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The daughters of Zelophehad

I practically grew up in Sunday school but, when I saw the heading “Daughters of Zelophehad” on the devotional portion of the Bible I bought for my firstborn to bring with her when she studied in Kota Kinabalu, I realized I don’t really know this character. So I decided to read on it today, and my takeaway is the importance of precedents.

In the practice of law, counsel would usually cite precedents when arguing their points, if the literature is available. Judges rule in accordance to existing laws for reference, but precedents could sway it to a certain direction once applied and has been deemed relevant to the case in point. This is so for the case of the daughters of Zelophehad.

Back in the day, tradition dictated that only sons can inherit property…for the purpose of keeping allotments within the tribe. This is to ensure that tribal allotments would remain constant and not be lost to the control of another tribe. Understanding the purpose of having this tradition in place allowed Moses to exercise good judgement (by bringing their case to the Lord), without sacrificing the purpose for which the tradition (could also be the law in our time) was set in place. The sweet spot? The daughters were allowed to receive the inheritance provided that they marry within the tribe. The purpose was not lost, and God’s justice was exercised.

I’m pretty sure that they were so grateful that Moses did not lamely use “it has never been done that way before” as an excuse. Instead, he modeled wise leadership that is consistent with the heart of God.

Photo: Review & Herald Publishing

In the next blog, we will talk about how these women set this whole thing in motion, and the ripple effect.

Numbers 27
3 “Our father died in the wilderness,” they said.”He was not among Korah’s followers, who rebelled against the Lord; he died because of his own sin. But he had no sons.
4 Why should the name of our father disappear from his clan just because he had no sons? Give us property along with the rest of our relatives.”

5 So Moses brought their case before the Lord.
6 And the Lord replied to Moses, 7 “The claim of the daughters of Zelophehad is legitimate. You must give them a grant of land along with their father’s relatives. Assign them the property that would have been given to their father.”

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this. I would love to hear from you.

If you have prayer requests, please feel free to reach out via email.

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Forgive, but don’t lose the lesson

It is often said that we should forgive and forget. For the longest time, I too believed that that should be the goal – to get to a point where your heart is able to forget the pain so you can start over like nothing happened. At 47, I realized that was not to be aspired. The first part makes sense, but starting over like nothing happened isn’t wise at all.

It is admirable to get to a point of being able to reconcile; but don’t lose the lessons of past mistakes by fully investing trust where it does not belong. Last June 16, I experienced that ugly truth firsthand.

In Matthew 18:21-22, Jesus tells Peter to forgive “seventy times seven” times. The intention is not to count to 490 but to illustrate the boundless nature of forgiveness as God modeled it. It also acknowledges the truth that we will most likely need to extend it repeatedly, in the same manner that God does for us.

So how do we strike the balance between living a life that seeks to be more like Christ everyday and protecting ourselves the practical way?

Colossians 3:13 states, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Forgiveness is about letting go of grievances, bitterness, and resentment. It is a process of letting go of past hurts and, eventually, extending grace enough to extend a hand of restoration in our relationships. You see, the ones who really hurt us are the ones we love. Our God is a God of restoration; and He leads by example.


When we acknowledge that we too have hurt God time and again, and we receive forgiveness and grace every single time we approach the throne of grace, it would be hard to deny forgiveness to our fellowmen. But forgiveness doesn’t mean we have to forget – that someone stole money from us when we trusted them too much…that someone has stabbed us in the back one too many times…that someone will hurt you when you bring them into your house to provide shelter. We can protect ourselves while remaining hopeful that the chance we give is a chance that will be taken seriously. This way, we also help them avoid the trappings of what enslaves them – dependence on money, breaking a confidence, envy, and a lust for power.

It is possible to forgive without forgetting – not for the purpose of reliving the fault/s, but to keep an eye out for the danger signs so we can protect them from the temptation and ourselves from falling victims again.

Going back to June 16, 2025. My ex-boyfriend who has wronged me repeatedly in the past has finally been committed to jail after I won the case on VAWC (Violence Against Women and their Children). To me, nobody won that day; but the truth came out and justice has been served. However, his actions on May 19 (the second time I refused to support his appeal for probation) and his reaction on June 16 showed me that all the entreaties and nice words were but calculated moves to manipulate me into agreeing. The same criminal then is the same criminal now, who thinks only of himself and would shamelessly use his daughter to control me into submission. I’m glad I didn’t forget that part because that was mainly why I refused to support his appeal. I didn’t think being able to stroll along freely, as he has in the seven years that he walked free on bail, would make him understand that what he did and was doing is wrong.

I can honestly say that I have truly forgiven the acts that he did in the past, and I have shown in previous dealings that we could have remained friends as we co-parent our daughter; but I have not forgotten that he is a man who only understands lessons learned the hard way. And so I forgive yet he needs to serve his sentence in jail, a direct consequence of his own actions.

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Cry for Justice

Because this blog is not about revisiting the past, but setting up the background story for “the ruins”, our trip down memory lane stops with “Life Happens.”

Suffice it to say that the detour turned out to not just be bumpy, but full of traps and dangers I was not accustomed to. It was like walking into a dense rainforest in the Amazon for a lady who was raised in the suburbs.

Back in 2000, I was exposed to the horrors or being with a man who can’t handle his emotions well. He showed me a side of him that I didn’t like when he couldn’t get me to agree to acting like his wife. If you recall, I was prepared to be a mother; but being someone’s wife is a whole different ballgame…and I was not ready to surrender my will to anyone at 22. I have been consistent in my stand on that – to my parents, to my then-boyfriend, and to anyone who asked. I was not being difficult; I was being real. I knew in my heart, without a doubt, that I am not ready to meld my dreams and future plans with someone else’s. I was vocal about it from the get-go. He asked me thrice and I declined thrice. He wasn’t done with college yet so I encouraged him to finish school, get a job, and go on with his life plans. I was more than happy to help in any way I can. In fact, I made his “baby thesis” in its entirety…using my own resources to come up with the final product. I also told him that, if by the time our daughter needs to go to school already and he still wants no one else but me, I will agree to marry him then. I wanted him to want to marry me for the right reasons – not because he popped my cherry. Co-parenting is not the same as being husband and wife; and I wanted to make sure that my daughter will be raised in the right environment. But he responded differently. The chain of events that followed lead us to today…the final hearing.

RA 9262 was signed into law last March 8, 2004 and took effect on March 27, 2004. The physical components of what we endured happened before the law was signed, which is why it was not part of my formal complaint. We were no longer an item by March 13, 2002…thanks to a text message meant for someone else that got sent to me. I call that “God in the details.”

In a few hours from now, we will hopefully be putting a period on this legal battle. I pray that, in all of this, His name will be glorified as the truth finds its way into the light.

1 Peter 5:10: And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Photo from StockPlanets

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Life Happens

With a major detour from my perfectly-paved path to my perceived future, many thought I would fold and give in to a mediocre existence.

In 1999, being a single mom wasn’t new but it was certainly frowned upon. Respectable ladies of society were not supposed to be making such mistakes. I’m just glad I knew better than be stuck up. My years spent in “PT proper” – the last 2 years of the curriculum – has exposed me to Ate’s and Kuya’s (older ladies and men from my college) who had no qualms sharing about their adventures. I wouldn’t say that triggered my curiosity but it sure made me understand the difference between those intent on keeping their regular escapades under wraps and those who are just careless. When I allowed my then-boyfriend to have his way with me, I was neither…I was simply going with the flow…what happens, happens…and it did.

For most, that would be the end of the line; but I was ready for it. Also, that was where I started to understand that He was not going to let go of me – as He would for every single one of us.

When I started entertaining my rebellious thoughts, I was still part of the music team…so I asked to be given leave. I can’t say for sure if that was a mistake. I just know I did it because my heart was not “clean” anymore. I didn’t have the heart to usher people into worship while entertaining rebellious thoughts against my physical father. But one thing is clear to me now – I shouldn’t have separated myself from the ladies in the church.

I can clearly remember being asked several times by my cell group leader, “Hi Eunice. How’s your heart?” It was a random greeting that I refused to recognize for what it was – accountability. I just said, “I’m ok.”

I slowly drifted away because I didn’t want my Dad to know about my pregnancy while I was still vulnerable. He goes home to the Philippines every 3 months so I can’t be around where he expects to find me. I will tell him on my own terms, i.e. after I have given birth and recovered my strength. Because, hey, my heart was still very much in active rebellion mode.

So you see how rebellion slowly but surely ruined my supposed spiritual strength as a girl who grew up in Sunday School and was actively serving in the ministry until then. I was blind to the utter stupidity of my thinking. For someone who’s supposed to know better, I walked right into Satan’s trap of glorifying “I”. I plunged right into the middle and completed SIN when I gave myself to it.

Some would say, “life happened”. I know it was ME letting ME lead ME.

Several years wiser now, I wish I understood Lordship then; but I didn’t. I wish I took accountability to heart then; but I didn’t. Moral of the story – no one is meant to be a lone ranger in the Christian walk.

I now have two women in my life I share my present with – the joys and the heartaches, the victories and defeat. We also make sure we remind each other that we are not each other’s strengths…it is always God. I’m not saying it’s perfect but it helps to have someone who would pull you out of a trance, if I may say so.

Hebrews 10 (New Living Translation)
24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.
25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

DO YOU HAVE SOMEONE IN YOUR LIFE YOU ARE ACCOUNTABLE TO?

If there’s none, actively seek one. If you’re reluctant, feel free to send me a message. I would be happy to be your virtual accountability partner in the meantime…at least until you can identify someone you’d be comfortable walking the Christian life’s challenging roads with.

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Journey to Motherhood

So the tree bore fruit and I went from being “never been kissed” to pregnant in a span of a year.

Of course there were other factors that egged me on further (otherwise, I should have awoken somehow within that period) but we won’t talk about that. I don’t intend to justify my actions by the incidents to which I responded incorrectly to. Suffice it to say that I acted out for a long period of time…as if I had not known the goodness of God or the fear of the Lord. And I am sorry for that.

Fast forward to February of 1999, I knew I was pregnant; and there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to keep her. I told the father of my child and he had mixed emotions – happy to have a child with me but fearful of the reaction of his sister who was paying for his college education; but nonetheless also ready to take on the reality of having our first child. So, yes, I was not left hanging in fear or whatever. I was only saddened by the realization (which, of course, came much too late) that my mother would be more devastated than my Dad, whom I purposely wanted to hurt.

Highlights of this story: abortion was never entertained, there was no fear of what the future holds, and I was determined to take on the consequences and take full responsibility of what came with my actions.

Arriving at this point in my “Beauty from the Ruins” story in time for Mother’s Day was coincidental, but the significance is not lost on me.

So I’m shifting the landing a little differently.

Not all of us became mothers by choice. Not all of us was sure of how we were going to proceed. Not everyone had a good support system to lean on when less-than-ideal situations came around. But all good mothers make the decision to rise up to it, whether immediately, a little later, or much, much later.

May we all find it in our hearts to play a little part in the village that supports that mother and her children in any way that we can. Yes, I know some can be abusive; and that’s where discernment comes in. I’m not asking you to be tolerant…I’m just asking you to be an enabler for those who want to rise up to the occasion.

In the same thread, I would like to honor the men who don’t cringe at the responsibility but own up to their part in making the expecting part of the motherhood journey such a wonderful experience to have.

And let us not forget the hand of the Lord in all of this. Even when our will has led us to paths not as beautifully paved as the one we could have taken, He always finds a way to redeem the situation…making our history His story!

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him. (Psalm 127:3)

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Wrong Reaction

So there I was!

Toast of the town in high school…avoided extracurricular activities in college except for dance and cheerdancing. But, more importantly, training to become a medical missionary when school (meaning university) is over.

Since 5th grade, I have set my sights on learning what’s needed to be God’s healing hands to the world. I volunteered to teach younger kids so that I would be equipped when it was time to go to the field. As I matured, my involvements in church also grew…every step a step in the direction I have set my sights on. School was a season I had to go through but my end game was not about having a career in medical science. I was only studying to equip myself for medical mission work. I was so focused on that.

When my relationship with my Dad crumbled after a “trust” incident involving me and my half-sister, I stopped caring about what he thought. And that’s how the arrows of the enemy managed to penetrate. I gave him an opening and he took it!

When I stopped caring about what he thought, I began to entertain rebellious thoughts. I forgot to guard my heart. I couldn’t put my education on the line because I was nearly at the end. Being the first from my high school to have dared to try for and successfully gotten into the country’s premiere state university, I can’t ruin that. I was also not keen on purposefully wasting money; it just wasn’t me. I was almost done with college and my younger siblings are seven and eight years younger so I could have acted like a brat and asked for things I don’t need or just wasted money in any possible way. After all, my Dad gambled. Me wasting 75k for shopping would just be the equivalent of him betting on one of his game fowls or that of his friends. I literally thought of the best way to hurt him and only one thing came to mind – losing my virginity outside of wedlock. At the time, it was still a very big deal in my hometown if it’s someone like me. Looking back, I was so so stupid to have entertained that thought. But hear this – I didn’t suddenly become someone who sought out men or started drinking in bars; I simply decided that I will go with the flow and not resist advances from the person I was steadily dating. I decided to let my guard down!

Twenty-one years…I have kept myself pure and had no reason to think I might give in to physical advances. I wasn’t yearning for touch or whatever. I wasn’t madly in love with someone. I was so set on finishing school so I can get into the process of actually leaving for mission work, which I considered my calling. Everything else was just icing on the cake of my beautiful life.

But in that one moment, I made the mistake of letting my guard down, made the decision to not care about what an authority in my life thought, and the enemy happily shot a seed into my heart…a seed that grew as the days and months went by…a tree that began to bear fruit, the bad kind.



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Plot Twist

Jumping off from my perfect high school life, let’s dive into the plot twist – it wasn’t perfect (in the way most people would judge it to be).

Frankly, when the plot twist came up, I was still responding like the sheltered 15-year-old that I was. I was genuinely happy to know that I have an older sister albeit a product of my Dad’s extramarital affairs back in the day. You see, I was born 5 years into the marriage and our half-sister is 2 years older than me. I will skip the unsavory details because I do not wish to speak ill of her mom.

Ohhh, we became the talk of the town when she came for my high school graduation! Everyone was asking about the fair lady vacationing at our place. (Remember, we live right smack in the center of what’s called the RTN Townsite.) She was just there for three days but it was enough to get the rumor mills turning. Not that we didn’t expect it – a seemingly perfect family turns out to have a juicy secret. But the reason I wasn’t really affected is because that was my Mom’s kind gesture. My Dad didn’t want here there but Mommy said it was the perfect way to show her that she is accepted for who she is, and that was the first big family event that we can invite her to. In my Mom’s mind, it was the perfect timing (since she wrote my Dad, asking to get her from her mom during the first quarter of that academic year) for assuring her that she is loved and welcomed with open arms.

Fast-forward to college, let’s just say the good you show others and the good intentions behind it are not always reciprocated in kind. Before we graduated in college, I no longer wanted to live in the same house with her; and I must say I tried really hard to do what my Mom asked me to – show her understanding, acceptance, and everything in between. After four years, I still love her as my half-sister but I felt we’ll have to give her support from a safe distance so we can continue loving her instead of letting my growing resentment fester.

Those four years put a very significant wedge in my relationship with my Dad. I wasn’t used to having people lie to my face and definitely not used to having someone in the home doing manipulations and stuff. It was a very tumultuous four years – even affecting my younger siblings who only had to spend time with her during summer break (when we all go home to our summer place in Mango Country).

That was my turning point.

Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it. (Proverbs 4:23)

Oh how true this turned out to be!

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The Royal Beginning

Like most fairytales, my life story started picture-perfect.

My Dad was a ship captain and my Mom was a HS teacher in the best private school in the municipality as I was growing up. They made a point of never letting us see them fight. They would take these after-dinner walks to discuss all that they had to sort through. When we try to follow them for a peek, we would always see them holding hands and walking side by side.

I remember thinking sometime in high school (prompted by a book I was reading) that I have a perfect life. I was the firstborn and, being a role model to my younger siblings, I was killing it! I was surely going to graduate the valedictorian of my class, I was part of the school’s lawn tennis team and our watched-out-for gymnastics team, and I was a student leader in campus and in church. Adding icing to the cake is the fact that I didn’t have to deal with all the drama of high school romance because my heart was just not in it yet. I was focused on getting into the premiere state university so I can get the best training for helping patients in our rural community.

Now let me qualify the rural community I am referring to. It’s not the kind where I have to walk through rice paddies or long distances to get to school. In our gated community, the private school is right in the center and just across the street from our house – like literally about 10 steps from our gate. We have electricity and water from the faucet in our own homes (not a shared community water source). We had access to television and a local hospital that could very well attend to most common ills. And the city is an 8-10hr drive via a dirt road, if anyone needed more advanced medical care. In fact, if it was too bad that it would require a specialist, company employees (which includes my Mom) have access to a Cessna plane that makes bi-monthly trips to and from Manila, the nation’s capital. Flight time is only about an hour.

So, as you can see, I lived a rather sheltered, privileged life. Back then, I didn’t really think much of it. I was just totally enjoying the peace and quiet of our tranquil environs, the ease and general safety by which we get to do things, and the many opportunities we get to enjoy as students of the lone La Salle-supervised school in the whole province. I was loved by the people in my community and I loved the community I’m in.

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. (I Tim. 4:12)

Living out the instructions in this verse came easy for me.

I’m gonna end with that for today. If you want to know what happened next, subscribe to the blog so you’ll get notifications when the next one gets published.

Also, if you have something you wanna share, please feel free to drop me a message.

Until next time…

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Let Your Light Shine

Since blogging became a thing, close friends have been suggesting I set up my own site because I have beautiful things to share. I guess when it’s about your personal experiences, you never really think much of it except when appreciating how God showed His hand on the matter.

I didn’t pay it any mind.

When vlogging became a thing, I was encouraged to do the same thing and, again, I wasn’t really interested. I thought it might come off a little narcissistic, thinking such things should only be done by celebrities or personalities that would be the equivalent of eye candy but has something substantial to share. I felt that was out of my league.

When my mobility was slowly limited by the need to be on a wheelchair but my spirit to help won’t keep me confined at home, that’s when I started to see things a little more clearly.

I began to see my teenage son spending a lot of what used to be just two hours of screen time for games. I began to see the people who would take the time to visit me for my insights and to “pick on my brains”. I began to see how I can provide encouragement even though done only via Zoom or phone calls. I began to see the truth in letting my light shine – not to boast, but to encourage others to do the same…so we can all light up together and dissipate the darkness that threatens to engulf this big beautiful world we live in and the lives we live.

I began to see.

Matthew 5:16
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

I invite you to explore with me. Let us take the time to commune on the digital space and use technology in advancing the kingdom agenda. Let us put up our lights so others in the darkness can see, and those valiantly treading through it will know that there is help where that light is shining. And as we come together, we will see that we can accomplish more for the Lord if we work according to His design.

Let your light shine!