Pray Without Ceasing and Keep Writing

“Writing intrinsically champions and improves creativity, critical thinking, and clarity. It helps us not only gain new ideas, but also articulates them. It untangles the messiness in our lives and allows for clearer thinking,” wrote Paul Jun on 99u.com.

I was about eleven years old when I discovered the benefits of keeping a diary, and it brought me simple joys at a young age: enjoying my solitude and polishing my English. To me it was sort of a discipline for my laziness and lack of observation.  Sadly, I burned most of my journals during my chaotic twenties due to uncontrolled emotions, but it never stopped me from writing as I know how to follow my passions. Times have changed, and while I still have some notebooks for occasional handwriting, I am quite fond of using Evernote for online note-taking, especially during my morning devotions when I am usually pressed for time.

Daily Devotions

“In the diary I only wrote of what interested me genuinely, what I felt most strongly at the moment,” spoke Anais Nin in a 1946 lecture. Every morning, I make it a habit to set aside the first thirty to sixty minutes of my day in reading the Word of God – what interests me genuinely - and write a short note about my thoughts and emotions at that moment. Furthermore, I pray for spiritual and physical strength as I spend this time with my sovereign God. I constantly remind myself that God is gracious, loving and merciful, then I am ready to seize the day.

A Recollection of Feelings

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7) 

I love reading my previous entries in Evernote - admitting my total dependence on God - and realizing that He has not once failed to comfort and sustain me.

Sharing some of my most recent, honest, unpublishable journal entries (that nobody reads, nobody but me) makes me feel blessed.

August 1: Seeking God

I want to seek God first. I want to set aside the first 60 minutes of my life worshipping God and reading His word. I want to have a rock solid routine when it comes to this holy hour as I truly believe that God is most important in my life. It is God first and then family and relationships and then work and then everything else. For this to happen, I have to give God my undivided attention. It is not easy but it can be done. As John Piper says, “The great promise to those who seek the Lord is that He will be found.”

August 3: Who is God?

Who is God? How can I draw strength from God? It’s the first day of the new school year and I want to have God always by my side.

August 6: Still Standing

I wasn’t able to pray because it rained around 2am and we had to wake up to gather the laundry. I have been very tired this week. It is only by God’s grace that I am still standing.

August 11: Prayerlessness

Dear God, I am having a hard time praying today. I feel that my anxiety is distracting me from you. Help me focus on you, Lord Jesus, and not on our problems. Teach me to trust in you with all of my heart and lean not on my own understanding. I cannot fix my broken self but you absolutely can. Thank you for this assurance as I believe in your promises.

August 13: Casting my Burdens to Jesus

Here are the things that stress me out right now:

• My MA classes and the requirements that I haven’t even begun to do
• The situation in school where my pupils are struggling in handwriting, reading and behaving well
• Our financial problems, debts, and our current situation in the Philippines as we are not so sure if we could ever migrate to New Zealand
• The archery club that needs more equipment and funds to run it in the Orchard
• Basti’s education in general as he might be struggling in IBA as well

August 14: Humility vs. Anxiety

I am sorry God for my false modesty which I thought was already humility. I am sorry for saying bad things about others instead of encouraging them. I complain about certain people and things because I feel entitled to something. There is something wrong with my heart as I cleverly try to cover up the pain of being a nobody, of being poor and ignored. Secretly, I want attention and approval which I thought I didn’t mind (being unnoticed), but like I said, it is just false modesty. I don’t want to hide these things from you, Lord. Thank you for making me aware and I pray you will bridle my tongue and help me be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry by casting all my anxiety on you, Lord Jesus.

August 17: There’s Something Wrong with Me

I think there’s something wrong with me when it comes to friendships and relationships because of my impatience. I get so impatient with people and I am okay with being by myself which I know is wrong because that would mean having no one to share the gospel to and not being salt and light to the world. Lord Jesus, please heal my impatience and take away my apathy. Help me to be more understanding and considerate of people, especially my friends. Give me a chance to share your love to everybody without choosing the ones I would hang out with. Thank you.

August 30: Symptoms of Pride

• Fault-finding
• Ministering in a harsh spirit
• Putting on pretense
• Taking offense easily
• Presumption before God and man
• Hungry for attention
• Neglecting others 

September 4: My Faith is Being Attacked

Satan eats faith for breakfast. I feel like I am being under attack again because at this point, I am so angry! I know as a Christian this is wrong thinking. It’s not Christ-exalting. It will be my birthday in two weeks. 

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or a sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. (1 John 4:20)

September 5: God Restores

Yesterday, I woke up so upset and so stressed at work that I ended up eating burger and fries at McDonald’s after class. I ate so irresponsibly yesterday. For the last two days, I was eating junk. I knew I was stress-eating and it was happening more frequently. Last night I shouted at Basti because he wouldn’t brush his teeth and he burst out crying so I had to say sorry. Lesson learned? Fast and pray instead of eating junk. I haven’t tried it but it could be the best solution. And don’t shout at my pupils or to anybody for that matter. Thanks be to God who restores hope and refreshes me in the morning!

September 8: Speak Life and Break Curses

Rumor has it that there is a curse inside my classroom because all the pupils who stay in it become uncontrollable. I refuse to believe it at first but now that my pupils are starting to misbehave, I realize that I must speak life to them every day. I realize that even to myself, I have been saying negative words, such as “I am stressed,” or “I am getting fat.” This should not be the case for death and life are in the power of the tongue! Every day I must speak blessings even to others. I must be in control for greater is HE who is in me than he who is in the world.

September 17: Like a Nightmare

Today is like waking up from a nightmare. We just received some bad news. Right in front of our eyes is naked greed in action. Some people don’t have compassion for the poor. [This person] is ungrateful, wicked and has no mercy. I pray that he would find the Lord even if what I really want to do right now is to destroy his reputation and take this matter into our own hands. But my husband and I decided to just let it go and trust God to work things out for our good. May God give us peace and increase our faith in the midst of this storm. 

Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (Romans 12:19-21) 

September 20: A Great Lesson on Humility

What a shame for us! What a shame to accuse someone! We could have simply asked him first it was true. Rather we accused him and allowed our emotions to rule our heads. What we did was so shameful, yet it is real that “God will never let the righteous be put into shame.” We praise the Lord even more for touching this person’s heart that he even offered to help my husband in this matter. He could have been angry and he could have rejected us completely. Oh, what an amazing God we have!

This is such a great lesson about humility and not judging people, and trusting God’s word. There are many Bible verses about praying for what we need, not being anxious, God supplying our needs, and not judging people. There are so many lessons in this one event in our life. I am glad we went to church that night and sought refuge in the Lord instead of doing an evil thing like taking it out on social media. As the person said, “Please verify this information.” And we should always consult the Lord. Praise God for leading us in our life, for guiding us in what we do, for seeking His will and taking refuge in Him – our ROCK OF REFUGE! God is worthy to be praised!

A Grateful Heart

Writing this post has also reminded me that many years ago, I learned to stop praying for material things, conquering unhealthy obsessions and believing that the desires of my heart have already been fashioned by God himself. It is amazing how I no longer worry about what we will eat or what we will wear, for God knows our needs even before we ask. God has indeed transformed me by the renewing of my mind. He is truly more than enough for me.

I am overflowing with gratitude to God for the gift of prayer and the gift of writing in my life. Their significance strongly resonates with me. I encourage you to pray while writing, or write while praying. These habits can do more for your soul than you can ever imagine.

God Will Give You Rest

Imagine that you are a call center supervisor who has the potential to be promoted as the next operations manager. You work longer hours to meet deadlines, attend high profile meetings, finish your deliverables and still manage to hang out with your subordinates after shift to “build relationships” and make sure their performance remains excellent. You only get 4-5 hours of sleep per day, that is if you’re not busy running errands during your “free time.”

Or maybe you’re a preschool teacher, like me, who takes care of very young children in school – teaching them how to read and write, while integrating all these activities with arts and physical education. You sometimes bring home test papers so you can finish checking them and complete their report cards. On Saturdays, you attend graduate school and other professional development seminars, submitting a ton of requirements to get good grades and earn that elusive master’s degree. To top it all off, you have your own children to raise and a husband to serve. When you get home every night, you must help the children with their homework, and make sure they are enrolled in weekend sports activities, music lessons or acting classes. You are a working mother – a successful career woman – who also has civic and social responsibilities plus a large circle of friends. You even have time to go to the gym to lose weight or to inspire others to get fit and live an active lifestyle.

Or perhaps, you’re starting a small business and managing a few employees. Your children are in college where you pay exorbitant amounts for their tuition, in addition to your home mortgage and car loans. You have credit card debts that are blown up because of hospital bills and unnecessary purchases. You sometimes also work at home and during the weekends, that is if it’s not the schedule to take your wife and children to a grand vacation or another shopping spree. You know you’d rather be saving up for your quickly depleting emergency fund, but all your friends post pictures of their frequent out-of-the-country trips and you don’t want to be called a loser.

Whoever you are, wherever you live, you must be under a lot of pressure to succeed, to exceed expectations, to be rich and popular, to be a wonderful parent and a cool friend, to be interesting and intelligent, to stay relevant and opinionated. You have 1,001 items in your bucket list and you’re quite sure you can tick them all off before your 40^th birthday.

There are days when you get really tired. You get stressed and sick, feeling drained. You wonder why the expensive vitamins and food supplements are just not that effective. You get overwhelmed with your busy schedule and the attention that your loved ones demand. If you were in Colorado, at the end of the day you could smoke marijuana legally to help with your insomnia and day-to-day anxiety. If you lived in a cramped city like Tokyo, you could drop by a cat café after work to sip delicious coffee while petting a cute kitty. Here in the Philippines, you could simply go to a bar after office hours to get drunk and smoke cigarettes that are guaranteed to help you relax. The next day, you wake up with a massive headache, but you just have to deal with that stress someway, somehow.

Most of us fall prey to the cult of productivity at different times in our lives. There’s just too much pressure at work, in our families, in our society. Working hard and fulfilling responsibilities are innately good things, except when they get out of hand, when they take over what is truly important. We may be under a lot of pressure to excel in everything we do because conventional wisdom dictates that we only live once, hence we must live life to the fullest.

One of the reasons could be envy or covetousness – the desire to have other people’s qualities or possessions. It may also be pride or self-conceit – the desire to be better than others. It seems like each person is in competition with everyone else.

In The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand writes: 

“Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me'. Then he wonders why he's unhappy.” 

It will be a never-ending cycle, unless we give up the struggle. But what if there’s no way to stop? We must continue to work because we have bills to pay and a family to feed; there is nothing wrong with that. However, we need to have priorities and give up the things that weigh us down. Life is short and the older you get, the more you feel it.

If you believe in God, you do believe that life is full of suffering but we have a God that comforts and strengthens us.

If you don’t believe in God, the bad news is that you will always be exhausted and deceived. You will experience the wear and tear of life because that is normal. A religious woman once asked a male atheist friend how he coped with the death of his father the previous year, because her father had also just died a week ago. She wrote, “He's dead and in the ground. I take great comfort in thinking that he's in a good place. Do we just become fertilizer, end of story? I am not questioning your beliefs and the why or where of it. I'm just asking what you think is the next step. If you think it's fertilizer, please lie to make it more interesting.”

Someday, you will stop working and retire. Your children will grow up and have families of their own. Your spouse will die, or you will die first. “When two people marry, each one has to accept that one of them will die before the other,” wrote C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed.

Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

How exactly does that work? I can think of at least three ways:

• You stop being self-centered. You stop talking about yourself, stop promoting yourself, stop bragging about yourself and your accomplishments. You stop telling people you have a lot of money and can buy anything. You stop feeling like a celebrity when you get one hundred likes on every one of your Facebook statuses. You stop pretending that your life is always perfect, or that your children are flawless, or that your spouse is amazing. Now, I am going to say this with a lot of love: you are not the center of the universe. You stop the unnecessary self-glorification because God will give you the grace and humility to see the wonder of his sovereign love.

•  You start to have a clear, definite purpose in life: to glorify God. And by the way, you have to go to a genuine Christ-exalting church and read the Bible thoroughly to discover how loving, gentle and merciful God is. You have to understand that God is holy and that He knit you in your mother’s womb. You have to really believe that you are special in God’s eyes and everything He does is for your good, whether you like it or not. In his bestselling book, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for? Rick Warren explains it beautifully:

“If not to God, you will surrender to the opinions or expectations of others, to money, to resentment, to fear, or to your own pride, lusts, or ego. You were designed to worship God and if you fail to worship Him, you will create other things (idols) to give your life to. You weren't put on earth to be remembered. You were put here to prepare for eternity."

• Finally, you walk by faith, not by sight. You begin to put your faith in God. You have daily needs? God provides. Is your child sick? God heals. Is your family broken? God restores relationships. Did you lose your job? God can replace what you’ve lost. Are you emotionally wounded? God is close to the brokenhearted. You no longer worry too much because someone above you is going to help you and take care of your needs. Each time He says, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in [your] weakness." 

Now, what happens next? Well, you continue to work, to take care of your family, to pursue your hobbies, to reach those goals in life – but this time, with a quiet confidence that through good and bad times, God is with you. You will never feel alone again. The pressure will be lifted. The stress will be eliminated.

Know that Jesus Christ is the only way to God. The first step is to trust Him because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I believe it is the best decision you can make in life, and if you would like to take a rest from all your problems, fears and distractions, come to Jesus now and pray this short prayer with me: 

Lord Jesus, I am very tired and weary. Today, I make the decision to trust you and believe that you can set me free from all things that bring me down. Please touch my heart and change the direction of my life so that I no longer have to be exhausted and worried again. I put my faith that you are the only way to God and that you truly care for me. Please give me rest from all my anxieties. Thank you very much for loving me. Amen.

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As I celebrate my 34th birthday, I would love to remember and savor God's faithfulness in my life. I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." (Psalm 91:2)

Basti and I had lunch with my parents at Savory - The District Imus.
A father’s goodness is higher than the mountain,
a mother’s goodness deeper than the sea. - Japanese Proverb

While waiting for Daddy Marvin in SM Southmall, Basti and I took some selfies and I noticed the wrinkles around my eyes. Yes, I know I am old. Here's a good Mark Twain quote to remember: "Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been."

We had an early dinner in Sambokojin, SM Southmall where you can dine for free if it's your birthday, and as Maya Angelou said,
“I sustain myself with the love of family.”

Celebrating 34 years of God's grace and mercy: To God be the glory!

Getting Things Done

Ernest Hemingway made sure he got up to write in the early morning hours, creating his masterpieces totally undisturbed, while the Dalai Lama wakes up at three-thirty a.m. to spend his first four hours of the day meditating on the roots of compassion and what he can do for his people. "If you don’t do ritual things in order, the paper doesn’t read as well, and you’ll be thrown off the whole day. But when you can sit for a while at your table, reach for your coffee, look out the window at the sky or some branches, then back down at the paper or a book, everything feels right for the moment, which is maybe all we have," wrote Annie Lamott.

I have developed a healthy fascination for creating the ideal daily routine, if not building a rock solid routine. We all create our lives through this interesting process of adjusting our schedules, changing our habits or forming new ones, and trying to escape the cult of productivity in order to regain our sanity.

My daily rituals have been altered in less than a year, and I have recently trained myself to wake up even earlier. After all, we no longer have a helper at home and I have to do a lot more things by myself or with the help of my husband. Here's what a typical weekday looks like:

I don't have much time for many other things, but a daily routine allows me to get things done and set my priorities straight in this order: GOD, good health, family and relationships, work and education, and a little R&R once in a while.