Lenten Retreat - Day 2

Theme: Faithful Surrender

April 12, 2022

Contributed by Coach Gerald "Gerry" Sioco

“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today."

Matthew 6:33-34 (NLT)

Faith Story

When my best friend’s family hired me to become St. Patrick’s (an infant wear brand in the Philippines) Marketing Executive back in 2012, I was already told of the company’s huge debt. It was around Php 17 million. At that time, it didn’t feel like this was my responsibility. It was only when my best friend and her mom had a serious falling out, the mom turned over the business to us, including the debts. That’s when I felt responsible to help my best friend.

On top of the debts, St. Patrick was not profitable. We were on the red. SM Department Store, our main distributor, even gave us an ultimatum if we could not get the sales to go up. It was one problem after another. The most painful part was when we needed to borrow money from any source we could find just to be able to pay our suppliers and employees.

It was a long and arduous journey. You can only imagine how much time we spent on our knees just to be able to survive on a day to day basis. In all of this, I heard the tiny voice of the Spirit telling me, “When a situation seems the darkest, that’s when hope shines the brightest.” Eventually, the family decided to sell our building to be able to pay all the debts.

Sure, we have no more debts. We are still left with the challenging task though of making St. Patrick profitable, not just breaking even.

One of the verses that allowed me to move forward with hope is from Matthew 6:33-34 which says, “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. (NLT)

Though we tried a lot of strategies for the brand such as economies of scale, streamlining our product lines, hiring good people, train and engage our employees, etc., we cannot take any credit because it was God’s grace that allowed our dying brand to thrive and prosper. Since 2020, we were able to make St. Patrick profitable to the extent of sharing the blessings to our employees. Regardless of our effort, we remember that it is God who gives us the power to produce wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18).

Even in the middle of the crisis, we continued our ministry to our employees, introducing the gospel to them and encouraging them to foster an intimate relationship with our Lord. My Belief and Positivity helped seal my faith with a strong and deep conviction. All we did, is to try our best to live righteously, and sure enough, when you are faithful, God is more faithful. Truly, we can never out-faith God.