The Big Adventures and Lessons of My 2013

There were a lot of things that happened in 2013 but if I have to admit one thing, it’s that I feel that lately, my growth spiritually and emotionally has reached a lag, or so it seems.

I cannot exactly pinpoint it, but when the clock struck to 12:01 this morning which signaled the start of 2014, I silently uttered a prayer to God that despite the feeling of emptiness which I still need to process and understand, I thanked Him for it may be His work of emptying me like a cup so that He can fill me with new dreams, passions, ideals, beliefs, with a bonus of renewed faith, strength, and love.

And so, before I list down the things that I learned for this year as I have been doing for three years now, here are the highlights of my 2013:

Spent my 25th birthday in a students’ camp, without really having anybody know that it was my birthday

Celebrated Valentine’s day as single zombies

Helped prepare a 30-minute musical play

Got sun-kissed at home during the summer vacation

Joined a three-day Thai culture seminar

Visited one of the largest 3D museums in Southeast Asia

Blessed to have listened to a living inspiration

Had a Thailand-Laos-Vietnam road trip

Spent all-souls’ day in a students’ camp and was able to caress a snake and had a friendly, no-barrier communion with giraffes and zebras in the middle of a forest, at night ;)

Helped in the fund-raising for the Yolanda victims

Had the best of both ends of Thailand for Christmas---winter in the north, and summer in the south

However, 2013 wasn’t just all about road trips and camps and academic activities.

It was a year when I really understood what it feels like when your family and your friends who really understand you seem so distant that you have no one but yourself and the promise that He is with you. See? I am already 25 years old and I still have the same issues as that of a 16 year old. Life’s issues and challenges do not really change, you just become wiser.

It was a year when I fully understood that inner peace means letting Him take charge of the future when your father is in the ICU and there is a big chance that he would kick the bucket and all you can do is wait and have the faith that whatever happens, He is God and He is in control.

It was a year when I was poked by God to make me realize that my ego and vanity have blown out of proportions. I experienced what it felt like to be figuratively kicked in the stomach and being humbled to the point that I renewed my promise to reinvest in my self-esteem which doesn’t need the adulation and assurances of others. I experienced what it feels like to have my bubble of pride burst in front of me into innumerable pieces that I had to curl and literally lull myself just so I can sleep.

It was a year when my heart broke and hasn’t actually even mended yet, by witnessing my country bearing the wrath of a super typhoon. I now know how it is to be stripped naked in front of the whole world to see. I now know the excruciating pain of having nothing left as a Filipino citizen but pride and dignity. And I now know how it is to really feel such loss and heartbreak to the point of looking into the heavens and ask God, “Have you forgotten us?”. I am not a very vocal and showy person but this tragedy broke my heart to the point of wailing incomprehensibly to my mother over a long distance call, and that cry wasn’t for me nor for my family but for my country.

So, despite the apparent growth lag which I feel, there is so much to learn in life if you just allow it to teach you. In 2013, I learned:

1. to never mistake having your ego and vanity hurt as being hurt because of love.

2. to never assume the emotions and thoughts of other people. You have really no idea about the course of their feelings and thoughts.

3. to never really depend on other people because each of us has our own dragon to slay.

4. to stay still and know that He is God.

5. to look at my flaws and mistakes as a person squarely and realize that I am still an amazing creation despite all of these.

6. to identify who are the people who really matter and to never really care to please everyone.

7. to stay away from people who have too much drama in life.

8. to stay simple but to always give some time for my eccentric passions and delights.

9. to keep my pride as a Filipino intact by doing my share to extend help even though the whole world is looking down in our incapacity as a nation amidst a tragedy.

10. to spend less and travel more.

11. that I need to start reading again.

and,

10. to never really give up on love even though the odds are telling me that I am a difficult person to pursue because I know that I am beautifully and wonderfully made and my heart is just exactly in the right place.

I have long ago stopped making new year’s resolutions, nor do I make wishes anymore. I am not even superstitious. New year for me, is always a time to say “thank you” for the daily sufficient grace provided by the Almighty.

Life is definitely not perfect---dreams become so elusive, people whom we wholeheartedly trust fail us, the people whom we love couldn’t always be with us---but the good thing is that, God gives us BIG gifts to sustain us and to make us realize that life may in fact be not perfect, but it is still a great blessing.

My two big gifts, my constants, which I would always be awed and be humbled about are:

1. My FAMILY, which would always be my north in my life’s compass. It’s amazing how the same blood runs in our veins but we are all as different as the multi-colored m&m candies which are packed together by chance. They are the reason why I am not afraid to leave home, nor am I scared to take chances and fail because I know that I would always have a place and people to go back to.

2. My GYPSIES, old friends turned to family. They are some of the best that I know of---the perfect mixture of crazy and smart and unique and down to earth people. We may all have taken our different paths, chase our own dreams, establish our own lives, but we would always be connected by our sixteen year old dreams and lives which fate had amazingly converged. In all the hustle and bustle of growing up, they are always my emergency sanity button. Or, insanity haven, if I may correct myself.

In this new year, I don’t have any wish at all but I will surely DREAM some more, PLAN some more, WORK some more, and LOVE some more with no fear of failing because I have an amazing God who would always back me up.

In 2014, I will try hard to LET GO, and LET GOD.

Thank you 2013.

2014, bring it on!

Nick Vujicic in Chiang Mai!

We were greatly blessed to have been given the chance to meet Nick Vujicic in Chiang Mai. I mean, what are the chances of meeting and hearing the story of a living inspiration? I remember seeing him first in YouTube about 5 years ago and his story has a way of getting into you and never leaving you at all.

There were about 10,000 people who were there and sure, Nick was just like a dot from where we were seated, but his story and his positive presence had altogether created this large amount of empowering energy which encompassed the large number of crowd.

You cannot leave after hearing Nick’s story without feeling that great desire in you to live your life with a purpose as well. I think this is how God works through His people---He speaks to us not always exactly in supernatural and magnanimous ways, but through each other.

I went home that night, physically dead tired, but with a happy and full heart knowing that my God loves me, broken pieces and all.

My Christmas THANK YOU List for 2011

Dear Jesus,.

Let me take this time not to ask or wish anything from You but to say THANK YOU for the countless blessings that You have showered and You keep on showering upon us.

Yes, I still have that long list of wishes and dreams that are carefully kept... just so in case. But the opportunities and the experiences that you carefully chose to be on the road that I am traipsing on have taught me that "dreams and wishes mean work". So, I am setting aside that list and I am making a different one instead, one that brings all Your glory back to You, by reminding You of how generous and loving You are.

In a world that is too much in need of Your grace, I won't mind if the stockings will be left empty or there will be no gifts to unfold on Christmas morning because I know that with Your continued guidance, we can always get by. :)


CHRISTMAS 2011 WISH THANK YOU LIST

1. THANK YOU for my family
     -Yes, we are not the perfect family, the ones which are considered as the "Hallmark" types. In fact, ours is a family of loud, eccentric, moody, and volatile people who are most of the time acting on spur-of-the-moment emotions. But what I can always count on is that I have these people who knows me inside out but loves me anyway. So, I'm trying my best to love them back, BIG TIME.

2. THANK YOU for my GYPSIES
    -Forgive the too possessive "my" but I couldn't find of a more apt word to use to suggest of my total attachment with these crazy but adorable set of people. These are the people who remind me that sometimes, family is not a set of people you are born into. Because of them, I have a big and rowdy extended family.

3. THANK YOU for a set of girl friends
     -.....who understands my fears and doubts about nothing else in particular. Who knows that I haven't had a lot of "firsts" yet but who doesn't stare at me as if I'm a mutant. Because of them, growing up and growing old doesn't seem to be a scary idea.

4. THANK YOU for giving me the strength and willpower to stick to my beliefs and morale whenever I am asked to make a choice
   
5. THANK YOU for the opportunity to heal and eventually move on

6. THANK YOU for the chances to make a difference

7. THANK YOU for the fortitude to bear the pain of leaving home (I'm 23 years old but there are moments when I curl up and cry out for my mother)

8. THANK YOU for the people who bear with my absent-mindedness and shortcomings

9. THANK YOU for allowing me to grow at my own pace

10. THANK YOU for making me patient enough to wait

But above all Jesus, THANK YOU for allowing me to love and be loved in return.

THANK YOU JESUS, FOR LIFE. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! :)

----Au :)

Let This Be My November Prayer :)

Dear Father God,

The day I found out that Inday Ana peacefully embraced the rest that you have been offering for quite some time, you were the subject of my denials and questioning, of my countless "why's" and my doubts. You've seen how the whole family was crushed down, how I was personally trying to grasp for reasons not to question your existence. That was five years ago. And at that one turning point in my life, when I fully realized how fragile life is and that it can be taken away anytime at the moment you least expect it, you were a silent receiver of all my pain and you acted as my quiet comforter. You let my troubled dreams come to a still, you lulled me into sleep when I felt that my heart couldn't bear the pain no longer, you offered me some more tears to spill out just to ease my pain when I felt that my ducts have gone dry from too much crying. You patiently waited for my questions to stop resurfacing, for my doubts to be replaced by faith, for my disbelief to be changed by hope, and for my pain to be powerfully displaced by abounding love.

And true enough, gradually, the grace of acceptance and letting go was bestowed on me------that it was actually bestowed on me long before but that fact was shadowed by my raw pain. And though the years will never erase nor diminish the pain, that it never can, but what it offered instead was the solace of a dull echo of Inday Ana's absence in our hearts which is not altogether a bad feeling since it offers us the memories of her life and a constant reminder that she was here, and will always be a part of our lives.

Then just several months ago, you again called a dear family member, Inday Nancy, a trustful confidante and a loving tita/friend. And just when I thought that I was prepared for the blow, I was wrong again. I think death has that certain kind of ability to startle you with a unique kind of pain----that you actually never can be ready. no matter how many times you've seen people pass away. But I was comforted with the idea that she is at peace now by leaving her tired and battered body----that she can never again worry of her heart to beat properly or for her lungs to breathe for her, that she will no longer drag her poor blood-clotted feet and pretend that she's okay when she's wincing in pain.

Lord, despite the pain, I am actually thanking you for ironically, during those moments when I felt that you didn't exist, those were the exact moments when I felt your presence quietly comforting me. And in a way, you let me learn some of life's greatest lessons: 1. That love can encompass everything, even death. and 2. Nothing lasts forever, only your LOVING MERCY.

Your healing daughter,
Au

Inday Nancy, Inday Ana, Nene Imas, Mama Ikit, Lola Meling, Lolo Cente, Lola Oping, Lolo Aurelio, baby July, my unborn baby sister-------you are all fondly remembered. Please pray for us as we are constantly parying for you.

How's Your Tea Party, 'day?

Lord, are you also there in the tea party?

Will you please, just whisper to Inday Ana that she's being remembered here today?

...that she'll always be.

Thank you.

Enjoy the celebration!

Please Take Away This Spell

Dear Papa God,

I'm missing home so much that I want to curl up and brawl like a 7-year old kid.

Can you please cuddle me in your presence (since my nanay is so far away to do this, and I couldn't give a bear hug to my younger brother, and my friends are too far away to lighten up the mood or to cry with me if they must and end up laughing again, and I couldn't just talk my sister into taking a walk in the crowded avenues downtown to walk off the negative vibes) 'til I'm strong enough to manage to put a brave face again?

P.S.
And can you please, please, whisper so quietly to those people whom I love and who love me back---my family and old friends----not to miss me too much?


Your homesick child,

Au