East Rembo Incident

“Treasures found in this world are bound to stay for only a period of time.”

It has been a year since I wrote that line in my journal. And so today, I want to remember the incident happened in that morning of December 28, 2015.

I was in Angeles, Pampanga with my family enjoying our Christmas break. Everything was going great until we received a text message that woke us up at 6am from our landlady in Guadalupe informing us that terrible news: burglars had broken into our apartment two hours after midnight. As soon as I read that text message the first thing that came to my mind was my laptop. It has all my important files, my memorable photos, and videos. It was like everything to me.

Quickly, my brother and I got out of bed and traveled for nearly four hours to get to East Rembo, Guadalupe. On our way to the apartment, I was already preparing myself to face the fact that my laptop was gone. And yet, part of me wanted to hope that it didn’t really happen. When we got there I saw all the mess those burglars did to the bedroom. Evidently, after going through all my stuff they took a phone, the Smart Broadband, the Samsung tablet, a 4,000php cash, which is the money I was saving for a new violin, and sure enough, they have also taken away my laptop.

Well, the room didn’t look empty and the sum of the value of the stolen items was not that much. But what I’ve really lost were those that were stored in my laptop which will never be retrieved, restored or replaced after what had happened. They’re gone, just like that. I could still remember the feelings I had when I went inside the room like there was no strength left in me knowing that what I’ve lost would be irreplaceable. Thankfully, I have saved a backup copy of my files for that semester.

Indeed, nothing on this earth will remain. They come and go. And if you put your heart into it and hold onto it, the disappointment of its short-time existence will most likely come to you.

Without the experience of losing the things that were valued so much, the heaviness of having to go through the process of accepting the loss would not be fully understood. I probably had the idea how hard it could be to lose something important, but it was only after I lost what I count as my precious little things on this earth that I began to completely understand how painful it could get to have them be taken away from you.

How comforting it is to know that God has given His people a gift that will never ever be robbed away by anyone or anything. It is the gift of salvation, a promise I can hold on to with an assurance of its perpetuity.

I can never imagine what it would be like to lose my salvation, to live in fear that it can be snatched away from me, or to be in distress that it can never be found again once it gets lost. In God’s goodness and mercy those who believed on Jesus Christ and genuinely accepted Him as their personal Lord and Savior will never lose their salvation. God even promised to have their names sealed in the Book of Life (Revelation 3: 4-5, 21: 25-27).

As God has been true to His Word the salvation He provided brings a life that will never be deteriorated nor be corrupted. It is everlasting life, a life that will be spent in the presence of the Lord. Earthly treasures may have no guarantee that they will last long; thus, it is a wonderful blessing to have the confidence that salvation in Christ can be received for eternity and nothing can ever take it away.