SBCC turned 38; 2012 will be epic!

Posted by Riz on January 25th, 2012. Say Something?

I love that our church celebrates its anniversary on the first month of the year. Being a daughter of SBCC‘s first Senior Pastor, January has always been like this for me and my family, even after Dad went to be with the Lord. In fact, it almost feels as if my mind was programmed to think that the holiday season goes like this: Christmas, and then New Year, and then Church Anniversary.

That’s how it felt like last Sunday. Like Christmas morning and the dawn of New Year all in one day.

The worship tent was overflowing with both familiar faces and strangers. Seeing new faces in church is a real joy; to me that means our church is growing, and God’s Word is being widely spread in the community. I looked around the church I grew up in, thankful that God kept me here at such a time as this and grateful for the opportunity to witness such growth, such revival.

Listening to the sermon, I wrote on my journal profusely—notes about seeing each situation with eyes of faith; of giving your all and not holding back; of rejoicing about things that are still unseen. It still blows my mind how God knows exactly what I need to hear when I need to hear it. Do you feel that too?

And now, as I read the notes I wrote on my journal last Sunday, this sentence zoomed in on me:

Sometimes, God operates in ways that don’t make sense.

I read it once, twice, thrice. I read it many times over. I thought of the things in my life that don’t make sense to me, enumerating them like a mental checklist—frustrating things, impossible things, unfair things. It’s easy to feel dejected thinking about things that don’t make sense, no? Humans that we are, we long to understand what’s happening, to get a glimpse of what’s going to happen next or when the torture is going to end, to find answers to questions quick.

But it seems that these are God’s best working conditions. He operates in the realm of the impossible, that’s why when life finally reveals what He’s been up to, we often find ourselves surprised, in awe, amazed.

Sampaloc Bible Christian Community is a testament to that.

My life is a testament to that. Last year, most especially.

So if you’re going through something that seems impossible and does not make sense, I say, instead of feeling frustrated, be crazy excited! It only means that God is silently at work, getting you ready for something truly amazing.

This is how I know that 2012 will be even more. mind. blowing. ;)

Crazy about Peter Pauper Press Journals

Posted by Riz on January 11th, 2012. 6 comments

I’m very brand-loyal. When I found the right brand of pen, you bet that’s the only brand you’d ever see me buy. Same goes with cosmetics. And laptops. And journals.

Picking up my first Peter Pauper Press journal was random. I got the first blue floral-printed journal that caught my attention from a pile of stuff at a FullyBooked counter at the start of 2011. Since then, I never bought any other brand of notebook other than PPP.

I had a total of 7 journals last year, including the one I’m writing on right now. Allow me to share photos of them because they’re just too photogenic! And they’re actually prettier in real life than the ones you see on their product catalog!

It’s difficult finding them here in Manila, so when I was in New York, I hoarded a couple of pieces from Barnes and Noble. Later on I learned that if you looked hard enough, you’d find them at some National Bookstore, Power Books and Fully Booked branches. I love them so much I started buying them not just for myself but to give to some friends as well.

To make it sweeter, I’ve so far made sure I didn’t get the same design twice. (Hover over the photos to see the captions.)

Their paper is usually plain white and finely-ruled, but once in a while you get yourself a little surprise. Some of these notebooks come with dainty little prints like these:

Cute no?

I’ve made myself visible online all these years, blogging, twitting, posting here and there; but nothing still compares to writing things down old school way—paper, ink, and heart. My journals are the keeper of my most honest thoughts and musings, my most daring prayers, and even my dried-up tears on its pages.

I love the thought that long after my blog sites are abandoned, my eyesight too blurry to see the computer screen, and my hand too shaky to type on a computer keyboard, I still have trinkets of my life preserved in a box-full of journals, which, hopefully, I’d get to hand down to my kids.

What were you doing exactly a year ago?

Posted by Riz on January 11th, 2012. Say Something?

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. :)

On Christmas traditions, Sendong typhoon victims, and being still

Posted by Riz on December 29th, 2011. 2 comments

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.

My husband turned 28

Posted by Riz on December 23rd, 2011. 6 comments

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.

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