If I were to describe August in one word, it would be transformative.

For the past 11 years, I can recall how the circumstances of my life have continually taught me about humility, grace, and patience. For more than a decade, every year, specifically during my birth month, there seems to be a dramatic and almost mysterious shift in my life. I only began to recognize this pattern in 2024, when I hit another rock bottom.

August 2015 was pivotal. I was only 19 years old when my mom passed away, the sole breadwinner of our family, while I was in my senior year of college. She passed away just as we were about to begin that trimester. I can still remember the details of receiving the news. I was about to leave Manila and catch the earliest bus heading to my hometown, Tabuk. The devastating news became even more real when I arrived and saw the lifeless body of my mama.

Looking back, the 19-year-old version of me didn’t know how to grieve. I didn’t cry before or during the wake. My real wake-up call came a year later, when I realized that the person who had constantly shown up to pin my medals on me was no longer there. I remember receiving my first-ever income that same year, ₱10,000. I gave it all to her, not knowing it would be the last time I would ever be able to lavish her with my love.

With the loss of the matriarch of our family, I felt that I needed to move forward and continue thriving in life while grieving silently.

Photo taken last March 6, 2026

Fast-forward to August 15, 2018. My mental and emotional well-being was deeply challenged when I received threatening and provocative messages rooted in prejudice and bias, without the full story being known. I can still remember those words because I kept all the receipts of those messages.

Looking back, I realized how hurtful and accusatory words, spoken without knowing someone’s side of the story, can fuel a narrative that fits only what a group of people wants to believe, without proper investigation or discernment. I never fought back. Instead, I cried over it for a week.

I remember how dark it felt to be labeled and judged for a personal choice I had made. Yet, I now realize that it was part of the birthing pain of being freed from that entanglement.

Today, I am deeply grateful. Whenever the memory arises, I pray for those people. The excruciating pain no longer lingers, but the memory remains as a reminder that no weapon formed against me shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17), and that my response should be forgiveness, not vengeance, allowing God to be the One who judges.

Two years later, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, I received a message from the landlord of my studio on my 24th birthday. We needed to evacuate the space and meet to arrange its closure and the termination of the contract.

It was painful to watch the dream I had carried for years slowly collapse before my eyes. That loss made me deeply question my worth, my identity, and even my existence, because at that time, so much of my identity was rooted in the temporal and fleeting comforts of this world. My career, my identity as an entrepreneur and fashion designer, and the dreams I had built around them seemed to collapse after only two years of having a foretaste of what God could bring forth through my work.

Looking back, I realized how easily I had attached my identity to what I had built rather than to the One who allowed me to build it in the first place.

"He gives, and He takes away. "

— Job 1:21

With losses happening one after another at the height of the pandemic and bills piling up and snowballing, I reached a point where I experienced two suicidal thoughts, something only a few people know. I had experienced what it felt like to fly so high, only to find myself falling so deeply that I reached a point where I had nothing to eat.

That version of me was full of ego, pride, and ambition, regardless of the cost.

The physical closure of that studio became a symbol of how God slowly, gently, and patiently dealt with me. He sent people to rescue me at my lowest point. It was deeply crushing and humbling as God exposed the idols I had been clinging to: status, prestige, power, influence, praise, connections, and image.

I never wanted to be seen starting small. I wanted everything to be grand and big. This was something I kept hidden, but God slowly and gently rebuked and exposed it in me.

Truly, the higher the ego and pride, the deeper the downfall.

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
— James 4:6

With the surge of COVID-19 cases and the on-and-off restrictions nationwide, the virus eventually hit me on August 8, 2021. I was isolated and quarantined alone, but the grace and mercy of God led me into a hotel room that had been converted into a COVID facility.

I was locked in that room for 21 days, and this became a major turning point where God’s discipline and pruning love came full circle.

Every day of that isolation felt so long. Looking back, I can barely separate the days from one another. The entire quarantine period became an everyday act of God’s refining process, where He dealt with me on a one-on-one level.

Alone in that room, the silence was truly deafening. It took a toll on me as I realized that all the activity I had built had begun to feel routine and repetitive. I could barely see what was happening outside because the windows were blocked by concrete.

That quarantine experience became one of the most memorable seasons of spiritual warfare I have encountered. It brought me to my knees every single night.

2020-2021 Froi. I am deeply grateful of how you showed up in those years 🥹

"Before I left that room, I made a vow and covenant with Jesus: to abstain from pornography and masturbation, to guard my thoughts, and to guard my gaze."

I discovered pornography at an early age through stored videos on a cellphone. This was in the mid-2000s. That curiosity eventually led to masturbation during my teenage years. I thought it was normal because some of my peers did it too. They talked about it openly, even bragged about it, which only fueled my curiosity.

Yet, no one really taught me how to process these things. It was a taboo subject, and I carried the words of my parents about how they would eventually talk to me about sex when I was older. The shame of asking questions kept everything hidden. We rarely talked about it, and the silence only made the subject feel heavier.

Looking back, I realize that what began as curiosity gradually became a hidden habit. The shame and guilt surrounding it affected the confidence I could have developed as a young boy. Despite performing well in school and pursuing various achievements, I carried insecurities and self-doubt beneath the surface. I thought that as long as I continued achieving, no one would discover what I was struggling with privately.

As I grew older, the habit became more deeply rooted. I carried much of this struggle privately, without knowing how to properly process or express what I was experiencing. What had once begun as curiosity eventually became something I struggled to control. Lust continued to spiral, and the secrecy surrounding it only made the bondage stronger. At one point, I took it further and purchased a fleshlight, something I kept hidden because I knew it represented how deeply I had fallen into this secret habit of sin.

But this was also where I began to see the hand of God moving.

That fleshlight was eventually discovered by one of my cousins. The shame and guilt that followed were overwhelming. I felt exposed, embarrassed, and deeply humbled. Yet looking back, I can also see God's mercy in bringing something I had kept hidden for years into the light.

I destroyed it and made a decision to turn away from that life.

That experience taught me something I continue to carry today: we may hide our struggles from people, but nothing is hidden from God. His exposure was not meant to destroy me but to bring me toward repentance, freedom, and restoration.

As I wrote my covenant with Jesus in that quarantine room years later, I could only respond with praise and deep gratitude. I began to understand more deeply that the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh can distort how we see ourselves, others, and even the body God has entrusted to us.

My freedom was not produced by willpower alone. It was and continues to be grace.

Even after years of abstinence, temptation has not simply disappeared. I still encounter it, but I now understand that victory is not the absence of temptation; it is continually choosing surrender when temptation comes.

The grace of Jesus has taught me to bring my desires under His lordship, to guard my thoughts and my gaze, and to redirect the energy He has given me toward creating, building, serving, and pursuing the mission He has entrusted to me.

This is why fitness has also become meaningful to me. It has become one of the healthy ways I channel the physical energy and tension I experience, while learning to steward my body rather than being ruled by my desires.

2026 Froi — relentlessly pursuing who I’m becoming, one season at a time. I used to dream of being able to work out consistently and build discipline through fitness. Today, I get to live that reality as I continue pursuing fitness and wellness, not just as a goal, but as a lifestyle. What once felt like a dream has become part of my everyday life. Thank You, Jesus! 🙏🏻

I share this not because I have mastered the struggle, but because I want to testify that self-control is possible through the grace of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

It is an everyday surrender.

A daily dying to self.

And perhaps that is the real victory, not that temptation no longer comes, but that I no longer have to be its slave.

August 2026 has been another transformative month as I acknowledge the work of Jesus over the past five years of abstaining from porn and masturbation. What I had planned for my 30th birthday was not necessarily what God had planned. Instead, He has continued to pursue, prune, and prepare me for what He has in store for me, especially as I fully step into my 30s.

Every August, from 2015 to the present, has been a rollercoaster ride, a reminder of how the Lord brings His plans into full fruition.

Whenever August comes, my birth month is always transformative. It is filled with humbling moments, pruning, and training. I have realized this pattern in His dealings with me because it has come gently, consistently, and faithfully.

As I enter this new decade of life, I am deeply grateful that I made that covenant with Jesus. Whenever temptation comes, I return to it.

Honestly, I have been contemplating and bargaining with God about whether I should share this publicly. But one thing He confronted me with was this:

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
— John 3:30

The gains I thought my career and achievements would give me never truly satisfied me.

It is only through Him, through His loving presence, that I have found the One who truly knows the deepest longings of my heart, that my true identity is found and given by Him alone that I am His son and no one can take away that ownership He bestowed on me in Jesus.

As I continue to seek Jesus and fix my eyes on Him, I am deeply humbled by this sobering truth He revealed to me this month, in the midst of one of my valley moments:

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
— Philippians 4:7

I realized that the true gains are eternal rather than physical.

We begin to discern this when we are no longer clouded by the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh.

Access to God’s grace through Jesus does not mean we are free to abuse it and continue living a double life. Rather, His grace calls us to steward the trust and mercy He has given us.

If you are reading this, it is not an accident that you clicked this link or found yourself on this blog.

This is my invitation to you: seek Jesus with all your heart and mind. May you encounter Him personally and experience the abundant, joyful, and peaceful life that He alone offers.

Fix your eyes on Jesus.

You can do it too, by faith.

Sealing this with love,
FROI

#DoulosDos