Psalm 23 Moment

I'm sorry if my initial reaction was to shrink from it...hahaha...How could I have forgotten how great You are..Thank You that although this task may seem frightening, You have promised to be with me. How funny that I even bothered to think of a few persons to help me out when there's You.
I am excited how You'd reveal Yourself to me again in this my nth Psalm 23 moment. I can sleep tonight secure because of You. Even before I ask for it I know Your answer is on its way so I really thank YOu in advance. I put my trust in YOu alone. No one can protect me better than YOu.
I'm stepping down the driver's seat of my life.. Take the wheel please, it's all YOurs.

Love You.

"these things i'll never say"

you always see me as you wish but never even bother to look into the rest.
you see all the nice things and say all the great things but never really saw what's real.
i sailed beside you through your quest but halfway through i left. you never seem to sense my presence. so my absence will make no difference.

i tried to see the best in you and overlooked the flaws. i forgave your shortcomings and believed you without a doubt. i gave my trust along with my heart but you didn't even lift a finger.
i took my heart back and pocketed my trust. seems you didn't want them so i might as well step back.

so now alone with my thoughts i bare my heart certain that noone would see but me.
when you looked my way, i melted.
when you talked to me, i floated.
when you smiled at me, i died.
you only have to call me once, and i'll be there at once.
my heart was willing but my mind was battling.
but in the end you made your choice and with my heart you took my voice.

so my heart remains with you but these feelings will stay with me
because they will remain as thoughts
for these things i'll never say.

delayed gratification (shsh!)

kabuangan!! i used to want to have everything pronto! not realizing that i am depriving myself of the sweet reward patience offers. take for example my sister. I always find her waiting and just accepting things as they are. I saw it as a weakness and an unnecessary act of martyrdom. But the moment her requests are granted, Man! it's soooooooo amazing that i almost convinced myself to do what she does.

But one thing im very sure about myself is my hard-headedness. I am so stubborn. The type that will make you want to do crazy things like eat your hair or bang your head against the wall. I can say no without batting an eyelash. You can talk til the brick walls cry but i can remain unmoved. That's why HE decided to teach me a lesson BIG time.

It took 2 Major lessons in the school of life and several electives and crash courses to make me realize how wrong i was. Those two major lessons almost destroyed me but I chose not to be destroyed. (I told you I was hard headed right) hmmmm..Am I making any sense? Well anyway going back to my post's title..delayed gratification..I'm finally taking baby steps toward the mastery of this art. I am now experiencing the first fruits of my garden of mistakes that miraculously yielded good tasting results. I appreciate the end of a story that I've painstakingly woven under HIs guidance. I have learned patience..I used to tell myself that "Patience is a virtue..I don't have."

It's amazing how He can make a masterpiece out of the mess I've created for myself. I have yet to learn how to soften my HARD ROCK head..ROCK HARD whatever..but i'm enjoying myself in this school. I don't want to graduate yet.

So dear, have patience with me..I'm still a work in progress.
:)

Those eyes of love

You alone knew me from the start
I show not what I really am but still You know
I say things I don't mean and do things less than what
I want them to be but You understand.

Tears I've cried and the pain I hid in silence
You take them away
The lies I wrapped around my scars, You gently remove
But I clung to my sadness thinking no one understands

My outside appearance, a facade of smiles
You break through my walls of pretence
Your eyes of love
Pierce me from the inside out.

Kimpit (clothespin)

Reading about the current economic crisis the world is experiencing and hearing about it on a daily basis from my boss brought me back to a little more than a decade ago when my family felt a fraction of what the world is experiencing now....Well, not really my whole family,at least my brother.

He was admitted to a local hospital at that time and was under observation for pneumonia...While lying there on the hospital bed, he complained that he's having a terrible stomachache. The doctor immediately ordered an x-ray to be done. When the results came, the doctor was a little alarmed. He said there's something in my brother's stomach that he couldn't identify. He wants to have another x-ray just to be sure in case that foreign object is still present, then he might have to operate. During this declaration from the doctor, my brother was squirmimg uncomfortably. Unknown to my parents and the doctor, he was silently debating with himself. To tell or not to tell. He's almost sure what the foreign object was.

Finally, the fear of being cut open for nothing won over the unbearable shame he was sure would be his once he admits what he suspects the foreign object was. My brother mustered all his courage and begged the doctor not ot cut him open. The doctor assured him that it would be for his own good...He was dumbfounded when my brother pulled out a long object from his underpants and handed it to him. It was a handmade bamboo clothespin. My brother, whose underpants (the ones with good elastic) are with the laundry woman had no choice but to use his old ones. The shortage of underpants drove him to make use of what was at hand. He used the handy bamboo clothespin to fasten his loose underpants. Since I wasn't really there, I can't tell more of what happened after that revelation.

What I can tell you is that my brother sure learned his lesson. One, is to save a panty for a rainy day. Two, honesty is stilll the best policy.

The Pretty Side of Ugly

In posting pictures, most of us choose the ones where we look our best. I wonder why? I beg to differ. So here goes my "unBEST" with my brother who is equally as uncaring as to how he would look..In case you're wondering, I got his permission to post this. Hope you enjoy it.

BOOKS and WORMS

Growing up in a family with conservative ideas and relatively strict parental guidance, I never really got acquainted with the TV until my late teens. In a family where swearing is a taboo, TV is off limits, going out of the house is a nono, afternoon siesta is a must, touching the other person when saying sorry even if you don't want to is mandatory,...you get the picture. Almost everything that a child could enjoy was prohibited or if allowed, only for a limited time. I saw my mom as a killjoy when I was young..My six siblings and I found ways instead to amuse ourselves.

Adventures were endless. But that's another story. It was in this kind of environment in my first decade on earth that I fell in love-with books. I spent hours alone in the old library of our school which nobody visits. No cards were required, no maximum books..in short I had accesss to any book I wanted in that old library. It became my sanctuary. Books ranged from biographies of people like Louisa May Alcott, Pocahontas, Jane Adams to other hard bound books..It didn't matter to me that those books were too heavy and were printed in small font and that the English is a little different. I thought every ten year old reads like I did back then. i was surprised when my classmates called me a liar when I casually told them I read this and that. My adviser even told me that it's not good to tell a lie. BUT I wasn't.

I found my ally at home when my oldest brother announced that his school awarded him with cash for borrowing the most number of books in the entire university. I was not the only bookworm. If I am a booklover my brother is even more so. His school has the biggest library (Henry Luce Library @ Silliman). It made me feel a lot better. At school I sometimes have to pretend I enjoy books for 10-year-olds which I felt have too few pages to be enjoyable. I secretly visit the old library but when my best friend starts looking for me I hurriedly mark the page and play with her. Going to school gave me something to look forward to..finishing another book.