Rebuilding my faith with Joel Osteen

This Week’s Winner

Maria Ana Castaneda-Lee of Quezon City, a dermatologist, is married with two children. Lately, she says she is “focusing more on raising my two kids.” She is also interested in writing more in the future.

I choose to be happy today. I choose to live a victorious, long and abundant life today. This is my mantra now. At 44, I am rebuilding my life and renewing my faith. I am unlearning my old defeated ways of thinking and doing things. I have decided to form new, better habits that will make my life happier.

I have been raised in a Catholic family. My parents were both peace-loving and God-fearing people. They loved and cared for me. I studied in exclusive catholic schools and got an “A” in all my Christian Living classes. Despite all this, I didn’t have a very good self-image. Later, in college, I became a part of a Catholic charismatic community. I encountered God in a different way. My prayers were made through songs of worship and praise. I relearned the basic Christian teachings and experienced the joy of fellowship with other Catholic Christians. Through the community, I was able to slowly gain a healthy self-image.

My experience of the real world began when I got married at 28. At that time, I was living a less-victorious life because of my self-centeredness and anxieties. I was unable to have a harmonious relationship with my husband. I knew I had to pray and ask for God’s help. “God, I may not understand this but I know You are still in control. And You said all things would work together for my good. You said You would take this evil and turn it around and use it to my advantage. So Father, I thank You that You are going to bring me through this!” Today, we are celebrating our 16th year as a married couple.

In my life, I have stumbled upon different stones — crises in my path. At 30 years old, my firstborn, a son, was diagnosed as having autism. He did not speak, even at age five. After almost two years of constant prayers and therapy sessions, he is now able to speak fluently. At 38, I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease (APASyndrome). In spite of this, God still gave me a blessing — a new baby girl! I did not give up. I knew God would help me.

Just recently, I experienced some health problems which led me to be anxious and worried most of the time. I easily got scared. I feared losing my life this early because of my children. I guess I had a midlife crisis (triggered by a health problem). This health crisis stone hit me again, making me fall and stumble down the road of self-pity and helplessness. I felt physically weak with little energy — until I remembered to pray. I worshipped God and thanked Him for his goodness. Then I asked for His mercy. “A negative spirit dries up your energy; it weakens your immune system. Many people are living with physical ailments or emotional bondage because they are not standing up on the inside.” Indeed, it was true. I had to stand up on the inside. I had to continue believing and trusting God. God, after all, has always been with me.

The following week I called up a Christian friend whom I knew could help me. She did not know how I was feeling. She did not have any idea I had concerns. I just asked her if we could have lunch. Then, over lunch, she gave me a photocopy of the first chapter of Joel Osteen’s book, Your Best Life Now. I was encouraged by the chapter called “Enlarging Your Vision.” I knew there was a lot more in the book that could help me so I decided to buy my own copy.

This coincided with a joyful surprise when my husband told me that he was being sent by his office to work in Paris and to attend a seminar. The best part? He told me that he was bringing me along. God is, indeed, a loving Father.

The travel preparations were a blur. Before I knew it, I was already on a plane and on my way to France. As I continued reading the book on the plane, my heart began to be filled with hope and joy. “If you don’t think you can have something good, then you never will… Your own wrong thinking can keep you from God’s best.” The first page of the book tells us this. The words of Osteen rang so true in my life. If I wanted to live a joyful and abundant life, I had to start changing the way I was thinking. I had to have a positive way of thinking, a positive attitude, always believing and expecting that God would do great things in my life. Isn’t going to Paris and Barcelona a great thing? My dear husband’s trip was not expected but there I was, able to experience the lovely sight of the Eiffel Tower and the grandeur of Sagrada Familia. God’s favor was truly upon me.

“But when you are living favor-minded,” the book says, “God’s blessings are going to chase you down and overtake you. In other words, you won’t be able to outrun the good things of God. Everywhere you go, things are going to change in your favor. Every time you turn around, somebody’s going to want to do something good for you, to assist you in some manner… It’s the favor of God that causes you to stand out in the crowd.”

I experienced in concrete ways God’s favoring during our travels. The people who served us during our trip were friendly and extra nice to us — Sophie, the French waitress, Cathy, the Filipino waitress in Barcelona, the Filipina ground steward who assisted us in Barcelona airport, the people at Rajah Tours and KLM who made sure we could reschedule our flights to avoid the Air France strike, and the old French priest who blessed me on my birthday. Through these wonderful people and by just being in a different environment, I was able to feel God’s loving hand which gave me faith, hope and joy once again.

In St. Louis D’Antin church in Paris, I was able to spend a lot of time in prayer while waiting for my husband. Along with my daughter, I had a wonderful opportunity to commune with God and to be with Him in silence and in peace. I have never spent that long a time in prayer. In my weakness, He gave me strength. The Lord allowed me to remember the different times in my life where He delivered me and my family from evil, protected us from danger and blessed us with His abundant grace. I thank God for allowing me to start to live in abundance and victory. I have decided to completely follow Him again because I have decided to live my best life now.

Now that I’m back home, my faith has become stronger; though I still stumble, my mind now “chooses faith instead of fear, expecting good things and taking control of my thought life.” I always remember: “Greater is He that is in me that he that’s in the world. I can do all things through Christ and I am coming out of this.” As soon as I wake up I focus immediately on God. I am forming good habits of thinking and doing. I am trusting God and speaking words of faith. I do not base my joy in the circumstances I am in. I base my joy in who God really is — my Father and Savior.

I thank God for Paris and Barcelona. Most of all, I thank God for using this trip to transform and refresh me. Before the trip ended, I said a short prayer for Joel Osteen, asking God to bless him in a special way. His book touched and changed me for the better. Now I can strive once again to be the person that I was meant to be. I have begun to dream again. I have chosen to write and share my experience. I have chosen to love more and give more. I have chosen to live my best life — now.