X-Archives – Page 8 – Chasing Dreams

Weekends like this

January 26, 2014May 13, 2019 RhizaLeave a comment

It’s that moment when you start to wonder, where has the weekend gone? I know where mine went. It went to a place where time is irrelevant, me-time plans are given up to expend yourself for others, and hours fly by because you just never run out of things to do!

When I was single, weekends were for shopping, watching movies, meeting up with friends, going out of town, sleeping over a girl friend’s house, and staying up late. When I got married, D & I would watch last full shows or dine out on Friday nights, oversleep on Saturday mornings, and do whatever we feel like doing the rest of the day.

Oh how much has changed since then.

This particular weekend, the days seemed to have blended into each other, leaving me with a blurry recollection of things that made up my weekend—grocery shopping, cooking for and hosting a birthday lunch party for my brother, cleaning up the after-party mess, cleaning up the house, cleaning up the bedroom, endless Despicable Me marathons, nap times, playing forts, bed time stories, and sneaking in a “grown up” movie while the babies were asleep (we finally got to watch The Hunger Games: Catching Fire!) in lieu of a date night.

Seriously, I can’t even remember having opened my laptop the whole weekend. Except last night when everyone had gone to sleep, and I had to whip up a quick article for work. Even the last hour of my day was not for myself.

Today, the girls and I missed our Sunday worship. There’s some measles virus going around and my husband and I thought it best to put the twins on a temporary isolation. Just the same, in the quietness of our little home this morning, God’s message to me was to keep a spirit of gentleness, especially in times when I feel worn out and on the verge of losing it. I’ll never stop being amazed at how God knows exactly what I need to hear when I need to hear it.

I don’t know what my point is for this post, really. I just know that this weekend has left me feeling tired and wishing for an extended day of rest, and yet, I wouldn’t say that my weekend was wasted either.

How do you explain this feeling, anyway? I feel like there isn’t a word to describe this. I never felt this before I became a Mom. It’s like, you know you’ve set aside things that make you happy, in exchange for things that are more important and more meaningful, and while a part of you is frustrated over not being able do what you want to do, you know that your choice made you, surprisingly, happier. Anyone know what I’m saying?

How about you? How’s your weekend like?

Where my trust is without borders

January 17, 2014June 28, 2019 RhizaLeave a comment

We’re on Day 15 of our 21 Day Prayer and Fasting, and at this point I’m feeling very weak and tempted to devour the chocolates in the ref already! Chocolates and sweets are my greatest weakness, so are my worries and fears, so I decided to give those up along with food, taking only juices and soup, in order to hear God’s voice clearer during these 21 days.

And you know what? It feels good to be vulnerable. To be stripped off these things that give me comfort (yes, worrying comforts me the same way chocolates do) and allow God to speak to me and mold me during this time of inconvenience.

The lyrics of this song captures the prayer of my heart this 2014. Every now and then this song would play in my mind, and I’m immediately brought to a place of rest and profound assurance.

Oceans by Hillsong. Listen. You’ll love it, promise.

To be truly honest, I’m not sure if I ever stopped being a coward. I may have taken bigger leaps and bolder steps these past couple of years, but sometimes it feels like the coward in me is still lurking somewhere inside my chest ready to jump out every time I’m on a crossroad.

And yet, here I am, committing myself to a life of passion this year, something I couldn’t possibly live up to unless I let go of my fears and stop being a coward.

God is teaching me to let Him be God

You see, we thought we got pregnant at the start of this year. My period was 3 days delayed, and 3 days may sound a little too paranoid for you, but not to us. I never miss my period. Never. It always comes on the dot, and the last time I missed it, we found out the very next day that I was pregnant.

That’s not to say that we don’t want another baby (babies!), we actually do. It’s just that, we don’t feel like we’re ready at the moment. We worry about the financial, physical, and emotional preparations we have to go through, to think we haven’t fully recovered yet from birthing twins. We decided to wait maybe another year before having baby #3.

I know that may be too much info to divulge, but I find the need to share an important lesson that took me about 72 hours of delayed menstruation to learn. I needed to learn to let Him be God. To allow Him to hold my timetable, and to leave it to Him to decide whether I’m ready for another pregnancy or not. My readiness is not my call but His; my job is to simply trust that He knows what He’s doing and His timing is perfect.

Long story short, I got my period the following day. My husband and I sighed in relief not because I wasn’t pregnant, nope, but because I knew that I got the lesson I needed to learn.

15 Days down, 6 More to Go

We’re sprinting towards the finish line of our 21 Day Prayer and Fasting. A part of me does not want this to end yet, but the other half of me is excited to celebrate milestones and answered prayers, and to receive clarity on important decisions we have to make as a family this year. God is going to make things happen in my life this 2014, and I’m confident that He will make me stronger and wiser in the process.

30th Year With You

December 31, 2013December 31, 2013 RhizaLeave a comment

Allow me to post this before the month (and the year!) ends.

Once upon a time, I was not very fond of Decembers. For me, Christmas season was the saddest of all holidays; like, there’s something melancholy about it that I couldn’t quite point my finger on. But just like the many things that changed in my life, the month of December has become merrier and brighter through the recent years.

Evidently, much of this can be attributed to the addition of this guy in my life, whose birthday happens to fall right smack in the middle of the Christmas season.

And then these two girls were born, and suddenly everyone’s birthday feels like it’s their birthday. My, Decembers have never been better than this.

Highlights of D’s 30th birthday

We were at our bible study group’s blue-and-orange Christmas party the night before his birthday. Totally unintentional, this year’s color motif lends itself well to the birthday boy’s favorite NBA team, and he was happy to have the excuse to wear his New York Knicks shirt..

..which is, obviously, his favorite shirt. (He was wearing the same shirt on his birthday 2 years ago.) Haha. Funny coincidence.

We surprised him with a birthday cake as the clock struck 12mn, and once again we feel blessed to have friends who would, well, wait around ’til past midnight to celebrate special days like this. Thank you, Thursday Group. And special thanks to our friend Jasper, for decorating his birthday cake with robot candles. Very 30-years-old. :)

The rest of his birthday looked like this:

Christmas sunrise worship, tapsilog for breakfast, home-cooked meals, a coffee date to cap the night, the gift of time.

Except for the birthday cake we had in Thursday Group’s Christmas party the night before, I managed to stick to his birthday non-cake tradition. Three years running, LOL. First it was stacked pancakes, then it was donuts, and now, this:

In my defense, I’d looove to buy him a real birthday cake, or maybe even bake him one.. but he hardly eats cake! Either it gets spoiled in the ref, or I end up eating the whole thing, which is bad for my new year’s resolutions, lol. Maybe someday, when Dawn & Rain are big enough to finish Daddy’s birthday cake with me. :)

Thank you, 2013

2013 is the year both of us turned 30 years old, and surely it was the year where we learned the most meaningful of lessons. God blessed us with opportunities to trust Him even more, to live simply, to be content, and to place other people’s welfare above our own.

30th year is a beautiful year in and of itself. As an added bonus, I get to go through this journey with D, to see him grow, and to witness up close what God is doing in his life. What a blessed year indeed. I wouldn’t have it any other way. :)

The paradox of Christmas

December 27, 2013June 27, 2019 Rhiza1 Comment

I had to wait until after Christmas before blogging about this because I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s party, lest someone else (other than me) lived his/her whole life not knowing this little trivia about Christmas.

It became known to me the pagan origins of Christmas during Pastor Dave’s preaching last Sunday. Having heard it for the first time (yes, at 30 years old I had been blissfully oblivious), I was challenged to Google it and do some further reading. And just like Pastor Dave warned we would feel if we dared read up on it, I was truly disappointed.

For a moment there it felt like everything I believed about December 25 as a child was ruined. (Just for a moment.) How would I be able to teach Dawn & Rain to sing “happy birthday Jesus” on Christmas day now? That the birthday of Jesus is not exactly December 25 was easier to accept and something I’ve heard of before. But that Christmas day historically involved traditions of ungodliness, lawlessness, and occultism is something I was never used to hearing.

There was a fleeting moment of disbelief, and maybe even doubt. Why have we been celebrating the birth of Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, on this day then? How could it be that this sacred celebration be in the same category as all of these age-old pagan activities?

The disappointment lasted only for a moment, and was quickly followed by an epiphany: What a wise and brilliant God we have! Nothing is an accident to Him.

Jesus Christ was born to redeem mankind, and, in retrospect, He also redeemed Christmas day. What used to be a God-less tradition became a celebration of everything beautiful—love, joy, peace, goodwill, humble beginnings. Come to think of it, that is exactly why Jesus was born in the first place.

Suddenly, it’s nice to know the real story behind December 25. Suddenly, the real meaning of Christmas is even deeper than I grew up believing.

#countdownto2014

Only one life

December 6, 2013May 13, 2019 RhizaLeave a comment

The other night we heard of the passing of a dear family friend. “Mommy” is what we called her. Even though her nickname was “Bing”, and she’s technically my (non-blood-related) “Lola”, I can’t remember ever calling her any other name but “Mommy”.

That house in Opera street

It’s been a long time since I last saw Mommy, but some of my best childhood memories happened in her house in Opera street, where we spent countless of lazy Sunday afternoons, December nights, and warm summer days growing up. We would run around her garden, play with her dogs, feast on her delicious home-cooked meals, fight over her blueberry cheesecake (the best!), and rummage through her refrigerator for left-over cookies to take home.

That house in Opera street always felt like an extension of our home. It’s the kind of place that remains etched in the mind of a child forever, that, even until now, 20 years later, I still have vivid recollections of time spent in that house.

I don’t have a picture with Mommy, but these are her daughters. I must have grown up thinking they’re my biological sisters! I’m so blessed for the life of Mommy who raised these beautiful ladies I love and look up to.

Lessons on motherhood and servanthood

I’ve been making mental notes on my takeaways from Mommy’s life. I know there’s more but here are some:

As a mother, choosing your children over whatever career you want to pursue is a decision you will never regret taking.
The kind of mother you are will reflect on the kind of children (and grand children) you raise.
Raising your children to serve the Lord, and to love the Lord with all their heart, is the greatest legacy you could ever leave in this world.
Letting your children go is possible when you trust that you raised them well enough to build their own lives, and when you believe that the Lord is always with them wherever they go.
Opening your home and sharing your life to others is an investment that will come a long way, even long after you’re gone.
You don’t have to be in the spotlight in order to make a huge impact. A life of quiet and humble service can make a universe of difference from one generation to another.
Oh, and that blueberry cheesecake recipe! I should get a copy of that.

It makes me sad, the thought that Mommy’s house in Las Pinas will never be the same, and that we will never get to taste her special blueberry cheesecake again. But my heart rejoices, knowing that hers was a life well lived, and that I’m one of the many recipients of the legacy that she left behind.

Only one life, it will soon be past

The truth is, I’ve been contemplating a lot about life these past days. I’ve been restless, mostly tired, and maybe a little anxious about what the future holds. In hindsight that’s probably why I had to intentionally look back the other day—I do a lot of reminiscing when I’m feeling a little wary about certain uncertain things in my life.

And then death happens.

Death has a way of keeping us (those of us who are still alive) grounded, making us appreciate the days that we take for granted, inspiring us to better and to live a life that will make the most impact on others.

Just recently the whole world was shocked by the sudden death of Paul Walker. But now, everywhere we look, everyone is just paying tribute to Paul’s life, inspired by the massive work he was doing to help people in need, and the little anecdotes of his grand gestures and secret acts of kindness.

Life is short. We never know when ours is going to end, but one thing for sure.. it will end. We’re all on borrowed time.

Just like Paul Walker, and Mommy Bing, and my Dad.

Many people will not remember their course in college, the jobs they took, the possessions they accumulated through the years. But people will always remember how they made our lives, and the world, a better place.

I’m reminded to make the most out of this one life. Live each day as if it’s our last, love people, show kindness, wear our passions, chase our dreams. And more importantly, fulfill God’s purpose for our lives and live in a way that will give glory to His name.

An age old poem goes, “Only one life, ‘t will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

At the end of the day, and at the end of this life, that’s all that will count.

Sweet Novembers

December 3, 2013May 13, 2019 Rhiza2 Comments

And so the past month ended with us attending a beautiful garden wedding, and I knew we couldn’t have said goodbye to November any better.

My husband and I doubled as dessert buffet suppliers and invited guests to a friend’s wedding, and we have loved the excuse to take out his coat and my gown from the back of our closet and dress up for an unusual Saturdate.

It almost felt like stepping inside a different world!

Fernwood Gardens has changed a lot since the last time I was there. The glass garden is still as lush as ever, but they also opened a lounge area with a country feel in it, complete with a collection of vintage things. (I was completely blown away seeing an Underwood up close!)

It was the same venue of my brother’s wedding in 2008, and I remember inviting my ex-boyfriend to come be my date, but he was halfway across the world and naturally, was unable to make it.

Five years later, I was back in the very same place, this time, with him.

Can you tell I’m still swooning? Continue reading “Sweet Novembers” →