Chasing Dreams

Lately it’s our favorite pastime, the what-were-you-doing-exactly-this-time-last-year game. Especially this past year when, for us, changes have been dramatic.

i.e. (1) Last year, on my husband’s birthday, we were saying good bye; this year, we woke up next to each other and ate pancakes for breakfast. (2) Last year, on New Year’s Eve, we were shouting our greetings to each other over long distance phone calls, twice, because of the time difference; this year, we’re in Manila Hotel with David’s extended family, we watched the last sunset of the year together, and we welcomed the new year in the same continent and timezone. And then we had a beautiful quality time, just the two of us, at home, before work and classes resumed.

Behold the last sunset of 2011.

I had quite a number of milestones in 2011.

I encountered God like I never did before, after which, answered prayers and miracles happened one after the other I can never stop praising and thanking God.

And then LifeXtreme happened in this life of mine. It’s a humbling experience to be part of the committee that frontlines our church’s Youth Worship. This coming March marks LifeXtreme’s anniversary and I’m so blessed to have witnessed God’s work in our church’s youth ministry up front and center.

I turned 28, and celebrated what turned out to be my last birthday as a single person.

I let go of  a comfortable work-from-home set-up to make room for a more stable, more organized office job in Makati. I never thought I’d go back to the work force again after 2 years of being an SEO nomad, but stability is more important to me now than adventure, and I love how I can separate work from home and home from work this time around. Someone’s getting old.

I got married, which opened up a floodgate of big changes, like the change of address, and a hyphenated name, among many others.

It’s heartwarming, looking back and seeing what God has done and how far He has brought us in such a short period of time. Before 2011 started, our game plan was quite different. As the year ended, God proved once again that He’s a God of sweet surprises, and that we can never out-plan Him.

Which brings me back to our game. Try it. What were you doing exactly this time last year? How much has changed since? Are you doing something you planned and worked hard for, or something totally unexpected?

A warning, be careful to not dwell too much on the past. It’s one thing to look back and be stuck in what-ifs and what-should-have-beens, another thing to look back for the purpose of moving forward and being thankful for what you have now.

New Years are for clean slates and new beginnings. I pray that you find yourself counting blessings this 2012. :)

Exactly a month ago, we put together our little Christmas tree at home, and I think I may have said I was “excited” to post more photos. So much for my excitement. The month has been packed with so many things, and uploading these photographs was the first to be pushed down my list! Anyway, here they are, for traditions’ sake.

It’s our first Christmas as husband and wife, and I love that we get to start our own Christmas traditions. Last year, I had some instax photographs up on my Christmas tree, and this year, we thought we’d do the same. We picked some of our favorite photographs from the wedding and the honeymoon and printed them out with our Polaroid Pogo. It’s a cute little project, something we hope we can keep on doing for years to come.

On another note, I know it has been a challenge for our country to celebrate Christmas this year when Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City are still under the state of calamity. We don’t have a television at home, and quite honestly, my husband and I have only seen and heard so much. I know we’ll never really have a clear picture of what’s happening out there, but our family feels somehow involved. My eldest brother is there since last week; as part of his job, he’s with the ABS-CBN Engineering Crew which covers the relief operations there. It’s our first Christmas Day without him, probably even New Year too. Ergo, we had to let go of certain Christmas traditions this year to make way for my brother to be where he’s needed more.

I look at Ate Imy (my sister-in-law) and Isaac and I imagine how difficult it must be for them to celebrate Christmas without Kuya. But then I think about the thousands of families in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan who lost their loved ones and friends over the flash flood, and how devastating Christmas and New Year must be like for them. As I stare at our Christmas tree here at home, my heart goes out to the victims of Sendong who lost their homes and didn’t get the chance to put up their trees this year. At the time of this writing, the death toll has reached about 1,500. This is even more tragic than Ondoy.

Suddenly, no personal issues or problems are too big.

It’s easy to question the goodness of God at a time like this, but words from the Bible pop up like bright stars in the dark sky: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9) God sees everything in a bigger perspective, and as far as His grand scheme of things is concerned, everything happens for a reason and for our own good. His ways are higher, we only have to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10)—and believe that with all our hearts.

For the rest of us who are not in the center of this tragedy and are watching this from a distance, it’s our chance to help and make a difference. I’m not directly connected with any relief efforts for Sendong, but I think the surest way for our donations to reach Cagayan de Oro and Iligan is through Red Cross. We have 2 more days left before 2011 ends, let’s make it count.

It’s not the first time we celebrated his birthday together. Last year we were in New York, but his birthday was also the last day of my trip and I was flying back to Manila the very next day. Our emotions were all over the place, I remember. We busied ourselves doing last minute Christmas shopping, and packing up my suitcases, and trying to ignore the fact that we were going to part ways again. As the night was ending, we did our best to stay up and keep our eyes open even if we were tired and spent, until it was time to drag my feet and my luggage to the airport.

That’s how we spent his 27th birthday.

This year was a perfect contrast. :)

This year, we were not in a rush. We waited for the clock to strike 12 (same timezone, yes!), spent the first minutes on Skype with my father-in-law, and he opened his gifts like he couldn’t wait. We had a long uninterrupted sleep, we woke up next to each other, and I cooked breakfast like I never did before. (Well, we never eat breakfast.) And then we spent the day doing whatever the birthday boy thought of doing.

We’ve had parties here and there the whole month of December, we even hosted some at home; so for his birthday, he specially requested to have the day just to ourselves. We played some sets of bowling, watched a movie, had a full-body massage and spa, and a late night Taco party with the Velardos.

It was a beautiful, serene, quality time together, accentuated by lots of laughter, hugs and kisses, tears of joy, and moments we would stop in our tracks and marvel at God’s grand scheme of things. Oh how things didn’t seem to make sense before! And oh how He unraveled His great master plan and brought us where we are in His own sweet time.

I’ve been blogging relentlessly about our story, mostly because the daily dose of inspiration is too overwhelming to contain and I need a place to share them all; partly because I have a feeling that someone somewhere is going through similar valleys and roads, and I thought, if only I could encourage at least one person to keep the faith and never tire on chasing his/her dreams, then this blog has served beyond its purpose. Although it’s not really a self-help blog with how-tos and 101s to long distance relationships and chasing dreams (well, not yet), I’m happy to be sharing my life here as a case study. Lest you need to pick up a lesson or two.

God has made many of my dreams come true, and replaced the good ones with the best; and while the journey is not a walk in the park and we have to hurdle through difficult situations and people along the way, God is faithful, and well, we’re living our lives together now aren’t we? :)

So to you who’s going through your own roller-coaster ride of a life and wondering when the chase will end, take it from us: God has your best interest in mind, always. He will see you through. Just as He did with us.

It’s my husband’s birthday today/yesterday (today in New York, yesterday in Manila). I intend to post a longer blog with lots of photos as soon as I find time, but for now, a quick post before I retreat to bed.

As his birthday was about to end, my husband and I reflected upon the past year and how much has happened in such a short period of time. It wasn’t long ago when we would celebrate birthdays and monthsaries in front of Skype, opening our Fedex-ed gifts and finding creative ways to bridge the distance. Don’t get me wrong, we treasure those good ol’ days, we learned so much from them. But we cannot deny the fact that deep within our hearts we incessantly prayed for the day we would get to spend these special occasions together.

And now we’re here.

We had quite a lengthy prayer to cap the night, thanking God for blessing my husband 28 awesome years, most especially for the past year which was exceptionally beautiful. You bet there were tears of joy all over the place.

Chuck Swindoll wrote something that pretty much describes how it feels like, being in the center of God’s grand scheme of things:

Life is not based on blind fate or random chance. Everything that happens, including the things you cannot explain or justify, is being woven together like an enormous, beautiful piece of tapestry. From this earthly side it seems blurred and knotted, strange and twisted. But from heaven’s perspective it forms an incredible picture. Best of all, it is for His greater glory. Right now, it seems so confusing, but someday the details will come together and make good sense.

There it is—part of God’s perfect plan unfolding.

Those years spent apart were difficult, and there were a gazillion things we couldn’t understand (even until now). But as we witness God’s master plan unfold, it becomes clearer each day why God allows things to happen the way they do.

It’s not my birthday today, but it’s like I’m the one who was given such a beautiful gift.

Last week, Ate Vilma, our Sunday School teacher/mentor/discipler/friend (and to add to her growing list of titles, our Ninang), came back glowing from the Holy Land. I had the privilege of spending an entire Saturday afternoon with her, listening to stories about her trip, of those places in the Bible that she used to just teach us in Sunday School—the same dusty roads that Jesus walked on, synagogues where Jesus taught, bodies of water that were witnesses to His miracles.

It was awesome listening to her, I can just imagine how much more mind-blowing it would be if I get to experience it myself! I’m stealing some photographs off her Facebook wall, praying that I’ll get to take truckloads of photos and see Israel through my own lens someday.

1) View of the Dome of the Rock (what used to be Solomon’s temple) from the Mount of Olives; 2 & 3) The Sea of Galilee; 4) The Western Wall and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem; 5) Ate Vilma pinning a paper to the Western Wall with our names in it! 6) And that’s her, Ate Vi, sitting by the Sea of Galilee

I’m still a bit stoked at the thought that MY name (and my husband’s) is listed somewhere on the Western Wall of Jerusalem. Thanks to our dear Ate/Ninang Vi, whose passion never fails to inspire, to give hope, and to encourage.

I’m officially adding a new item in my bucket list!

Also, blogging this now so when the time comes, I get to trackback on this post. ;)

Israel, I shall see you someday.

*All photos taken from Ate Vi’s Facebook wall, post-processed by Riz.