Testify

I was cleaning my side table drawer at the dorm one night, after the weekend that typhoon Yoyong visited the country. My roommates and I were cleaning the dorm room after our paranoia attack of the room being flooded by the rains (which actually didn’t happen) and I just got the side table drawer I placed on top of my closet before I went home.

Anyway, so I opened my drawer to clean out some of the papers I’ve stuffed inside over the term. I pulled out my copy of The Purpose Driven Life (still at Day 16), a copy of Communion with God given to me by my friends on my eighteenth birthday, a Windows Update CD, my cellphone chargers, a greeting card, and…hello, what’s this black thing? Ah, it’s my Testify Band.

Say that again? TESTIFY BAND. It looks a lot like a WWJD? bracelet, but instead of those letters written on it, it says TESTIFY. It looks pretty beaten up now, and the letters that used to be white were now gray from the dust it had accumulated.

I remember the time I got that bracelet, around two years ago during the first YFC Metro Manila Conference held in UP Los Baños. I used to wear it everyday since I got it. Those Testify Bands were given to us to remind us to always testify God’s love in whatever we are doing. Be it in our family, our studies, career or (and most especially) love lives. The simple black band embroidered with white words stood for something that heavy, and the amazing thing was, more than about a thousand youths received it that night and all were ready to make that promise to testify.

I can’t remember why I stopped wearing it. I think I just forgot to wear it one day and then never remembered to put it back. Seeing it again reminded me of the promises I made back then: no more cutting classes, no cheating, do good in my studies, be a good daughter and sister and finally, to wait on God.

I suddenly realized how much this little thing meant to me, how the one word embroidered on it can remind me so much of what I should be as a daughter of God. It reminded me that as much as I expected God to be the one in charge of my life, he expected me to live up to my being His child. The little black thing helped to remind me to keep true to my promises, and to always try to show God in everything that I do.

Hmm…maybe I should start the trend again. And at the same time, make new resolutions. I think it’s time that this bracelet saw the light again — to remind myself and to encourage others to testify God’s love.

But first, I have to clean it. Man, I can’t believe how dusty it is.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you  subscribe to my RSS feed