By Sr Rhea Lei Y. Tolibas TC

The author is a Capuchin Tertiary Sister of the Holy Family. She is majoring in Social Work at the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos (UNO-R), Bacolod City. Sister Rhea Lei is assigned to Mater Dolorosa Formation House in Talisay City, Negros Occidental.

The stars were marching in a stately manner in the midnight clear sky as I looked beyond the darkness of the world. This was during my teenage years as I came to ask myself what I would be when I grew up. I dreamed of so many ideals and goals, but the questions still remained: ‘What is my life for? Why do I exist? What is my mission in this world? Why did God create me? What is His will for my life?’

Have you ever asked yourself why you exist? What the truest meaning of your life is? Why God created you as you journey towards the life not yet realized? Emptiness remains, but with the echo of a call that’s hiding within. Behind your existence lies the meaning of your life.

Let me tell you a story of a ‘call’. I grew up in a very simple and ‘ordinary’ life in Leyte, the middle of eleven siblings. My parents had their own sources of income. We weren’t a perfect family but how my parents strove to become good and responsible in spite of their limitations, weaknesses and even brokenness! I grew up in a poor family. Yes, I experienced eating only once a day, eating only boiled leafy vegetable or even nothing, going to school on an empty stomach, crying in front of my teachers begging to take examinations, walking a kilometer to school. Sometimes I had to walk barefoot because my shoes were destroyed. But what was the joy of my family at the end of our school year when my parents had to go onstage as we received medals, ribbons or trophies, the awards of a whole year’s sacrifices! We went to college only through scholarships.

Every night when the weather was good, I used to spend time alone under the starry sky and full moon, the silence deafening. Sometimes tears would just flow continuously while I conversed with God all about my life and faith. Sometimes under the stars I would make a vision of my future but it was far from what I was at the time. I grew up unaware of the things that were happening in my life, busy with survival. I never knew why things needed to happen. I saw ‘life’ from a negative point of view, so hard, so restless, so full of confusion and so empty. I had big questions in my life: ‘Why? How? What? When?’ So painful when you can’t do anything but strive!

The best thing is to pray always even if you have little faith and can’t understand what’s happening in life. These were the moments when God asked me to surrender, to trust and to allow Him to work in my life. So many times I questioned God. But behind every doubt and question my faith grew. We strove, we worked, we prayed, we cried but sometimes smiled until each of my elder sisters graduated from college. But my life didn’t stop there. It continued with different and even bigger challenges.

I was seeking the meaning of my life, experiencing the depth of the longing for this in the core of my existence Questions started to fill my life. Yet I continued living as an ordinary teenager . . . school – house – church – barkada – drinking - cutting classes - fiestas – lagaw-lagaw. My hobby was writing composition while listening to music. Seeking the meaning of my life was difficult. There were times I felt a stranger in my own self and even being lost in searching for the destination of my life. Sometimes we need to be lost to find ourselves. But we need first to always go back to God to find ourselves.

It was one afternoon when God called me, I didn’t know it was the first step in discovering the reason for my existence. God was leading me to discover the meaning of my life. I was already attending ‘search-ins’ and ‘follow ups’ until college in Leyte Normal University (LNU). The call was growing stronger deep within until it led me to a decision that would change my life. It was so hard to decide. I experienced confusion, doubts, darkness and even being numb. Yes, I was a coward, full of fears and insecurities as to what my decision would lead to. Trusting God is not easy when you can’t see what lies ahead.

What was most painful was letting go of my family, of my ‘comfort zone’. It was 8am 28 May 2006 when I left my family, my life in the ‘world’, to enter consecrated life as a religious sister. The pain for my family and me is still fresh in my mind. I bade goodbye to my father who was trying to keep his tears from flowing but couldn’t. The tears of my mother, sisters and brothers also flowed. I was holding back mine until I rode in the jeepney and my heart was breaking with pain. Even at that point I experienced the love of my family as they bore their pain for the sake of my decision.

Actually my decision was against that of my parents especially of my father who told me ‘Finish your studies, get a job and get married’. But the call of God is irrevocable. So many questions addressed to me: why, why enter this kind of life? Why at such an early age? But we can’t fathom the will of God. Only faith can explain. The only prayer I was uttering in leaving life outside was, ‘I trust you, God, even if I fear, Thy will be done.’

God never promised us an easy life but He said ‘I will be with you until the end of time’ (Mt 28:20). We each have our own calling. It might be for married life or for the consecrated life such as that of priest or nuns. But each of us has a call to be responded to. We are all called to happiness and each of us has his own mission. Wherever we are, no matter our status in life, we have a mission every moment of our lives. Even beggars have their own mission and are called to a vocation where their happiness lies. It is not when we finish our studies, our master’s or doctorate or in achieving success. Our mission is within us. It is to do the will of God every moment of our lives. God is not asking us to do ‘great things’, to change the world, but to do simple acts of love for which the opportunities are always there.

God calls us to experience His great love, manifested in the different circumstances of our lives, every moment. I become a religious because of His great love and mercy and wanted to respond to that love that I experienced and continue to experience. How God loves me and how that love is transforming my life, no matter how unworthy I am of that love and mercy! I am a great sinner experiencing conversion in my life within God’s love that accepts me as I am.

You may email Sister Rhea Lei at rhealei_tolibas@yahoo.com. You may learn more about the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family on their website here and on the website of Holy Family Home, Makati City, here.