Accelerate: Go. Grow. Glow.

Accelerate your life. Constantly go to God and surely you will continuously grow in every area of your life and the people around you will see the glow in your heart.

Exhausted. Empty. Crushed. Confused. Broke. Insecure. Hopeless. Life is difficult!

.

Heavy words? Not anymore!

Now that we have encountered Jesus, we know that when we are being emptied it is because God wants to fill us with new and better blessings and when we are stretched, He just wants us to grow. So now, when life throws us dirt it’s okay. We simply shake it off, shake it off, and shake it off; and use it as a platform to step upon until we emerge victorious.

We are living in an era and area where almost everything is instant, where people are mobile, and where the demands and dynamics of daily life have evolved with time. At one point, we have become slaves of our work, unhealthy relationships, financial incapacity, family issues, personal insecurities, or other problems that dry our spirits.

We have become stray, hungry souls in the modern jungle of glass-and-steel skyscrapers of the present world.

Walking down the memory lane, our experiences a month, a year or years ago may bring pinch on our hearts, deep breaths, or tears in the corner of our eyes.

Thanks to our merciful and gracious Father Lord God, He called us in ways and times unexpected to give us new and better lives for us to do good and enjoy blessed lives. (He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. ~ Titus 3:5)

Through our transformation, the jungle turned into a mecca of love, care, and enlightenment that propelled us to do our best to become obedient to God’s word, to have better relationships at work and at home, and to be channels of God’s blessings wherever we go.

We now have new and better perspective about life and reinforced Christian values.

Breakfree! Move forward!

Whether by responding to a friend’s invitation, reconnecting with God due to necessity, or personally choosing to renew personal relationship with God, it is by no accident that we are transformed. We were all hand-picked by God and are now renewed in spirit and heart. It’s just up to us how we will remain in Him.

We are all works in progress!

Embrace your potential not your past. (But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ~ Philippians 3:13).

“Your past does not define you. God can take all your imperfections, so don’t stay there,” shared by Randy Borromeo.

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Remember the old days—what you were thinking of and how you were feeling.

Look at yourself now! People may know your transformation, but only you can truly tell how your life has changed. Perhaps, you have already moved forward and are now aware of your bigger and brighter life ahead.

When we listen to God’s word and make good use of our blessings—time, talent, and treasure—we feed our souls and nurture our life in general.

Accelerate your life. Constantly go to God and surely you will continuously grow in every area of your life and the people around you will see the glow in your heart.

Be Jesus’ torch-bearer. Listen to His voice. Respond to God’s call and reflect the light of Jesus’ wherever you go.

Accelerate your life! Move onward and upward.

 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ~ Jeremiah 29:11

Spotting The Lighthouse: Clear About Your Desired Destination

Know what you want. Live up to your clear vision and work your way right through it. People are drawn to leaders who have compelling vision and help others forge their own visions, and who help others help themselves.

Growing old and growing up is much like commanding a ship through the vast ocean of life.

As we set out—to drift around or to purposely achieve our goals—our actions and decisions affect the lives of those who are on-board our ship (our families, friends, and even the strangers we meet somewhere). Our every action has ripple implications on the lives of others, whether we know it or not.

This power to affect others is what makes us an influencer, a leader, whether we like it or not.

Being a leader, we need to be clear about our visions and press on them no matter what; in the same way a ship captain needs to be clear about his destination and sail towards the flickering lighthouse, stormy or sunny.

We don’t need an official title, a crown, a salary, a cloak, or a badge to think of ourselves as real leaders or, subtly put, influencers.

A brother or sister who takes care of his/her other siblings is a leader. A teacher is a leader to her students. A traffic enforcer is a leader to a crossing pedestrian. And the most noble of all leaders, a parent who leads his/her family every single day.

You are a leader! When you decide to lead your own self to your new and better self, you are a leader.

When others see your transformation, these people who also want to become better naturally gravitate towards you.

Wisdom of Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” On the contrary, no one can stop someone who is clear about what he wants. People follow leaders who know exactly what they want.

In sailing through this life, we need people for various reasons: to help us adjust the sails when we get out of focus; to talk to when we feel crazy; to man the bridge when we have to take a break, among other things. When we dock for some pit stop, we need to deal with strangers or some new friends.

Simply put, whatever we do and wherever we go, we will be dealing with people and build relationship with them. The way we connect and relate with them could make or break our journey towards our destination, our goal.

Hence, before we set out for any destination or goal, it is very important that we prepare for the journey. Be clear on where you exactly want to go and when exactly you want to get there.

Some of our plans may be dispensable. But planning per se is indispensable if we are to precisely know our direction; get to our destination efficiently; overcome unexpected storms; to be responsive to emergency calls; and arrive at our port of destination safely.

Sail prepared and with clarity of vision.

Before pulling the anchor, we must know where the lighthouse is so we have a clear reference point of our destination as we sail off the coast.

To have clarity [in our lives], we need to remember and live up to three important things:

First, be clear about your vision (the what). Know exactly what you want. An effective leader is clear about his vision. If you don’t cast a clear picture of your future, you will be fixated on your past. God can take away your imperfections, so don’t stay there.

Second, be clear about your values (the why). Have your values intact. If you want to win the fight against temptation, you have to decide to win long before it arrives. Decision-making is hard only when you’re not clear about what is most important to you.

Third, be clear about your vehicle (the how). Show people how to do things right. Lead others by example. Live up to your clear vision and work your way right through it. People are drawn to leaders who have compelling vision and help others forge their own visions, and who help others help themselves.

If you are clear about your vision, values, and vehicle, people will naturally follow you.

Know what you want! You can be whoever you want to be. You can go wherever you want to go.

Be clear. Remember, failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

As you begin you journey the challenge is, will you be a good influencer/leader to the people around you?

Thinking Out Loud in My Boudoir: Escaping Reality

This will always be the reality and you can never escape it: you are in charge of your choices (mind) and your happiness (heart). Freedom is a gift. Reality is a guide. Do not escape freedom and reality.

When we were kids we wanted to grow old and assume responsibility, we were curious about a lot of things and wanted to try them.

Now that we are adults, we want to be like children—consciously or unconsciously. We want to be stress-free, problem-free. We want to be free from responsibility.

I remember just a little over the death of my father, my perspective of a lot of things changed and I started to become aware of many things, perhaps necessity dictated and demanded. I believe that was the first turning point of my life, and my “official growing up” was way too early, or so I believe.

Part of my new perspective then was that I should be grateful and excited when I recognize I have a trial. When I feel uncomfortable—pain, difficulty, negative emotion—I thought I had new things to be thankful for and to look forward to. I have new things to learn.

When I was a kid, trials or challenges or problems meant new experiences, new lessons, and wisdom.

As I (we) grow older, we think we have had learned more than enough about life, that we are better equipped after all the various experiences we have gone through in life. So we stop being interested about life and we start avoiding pains and stress brought by problems thinking we've had more than enough.

Little do we know that our knowledge of things, our mind map of our lives and our future, needs constant revision, and sometimes major revisions.

We all know that growth—in any area or aspect of our lives—requires pains and taking responsibility as we face our problems. Yet, most of us we ignore this obvious fact. As a result, we avoid responsibility and suffering.

What we don't realize is by avoiding responsibility and suffering, we either let our problems grow as we hide them and deny them, thinking they naturally go away; or we let others handle them for us.

By doing so, we either unconsciously pet our problem like growing a monster we're too scared of or we give away our liberty and control to decide for ourselves. Consequently, either way, we keep our problem and we hamper our own growth.

As adults faced with problems, we tell ourselves now:
1. It's all my fault, but I'm tired of this. I will let it be, anyway all this shall come to pass. (Blaming oneself)
2. It's his/her/their/this world's fault. I have no control over them. Why should I bother myself with his/her/its mess. The heck I care. (Blaming the world)

If we will not take the time to look at things or situations, we will not be able to identify the source of the problem and the significant problem we need to solve.

With our era, where everything is fast paced and new information is available everyday, we must be willing and deliberate in equipping ourselves with skills and knowledge to be able to keep up with time and grow with it.

Let us engage ourselves with our peers. Observe and learn from others.

Most importantly, nurture our relationship with our very own selves. Let us take the time to know ourselves better—skills, weaknesses, strengths, potentials.

Let's live in the now. Face reality. Take accountability. Embrace and accept ourselves. Know, feel, and believe that we are valuable whether people around us perceive us as such or not.

One day we will be surprised, solving life's trials and managing our time for pain and pleasure becomes natural and easy for us. What will be more surprising is, we will naturally become more grateful, blessing expert, and happy persons.

When we know in our deepest fiber that we are valuable, then we start realizing our need for constant growth and the importance of taking hold of our freedom to choose and decide for ourselves are both indispensable parts of having a good life.

And the result?

We become more willing to experience pain and we become more open to new things because we know that through them we become capable of understanding and helping ourselves, and it's ripple effect is we become resilient, understanding of others, generous, and happier than ever... All because we grow and refresh our perspective.

There will always be people and situations that will make our lives difficult, and that's the reality. Our pains or discomfort will always be part of our lives as long as we breathe. Hence, we need to constantly recognize those which are necessary problems and unnecessary ones.

To do that, we must take time to spot the source of the problem; make ourselves comfortable with it; take reasonable time to study the necessary problem; focus; solve it; and learn from it.

Know you are no longer a child totally dependent, helpless, and problem-free.

Live and act your age. Enjoy your independence in deciding for yourself and utilize your control over whatever consequence your decision may breed—painful or joyful. Take responsibility.

Nonetheless, balance your life by acting your age yet enjoying that childlike gratitude, zeal about life, and courage.

This will always be the reality and you can never escape it: you are in charge of your choices (mind) and your happiness (heart).

Freedom is a gift. Reality is a guide. Do not escape reality and freedom.

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Thinking Out Loud in my Boudoir is a column for some of my random thoughts that, perhaps, other ladies my age are also experiencing or thinking of—whether from same vantage point or another. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s just my own voice reverberating in my own world. I will do my best to discriminate my reason in this column, and just write spontaneously the first things and thoughts that a normal lady could think of. Just writing as I think...

Sure, You Can Make It!

Intelligence and money are not reasons to pull you down or to hinder you from achieving your goals.

 

Sure, learning is a process.

Sure, maturity is a choice.

Sure, life is a constant voyage.

Sure, each of us is given built-in skills that will enable us to be better and to better enjoy this good life.

Sure, we are the captain of our own lives.

We can become whoever we want to be. Truly, we are not given equal amount of talents, skills, and other gifts gifts; but surely, we are all given the same amount of time each day—24 hours. Whether too long or too short for you, we can’t do anything to adjust its length.

Time is equally given to each of us—rich-poor, young-old, girl-boy, literate-illiterate, good-bad. 24 houts a day; 525,600 minutes a year. Period.

Time is fixed. But the good news is, we can diminish or increase its value by how we make choices and how we act upon our choices.

Learning and maturity should be directly proportional to our time alive, our age. But we all know that a big chunk of humanity is not a reflection of it. I’m not discounting myself.

If we look around, we will see many people who have become skilled and empowered in their chosen fields, and  some in the places they found themselves. However, there are more people who are otherwise or who don’t enjoy the lives they are entitled to enjoy.

We sometimes catch ourselves quipping, “She’s brilliant. I wonder why she ended up like that,” or “He’s diligent, but it seems he toils today to feed himself today so he can work tomorrow.”

(Setting aside those people who are able to get what they want because they know how to manipulate people for their own advantage, or see things as “delegation” when in fact they know in themselves that they intentionally make others do things for them, or get to finish a requirement by doing 20% of the work…)

The legit achiever knows four basic things: diligence, focus, responsibility, and sharing. The self-made achiever is like a house built on a rock, strong storm or raging flood comes, it stands firm. Wherever you put him, whatever you ask of him, whenever you need him, he can deliver well.

I. Diligence

Being diligent doesn’t require exceptional IQ. What one needs is only common sense and initiative. Being diligent is being able to discern what an ordinary prudent man would do in a specific situation.  Diligence is also the ability to delay gratification and do some a-little-tightening-here-and-a-loosening-there.

A diligent person would ask himself what shall I do first; what is the most efficient and effective way in doing this; will I bypass or disrespect or hurt someone; what degree of care is appropriate.

More than being industrious, a diligent person thinks of the implications of his actions before he executes his action plan. He eats first the icing before the cake, I mean, he does first the things he doesn’t like most so he can enjoy the rest of the day doing the things he likes.

II. Focus

A purpose driven and dedicated person knows his goal and he presses on it every single day. He knows where he should end up. Whatever the weather is—stormy or sunny; whatever kind of road he is taking—bumpy or smooth—his mind, feelings, words, and actions are all oriented to his goal.

A focused person is not discouraged or demoralized by trials or failures. Instead, he is fueled by his challenges. For him, another trial means another platform for him to stand on so he could see things from a better vantage point. He sees failure just as a delay to his goal or sometimes a detour so he may take a better path towards it.

Being focused is being able to see clearly what you want and seeing it steadily through layers upon layers of distraction.

III. Responsibility

Acceptance of responsibility is being open to challenges, pain, heartbreaks, and other uncomfortable emotions associated with growing up, achieving, and victory. Responsible persons know that trials, challenges, or problems don’t go away unless you yourself work through them, or else they will remain a hindrance to your growth and victory.

Some people deny to themselves the problems they encounter; others acknowledge the problems but do nothing about it hoping the problems will just go away. But the responsible person acknowledges his problems, sits down and studies each problem for a reasonable time, make an action plan, and face the problem properly—right time, approach, and means—based on his evaluation of the situation.

A responsible person knows that when he avoids the legitimate suffering that results from dealing with problems, he also avoids the growth that problems demand from him (Peck).

Learning is the twin of responsibility. As in taking on responsibility for what one feels, for what one ought to do, for whatever situation one finds himself, one will always surely learn whether he fails or succeeds.

A responsible person's mentality is, "Either you win or you learn."

IV. Sharing

An empowered person shares what he learns. An empowered person is someone who becomes who he is because of what he has gone through in his life. He has a personal account to share about his journey from rags to riches, or from being a victim to being the philanthropist, or from being the last to being the first, or being the nothing to being the superstar.

Having a first hand experience of the essential polishing in life—from thinking of a dream to being diligent to pursue his dream and making it a goal; to being focused and dedicated to his goal; to taking on the responsibility for every circumstance that leads him his goal—an empowered person knows the feeling and thoughts of one who is also driven to legitimately achieve their goals, which enables him to empathize and believe in them.

A small mind will tell one that his dream ridiculously difficult and he will not achieve it because of he is poor or he is not intelligent or he is ugly or he because he is who he is. But an empowered person will encourage one to pursue his dream, pray, and work hard and that if others can do it, he too can do it and may even do things better.

Sharing is a mechanism that multiplies and scatters good things in life. Sharing is the system which makes giving away good things come back in better packages, better quality, and sometimes more in quantity. Simply put, sharing makes good things last from generation to generation.

Whatever our statuses in life are or wherever we are and whatever we want to achieve, it is possible to achieve our goals if we are willing to do our part and focus our energy and resources on the goal.

Intelligence and money are not reasons to pull you down or to hinder you from achieving your goals.

Everyday, within 24 hours, do something that contributes to achieving your goals. If you want to be a teachers, entrepreneur, priest, lawyer, doctor, or corporate executive…

Think like one.

Talk like one.

Act like one.

What you think of, speak of, read about, or do in a day will make a difference in the quality and essence of your 24 hours and 525,600 minutes.

Dream. Believe. Feel. Receive. Thank. Share.

…and thank God for the each brand new day He gives you to become better, do better, and become step closer to your goal.

One sure thing, you can make it if you believe and want it.

Never underestimate your capacity and never underestimate God's power.

Pray and work hard! You can make it, I know!

Prisoner

We were young and free

Enjoying our burgeoning

You held my heart

Gently you stole it from me

I didn’t see it, I didn’t see it

Til I noticed

You took me wherever you wanted to go

Never letting me go

Now I was a prisnoner

A prisoner of your love

Your cell was the best place

I myself didn’t wanna go

I wanna be a prisoner

A prisoner of your love

We were young and free

Enjoying the spring time of our lives

You walked into my life

I didn’t see it, I didn’t see it

Til I felt you running
Running in my head

And thumping my heart

You locked yourself up

Threw the key

Never leaving

Never stopped thumping my heart

You were a prisoner

A prisoner of my love

I woke up one day

Still a prisoner of your love

The cell I didn’t imagine this way

Sometimes it’s cold

I laid on the ground alone

Waiting for your gentle arms

Wrapping them around me

Sometimes it’s too small

I stayed on the corner

Sharing the chamber

With two or three more

I woke up one day

Still a prisoner

Now finding the door unlocked

Hesitating, stumbling

Hesitating, crying

I myself didn’t wanna go

I wanna be a prisoner

A prisoner of your love

I woke up one day

Still a prisoner

Now finding the door unlocked

But it was still the best place

I myself didn’t wanna go

I wanna be a prisoner

A prisoner of your love

You still take me wherever you wanted to go

Still never letting me go

Told myself,

I’m in cold, I’m in crowded

Cold and crowded cell of your love

I remembered the days

We were young and free

Now, when I wake up

I remember those days

When I was still a prisoner

A prisoner in your cold, crowded cell

I should thank you

Thank you for making it cold and crowded

It led me back to freedom

Freedom I couldn’t have relished again

The juvenile is now free

Free again

Enjoying the time of my life

Enjoying the time of my life

Like never been before

Thank you for making it cold

Thank you for making it crowded

I’m now enjoying the time of my life

Enjoying the time of my life

Like never been before




Just a simple February art :-) I noticed I haven't written any poem for quite a while. I wish I were a  musician so I could arrange it myself and sing it after saying, "hit it!"