need to stand together in prayer and encouragement.

Bless you this New Year and keep you strong. {{{HUGS}}}

E L R o i said...

Hey Stan! Thanks again for the comment. Painful but God can supersede it with joy afterwards for He's the only one who can truly satisfy us and make us happy.

A blessed New Year to you my dear! HUGS!

Anonymous said...

Hello there,
I am living and working in the middle east. Day one since I arrived I engaged in a promiscuous, risky and unprotected sex with Arabs whether by choice or by force. For 3 years now I still do until I felt some discomfort in my body, I don't know but my instinct tells me that there's something wrong, after a couple of months the feeling of discomfort disappeared then I continued the same sexual routine. After a year, I felt my lymph nodes at the left side of neck are enlarged, I thought it's just the cause of my sinusitis, I'm still in denial. I want to get tested but I can't do it here, I\m not yet ready to go back, I still have to save eough money plus I don't want to de deported and be harassed. I'm planning to get my test when I go back to the Philippines maybe this coming October 2012. I hope if I have this illness, it will not progress too soon. As of now I don't feel anything except the lump, tender and enlarged lymph nodes on my neck.
In God's will, I hope I can still go back to the Philippines without compromising my health. I'm just taking vitamins E & C hoping that it could help boost my immune system.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
E L R o i said...

Hello Anonymous, I know its hard to stop but be safe. I know you know exactly what to do and I can understand why you are not doing it. Only you can really decide for yourself what's best, we all know that satisfying our sexual desires whenever we want is obviously a sin but God is gracious enough to forgive us and continuously gives us ample time to get our self right with Him so it's totally up to you bro what do you want to do with your life. In my case, I have learned it the hardest way I could possibly imagine. God bless you.