No Other Name

Hello friends! I just want to share with you this song from Hillsong’s new album which was released just recently. Been playing this on repeat ever since I came to know this song. It has become my default morning worship song for about a week now, and I mean every single word in my heart of hearts. I love how it speaks of God’s sheer beauty and splendor, I am left in awe over and over again.

His face, shines brighter than the sun 

His grace, as boundless as his love

He reigns, with healing in his wings

The King above all kings

The greatest one of all

Truly, God’s power and greatness is incomparable. I love how the song gives us a clear picture of its extent. I will never get tired of singing praise for Him who is the source of everything that I have. It is my way of celebrating His constant presence in my life. Sometimes I feel that the words of praise in my prayers are inadequate because His love is just too overwhelming to put into words. It’s just really the way it is, and we have no choice but to bask in it. What a wonderful blessing and privilege it is to be recipients of God’s unearned, unmerited, and undeserved grace. And for that, I am infinitely grateful. :)

#100happydays

Last January, I stumbled upon a post on Facebook that grabbed my attention.

Can I truly be happy for 100 days in a row? With the motivation to find an answer to that question, I decided to sign up for the 100 Happy Days Challenge. 

I half-jokingly said that I might end up posting one hundred photos of my husband for this challenge because, well, he is obviously my major happy-maker. Haha :D But because God is so good and His love for me is immeasurable, I find myself with so much gratitude for so many things that make me happy every single day.

Truth be told, I had some inhibitions before I decided to go for the challenge. I didn’t want people to see my posts as mayabang, or something to that effect. Also, I didn’t want to be that annoying girl who exposes all the cheese and mush going on in her life — which might be over-sharing or TMI  for some. In the end, I decided that I will be doing this for no one else but myself. I liked the idea of documenting God’s goodness in my life through the #100happydays challenge. Besides, you can never go wrong when you’re spreading good vibes, right? You’ll never know, you might inspire others to do it too. :)

It has been an amazing 100 days of happiness — in simple and profound ways. Some days, happiness made its presence felt from start to end. Some days, happiness was elusive, that I needed to make an effort to find it. Yes, there were days when I worried that I won’t have an entry for my #100happydays challenge. So sue me for being shallow, haha. :P

Indeed, there is always, ALWAYS something to smile about and be thankful for, no matter how small or trivial it may seem. It may come in the form of an uplifting quote you stumbled upon the Internet, or a cute baby who smiled at you on the train, or a bar of chocolate. I guess it’s all about the mindset. It’s like, if I’m having yet another stressful day in the office, I try to counter the negativity by telling myself “That’s okay, I’ll do a FRIENDS marathon at home after all this crap!” It diverts my mind into something worth looking forward to, and puts me in a better mood. Okay, I’ll be honest here and say that this does not work all the time. There are days when it takes much more than a FRIENDS marathon to make me feel better, but I guess the key thing here is having the ability to look at the brighter side and still have a grateful heart despite life’s difficulties.

My #100happydays journey was mostly made of grand and small (but meaningful) gestures from my husband, newlywed adventures, messages of assurance from God, kitchen experiments, little victories in life, and quality time with people who matter to me. I am so glad I took this challenge. It helped me focus on the blessings that God has so generously bestowed upon me, especially on my low days. It made me fall in love with my life even more, and inspired me to treasure everything that I have with utmost care. Best of all, it also served as a testimony of God’s greatness and faithfulness in my life.

So to answer my question, yes, it is possible to be happy 100 days in a row. Beyond that, even. It may take a whole lot of ‘practice’ to adapt the right kind of mindset into a habit, but in my experience, it proved to be the secret to living a happy life. :)

Little Rays of Sunshine

• My mother is finally on Viber! She sent me a photo of a sunflower she drew on her Samsung phone just using her fingers. Haha. Miss her. I told her to install the 2048 game on her phone. Pero baka sisiw na yun sa kanya coz she’s so good in Sudoku.

• “Your report was eloquently written. Your grammar is flawless.” comment from our Head of Academic Quality :) :)

• ‘The One Year Love Language Minute Devotional’ by Gary Chapman. Learning so much from this book. Highly recommended to all married couples. 

• Weekend coming up! Yahoooo!

• ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ soundtrack on repeat. I’m in love with this playlist!

• Another very close friend moving to Sengkang soon. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again — Sengkang is the coolest neighborhood in Singapore. Hahaha :D

• Discovering new great blogs to read

• My daily dose of fresh fruit juice

• Positivity and possibilities. Planning for our next big step. This gets me sooo excited and inspired and motivated to work harder!

• Thanks to our finance-savvy friends, my husband and I are learning together about investments that we can consider.

• The attitude of gratitude <3

• Early morning banter while prepping for work. How lucky am I to get to experience this everyday, with the wittiest husband in the world to boot!

• Getting excited for our Manila trip next month :)

Happy weekend, friends and lovers!!!! :)

Spontaneous Reassurance

Hello! Sneaking in a quick post before I go to bed because what happened today is something that I must put into writing; something I want to remember until I’m old and gray.

I was having a lovely morning — had home-cooked brunch, then watched a couple of 2 Broke Girls episodes with the husband. I decided to make my Saturday a productive one by doing some office work. Wrong decision. It was all good, until I read an email that put me into such a bad mood. Now, this is not my ‘normal’ bad mood wherein I just keep quiet while waiting for the negative air to disappear. I was pounding on my keyboard as I crafted my response. Our housemates would have assumed that E and I were having a fight, judging my loud, angry voice as I told him about the mood-ruining email.

In an attempt to calm me down, my wonderful husband rubbed my back. In normal circumstances, his back rubs work magically in making my stress go away. Today, however, it didn’t. I can feel that he’s uneasy, and I understand how it can be frustrating for him when he can’t do anything to make me feel better in that moment. Yes, he’s the kind of guy whose goal is to make his wife happy at every chance he gets. He must have taken the mantra “Happy wife, happy life” a bit too seriously :D

At one point, he just kept quiet while I continued typing away on my laptop. Then, an all too familiar song started playing in the background. It’s OUR song. The song he played in his guitar when he proposed to me. When I turned my back, I saw him looking at me, smiling oh so adorably. “Do you recognize the song?”, he asked. OF COURSE. How can I not? Less than a minute into the song, my eyes were welling up with tears. Memories of the day he asked me to marry him came flashing in my mind. It’s impossible to stay angry when I was brought back to that day in my life where I have experienced joy in its purest form.

He sat beside me and gave me the most loving embrace. “I hope this will make you feel better. Smile ka na.” My heart melted. The outrage I was feeling earlier was instantly replaced with love, joy, and gratefulness. Oh, my sweet loving husband.

As much as we love and appreciate life-changing milestones, I guess the little things like this one is what really makes for a strong, solid foundation. The way he handled me at my ‘worst’ today says a lot about how he would manage when we are faced with more serious circumstances in our marriage. I am very, VERY grateful for this reassurance.

Okay, that’s it for today’s dose of cheese. Thank you for bearing with me. Haha, I should have warned you guys earlier on. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!! :)

Brighter Side

Here’s the thing: despite my hundred and one reasons to hate this place — the system (both in the IT and management sense), some people who refuse to do their jobs properly, lack of motivation and direction, super disorganized processes, inefficiency in general, lack of reward and recognition, and so on and so forth — I am thankful that I am constantly learning here. Everyday I am reminded of Jesus’ teaching that I should love my neighbor, no matter how difficult and challenging. That I can only do so much, and I need to let go of things that are beyond my control. Everyday I feel that my patience has reached its maximum, but everyday I prove myself wrong, because apparently, there is still room for just a little bit more patience in my heart. I (would like to think that) I am growing to be more independent and responsible for my own actions. I discovered that I can take one for the team without expecting anything in return. I never saw myself as a strong person, now I think I am slowly turning into one. A few more months, maybe I’ll be able to master the art of compartmentalizing my life.

This is me trying to look at the brighter side. Also keeping in mind the power of positive thinking and having a grateful heart no matter what :) But I think I still need to work on my Plan B very soon.

Love and Misadventure

Poetry is not for everyone. I myself wouldn’t have normally read a book of poems unless it’s recommended to me by someone who I look up to when it comes to reading choices. But this book, I think, is worth reading.

There’s been a lot of hype on this book, and it’s a good thing that it was able to live up to it. Like I said, I’m not much of a poem person), but every page turn got me “aww”-ing over words I wish I could have written myself. Lang Leav’s choice of words are mostly simple, yet it has a way to strike the right chords within you. It’s quite refreshing to read poems that doesn’t require much analyzing. Some of the poems speak of pain and longing, and it will break your hearts, but somehow it leaves you with so much hope. My take-away from this book is that in all things, more so in love, HOPE IS EVERYTHING.

Lenten Realizations

I decided to abstain from social media for three days, from Maundy Thursday until Black Saturday. I have been thinking for so long what to give up for Lent, and the lightbulb moment happened last Wednesday. For someone like me who checks Twitter, Facebook and Instagram multiple times in a day (to say the least), I could say that abstaining from these three sites feels like sacrifice. This is actually not the first time I thought of abstaining on social media for Lent. I’ve thought of this in the previous years, but sadly, I was not strong enough to give up something that is a huge part of my day-to-day living. What a shame, I know. I always had alibis, thinking that Twitter is my go-to site for current events, and I use Facebook as a communication tool. I guess what really made me finally go for it is my desire to receive and clearly understand God’s special message for me. Social media has lots of advantages, but sometimes it can be a source of noise that can cloud one's mind.

Today is Day 2 of being free from social media. The more I feel ‘disconnected’ with the rest of the world, the more I feel a closer, tighter connection with God. Sometimes, all we need is silence. Sharing with you some of my realizations these past two days:

1. God is doing everything to reach out to us. I admit there are times my prayer time is sacrificed due to my very busy schedule. I get home from work drained and exhausted from the day’s activities, that I find it a struggle to spare at least fifteen minutes of quality time with the Lord. God knows that people nowadays are too attached to smartphones. I have this Bible app on my phone which I use to read daily verses and devotionals. It even has several Bible plans that you can choose from, depending on the duration you’ll be comfortable with. Recently I discovered that the app actually has a reminder option. You set a time, and a notification will pop up on your phone/tablet. It is amazing how God worked through the app developers. He equipped them with wisdom and skills to turn the app into an instrument that would bridge the gap between us and God. He made this app somehow similar to a social networking app to make it more ‘appealing’ to us. This goes to show how much God wants to connect with us and how badly He wants to reveal Himself to us through His word.

2. God wants us to rely on His grace. I can distinctly remember a number of moments in my life wherein I’m stuck in (what seems to be) a dead end, feeling helpless and hopeless, debating with myself on what I should have done differently. God does not want us to be in a situation like that. Sometimes, all that is left to do is to acknowledge the fact that I cannot do things on my own and that I need God’s grace and guidance in every aspect of my life. Note of caution, though — this does not mean that we can be complacent. You know the saying ‘Do your best and God will do the rest’? This is basically the logic behind it. I think whenever I say “Lord, Ikaw na po ang bahala.“, it’s a bold statement of my dependence on Him. That He will not fail me. Looking back, He never did. Relying on God’s grace comes hand in hand with persistent prayer. It works for me every single time.

3. God thinks we’re worth it. There is no exception. It doesn’t matter how broken, sinful, undeserving, and messed up you think you are. God thinks you are worth it, and quite honestly, nothing can ever change that. If you think you are the most stubborn person in the world, well, think again. God is probably more stubborn than you in the sense that no matter how many times you push Him away, He will still love you. Unconditionally. Whether you like it or not. Every single day I wake up in the morning, I find myself thanking God for never giving up on me. I’d like to think that my relationship with Him now is more stable than ever, but it took time before I could reach to this point. And it’s all because the more lost I became, the tighter He held my hands.

And so, this Holy Week, I would like to thank the Lord for sending the most selfless person who has walked on earth. Thank You for giving us Your most precious son, Jesus Christ, who showed us what it really means to love. Thank You for remaining steadfast in Your love for us, despite and in spite of everything.