Depressed? Gary Valenciano gives quotes to help ease anxiety, strengthen faith

MANILA, Philippines — For 38 years, Gary Valenciano has been one of the country’s most popular Original Pilipino Music (OPM) icons, having starred as a leading man in dozens of films and recorded hits that spanned generations, including “Sana Maulit Muli,” “Shout for Joy” and “Warrior is a Child.”

But in his almost 40 years in the entertainment industry, it has also been known to many that Gary has been struggling with Type 1 Diabetes. In 2018, he underwent an open-heart surgery and an operation to remove his kidney cancer tumor.

If those were not enough, early this year, Gary’s wife, Angeli, and two of their kids, Gab and Kiana, got COVID-19. 

“Mr. Pure Energy” admitted that at times like these, he also becomes “low batt” and suddenly, the air is filled with his hit song “Natutulog Ba Ang Diyos?”

During his recent launch as one of the new voices for global faith-based audio app Pray.com, he shared inspiring realizations that helped him through many battles in life, including depression and the pandemic.

Here are some inspiring quotes from Gary V:

“A morning gratitude is a great way to start your day.”

“Pray for protection. I believe that God will allow some things to happen in our lives, even a pandemic, but it’s not something meant to destroy us but to break us enough to allow His hands to put us back together again.”

“Be still… meditate… I could be anxious about that big sea but (God) said, don’t be anxious about anything. Everyone knows this life is a struggle. He knows that it won’t be perfect, but if we rely on a perfect God, that matters.”

“I might meet people who might or might not have the virus, but I can’t let the virus to stop me from doing what I’m meant to do.”

“When everything you’ve done doesn’t seem to work, just be still and let Him (God) work.”

“When there are no doctors available, prayer allows you to reach out to the one physician who understands you (God).”

“My children have suffered from depression – Gabriel, Kiana, they both have. They’re open, they keep talking about it because it helps when you are able to understand somebody with depression…”

“Maaring hindi mo alam kung bakit ka nadedepress, ‘Okay naman ang pamilya ko, okay naman ang trabaho ko, kahit pandemya, okay naman kalusugan mo.’ But you’re still depressed… Maybe there’s a chemical imbalance… But when you pray and you reveal yourself to God constantly, He also constantly reveals Himself to you. Maybe in different ways. Sometimes maybe He didn’t reveal Himself to you the way He revealed Himself to you yesterday… But if you come to Him with an open spirit, He will appear. Either He will give you peace, He will give you the people that you need or change your situation siguro.”

“God doesn’t want to see us depressed. It’s not what He created us to be.”

'Knowing that God is with you is already an answered prayer'

Two weeks after his open-heart surgery last 2018, Gary had to be operated for kidney cancer on the same operating room. That’s when he got the best answer to a prayer.

And the answer, Gary recalled, was not “I will heal you” or “Your cancer will be gone,” but just the quiet assurance that God was with him throughout the ordeal.

Although he was initially frustrated to be there alone at the operating room again, he felt like God sat at the foot of his bed to say, “Don’t worry, I am here again.”

“Diabetics usually don’t heal well,” he enthused, “I did.”

Through prayer, he can now do things that he thought he won’t be able to do again. He is now even dubbed, “the living singing and dancing miracle.”

As such, he invited everyone to hear him and other celebrities deliver more inspirational stories and prayers by downloading the global audio app Pray.com.

“Some prayers are answered with a yes, some with a no, but some with ‘wait’,” he pondered.

“But whatever the answer is, there is a kind of peace that God gives us through prayer… And the peace of the Lord will guide our hearts and minds.”

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