The Truth About Today

I am, by nature, a highly cheerful person.

Ever since I was a little kid I have been said to be a child that always finds a little good in every little thing.

I was always optimistic and always believed the best in people although lately the lines may have blurred a bit since I have always been the optimistic, cheerful one, people suddenly expected me to be just that ALL THE TIME.

Which is why today I have realized has scared me and pressured me into becoming little miss cheery pants 101 percent of the time and the sad part about it was the rejection because I am not Little Miss Sunshine all the time. I have issues to deal with and tears to cry and just like everyone else, I need a shoulder to lean on to get me through the day.

The thing with my walk with Jesus is the fact that some people have expected a different level of perfection from me, often berating me saying that if I truly am with Jesus I wouldn’t feel wounded, insecure and I would be happy ALL THE TIME. If I was in fact feeling all of those things it means that I am doing something wrong and I am not completely walking with Jesus.

I couldn’t get into Theology because I did not go to Bible school nor do I feel competent to talk about the subject. However, I must admit that I too have given off that kind of judgement in some other form once or twice in my life.

The truth is, the reason why we walk with Jesus is because we are human and if we do it on our own we would fail. Knowing Jesus is not being transformed into perfection on our own account but instead admitting that we are weak but in that weakness, God shows Himself strong. It is in our weakness that God’s power is shown, so just in case you’re feeling a little weak or you feel that you world maybe shaken a bit, stand strong, when you are at the end of your rope, that is when God shows Himself the strongest in your life.


So it is okay to admit that you’re having a bad day, it’s okay to admit that you get mad sometimes, in fact in general it’s okay to not be okay, it’s okay to not have all the answers, it’s okay to rest on your journey but not completely give up. It’s okay to refuel. It’s okay to filter friends who do nothing but discourage your dreams and most importantly, it’s okay to cry and say, “God I can no longer take it, please help me get through this but only through Your help.”


So just in case you came across the entry and  feeling a little low and feeling guilty for it, don’t be. God loves you no matter what you’re feeling, you don’t need to feel bad for feeling bad. God loves you and is more than willing to help you get out of the rut if you ask Him to.

So let it all out to Him: cry, talk to Him and feel His presence consume you, that although you may not understand knowing that God loves you and will not in any way harm you and watch your day turn around.

And just in case: here’s an extra hug from me to you, don’t worry, it does get better. =)

“God made everything beautiful in itself and in its time—but he’s left us in the dark, so we can never know what God is up to, whether he’s coming or going.”

– Ecclesiastes 3:11

Ask

Today a friend of mine told me this, “JUST ASK”.

Which in truth is very simplistic that you would have to take a second to fully understand what it means beyond its simplicity.
Most of the time we hear so many things about simply asking God for our dreams– whether big or small, minute or a miracle simply because that is what Jesus asked us to do several times in the Bible.
A simple, extremely simple concept and yet most of the time we find ourselves held back simply because the concept was that — simple.

In the world where everything we have has to be “worked for”, we find ourselves aghast over the simple statement of Jesus, “Ask”.

Was it really that easy? ASK?


Then why aren’t more people doing it?


Because we’ve been trained to work extra hard for every single thing that we desire and of course I don’t go for laziness and doing it the Juan Tamad way (which I heard has a new term now but I’d rather not go there today) but there are things we cannot simply do on our own.

If the things we dream of we could do on our own then we wouldn’t need miracles now won’t we?

I think that’s where the problem starts– we don’t ask simply because we don’t dream big enough.

Often times, we don’t dare to dream big enough because we don’t want to get our hopes up and we just want to do things that we know we can do on our own without a need for a miracle.

Because a miracle was asking for too much and that as we get older we’re asked to leave Neverland and settle for what is within our reach, a mediocre life.

But what if for a day we were asked to just dream and let it all go?

What would you dream about?


What is your life without limits?


What would you lose if you just asked? 


If it is what God wills for you to have in your life (and if you have a relationship with Him, you would know what He wills for you and you CAN HAVE one) then it’s a dream come true but if not then God will bless you with another dream one that is better than anything that you have ever imagined for yourself.




All it takes is one step– start by asking.

A Small Child

Sharing with you a poem I’ve liked since I was in fourth grade!
PS: Please don’t mention it to my brother that I got this from one of his old love letters! :p

A small child looked at the star and began to weep
The star said: “Child, why are you weeping?”
And the child said, “You are so far away, I will never be able to touch you.”
And the star answered: “Child if I were not already in your heart, you will not able to see me.”



                                                                                       – John Magliola

Sunshine: The Closest I’ve Come To Writing About Fashion

Aside from a brief six month stint working for a clothing brand in 2007 (which I proudly call my Ugly Betty moments), I have never really dabbled much into clothes, high heels and fashion.

I have always remained faithful to Joey Potter and Haley James- Scott (as in season one Haley and not rockstar or cheerleader Haley) for my fashion choices:
And it has always been that way until the day I took on my first job ever at a clothing company and that’s when i realized that dressing could actually be fun so in order to fit into clothes that didn’t make me leave room for me to have an extra “handle”, i started working out and was actually confident about myself and the way i dressed.
however 2008 came and went and took with it my confidence.
if you have been kind enough to faithfully weed through my words you would know what happened in 2008 but if this is your first time, i’m sorry i cannot tell the tale although adele’s 21 bears a striking resemblance.
so anyway, without knowing it, but because i have been constantly told that i was a) fat b) stupid and c) ugly by someone who i thought so highly of, i have begun to hear the words long after he was gone.
and i may have never realized until now but what i was doing: eating my emotions away, hiding in men’s clothing and not even making an effort to fix my hair was not because i was lazy but was simply this: by not looking good, i had an immediate excuse as to why i was being rejected and that “one day” when i lose all the weight and wear nice clothes, the right guy would come.
i have also spent four years saying, “i’m happy on the inside and no matter what it is that i’m wearing, it doesn’t matter because I have a relationship with God and that is more than enough” which of course is true and needs an entirely different blog entry to explain but to be honest, it was just an excuse for me.

i was forever lurking in the shadows, refusing to be seen.

but today while on a “shopping trip” with my mom (which i hardly do and totally despise), i saw myself in the mirror and realized that i no longer liked the person i saw.
basically i gave up on myself and allowed myself to be defined by someone who could not even define himself (ahh, a jab there but I love you bro, wherever you are, I wish you the very best) and in it, I got lost and ended up in the land of carbohydrates, baggy jeans, hair in a bun and no make up look. 
now don’t get me wrong, this is not a self-pity blog entry, God knows i’ve had enough of those but actually a coming of age albeit a few years too late.
it’s not like i hated the person that i saw in the mirror, but for the first time in a really long time, i find myself wanting to let the person God is working on on the inside to shine on the outside. it was like suddenly i wanted all the joy that was inside of me because of who i’m focused on to be on the outside as well.
this realization has nothing to do with wanting to look good because as i’ve said in my previous blog entry that “nothing compares with a relationship with Christ.” it also has nothing to do with meeting the man of my dreams tomorrow because i have long accepted that life isn’t really about that anymore , but has everything to do with being at peace with who I  am.


Kidding aside, it’s not even about meeting “the right person” but being happy because I am making the right choices for myself.
But what I’m saying that although I am still a work in progress and I still make mistakes, there’s joy and security in my heart that can no longer be taken away by anyone.

I no longer find the need to prove myself to anyone the way I tried to when I gave up. 


The main reason why I gave up was because I wanted to show people that “I didn’t care”, it was like a reverse kind of pride and I have been drowning in it for the longest time. For the longest time I didn’t like the person I saw in the mirror and felt guilty everytime I felt good about the way I looked.

But today, something in me snapped. I no longer want to feel trapped nor do I want to continue to be defined by someone who obviously wasn’t meant to be a part of my life in the long haul.

But most of all, I wanted to like myself because Jesus wouldn’t really have much to work on if I am constantly fighting with myself and who He created me to be. So this maybe a single step and I am still a work in progress but i hope this blog entry conveys how wonderful it feels to like who i am.

that i don’t have to hide the person God has made me to be the same way that i don’t have to be prideful in trying to prove who i am by being conventionally pretty.


in truth it’s not even about the pretty. it’s just about being happy in who i am.

that i can freely be all that He has created me to be and the best place for me is to like who I am because once I do that is the only way that I could freely love others and allow them to love me as well. because i have finally realized that it is okay to be loved and it is okay to be liked.


That it is okay to love yourself because only people who do have hearts big enough and free enough to love others.

So here’s to sunshines, cupcakes, giggles, bright colors, laughter, possibly high heels and all the beautiful days ahead.

devoid



Empty.


It’s like I’m walking around with a hole in my heart because no matter what I do, buy or hang out with I always lay my head on a pillow empty, without no emotion, wondering if this is the life that everyone is talking about.

To begin with, I’d like to think that most of us are jesters or involved in a highly time consuming masquerade where in the morning after we take our shower we put on a mask that doesn’t let the world in on what is really happening inside of us.

We buy luxuriousness blogs, tweet about our “popular” friends, current events and politics letting everyone know that we have it together.

We have a good job we love. We are aiming for the highest position our company has to offer. We study. We make friends. We travel. We explore.

And in truth, these pursuits do make life more interesting but deep down as we move on from one pursuit to another we find ourselves  devoid.

At the end of the day when we’re all alone with our thoughts that’s when we hear the eternal beating of the loneliness that echoes through our hearts.

It may not be as dramatic and we tend to drown it out by moving from one relationship to another demanding our better half to complete us and when that does not work we run to the Mall hoping that the latest gadget will make us complete or tweeting about all the vain pursuits of life will make us the person who is completely content with where we are and who we are with.

Many people say that life is not about the vain pursuits of the world and we are commanded to be like children and commanded to be satisfied with the things we have and the people around us without the demand of wanting more.

And yet, we do want more.

Most of us get into relationships with the hottest bachelors in town just to make us feel that we are worthy of someone who is tagged as such. We buy the most expensive clothes and the most expensive bags just so we feel elite. We get lost in the game of social climbing and club hopping in the hopes that by having friends in high society and being featured in magazines we’d find our worth.

Often by entering into something without knowing whose we are we create more trouble for ourselves. Most people achieve all of these things in life and by the world’s standards has achieved success and perfection and yet they are rotting away on the inside, unable to determine why they feel so alone and why even though they followed the guidebook of the world rather meticulously, they still sleep with an empty heart.

Falling into the trap of following the rules of the world often leaves someone with an empty heart simply because if you get it right by the world’s standards– you’re okay, you get praised but if you take a single step wrong, the world that once praised you would be the first one to remind you of your mistakes and your failures.

it’s like stepping on a treadmill that keeps you running but gets you nowhere.

it’s like constantly trying to become the person that the world tells you to be and yet the rules change so often that once you’ve perfected one character, they go ahead and demand another, because of this you get lost in the world of shallow relationships, expensive things and you are now defined by the things you do rather than who you belong to.

it’s tiring.

it’s tiring to pretend that you are happy with a guy who doesn’t treat you right but stay with him anyway because he has found a way to define who you are.

it’s tiring to constantly buy expensive things that only leave your bank account empty
and most important it’s tiring to try and become the person everyone expects you to be when in truth you just want to be the person you want to be who may be a bit dorky and a bit eccentric but it’s the person you are comfortable with.

i used to be the biggest people pleaser in the world and led me to stretch myself until i could no longer recognize who  i was. i used to find my identity in relationships and friendships and used to lose a part of who I was when they left.

it was only when i surrendered myself to the One who would never leave and loved me even before I knew of this great love was then did I find healing.

that it’s taking awhile but in no way would i go back to the person i used to be in exchange for this person who has so much peace not because everything is perfect but because God is even though my circumstances are not.

There is joy in knowing God and in knowing  how much He loves me.

In a simple verse that is probably the most popular one in the world, “For God so loved the world…” I have come to know my true identity and in it, I build a life that is not easily shaken.

It’s a life that can be defined in so many ways but let me tell you the one thing that it is not: DEVOID.

Step into this life, give it to God and never again will you be defined by things that the world can easily take away.

Look to Me

God loves you.

Whatever it is that you are going through, know that He loves you and it is the kind of love that can change everything in an instant, including your situation.
God brought you to where you are for a purpose, He has never left your side nor will He. He has you where He wants you to be and whatever the purpose is for you to be where you are, trust that it all works out for YOUR good. That’s how much God loves you.
Look to Him. Know who He is and rest your eyes on Him.
That is the only way that you can stand strong in His name. Nothing can truly harm you.
Just let Him lead.

Love & Forgiveness

I am a huge crier. It is also safe to say that I am a huge feeler. No matter how many tapes (neigh podcasts in this day and age) I listen to about not being controlled by my emotions, there are just days when crawl up in a ball and just cry. Like heave and let it all out until your eyes hurt.

I have been trying to love the way Jesus has loved others and I am reminded everyday that it is not the kind of love that I can do it on my own. But there are just days when you sit and wonder what this love was all about.

Forgiveness is possibly such a rare, courageous thing to do.

It is so much easier to be angry on the inside and pretend to have forgiven people on the outside, there are even days when we don’t realize that we still have so much anger inside of us until we break down and have one of those days where nothing inside of us is bright, pretty or beautiful.

I believe that tears purge us from all the pain that is inside and on most days, that is more than enough for us to move on from a situation but sometimes the pain cuts too deep.

It is best to remember that when people judge you or hurt you deeply, it has nothing to do with you, instead it reflects who they are. That no matter how many times they try to hurt you, it is never about you more than it is about them.

Hurt people hurt other people and if you continue to fester in your anger towards another person, in turn you would be the one hurting another.

End this cycle and choose to forgive.

It may not be the easiest thing but always remember that what people say, how people define you or how they react towards you will not define who you are or where you will be in the future.

It’s also about time to stop pleasing people. No matter what you do right or what you do wrong, people will never be completely satisfied until you do things their way– which is safe to say isn’t the best way to get things done either.

So instead of simply worrying about it or crying about it, it is best to let it go and give it to God no matter how painful the words were or how badly you are mistreated.

God is a fair God and will fight for you.

You are beautiful and what people do to you or say to you or say about you, it will never take away the wonderful plans that God has for you.

Stand strong. Great days are ahead.