Christmas Blog

New season, new reason to write...


"For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16 NIV

a very generic bible verse..

it's as if every person who knows something about Christianity or Jesus Christ knows about this verse as well..

but for me, this pretty much sums up everything that's happening in this world right now, especially the real reason why we're celebrating a very lively, colorful, and merry time of the year: Christmas.

So a friend of mine asked me to do a blog entry about Christmas for our church blog site. I thought, hey why not? It would be like hitting two birds with one stone, I put up an entry in two blog sites ( mine and the church's) in one sitting. That's a reasonable deal for me :P

So here goes...

I remember last year, in my blog site, I did a 3-part Christmas themed blog. I entitled it This Christmas: part x (where x is a number from 1 to 3) followed by a specific random topic I was able to relate to Christmas. I talked about missing my family, about having someone special, and about my decision to stop attending school for a while.

But looking back, and going about reading them once more, I found the second topic the most meaningful, and most relevant for me this year: LOVE.

In that entry, I talked about having a so-called "love life", or the lack thereof, being a big deal for Filipinos during the Christmas season. I stated my case, saying how it is not the real essence of the season, and then went to the best part of the blog entry.

"Yes, it would really be cool if we could be together with our special someone this holiday season, but more important than this, we would really love if we could all cherish the true meaning of the season: CHRIST'S COMING FOR OUR SALVATION, and to remind each other that this love exists, something far more greater than anything we could ever feel for somebody." - This Christmas...Part 2, This Sounds Interesting

So in this blog, I would like to explore this topic I started last year, and dig deep into this "reason for the season" I am talking about..

Christmas.

I mean seriously.

The word itself has Christ in it.

Yet when you ask some people what Christmas is for them, very seldom will you hear Christ as the answer.

Don't get me wrong, there is no right or wrong answer to that question. Some people actually answer very nice things, like it's the season for giving, it's the most wonderful time of the year, and things like that, but oftentimes these answers are nothing but cliches.

What's not cliche, though is the reason why it is the season for giving, why it is the most wonderful time of the year.

If you'd scroll up a few lines, please, you would stumble upon me talking about a verse, John 3:16. And when you read the verse, it contains very commonly used, but at the same time heavy words such as "loved", "gave", "believes", and the phrase "shall not perish but have eternal life". Basically, the whole verse. :P

I said this pretty much sums up Christmas for me, and here's why.

First, hopefully after the longest time, I would have a girlfriend this Christmas. Here's where the "love" part comes in. Honestly, me and my girlfriend are in a very delicate situation right now, this is a very critical stage for our relationship. Something involving her relatives not being approving of our relationship, something like that. These things often gives me the urge to just sit around all day, be negative and give in to the temptation of being sad and depressed. But come to think of it, it's already Dec. 1, Christmas is literally just around the corner nowadays. And looking at the first part of John 3:16, someone out there is giving me love even greater than the approval of my girlfriend's relatives. It gives me the assurance that this God, power unmatched and unlimited, loved me. And He didn't just loved me, He "so loved" me. That's even better right? So why should I, or anyone in that matter, have any reason to sulk or down themselves this Christmas when we know that there is someone out there giving us love whole-heartedly and never-ending. It may be a rough time for me in terms of one relationship, but there's another one I am winning blindfolded, hand and feet tied up. And I believe that the love I am receiving from Him will eventually overflow to the other relationship I have with her :)

Then, there's the "give" part.

Again, I have decided to stop attending school, this time with a different reason. If you would recall, last time it was because of the lack of passion for learning, this time it's the lack of resources for my studies, and that of my sister's. We're both currently in college and we spend a combined P40,000 on tuition. Problem is, my mom's salary: P25,000. What should we do about the needed 15k? My simple answer: give way. That's right, this semester, my sister is going to school and I'm not. I know she needs the education more than I do. Not to down her or anything, but I think she needs to finish college more than I do. She's a bit of a spoiled brat type when she was younger, so she doesn't know how things really work sometimes. But still, she's my sister. I love her. Who else would love her? We're a broken family. Literally speaking, I'm all she's got right now. So yeah, I gave her the chance. Now I have decided to just try my luck out with any job offers, and eventually I got one at a call center agency. Hopefully this will all be for the best, after all God already gave up His one and only Son, what else could go wrong? what's another 2-3 years of school delay for me right? :P

And finally, "believe".

Stillwaters. My spiritual family. My community of believers. But honestly, I feel detached from them at the moment. It's really an awkward feeling right now typing these very words knowing this could be a blog entry for the Stillwaters blog site. But isn't that's how God's love works? We always say of speaking the truth in love, and that this is a safe place where no one gets judged. But we all make mistakes right? Though we may be centered by a perfect God, we're still living in this imperfect world. We still hurt each other, judge each other, and there are still some issues left unresolved here and there which affects our relationships to each other. Maybe that's why I feel detached. Add the fact that I am not in UP anymore. But I "believe" that these things are very trivial. These hurts are nothing now, because we are in Christ. As the verse says in the end, "whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Yes, we can never disregard these hurts, these small tampos from time to time, but if you know your English very well, you'll get what "shall not perish" means. Perishing is permanent, once a vegetable or a piece of meat is perished, it never goes good again, right? But we are believers of Christ. In Him, we are a new creation. In fact I believe we are always renewed in Him. Every time we sin, we hurt, we cry, we suffer, He renews us with His Spirit. And I believe--no--I know for a fact that it's not how close or detached we are, it's Who we believe in that matters. Because in the end, we will all bow our knees and confess Him as our God, together in unison, and that would be as close as we can get as brothers and sisters in Christ.

And THAT for me is why Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. That is why it is the season for loving, and giving, and believing. Because we have Christ now, He who loved us first, He who has given us His life first, and He who has believed in us, and would never cease on believing us, waiting until the time that all the Earth will hear Him, proclaim Him, and celebrate Christmas with Him 365 days a year :)

God bless everyone :)

it takes a long time...

hey..I'm back

due to insisting best friend demand, and the urge to write when in a state of instability, I decided to update my blog again..


took a long time though, didn't it? a lot, and I mean literally a lot has gone down since I last wrote here..

I've stopped attending school..


I've had a girlfriend, and then broke up with her two days later..


I've had conflicts here and there, including the most recent against my ex girlfriend's aunt, which forced me to write again..






long periods of time..


it's what makes a flower bloom

it's what strengthens friendships and romantic relationships

it's what makes a boy and a girl to become a man and a woman

it is a positive progress.


but that's not always the case

it's what also withers the flower

it's what brings up conflicts and issues in a relationship

it's what makes a man and a woman to occasionally fall apart and start acting like a foolish child again

sometimes, it's also a regress.




it takes a long time



for us to realize that though time is a very unsure thing, it's all that we have, and all that we could ever need.


i mean think about it, when all is said and done, what's the most important thing for a person?


it's how he or she spent his time in this crazy and wild joyride we call life.






some may say time is gold


for me it's more than just gold


it's more of the memories and experiences you've had trying to find that pot of gold.





some say time heals all wounds



that may be true, yes


but I believe it does more than just heal the wound


it also enables us to have the courage and the heart to forgive whoever has wounded us


so that instead of a big, nasty scar that the wound leaves behind


there will be a stronger heart and a cleaner conscience to replace it instead.




there are always some conflicts that need a lot of time to be mended





yes, it takes a long time, but like they say it,




anything worth having is worth the wait.




because again, when all is said and done




I would give everything else just to be able to say



"it's been one bumpy hell of a ride, but I would love to do the exact same thing again next time..."



have a nice day...

Quote of the Day

This is something that I realized today. I don't know if there's an already existing saying like this. Here it goes:

Hindi ka pwedeng sumuko

Kung hindi ka pa naman lumalaban.

Hindi ka pwedeng umayaw

Kung hindi mo pa nasusubukan

White Lady!

Are you expecting this to post to be kinda scary?

LIKE THIS?!

Sorry about that. :P

And sorry but that's the only scary thing about this post..because this is about my type of girl, very unrelated to

THIS!

HAHA

Okay enough with scaring you.

This is really about how I find women very, very attractive when they wear any white outfit. Give me a girl all dressed up with nursing outfit, and my eyes would do 

THIS

if they only can.

I am very much attracted to women in white. I remember back then, my ideal girl was a nurse who has braces  and knows how to ride a motorcycle. That was my Venus back then.

But mainly these ideals were because I admire women who appear clean or having a very "clean aura" in them.

I often see girls especially when I go out, and I find cute girls very often. But it is very rare for me to be stunned when I see a girl, and this usually happens when I see a very pretty girl wearing white. It's like any dark day can turn into a sun shiny day.

I remember seeing my present crush wear white, quite a long time ago. She was walking from afar, and being the farsighted me, I was able to notice her very stunning presence right away. If I can only tell her to stay at that place so I can look and admire her at my optimal vision, I would really love to shout that out right that very moment. I mean, DAMN! did she look like an angel or what? For me, that was the prettiest moment of her in my memory.

Anyway, I would also like to give an update about the story I promised my utol, a few posts back if you recall. I finally decided the flow of the story in detail and I am currently writing it now. Actually, this post is the only reason I stopped it, so I hope you guys got scared with my post.

YOU MEAN LIKE THIS?!

TEEHEE! :P

FRIENDZONED?

It's becoming a trend!

So last time, I posted about my ex-girlfriend sharing her secret blog to me, right?

Guess what, another past love interest I had (the latest of them) also shared a secret blog of her, also about her love life!

At first I was " okay, this is awkward *insert le badly drawn poker face here like this :|*

and then it hit me!

It's becoming a trend!

I AM BEING PUT INTO A DREADED PLACE!

THE FRIENDZONE! (JEN JEN DEN JEN!)

Of course I am just exaggerating.

It' kind of a joke actually. I mean I actually take it as a good thing because it just means that people, especially girl are trusting me with things of their hearts. It's kind of a privilege to be able to be trusted with such things, but still it's better if women share these kind of things to other women to promote their accountability to them. And knowing these two girls, I know they are not that open with their heart to other girls. I am thinking of helping them think more about sharing to their women friends more than to me, coz it's REALLY AWKWARD TO FEEL FRIENDZONED! LOLZ

It's really a scary place. I just hope the one I like right now won't make me go to that dreaded place, for as the sign says :ABANDON ALL HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER!

A Win-____ Situation?

And I'm back to writing.

Something happened last night which made me inspired to go back to writing again. Another fiction story perhaps.

I was playing Pokemon Fire Red Version, like I always do for the past week. I don't have much to do, I don't go to school anymore so I don't have ANYTHING else important to do. I have two laptops on, one for playing and the other to browse the walkthrough of the game, I somehow forgot some things regarding the gameplay. I was also on Facebook that time.

*BUZZ*

The buzzing sound of receiving a message on Facebook startled me, I was in the middle of catching a legendary Pokemon, Zapdos. Who can this be? This better be important.

It was one of my ex-girlfriends.

"tol"

"oi tol, musta? nu meron?", I replied.

The next message I received was a link; I opened it right away.

It lead me to a blog she had written on Tumblr. It was relatively new.

"Secret blog ko tol."

I was like "Oh God Why?" Why would she give me access to her secret blog site? I was hesistant, but she told me to read it so I did just that.

"para naman may alam ka tungkol sakin"

We haven't seen each other in a while. The only communication we had was Facebook. But if there's something big I knew about her, it's something that we had in common last year.

We were both left out by our "special someone" at the same time frame last year. We both took it hard deep inside, but knowing her, she didn't let any sign of these hurts show in any way, much like I did.

I was reading her blog, it had a nice layout with music on background. It only had 3 songs, all of which are Utada Hikaru's First Love, only with different versions (1 original, 1 english version, 1 instrumental).

As I was reading I eventually got the sense of why she let me read this and why the background music was almost the same.

Biglaang Kalungkutan was the blog title. And First Love was their theme song, her boyfriend and her.

To make her story short, her boyfriend left her after being together for 3 years. 3 YEARS! I mean the longest serious relationship I had with a girlfriend was 8 months! 3 YEARS! Is this a trend nowadays? I know another couple who'd been in love with each other for the longest time and now they're also apart. What is the world coming into?!

As for every story, there's a good thing and a bad thing it brings about to the reader.

For me, the good thing was the reason I can write this blog post right now. The story was so touching. Until now she still holds on to her feeling s for that guy despite him doing the best he can to throw my Utol under the rug. She fights hard everyday, seeing him with another girl, seeing her own friends ignore her hurts. I admire her toughness, though I have known this trait of hers a long time now. I never knew that someone as tough as my Utol can be this devoted and loving, to the extent of being hurt so badly.

Reading her story inspired me to write a story of my own, based on hers. I would love to turn something this inspiring to me into something that hopefully may be able to touch others as well. Yes, it will be a love story  but it will be one with real heart poured into it, mine and that of my Utol's.

Now the bad part.

I may be encouraged regarding the writing aspect, which is good by the way, but I am very much discouraged on the loving aspect :(

I still can't get over the fact that even long term relationships can still end in a snap. I just had my heart broken last year, a full year of offering my heart to that person. I made it through, I have moved on. But 3 years is still too GRAND for me. I know that if I can get the chance to be with someone for three years, I would really give all that I've got for it to never end. But it seems that all that my Utol got was not enough.

What if what I've got will not be enough as well? I have a special girl right now, of course she doesn't know I like her. Some of my friends are telling me it's about time to take another shot at love and take a chance with her. But right now, after last night's alone time with my two laptops, nearly shedding a few tears, I don't know whether to listen to them or listen to my discouraged heart.

It may save me from hurts if I hold back my heart for my own, that will be a win for me. But I may never have that experience only people who have given their love wholeheartedly to someone special may be able to know. And that will be a BIG loss for me.

Writing: WIN
Love: I am not so sure. And I may never be able to be sure at all, if worse come to worse :(

This Christmas: Final Part

So, it's official..I am going to quit school for an indefinite span of time. I realized that one thing I need right now is passion and commitment to something, and I honestly don't see it in the academic realm.

And so this Christmas, I would like to start something which I can call a journey, to where I know not of, but I believe of it as quite a worthwhile experience for me. And I call it Mission: Re-ignition

So how do I do this mission? I really have no idea at all. I haven't planned it all out just yet, but there are some things that I will be sure to do as this plan goes along.

1) I shall look for things that makes my heart and brain work together. In short, something worthwhile that I would LOVE to do. ( like blogging :] )

2) I shall keep track of any progress whatsoever. Now this one is somewhat tricky, due to the fact that the first part of this mission takes place in the beautiful province of Oriental Mindoro. Unfortunately, our town isn't that "techie" yet, or some sort, and that's why using blogs as my progress tracker would be a bit hard. But I plan to at least have 1 report posted every month, depending on the time and availability constraints.

3) Last but not the least, NEVER LOSE FOCUS ON THE GOAL. The goal of this mission, as it name suggests is to re-ignite my passion towards things. May it be academics, or cooking, or music, it really does not matter. As long as I can find a rhythm or some sort to spice up life once more, then I would take every opportunity life has to offer.

So, this concludes my Christmas random posts. Happy Holidays to everyone. Hope God gives you something extra special (like my mission) this Christmas. This has been Jowee XD, signing out...for now....