A Year Older
Last April I turned a year older. That is a belated happy birthday to me! Yey! I was not able to post anything on my blog last month. Sigh. I tried to, but it was never posted. I started and was not able to finish those supposed to be blogpost on the month of April. A little disappointing but manageable.
So, May started. We are now in the beginning of this year's second quarter. Life is hard and never easy, yet we are able to be living and breathing up to this point. I am happy for you and me. We are alive and trying are best to stay grounded and continue thriving.
I am a year older, but I do not feel old. This must be what 33 is. I feel young, maybe one of the reasons is my daily encounter with my students. They are playful, and sometimes naughty or difficult to deal with, but that is what youngsters do. They are who they are, it is part of growing up. They do what they are supposed to do. It is a phase where adults need to be patient and understanding towards them, to build relationship through communication towards mutual respect.
Now, I feel like getting older from all the things I have said. I never thought I would have that kind of realization. I had this thought that I am selfish and uncaring towards others. As I grow older, I have come to realize that I can also be selfless and caring to others in my own ways, and there maybe times that my act of selflessness and caring will be misinterpreted by some. I have to improve on that I think, but I no longer burden myself with unnecessary worry or doubt.
A Year Wiser
Am I a year wiser? I do wonder, yet I feel like I am and I know that I am. There is an improvement that is for sure. With the decisions I made and I am making, I think I am a year wiser. I wise up in terms of my financial and social skills. My spiritual health is improving. My relationship with God has been better, and trusting Him that it will get even more better as I grow wiser. I have come to love teaching and learning with my students. It has been a long journey, twelve (12) years in teaching, thirty three (33) years of sojourning in this life. All I can say is thank You, Lord, in good times and bad times. I still have a long way to go.
I do not have too much, but I have enough. God is so gracious in providing my needs, my family's, and the people close to me.
I do not feel good all the time, but I know that my future is in His hands. He takes care of me.
I maybe doubting sometimes, but He is my assurance. Life can get hard as it is, yet His grace and provisions are here to stay.
I am expectant and hopeful for the plans He has for my life. I pray to serve my purpose in this life according to His will and I know it is not easy sometimes, and again life can be difficult as it already is.
Life still has its beauty, even though there are more down times, rather than high time.
Life can be enjoyed, despite the trials and tribulations.
Life is not a race, so do not be in a hurry.
A life with Him is a life of joy, peace, love, trials, and tribulations! It is a not a strom free life, but a storm proof life. Storm proof at 33!
P.S. For those who are curious, yes, I am 200% girl, female, from the lineage of Eve, and other names or labels you can think of. I am a queen and a princess.
Does love
really? Does love choose? Does love stay?
What if
people leave, does it mean there is no more love?
What if people stay, does it mean there is still love?
Well, how
can I know if there is love in the first place? How do I know what I have is
love? How do I know what I feel is love? Is there a structured step-by-step process
to know if love exist? Is there any clue that will lead to the right and
perfect answers to all these queries inside my head?
Questions after questions only lead to more questions.
Sometimes love can be the most confusing abstract idea we can ever deal with, but there are also times when love, and its power, is the only thing that can provide clarity.
ChooseLiving is making choices. We are constantly choosing and choosing, either we are doing it consciously or not. Life is a choice. Cliché as it may sound, it is a fact. Making choices is one of the building blocks of one’s human life. We experience domino effect every time we choose. Consequences are the results of our choices. Good choices may lead to good consequences and bad choices may lead to bad consequences.
Logically speaking, having the right wisdom is an advantage in making good choices. We made wrong choices and suffered bad consequences. I made ones and I welcomed regret along with the pain attached to it. We made right choices and enjoyed good consequences. I made good ones I guess and I was at ease with joy or sometimes I doubted if I deserve the joy from those good consequences.
Is there any love among the choices we have made in our lives so far? Are we motivated by love every single time we make a choice?
Know love and choose love, always, and I am aware how hard to choose it always.
StayWe have no choice over consequences, but we have control over our choices. Consequences are about to befall upon us even if we try to avoid them or put a barricade around us. They are the results of our choices. Whether we prefer to run away or face the consequence, the end game is that it will only run after us. It will never stop chasing after us. So face and deal with it. Stay, never leave. Once we know the true meaning of love, stay, and stay in love.
Stay. Stay, and accept the consequences of our own choices. Stay, and learn from the consequences of our own choices. Stay, and believe that the wrong choices we made are not that hopeless.
There is hope, so stay. Please stay. Do not leave.
Are we to stay or leave?
You should stay. We should stay. Never leave. Please.
Everything is unclear if we do not have the knowledge of the certainties. Life itself is full of ambiguity, full of questions. No one can be certain of the future if we put our belief into something that is as temporal as this world that we live in. We make choices every day, and sometimes I think it makes more sense to choose to leave this world, rather than to stay. Sometimes, there is that strong desire within us that engulfs our whole being to no longer want to stay, to choose to leave and never to stay.
Sounds like running someone wants to badly run away. Do we? Do I? Do I badly want to run away? To choose leaving, rather than staying. But I should stay, we should stay, and never forget that we are chosen. He stays with us in love. Love chooses, love stays. He chooses and He definitely stays.
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
Ephesians 1:4 ESV
Congratulations Lacey Williams! Thank you for joining the giveaway. I will send a message to your email about how to claim your prize, please look forward to it. Thank you again.
I have nothing concrete to share on this blog as of this moment, I am going
with the flow of my thoughts right now, though, I have a concrete title for
this blogpost and that is Love Listens, Love Obeys. I keep on talking about love and love on this season of love in the month
of February. Love Scars, Love Heals is my first entry and Love Hurts, Love Waits is the second one.
I ask myself: Do I have the slightest authority or even the right to write a post about something under the context of Love Listens, Love Obeys?
I do listen. I do obey. But to what extent? Am I doing enough for love? Love in all its forms: Agape, Storge, Philia, and (never mind) Eros.
Love listens
Geb.tv
explains these four (4) types of love found in the Bible as:
- Eros (never mind) is romantic love.
- Storge is love between family members.
- Philia is brotherly or sisterly love, or love in friendship.
- Agape is the unconditional love or the love that God has for us.
- First, Eros is not the only kind of love to be pursued in this world. It is never the end goal of life’s purpose. Romantic love is good but it should never pressure anyone to be in a romantic relationship that supposed to lead the involved persons into marriage.
- Second, Storge and Philia are related and shared the same context to the second commandment: to love your neighbor as yourself, and it is succeeded by the first and greatest commandment: to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
- Lastly, God’s love for us or Agape serves as a reminder of the greatest blessing He has given to mankind and that is grace, the gift of Salvation through Jesus Christ.
Love obeys
Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
It is easy to describe love, but the hard part is manifesting the fruit of
love, the byproduct of love. Saying I love you Lord is as easy as A-B-C or
1-2-3. Not listening and obeying sometimes or most of the times makes me
feel like I am not enough to love or be loved at all.
I wonder if I am listening and obeying enough to prove my love. Am I enough or am I putting too much pressure on myself and doubting my worth? I am caught up with the idea of not being and not doing enough for love: my love for God, for my family, my friends, and my work.
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
To love is to listen and to obey. Love is not deaf, it listens. Love is not
passive, it obeys.
A growing restlessness pesters me these past few days, if I may say, since
February, the love month on planet Earth. The atmosphere around me screams
love month. During our In-Service Training at school, one of the speakers never missed
integrating the idea of his singleness in some parts of his talk, which hit
a mark on my part. I am reminded of my own singleness, until now I have
never been in a relationship with an earthling, which now is not an issue in
my life. I have learned to understand the joy in singleness. I have learned
to accept the possibility of growing old alone. This may sound miserable to
others and they are never wrong. I respect their opinion because once or
many times in my life I thought I would be miserable growing old, alone,
with no one to share.
It must have been nice to experience going on a date, receiving fresh
flowers, watching movies, walking in a park, feeling the warmth of a hug,
having that deep connection with another earthling, and a whole bunch of
things to do together on an ordinary or extraordinary day. But I know, we
know, that relationships are not a bed of roses. Instead, a relationship is
a roller coaster ride full of ups and downs, a maze that leads to confusion
and being lost. It has good and bad sides. There is pain and joy.
Love hurts. Sometimes it hurts so bad I do not even want to think about it.
I am turning two threes this year and yet the existence of unrequited love
still permeates my vocabulary. How easy it would be if the earthling I like
likes me back and actually pursue me. Voila! Happiness overload, in my dreams. Not in a million years it will happen. It did not happen and
it will never. Not in this lifetime. Am I being hopeless by saying that?
Yes, or maybe no. Time like this love stings a little bit, knowing that I am
someone who is never pursued. Recently, there were times I was asked when I
would have a boyfriend or get married, jokingly I got back at them by saying
in the next lifetime.
The future is still a mystery and I am glad to enjoy the gift of the
present. I may be longing sometimes for a companion, an Adam in my life, but
the longing shall soon pass every time. It goes by. The hurt goes by. God
never let it stay. He listens to my afflictions, to my cries. He knows my
needs. His timing is perfect. Most of all, He gives the best for me. It may
take a lifetime or someone may never come along the way, and I am sure it
may be hard to understand His plans with my feeble human mind, but He is the
only one to trust. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence
in man (Psalm 118:8). If He wills him, he is on the way. Love
waits, when the time is right, the Lord will make it happen
(Isaiah 60:22).
Love hurts. Love waits. Every 'no' is God's redirection towards His best for me.
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