One’s choices have ripple effects that can last a lifetime. Life has a way of bringing circumstances, challenges, and decisions that shape the trajectory of what God has planned for us. Is this what we call predestined fate?
I believe God is sovereign, and in His sovereignty, He has given us the gift of free will. As the saying goes, “Life is what you make it.” Looking back, I’ve come to realize how both the choices we make and the choices made for us can have a lasting impact on how our stories are shaped as we navigate different seasons of life, while God, in His sovereignty, already knows the chapters that are yet to unfold.
When I think about God knowing our story from beginning to end, I understand it not as a fatalistic script where our choices no longer matter, but as the reality that God already knows our story and has established His purposes for humanity. The beauty of it is that He allows us to participate in His divine plan through the choices we make whether we choose to walk according to His will or pursue our own.
After all, if we acknowledge Him as Lord, our response should be to listen, surrender, and delight in participating in what He has prepared for us.
Mama Wilma and I
Growing up, I already knew I was different, not necessarily in a unique or celebrated sense, but in ways I was deeply aware of. My interests were different from those of my peers, and for a time, I felt the need to hide them. Eventually, however, those differences could no longer be concealed.
Being bullied because I was an adopted child, as well as because of my interests and fascination with the arts, was something that was repeatedly used against me. The bullying left a deep wound that took years to heal. It caused me to question who I truly was and, perhaps most deeply, where I truly belonged.
Yet, through being adopted in Christ, God redeemed the questions I had carried for years. He began redefining who I was, where I belonged, and what it meant to become more like Christ.
BULLIED
Grounding my identity in a matriarchal environment while being subjected to uncontrolled and tolerated bullying deeply impacted how I navigated my worth as a child. The passivity of patriarchal influence also created an imbalance in my early formative years. The constant search for who I truly was left a big question mark over my identity well into college.
It led me toward people-pleasing, validation-seeking, naivety, and performance. I thought that if I could earn people’s approval, perhaps I would finally receive the love and acceptance I was yearning for.
As early as three years old, I was already aware of my environment. I can still recall those early days when Mama Wilma would bring me to her workplace and leave me at a daycare center. The bullying primarily erupted both within and outside the humble compound where we lived. Playmates and even adults participated in the verbal attacks surrounding an open secret in our family: I was adopted.
It was deeply painful.
I can still remember the young Froi crying silently by himself, only to come home wearing a smiling face. As the bullying continued, a desire to avenge myself began to grow within me. I was discovering at an early age that words could hurt people, and deeper questions about identity, worth, and belonging began to surface.
The greatest toll this experience took on me was not simply the bullying itself, but how it shaped the way I understood my identity and my place in the world.
BELONGING
Being the youngest of five brothers, I often wondered what it would have been like to grow up with siblings. I was an only child growing up, and my childhood companions were mostly cats, cousins, and neighbors within my age bracket.
I remember the sadness I would feel whenever it was time to come home from school or after a long day of playing. I associated evenings with the deafening silence of our family of three.
Meal times were often accompanied by the television, from the evening news to telenovelas. I can barely remember the conversations we had because, most of the time, there were hardly any. Dinner was when we were complete, yet silence could almost fill the entire dining room.
I was a playful and energetic child who could easily get along with whoever I played with. Secretly, however, I envied my playmates and cousins who had siblings.
With cousins Xylerine, Marc, and Ada.
It remains one of my greatest “what ifs” to this day.
I often wondered what it would be like to have that kind of relationship, the kind where you are a team one day and enemies the next, depending on the atmosphere. But underneath all of that was the comfort of knowing you had someone other than your parents to confide in.
That was the reality I had to accept growing up, and eventually, I learned to be content with our simple family of three.
The bullying I experienced left deep wounds and created holes in my understanding of where I truly belonged. Being called “ampon” repeatedly planted a question in my heart whenever I received favors or blessings:
“Deserve ko ba ’to?”
“Para sa akin ba talaga ito?”
"Being bullied because I was adopted also developed a fear within me that whatever I had could easily be taken away.
This contributed to how driven I became growing up, to succeed, to achieve, and to pursue my dreams so I could have something I could call my own."
With cousin Xylerine
This wound also redirected my focus toward acquiring knowledge. I developed a deep love for reading and a constant curiosity to understand the world around me. Perhaps, deep within me, I thought that when everything else collapsed, the knowledge I had acquired was something no one could take away from me. Yet even this pursuit eventually pointed me back to God. For knowledge can be acquired, but true wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord.
Beyond the competitive spirit, I wanted to perform because whenever I delivered results, I felt that I belonged.
Eventually, however, this desire escalated into something deeper: fitting in.
I only began to recognize this when I transferred to Manila for college at Benilde. As a “promdi,” I experienced significant culture shock during my early years in Manila, having grown up in a more conservative environment.
The city lights of Metro Manila felt deeply liberating and eye-opening. They gave me a wider perspective of how culture, environment, and opportunities can shape the way people behave and perceive the world.
But somewhere along the way, I also found myself trying to fit into a mold dictated by society, a pattern rooted in people-pleasing and the pursuit of external validation.
The younger me had to perform to feel that he belonged.
But no achievement, performance, or recognition could ever fill the void of searching for my true belonging.
BECOMING
Called by the grace of God through His orchestration of events and the people He connected along the way, I eventually found the answers to the questions I had carried from a very young age about my identity and where I truly belonged.
I found them in Jesus.
He redeemed those painful years of bullying and bestowed upon me an identity I could never earn through performance: the identity of being His child.
As a Father does for His son, He continues to father me. His Fathering is unmatched, and He constantly uses people, even to this day, to allow me to experience both His love and His discipline as my loving Abba.
I also began to understand why I had interests that differed from those of my peers. My love for the arts and their love for sports seemed like completely different worlds. I was drawn toward humanities and literature while many of my peers were more interested in numbers and the sciences.
For years, I wondered why I did not belong because my interests seemed so different from everyone else’s.
But perhaps those differences were never a mistake.
We are uniquely created and wired by God, shaped through our experiences, environments, relationships, and exposures throughout our formative years. What I once perceived as evidence that I did not belong, I eventually began to recognize as part of how God was shaping me.
"I am deeply grateful for how the Lord Jesus has redefined, redeemed, and renewed my understanding of the past, and how He continues to refine me into the man He intends me to become."
Our desires and dreams are uniquely fashioned, but they also require stewardship. What has already been given to us is an invitation to be faithful. And when we remain progressively faithful with what God has entrusted to us, He is able to multiply it according to His purposes.
I believe God gives us genuine freedom to make choices and holds us responsible for them, yet His sovereignty remains untouched for He continues to accomplish His purposes even through the choices we make. Our free will gives us the opportunity to choose whether we will become more like Him or conform ourselves to the world.
Looking back, I can now see His hand in my story even before I personally knew Him, even before I surrendered my life to Him as my Lord and Savior.
Becoming is a constant arrival.
It is the daily denial of ourselves to follow Him.
It is learning that identity is not something we manufacture through performance, approval, achievement, or belonging to the right people. It is something we receive from the One who created us.
Becoming is knowing that the Designer of life, Jesus Christ, brings the true joy, peace, love, and abundance that no pain, label, bullying, trauma, or wound could ever define.
"The little boy who once wondered where he belonged eventually found his answer.
The child who was called “ampon” discovered that he had been adopted into something far greater.
The boy who spent years trying to earn belonging finally realized that belonging was never something he had to earn."
I am adopted in Jesus.
I belong because I am His son.
As I enter my 30s, this is my bold declaration in Jesus:
A blessed, joyful, peaceful, loving, fruitful, and abundant 30th birthday to you, Froi. I declare your 30s to be a decade where God will continue to reveal His faithfulness to His promises and covenant over your life. May you continue to walk in obedience, steward well what He has entrusted to you, and become more of the man He has called you to be.
No weapon formed against you shall prosper. May you continually rest in the covering of Christ’s blood and the favor of God as you pursue Him and faithfully walk in the mission He has entrusted to you. May He strengthen you for every assignment, give you wisdom for every decision, and grant you courage to keep saying yes to His will.
May your light continue to shine, not for your own recognition, but for His glory alone. May this new decade be marked by deeper intimacy with Jesus, greater faithfulness, and an ever-deepening confidence that you truly belong to Him.
Happy 30th, Froi.
Keep becoming. Keep abiding. Keep shining. You are His.
JESUS IS KING!
Sealing this with love,
FROI
#DoulosDos
