All I have left is Hope

I knew the time would come that I have to be far from the people I care most in my life. It was very painful. I struggled to keep myself strong while I put some of my clothes in the luggage. I tried to assure everyone that I will be okay. And I made a promise that I will come back. At first, I thought I could keep what I said, that no matter what I will stay. It didn't happen.

I am now one of the fathers who sacrifice their time of being with their children to make a living thousands of miles away. It hasn't to be this way. I tried so hard to be with them as they grow up. I wanted to see them grow in my eyes, so I could guide them to the way I want them to be. But the world is not favoring my  plan. It took me awhile to see that the world somehow is against me. I fought, we fought but it didn't happen.

As I moved from airport to airport to get to my destination, tears were falling from my eyes. I didn't realize that I confided to this woman who sat beside me. She assured me that things will be alright. This is the moment again that I began asking why some things that happened are just too hard to understand. I wanted to scream to let go of my frustration, and all I have was a heavy heart.

I made a promise.
Things will be alright.
Despite the sadness and longing, I always tell myself that things will be okay.

What if the world didn't have teachers?

What if the world didn't have teachers?

There'll be no doctors and nurses,

no Lawyers and Engineers.

No accountants and clerks,

to do paychecks or bills.

What if the world didn't have teachers?

There'll be no ABC's and numbers,

no grammar rules and punctuations.

No fractions and square roots,

Neither decimals or exponents.

But God made the teachers,

To help us learn every life's skills.

From knowing values and sentences,

Or to following rules and consequences.

I thank my teachers for all their teachings.

I thank them all for their legacies.

I thank them all for their sacrifices,

I thank them all, I thank them all.

Metamorphosis

My daughter in her experiment.

This is my daughter doing her observation of the stages of insect metamorphosis. Though, this wasn't a new thing for me but all of us were excited when we saw the butterfly came out from its shell in the final stage. Both girls were very happy as we let go of the butterfly on the very next day.

Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation. This is what Wikipedia shows when I looked for the more comprehensive definition of the word.

I call it transformation. I find this process to be all-inclusive. It speaks of all experiences that brought people to change. Experiences that cause people to doubt, and surmise the way the universe spin. The way it creates a person is imperceptible. I can't recall how many times I had a transformation myself, in a way that I did not recognized. But I was told and I thought that this probably is how everyone's life is drafted. 


Change, transform. Metamorphosis.

Choices

Picture Credit:www.scoop.it

When we were little, we often got punished and reprimanded of breaking the rules or not following the things that we are told to do. And as a young child, we used to feel being rejected, or unimportant after getting the punishments. And some people are so eager to get over this stage of having a parent who’s going to watch every single mishap they've made.

I think I had the best childhood because of the presence of my siblings and parents, yet those moments that I was being punished for things that I've done wrong weren't worth telling. Like for instance, being paddled by a broom because of acting so badly when I was not permitted to go watch movies on a weekend. Yeah, it is not worth telling. But here I am, as a parent and as an adult missing those moments where someone I looked up would tell me how awesome or how awful the choices I made.

Living life is always about making choices. Nobody can figure out whether the choices we’re making are the right one’s for us except us. And it is very difficult to tell especially if you’re a person who wanted to make sure that the way ahead is laid right for you. These are uncertainties, a force that holds you away to where you believe you’re heading.

It is very hard to make the right choices. I made lots of wrong ones in my life, but here is

what I learned over the course of time – have faith.

The Bus Trip

Photo credit: www.tc.gc.ca

In one of our PDs, our principal asked us to read a book which was about a bus, whose driver has already know the passengers he has everyday. He hasn't only know them by name but by their everyday experiences and struggles. I just can't recall the author and the title of the book, but I know I have it in my shelf. I was just reminded by the story because of the very long trip that I did recently from the south all the way to the east coast by bus. That was the first long trip by bus that I ever had. Inside the bus, I saw people coming up and down in every stop. One guy who happened to sit beside me was not a native of this place, just like me. And so we share the same story and the same sentiments. It was a long conversation about how to live life and successes and struggles plus adversities. And then, he realized it was his time to get down from the bus. We said each other goodbye and he tapped my shoulder to say good luck to my future plans. People get on the bus and come down as they get to the destination.

And so I looked at this whole thing being similar to opportunities that come and go. Most of the time we have it, we loved and enjoyed it and we thought it won't slip away from our hands. I admired the people I know who were able to keep the opportunities they long all there life making it a long trip. As I told the man who was seated beside me in the bus, if we missed one opportunity, surely we're not going to miss the next one that come next. Opportunities are like bus passengers. They come up and down the bus, and so while they're up, enjoy they're presence in your travel.

So that we'll all get to our destination fulfilled and not with regrets.

Light and Shadows

I think this one is a language of an artist. Like the one used in painting, probably by using a charcoal or even a plain regular pencil. But I found these words "light and shadows" as a description of what all of us have been through in life and to the perspective of an artist, it is simply making the painting look perfect is to use a combination of lights and shadows. I'm not an artist (though I desire to be one) but I used to watch them paint on sidewalks and inside the malls and observed how they intricately brushed every detail of their subject before they hang it for display.   

We are our life's artist. When we started to sketch what our life is going to look like, we were like artists making dirty sketches on a pad. Just like an amateur who cannot decide on a subject, and he doodle on anything that he could think of.  Some of the lines he made are dark, some are light. And if we thought it is really really bad, we often toss it in the trash can.  A fact that tells us that life isn't always about luck, or serendipity or good fortune. It comes in all packages.

Be your life's artist. Paint your life's portrait to perfection using a good contrast of light and shadow. Look back with the choices that you made in the past that makes the real you today. Yes, those are your shadows that makes a good contrast of your life. Embrace it and be thankful because it make us more of who we are.

 The key to fulfillment is acceptance. Acknowledge the real us without any camouflage. 

Time is as Precious as Gold

Photo credit: Mona Liza Letigio "Sunset by the Lake"

There is always time for everything. Life isn't always busy as we thought it is. The true reason why we tend to forget important things that we wanted to do is because of the fact that when unusual events happen in our life, it will stir up our thoughts and will make us forget the priorities. And so we ended up forgetting important dates and meetings and even the much needed appointments. And even forget about the scheduled family dates that we highlighted in our calendar. Things can easily mess up our minds especially when unpleasant and unexpected things happen.

Believe me, I and my beloved wife forgot about our special day several times! But we just smiled when we found out and admit the fact that we were so caught up with what all of the things happening around us. Some situations can just get way in our heads and can blow us up sometimes, and I'm sure everyone experience that. Is it a sad fact? Yes it is. To justify in our case, at least to us, we have two girls who are looking up at us and students that we need to attend each day so that we have to keep up with everything that we do. We struggled to do our routine each time, and responsibilities seem to keep adding up each day. And I thought, life is always like this if we would not take control and put our hand on it.

Time is precious because we can never do things that we were supposed to do when the time is gone. I tend to say this all the time;  "I was supposed to do this yesterday," and the same line I am going to say the next day and it becomes my favorite line. While the work keeps on adding and adding each day in our life, it is important to think of the priorities and the ones that we missed. And I realized that inorder to do this, a simple quite moment is needed. Take a mild walk in the neighborhood, or by going into your backyard to breathe some fresh air. Even getting into your room and having a little silence to yourself is proven effective. Well, at least to me. I find it important to take sometime of silence to listen to my thoughts especially when situations seem so deranged. And after that, I can go back to work again.

Time is gold, so that we can never let certain circumstances ruin our plans. We can never go back to the time that was wasted but we can always go back to the plans that we did not accomplish and start all over again. Thanks to our God for the ability to reflect, the ability to re-focus and the strength to do the things He has planned for us. :)

The Power of Faith

And I ask the Lord; "Why in the saddest of lowestt times of my life, there was only one set of footprints?" And the Lord replied: "My son, my precious child, I love and I would never leave you. During the times of sufferings where you can see one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

I have this video in my blog for  more than 2 years now. I want to re post this over and over. This is a very inspiring song to me because of the many things that I've been through in life. Countless people are experiencing tough and rough times. I used to think that life is really unfair in those circumstances and I always ask why. What have I done to deserve all these? I often blame myself for making wrong choices and as a result I lose confidence in what I do. There was a point in my life that I hated myself so much that I resorted to almost destroy the good future ahead of me.  I simply ignored the reasons why we have to make sacrifices. I failed to see good out of the tribulations that we all have to endure. I am so blinded. 

Yes, life is  challenging. It is not all-luck, nor celebration. We have struggles that we need to deal with every single day, and sometimes we feel like going into hiding and become a coward. It happened to me, and it happened to all of us. These are the times that we feel so alone, helpless and angry and scared. We hated and blame the world for the things that happened to us.  Then, we have these moments that we feel we succeeded. We got the things that we dreamed of having. Wealth, money, family and friends. We say God thank you for all these blessings. Thank you for granting us our wishes but never in those moments that we fail.   I am guilty that I question God about my sufferings.

May everyone embrace God's love, and be thankful of His presence in us.