Tired of being tired.

Complaining is such a tiring past time.

Sky rocketing prices are a fact of life now. Should we complain and do nothing? Will we just allow ourselves to drown with all these issues? Or are we going to do something about it.

I am fed up of complaining. I will be pro-active and do something about our financial challenges! I am inspired to go another mile to feed my family!! I will utilize my spare time to look for extra ways to earn!!! I will do something!!!!

But first I rest, and dream and think. Maybe I will get inspiration. Or I can wait for extra work to come my way. Or I can wait for my country to get out of its third world status and become a first world country.

Ahhh, I know! I will write U.S. President George Bush and tell him to make us part of the US! Then we will be earning in dollars and our Doctors won’t be nurses anymore. Our teachers will teach and Filipinos won’t migrate. Then we will have snow!!!!!!

But the US is in recession… should I just write to the EU nations instead?

Growing pains

Tonight’s prayer meeting was a special time. Aside from praying, I went there to see a very dear friend, a woman whom God used in many ways. You remember her, she was one of the subjects in my blog before. I wanted to see Dr. Steve and Karen Lynip for the last time before they leave the Philippines for good.

Karen doesn’t’ know, but the moment I met her and Dr. Steve, I have always looked up to their relationship and wished in my heart of hearts that someday my husband and I would be like them. Serving God together as a couple.

They invited us for couple’s bible study a few times but we never went. Aside from the fact that we live so far from them, hubby is still quite young in the faith and wasn’t too keen on things like these. And as a wife, I knew that I should not force him as his time with God will just come. All these times I have longed to get closer to Karen and looked up to her as a wonderful woman of God and yeah, to get recipes for her to-die-for-cookies ). I had all these scenes in my mind on how great it would be to serve God as a couple just like her and Dr. Steve. But these thoughts were never shared to anyone, not even to my best friend May.

Until now.

At the end of the prayer meeting Pastor Arnel invited the Lynips to come in front and say their goodbyes to the church. It was like any other goodbyes except when Dr. Steve mentioned something about their two children whom they are still praying for. It struck me real hard.

Here was a couple whom I have bee n so in love with and I had all these notions on how they lived life happy ever after. But Dr. Steve said they have their own share of pains. How can they openly say this in front of hundreds of people! How can they share unashamedly that they too have their own crosses to bear!

Then tears kept flowing. God liberated me that very moment and comforted me with the fact that as He did not leave the Lynips in their pain, so will He with me.

I realized that admitting one’s pain is not a sign of weakness but of surrender that the God that we serve bears our pain with us. Just as God has been patient with my growth, then so will He be with the growth of our “pains”.

A loved one may still be groping in darkness and you may have been praying for him for so long, do not loose hope. As Karen said, “while waiting, grow up and make him yearn for that difference that God has done in you.”

A Dream is a wish your heart makes

I make it a point to live each day as if it were my last.

I tell people I love that I love them. Say sorry if need be.

Laugh a lot everyday and try to make someone smile each passing day.

You can say that I try to squeeze all the joy there is in life. Regret is something I do not want to do when I would breath my last.

Of course there is still a lot of things that I want to do and I have not yet crossed all the entries in my things-to-do-before-I-die list.

One of those is to become a professional chef. The kind that graduated from a known culinary school and wear a toque so high.

Cooking is one of my passions. I love it. I can cook all day and still smile. I can stay in a hot kitchen and not loose my patience. I wish for a kitchen that has all the best equipment; a kitchen with an island where I can entertain friends while cooking. I wish I have enough money to buy all the ingredients that I want and invite friends all the time.

Nothing wrong with wishing and hoping. I wish and I hope all the time. What is wrong is when those dreams turn into covetousness that we can’t wait anymore and forcefully get things our own way…right now.

I know that the path where I am in now is what God wants for me. And I know that some dreams will remain just that…dreams. But does that mean that we stop dreaming? No!

Our God is a loving God. He gives us the desires of our hearts in His own time and in His own way. Who knows, maybe one day I will get to cook for you not as the me that you know now, but as the Chef whose heart’s desire God blessed.

“A dream is a wish your heart makes” is a song from the famous fairy tale Cinderella

Help? Me? No way!

The military junta of Myanmar will not allow foreign aid workers to come into the Irrawaddy delta to help their cyclone hit country men.

I was indignant!

Who in their right mind would make aid givers beg just to be able to help?!?

Then it occurred to me that at times I am like their government.

Sometimes even if I desperately need help, I don’t ask God or other people. Pride bars me from going down on my knees to beg for a solution. Even if I know that at the end of the day, I would still have to ask God for mercy and grace.

Shame on me. Should I say shame on you as well?

It’s not yet too late, we can still ask for help when things go out of hand. We don’t have to pretend that we are super heroes who can do everything right because we are not and we cannot.

Let us stop pretending and learn to live an imperfect life but with a perfect God whose grace is without bounds.

I am white trapped in a brown body.

A European friend of mine came to visit me and commented once, “What’s with all these whitening products on the grocery shelves?”

“Whiter underarms!” “Flawless white skin in 7 days”, ” two tablets a day for one month and you will be at least 2 shades lighter” white white white.

“Can’t these ladies be happy with their color?”, says my friend.

I can only mutter a reply as I am somewhat guilty in some ways. She went on and on telling me that in Europe women would pays thousands just to have a Filipina’s color. In my mind I said ” yeah, and we would pay thousands to have your color.“

Let’s face it, majority of us are guilty of feeling that we are white trapped inside a brown body. It may not be your face that you want fairer, but it could be your skin that you want lighter, or your teeth.

Everybody is guilty of not being content what what they are born with. I’m wrong? Then look deep, don’t we want to erase the fine lines in our eyes? If our hair turns to gray, don’t we want it black? Do I need to talk about cosmetic procedures? Botox, Liposuction, implants  anyone?

The thing is, we are vain. We are never content with what we have and what we are. Contentment amidst the pressure of society is near impossible.

Contentment is a daily thing for we have eyes that wander and see the things we don’t have. Contentment is something that we learn…slowly. But this is something that we can learn.

Although Apostle Paul’s context is different from our topic but we can see that indeed contentment can be learned.

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. Philippians 4:11

I am not saying that I am gong to shun those whitening products forever, but I am learning to take pride in the color that God has given…for now. 

Footprints in my heart.

People are supposed to come into your life and leave a mark.

This is what I learned from a Missionary friend who mentored me early in life.  A spiritual mom whom God used to plant seeds in my tender years. Although it took many years for those seeds to grow and her investment to bear fruit still she patiently held my hand as I walked wobbly steps towards maturity.

She is Jean Shawver.

When she left and went back to Des Moines, USA – life was never the same again. She wore a lot of hats in my life- my chauffer (from church to my home and to wherever the fellowship was), my piano teacher (don’t blame her if until now I can only read like a beginner; I didn’t practice…my fault ), my children’s church teacher who taught me a lot of things and most specially my friend.

Until now, many years later, I still cannot forget her. She left her mark in my life.

Why do I honor such a woman? Because her worth is far more than rubies.

I write this to honor her and to honor another friend.

A friend whom I have only met a couple of times but is constantly in my mind and in my heart. Truth to tell,the number of times we met cannot exceed the fingers of one hand but she made a mark.

I saw her numerous times at church but the turning point was during a translators meeting at their home. It was love at first cookie. I was drawn to her, like I was drawn to Auntie Jean.

We exchanged emails, planned on having coffee but because our schedules won’t permit, everything remained as plans. But yesterday I received an email from her. She and her husband Dr. Steve are leaving the Philippines for good. After 38 years of serving God here, they are finally ordered to pack up and put their tent somewhere else.

I felt the same tug in my heart when Auntie Jean left, but this time it would be different, technology will bridge the great divide. Where ever God brings her i’m sure she will make a mark as sure as she left a mark in my life.

To my dear friend, Karen Lynip, you made a mark.

You cemented your footstep at the walk way of  my heart when you visited me at the hospital and comforted me at the scariest point of my life. You understood my fears without making me feel that my double surgery was nowhere near compared to the numerous surgeries you had.

Auntie Jean and Karen – I hope I will one day have somebody say that I made a mark in their life as you two godly ladies did in my life.

Walk on and continue to leave marks along the way.

Wachathink?

A reader writes.

“Life is unfair. Last night my husband came home late. I have been trying to patiently understand and forgive him over and over again. But he does the same things over and over again.

Giving up keeps on popping in my head but I know that separation is not what God has intended for me. It is not I who has been wracking up negative points in our marriage but why is it that it is I who keeps on understanding and forgiving?

Every time he does something bad I get mad. When I get mad, I want to get even. But when I am planning to hatch my evil plan I am convicted to pray and to forgive. After all, I do not want a broken marriage.

Why does it always have to be me who gets hurts yet the one who chooses to forgive? Can’t God convict him too? Life is unfair.”

That seems to be a situation that a lot of us are familiar with. Not only between husband and wife, but between siblings, families, friends as well. Let me know what you think and let’s share our thoughts and experiences. Who knows? You may be able to help our dear letter sender.

Wachathink?

I am right…because I said so!

Being a wife is not easy. Being a christian wife is harder. Being a godly wife is by God’s grace.

A wife is somebody who is married. Does the usual things a wife does. Performs her wifely duties according to what she thinks is right.

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. – Ephesians 5:22-24″

A Christian wife is aware of the issue of submission, tries to submit as much as she can and consciously makes an effort to be a wife after God’s own heart. She looks up to the Proverbs 31 woman and tries to emulate her to the best that she can.

A godly wife humbly admits that being a christian wife is close to impossible without God’s grace.

Submission is easier said than done. We all have our own will, our own thoughts and our own desires. If you are right and he is wrong, would you keep silent? If you are proven to be right, can you not say “I told you so.”? Hard right? But that does not mean that we cannot be nice when we are right.

Don’t get me wrong, I still silently gloat as I smugly sit in my corner wordlessly saying “I am right…because I said so!.” Although these instances are not that frequent anymore but it happens nevertheless.

I am far from being a godly wife but I know I am getting there by God’s grace.

A time for everything under the sun.

Know what to keep and what to throw away.

Know when to walk away and when to run.

Life may be a gamble but we are given enough opportunities to take a calculated risk.

There’s a time for everything. Don’t throw everything away.

Taken for granted? Move on. Sad? Learn to let go. Miserable? Learn to look for the silver lining.

Learn to love and to live to the fullest. You will never experience the same day ever again.

Yesterday can’t be changed, tomorrow may never be yours. What you have is today. Live it well.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven

Birth pains.

These are the headlines the past few days.

Food crisis in many developing countries.

In Myanmar 22,000 dead. 41,000 missing. The numbers rising.

A Southern Chile volcano dormant for 9,000 years,erupts.

The War in Iraq has been going on for years. Number of casualties rising each day.

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ, and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.” Matthew 24:4- 8