A Birthday Letter

Dear Erick,

Today, my love, is your 32nd birthday. I get to do something special for you and shower you with gifts and kisses and more. And all this fuss? You’re worth it. Sometimes I don’t think you realize just how deeply loved, how celebrated, how completely and absolutely worth it you are.

You are kind. You are giving and thoughtful and sensitive. Even if you’ll scoff at the mere mention of those things, you always go out of your way for those you love. You will give your last $10 to a friend because, as you would probably say, that’s what friends do. You will exhaust yourself to make the people in your life feel important. You do it because your heart is vast and wide and deep. You think it’s simple, to live your life that way, but everyone who knows you thinks it’s anything but.

You are smart in indescribable ways. If you don’t know something, you take the time to figure it out. You are hardworking and motivated and determined, but you also forgive yourself when your knowledge falls short. You’re modest, yet confident in your abilities. You know exactly who you are and what you’re after, and I admire you so much for that.

You are funny, but not quite as funny as you think. Sometimes when I laugh with you, I’m totally laughing at you. But you know why? Your laugh is my favorite sound on earth. I never tell you how lame your jokes can be because I know as soon as you deliver the punchline, you’re going to double over in laughter. And so I hold my breath. I wait.

And then I fall in love with you again.

And again.

Your love – your faithful and unwavering love – makes me a better person.

This year, we took a leap of faith by deciding to marry each other. Things have been generally amazing and beautiful, but I know there will be days you will no longer find my tantrums – as you always say – cute. There will be days we’d annoy the hell out of each other.

But, on our worst day together, I have never, I will never – not for a minute, not for a second – be without a reason to celebrate your presence in my life. I have never known anyone worth celebrating more than you.

As your wife, and as your very best friend, I will always celebrate you.

Love always,
Gela

A Letter to My Great God

Dear God,

I’ve been staring at this blank page for a good fifteen minutes, trying to think of a BIG WORD worthy and appropriate enough to express my utmost gratitude to You. The thing is, You already know what’s exactly inside the core of my heart. You know exactly my thoughts and feelings even before I begin to say it out loud. For this reason alone, I am incredibly in awe of Your greatness.

You have filled my life with countless blessings, but in this very moment, I want to thank You for blessing me and my husband with a beautiful wedding two weeks ago. It is a day that we will look back to with immense joy many years from now. A day that is filled with warm hugs, smiles, laughter, and so much love from our families and loved ones. Every little thing that transpired on that day made my heart unbelievably happy. So much that I want to bottle up every little bit of memory from that beautiful day. Thank You for making our wedding day an ultimate testament that You are truly a God of answered prayers.

About three years ago, getting married seemed to be the most unlikely thing that could happen to me. As for Erick, he was broken and was dealing with complicated problems of his own. But You turned things around for us. You turned our lives around. You showed us that all the struggles and pain that we had to go through in the past is in fact leading us to Your grand plan for us. Thank You for holding my hand ever so tightly. Thank You for doing everything for me to keep my faith in You. It was all worth it.

Our wedding planning journey was not a walk in the park. We were faced with challenges in searching for suppliers, scheduling, decision making, finances, church requirements, differences in opinions/preferences, and many other things. All of those we were able to overcome because You have been with us every step of the way. One important lesson that I’ve learned is to pray, pray, and PRAY for every decision that has to be made for the wedding. We are certain that You have given Your seal of approval to all the suppliers we booked because all of them performed well beyond our expectations. And for this, we are very grateful. You even took care of the small details that made our wedding perfect in every way. I can’t find the words to accurately describe the extent of Your love and generosity.

Thank You for blessing me with so much more than what I could have ever imagined, and so much more than what I could ever deserve. I pray, Lord, that you’d use me and my husband according to Your will and purpose. Use us as instruments in proclaiming Your love and greatness that we may bring back the glory and honor unto You.

Love,
Gela

Grateful Soon-to-be Bride

Erick and I have been blessed with wingless angels since we announced our engagement. We are very, very grateful to be showered with their love, generosity and kindness. For every question such as “What can we do to help you?” and “What else do you need?”. For every expression of excitement and anticipation. For every initiative to make things as easy as possible for us. For every question of concern, asking if I am stressed or about to freak out or if I am already on the verge of having a panic attack (haha). For every advice and word of wisdom on married life. For every question if we’re planning to have a baby immediately after the wedding (Thank you guys for being just as excited as we are!). For the unexpected financial blessings. For every prayer, rosary, and novena offered for us. We are grateful beyond words. Erick and I can feel God’s love radiate through these amazing people.

Truth be told, the only real wedding-related stress that I’ve experienced so far is over my lost confirmation certificate. And I practically didn’t have to do anything about it because my Ninang Debbie took the initiative to do what was needed. We have thirty days left before our big day, and only God knows how these days will transpire. With the help of my ever-reliable Maid of Honor and my Ninang Debbie, Erick and I are doing our best to finish all our pending to-dos. I’m a bit nervous because from counting months, we’re now down to counting weeks. But I am also really very excited. You have no idea. The thought of having the people closest to our hearts celebrate with us makes me wish that November 15 would come sooner. We are lifting up everything to the Lord, at the same time claiming that His will be done for our wedding day as well as for our married life ahead. I am thankful for being blessed with a very flexible personality — that if Plan A doesn’t work, I am open to Plan B, C, D, and so on and so forth. I think this is one of the reasons why I haven’t had any freak-outs thus far :)

I am also thankful for my wonderful soon-to-be husband who is just as hands-on as I am with our wedding preparations. He is involved in every single decision that has to be made. I made sure to get his opinion on everything because, well, it’s his wedding too. Hehehe :)He makes himself available whenever I need to sit down with him and discuss about the nitty-gritty details. If you’ve been reading my posts, you’d know that we have made full use of his awesome artistic and graphic design skills (he designed our save-the-date and will-you-be cards, as well as our invitation).

One thing I am proud of is that this wedding is something we can all our own. You’ll see bits and pieces of our personalities in the details. Everything is a labor of love by me and Erick together with our loving families :)

Our meaningful journey as an engaged couple is about to end, and a more beautiful life awaits us after we exchange vows with God and our loved ones as witnesses. I can’t wait for a lifetime honeymoon with my best friend :)

Much love from the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. ♥

What Makes Me Happy

“What makes you happy?”

From out of nowhere, this question was directed at me today. I was speechless, and it’s not because I couldn’t think of anything, it’s because there’s too many possible answers that I don’t know where to begin. I think I am blessed like that. My fiancé once told me that he’s a lucky guy because it doesn’t take much to make me happy. I’m very easy to please and I find joy in the smallest of things. Like right now, I am enjoying a quiet Friday night by myself — I just had sushi for dinner while watching Grey’s Anatomy season 10 episode 4, and now I’ve got time to blog while my clothes are spinning away in the washing machine. I shall make this number 1: Quiet, productive time by myself. I guess it’s a good thing that I do enjoy my own company. The next ones are in no particular order:

2) Morning prayer time. Favorite part of my day. Nothing beats the calmness in my heart every time I get to start my day with a long talk with God. Sadly though, when I wake up later than expected, my prayer time before I do anything else gets shortened, although the continuation follows when I’m in the train on my way to work. This includes reading verses of the day, gospel, and my favorite devotionals from Joyce Meyer and Rick Warren. These serve as my weapons as I face all sorts of battles everyday.

3) Avocado shake. And not just any avocado shake, it has to be bought from the fruit stall behind St. Joseph church near my office.

4) Introducing new music to friends. It brings me so much joy when a friend ends up liking a song or an artist that I recommended to them.

5) Our GK babies. Our growing family now has eight babies, three of which are recent additions born last September. You can just imagine our Whatsapp group filled with baby pictures and stories of the babies’ latest milestones — my daily source of good vibes :)

6) One-to-ones with Erick. I treasure our one-to-ones so much because it is a time for us to really open up our hearts to each other. This is not the time for us to be all lovey-dovey and gush about our love for each other. In our one-to-ones, we talk about our fears, worries, and insecurities in life. We also talk about our arguments–what went wrong and how we could have handled the situation better. These conversations make our relationship stronger. I would strongly encourage other couples to have these conversations too :)

7) Long weekends. I don’t think this needs further explanation. But this I will admit: I usually indulge in one full day of just lounging at home, reading and sleeping as much as I’d like whenever we have long weekends. I can’t afford to do this on regular weekends because there’s always something scheduled for both days (service, get-togethers, parties, etc).

8) Reading. My favorite pastime. It’s quite sad that I’m way behind my reading. Bought a couple of new books a month ago which I haven’t even opened yet.

9) The thought that I am one month away from officially becoming Mrs. Labiano. CHEESY!!! But in all seriousness, these past few days have been stressful for me in terms of wedding preps, but when I am reminded of that thought, I am assured that IT’S ALL GOING TO BE WORTH IT. This is God’s work. This is His plan. For me to marry the love of my life. I AM SO BLESSED.

10) Handwritten letters. In this day and age dominated by technology and social media, receiving a handwritten note or love letter could be priceless. A simple one-liner post-it note from my special someone makes me crazily happy :)