Christmas 2013's Coming

Christmas is almost here..... and it's usually one of my loneliest holidays.

Growing up, I always looked forward for Christmas because of the many gifts I was getting but when I became a teenager, those gifts stopped coming. We also no longer stay all night 'til midnight. Some Christmases, I awoke from the fireworks celebrating Christmas time had arrived. I would go out from my room, look out from our patio and just cry, "we don't have Christmas."

Slowly learning that Christmas was about Jesus' birth.... I longed to be in the fellowship of Christians so we could all celebrate our King's birth, but my friends have families to spend time with and celebrate Christmas, and receiving love and presents. Though knowing that Christmas was all about Jesus' birth, I still didn't know why would he come to earth to die on the cross to save us, just so we could have a relationship with God the Father.

I am still learning the answer to that question, yet I am thankful to have read this devotional by John Piper, and learning to celebrate the Advent before Christ's birth. I now wonder why "Christians" no longer celebrate and remember the Advent. The Advent prepares us to the grand celebration and thanksgiving of Jesus, God the Son's coming. I still rarely receive gifts, if none, at least just one gift is more than enough.... but if none at all, knowing Christ is greater than any gift I would receive.

Download here: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/books/good-news-of-great-joy

Letter to my Spiritual Mother

Dear Mamu,

Thank you for being my spiritual Mum
Showing me who our Father is and who Jesus is
Thank you for helping me understand stuff
Helping me know what right and wrong is

Thank you for welcoming me into your family
Loving me and letting me feel God's love too
Thank you for cheering me up
Helping me remember our great God

Thank you for bearing me to the faith
And teaching me how to read the Bible
Thank you for prompting me to continue learning
And always reminding to read my Bible

Thank you for correcting me when I need it
Scolding me when I have to be
Thank you for teaching me, Mamu
I thank God for you joyfully

Because we are still sinners
And living in a fallen world,
I pray that we remain faithful
Glad to see Mamu is faithful to God

I thank God for opening his arms
letting me experience what adoption means
welcoming me into his family
having me a spiritual family
having both spiritual parents
to teach me who he is

I love to keep on returning God's blessings
They are amass, yet I have not many words
To bless God back

Thank you Mamu

I miss you,

One & Only, Alone & Lonely

I may just be one & only, alone & lonely. Most times I feel so left out from this world that I don't feel very much loved. But I read this story from Tullian Tchividjian, Failure And One Way Love, and I am reminded.

Just a short thing to say and record this in this blog: There's no same love as the love God loves me. He never stops preserving me. Even when I don't know why I'm still here until now, but God still preserves me.

Needs versus God

I'm in a struggle. It's hard to succeed with something when you have a lack of skills and abilities, especially
those skills/abilities are those that are meant to be part of a person's growth and development, such as knowing how to plan, schedule, and organize tasks, living independently--knowing how to cook or take care of oneself, etcetera. It's also hard to find references for resume and/or for application for further studies when you have less friends or trusted companions.

I have even thought if I can move out from my parents' house, I can force myself to learn the things I need to learn to live independently, but I can't afford rent and my daily expenses.

It's easy to understand that I do not belong in this world because I don't find where I can belong in society or even the working world. However, if I am to be a light and salt to this world, don't I have to learn the things that a human-in-this-world have to be?

I'm looking into my needs. Guilty for I am not looking to God for my needs. It's just really very hard when I find no help or no one to even help me. Help is also expensive. Salary is too low to even help me with that. And working is so hard because of my inabilities. Who can help me? God, who? God, PLEASE help me.

I am so discouraged that I can't achieve what I want to achieve because I am unable to even reach beyond my inabilities.

Being left behind in the "normal growth and development" also makes me lonely.

Father, enable me to trust in you in my inabilities and uncertainties.

War in the Philippines (part 3) - Lots of Thanks

I'm not sure if this is part 3. However, we are just waiting for confirmation of the LST vessel to carry the goods and set sail straight to Zamboanga.

"Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!" Psalm 115:1

Indeed, God is greatly to be praised amidst all these blessings, relief, and providence he has provided us. I thank for my biological father for providing his connection to help us with the transfer of the goods. I thank my officemate for her help and connection with TV networks. I thank for the lady who is incharge of the goods. I thank for my spiritual parents for their love and patience to teach me and disciple me. I thank also for my biological parents for having me. I thank for all those willing hearts in-and-out of Zamboanga helping out for the hungry and needy. Moroever, I thank God for his enablement.

I have faced many temptations, and I thank God for his deliverance. Temptation of pride, fear and anxiety, temptation of taking things into my own without acknowledging God, and the temptation to be forgetting God because of being so high and receiving so many praises.

May I stay focused and humbled when God provides me opportunities to help others, glorify Him, and display His wonders. Even when it looks hard or something that I wouldn't approve of, may God sustain me and forgive me when I fail him. I am just a fellow servant to God.