Earlier this year, with all honesty, I experienced my faith dwindling in the midst of the chaos happening in my life at that moment. Most of the time, I found myself questioning more the things happening around me instead of growing spiritually. I reached the point of checking out materials, most of which are non-Catholic based, and also investigated opportunities, discerned a lot that to be honest, I was on the brink of being persuaded to jump off the boat, if you know what I mean.

Without me realizing it, I came to my tipping point.

What I didn’t see coming was, God’s cleverness instantly came to the rescue when I was about to make a jump. He sent me people who encouraged me to hold on to my Catholic faith and doing something I was really skeptic of– to pray the rosary. You could have imagined how unwelcoming I was with the idea because in years, I haven’t prayed the rosary, except when asked to do so during community activities, but it never grew as a personal devotion because of a number of personal reasons which, in hindsight, actually stemmed from my own prejudices and ignorance. Since a part of the skeptic me still wanted to exhaust all means to resurrect my Catholic faith, I welcomed the idea.

What got me started to really praying it was when I got a message from a friend asking me to include her in my prayers. This friend of mine knew how prayerful I was but she knew nothing of the struggles I was going through at that time. Of course, I wasn’t in the best disposition to pray for others, because I thought, I was more in need of fervent prayers but I was also hesitant to turn down her request. Suddenly, I heard a little voice inside me unceasingly convincing me to pray for that person and to pray for her using the rosary. Well, I’m not going to lose anything by doing such, so I gave it a try.

After days of praying for that person using the rosary, all the more prayer intentions kept on coming in my inbox. Does this mean that my prayers were useless? Does this mean I have to resort to a different way?  I began to doubt but then I heard that voice again telling me to continue and not give up of doing it daily. So I went on until such time I reached a point wherein all the rosary beads represented different prayer petitions for different people but still found myself needing more.  

Little did I realize that I was slowly falling in love with the habit of praying the rosary every single day. Not only because I felt an intense surge of indescribable joy upon knowing that the people I prayed for got their share of answered prayers, but most importantly, I encountered God and His grace in a plethora of miracles I couldn’t even fathom. I became a more sensitive witness to His interventions not only in my life but also in the lives of others, and the more that I sought to feel His presence, the more He was readily meeting me where I was even when I was in the deepest corner of my own pit.

In our lives, we limit ourselves from experiencing breakthroughs and transformations in our lives not because God’s power is limited but because we fail to respond to His invitations. Had I not welcomed God’s invitation through other people to come to Him and see His goodness working through the rosary, I would not have experienced more of Him and His miracles and be a channel so that others can experience the same. Had I not listened to that voice, I could have given up the chance of being overwhelmingly filled with His love by praying for others and at the same time, be blessed unexpectedly. Had I not given it a try, I would never really know how God makes the extraordinary out of the ordinary things we often take for granted. Greater things can come out of our decisions to accept God's invitations. 

Give it a try. Start praying the rosary because from then on, my life has never been the same.

And I’m praying that yours will be changed, too.