Emotional Roller Coaster Week

Just finished watching The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, basically the end of Bilbo's journey and I cant help but be emotional as I ponder about his relationship loyal with Gandalf. For me, it paints a picture of how God is to us most of the time: leading us to adventures, sometimes perils. But one thing never fails... He keeps saving/redeeming/surprising us. And no matter how you almost died at the journey, one thing's sure: you'll make it home. With a lot of memories and lessons to take home.

What a good movie to end my roller coaster work week. Have you got those weeks where aside from being dragged by your tight calendar schedule, you also try to manage the emotions brought about by the results of your work? (I'm speaking more to the ladies since men don't have hormones that get them emotional) January 20-23 was that kind of week for me. Part of my job role as PM is to organize marketing events for Microsoft and I just had 3 consecutive events for Jan 21 and 22 (Wed and Thurs). I've organized a lot of events last year and they had good turnouts. I wasn't expecting that this year's pioneer events would have very low turnouts. I'm so disappointed with myself and I'm sure I disappointed my partners from Microsoft and my superiors. Having the "responsibility" personality makes my finger point at me event though I wasn't really the one in charge of getting the confirmations. It got me to think a lot and I thank God for comforting me and giving me a lesson to "OWN" my events next time.

After this pit comes another hectic day, Friday. In my mind, I have another day to disappoint myself and other people. I happened to be a contestant for a Demo Cup between 9 companies partnering with Microsoft. I was't really looking forward to win because I wouldn't get the prize anyway because of unreasonable company policy. I however still did my best because that's how God raised me up since I was a student: to always be excellent. So after the contestants have finished presenting, I was ready to leave the room but to my surprise, my name was called for the Grand Winner! In my heart, I know that it was God's way to redeem my week. I would've been still on disappointed mode this weekend if not for Him.

Thank you for Lord taking me to places... And making me do unbelievable things. ‪

Thank You for the visit Pope. Love, Three Friends.

It's amazing how things (schedules, seasons and plans) come together to bring spice to relationships. Since Carmen got married, I and Eca never got to visit her in her new home with her husband Rouie. Yes, we've missed those crazy lengthy over-the-house conversations we used to do in her singleness but things weren't just at the right time for me and Eca to do it again old school way. A common schedule is just so hard to find between three friends, one who has a regular working hours (me), one with a Monday off and dynamic weekdays to weekends (Eca), and one who's actually physically counted as two because she already has a husband to consider (Carmen). But finally, after about 2 years, we got the chance! Thanks yo Pope's visit that we got 2 holidays to spend in Meycauayan Bulacan and just be with the "no holds barred" kind of friends. Lengthyyyyy stories, food, movies, house chores, fights, laughters, bullying, prayers, more food and more stories. So blessed to have these friends!!! Till next time!!!

How To Identify Your Talents

When you stop growing you start dying. -William S. Burroughs (Novelist)

Who doesn't love Januaries? Frest start, clean slate. Resolutions. One of the most helpful items that could ever get into your New Year List is to "GROW." If you plan to really live this year, growing must be a priority. Otherwise (if you wanna start dying), then forget growing. But  how do you translate this concept into practical daily living? Last January 8, 2015 I happened to stumble upon John Maxwell's podcast that was recorded years ago about "Ready, Set, Grow!" and it really is a blessing to learn the wisdom he shared!

He mentioned about the Rule of 5 Times but I'm not gonna explain that rather expound on one amazing thought he mentioned during his teaching. He said that if you wanna grow in the spiritual realm this year, you gotta have the following times EVERYDAY:

1. God Time
2. Gift Time
3. Grace Time
4. Give Time
5. Gratitude Time

Growth is inevitable when you make this list of habits a hobby. I wanna focus however in Gift Time because for the past years, the other four items have already been impacting my life as I practice them (with a lot of failure involved). "Gifts" was even more impressed to me strongly when the Prayer and Fasting Day 5 material of my home church discussed about Serving God with your Gifts.

KNOWING YOUR GIFTS

Since I was a student, as young as I can remember, it was always a struggle to answer the question "What are your talents?" Others' gifts are really obvious. You may pick yours from the common list:

Dancing
Singing
Playing musical intruments
Acting
Painting
Drawing
Crafts
Speech
etc.

However, mine was really so hard to realize that I even asked God before if He missed out and became unfair in distributing gifts to me. But of course, in case if you're asking the same, He wasn't. In fact he's very intentional with every detail of your life including this gift/talent aspect. So how do you actually discover this gift? John Maxwell helps us with that. There are 3 evidences for you to confirm what your gifts are... Ready?

1. You will be good at it
2. You'll have an opportunity to use it
3. You'll love doing it

Have you figured out yours yet? I have. Finally after years of struggling, I'm now sure what my gifts are.., few yet wonderful (for me) :)

Writing. Well I'm not very good like the novelists, newspaper writers, poets and the likes are. But the fact that I can remember more than 1 human being has commended me for my good writing gives me confidence to claim it. The first one whom I can remember is my Journalism teacher, Ms. Apple Soriano, back in 3rd year high school. She had this collaboration thing with some foreign people from the academe (can't remember the details) and one of my works were commended by those foreigners. Others who have commended me with my work are well, my friends. Haha. :) My blogsite seems an opportunity to use it and definitely i love doing it! It comes naturally and it's my form of expression.

Speaking/Teaching. Unlike writing which comes easy like a flowing river, teaching is a gift I believe I have which rocks the nerve out of me. Who doesn't get nervous when speaking in front of people?! But I'm passionate to do it because of the higher fulfillment it brings. I also have, and am grateful to, a lot of opportunities to use it.  I use it in the ministry, I use it for work, and even to mentor students in my alma mater as I teach as a part-time university instructor. I haven't been fired yet from work so I guess I'm good at it :) A few have also reckoned that I have the gift after they have heard me teach.

Going back with growing... using you gift everyday enhances it so it can reach even greater excellence. You may already know your gifts and you're already using it everyday prior to reading this but I wanna make a reminder that

Gifts were given by God and the best way to use them is by serving Him. 

A Lifetime Domain Name

Along with the thought from my last post about the use of facebook as a history-sharing tool, I realized I would need to find a way to make a blogsite alive forever! Thanks to the wonders of wordpress and blogger though for making blogging hassle free. But what if you use a domain name for your blog?

Domain names can be a pain in the ass when you're starting to set it up for the first time, especially for web-developing dummies like me. Furthermore, to have your own domain name would cost you money, yearly. Take this site as an example. At the moment I'm using a Domain Name princessjonaidiaries.net, and it's now on it's second year. However when next year comes, I have to pay another Php500 to renew and keep that domain name. But what if I want to keep a domain name for a lifetime, even beyond? Well I can give my future son/daughter (I don't have such now) the account and have them restore my domain name but that would be inconvenient for them. So a lifetime subscription for a domain name would really be helpful for a non-popular blogger like me. Haha.

I found out however that Romania's top level domain (.ro) can be bought for life for just 35Euros as the site http://en.newhost.ro/ claims! That equates as of the moment to Php1862.41, a payment for just almost 4 years worth of your own domain if transacted here in the Ph! It's risky but I'm gonna try it... Watch out for ThePrayingWanderer.Ro soon :)

The Use of Facebook and An Amazing Photograph

Just a thought. I've been using Facebook since around 2009 for the purpose of sharing a recorded history. But now I realize that FB doesn't really serve that purpose well because your story gets buried beneath your timeline as the years go by and it would be difficult to look back to the months that passed way before. So I decided today, January 10, 2015 to use my blog as a more reliable tool for everyday sharing. Will still use facebook though as the norm.


So sharing this photo here. I think this shot amazing with the combination of people moving (blurred) and myself with the stairs constant. And did you notice Mr. Spidey right there? I don't remember seeing anyone with a Spidey mask while I visited the Bell Tower in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, Philippines. But he managed to appear in this shot making it more interesting. On a 5th look though, it could just be a man wearing a headset and the sunrays just did some optical illusion. However it happened, this shot is epic! Thanks to my friend Prinie who took this shot :)

Why I'm Thankful for Having Horrible Canker Sores

Who has ever appreciated canker sores, especially if they pop out three at the same time lumping near each other that you could draw connect-the-dot lines? I've never, until today. 

During the start of the 2-week long yearend holidays of 2014, I bit the inside wall of my mouth. One thing I always do when I uncarefully bite either my tongue or inner walls of my mouth (I don't know what's it called) is to say a short prayer of "Lord, please don't let it cause another canker sore." Such is a really small thing that cause horrible pain and affects your appetite for food. My prayer got answered though, the bite didn't cause the sores right away. It would have ruined my food appetite for the holiday feasts if they did. It was January 2 when it showed up, and the pain is excruciating. I already tried to treat it as my traditional mother would suggest... The Alum treatment which multiplied the pain exponentially. 

But the point of this making it to my blogsite is that I came to my amazement as I was feeling the pain keeping me from sleeping. I know that after the holiday feasting comes the fasting but I totally didnt't plan to prepare myself dietwise. So why am I thankful for the painful cancer sores? It forced me to prepare physically for the Annual Prayer and Fasting of my local church by not letting me eat much as I have been doing for the past month. :) #EverythingHasAPurpose #EvenYourPain

The Dream List (aka The Bucket List)

Why should my Faith Goals and Bucket List be distinct from one another? After 9 years of writing a Faith Goal list every start of the year, I got tired of this routine and I'm giving my 2015's list a twist. It will still contain the typical items but I'm taking it to a greater level by incorporating my bucket list which could happen in another year... And by bucket list, I mean dreams too big for me to really think I can do them or too great to happen :) I'm even more inspired by the quote: "If your dream is not intimidating to you, it's probably insulting to God." So this blog post will reveal me dreaming away! :D

The Dream List: (doesn't include my typical faith goals as this post will be updated from time to time as I add more dreams)

1. Own a Go Pro and its accessories
2. Carry a Polaroid and print photos with people I meet from my travels
3. Sky Dive 
   
4. Bungee Jump
5. Learn to Drive
6. Learn to Swim
7. Explore Japan
8. Climb the mountains of Norway and journal while sitting at the Trolltunga rocks 
   
9. Visit Ate Lye and her family in England
10. Bikezip at Bohol
11. Enjoy Maldives
12. Ride the Swing at Baños, Tungurahua, Ecuador 
    
13. Cross a real hanging bridge 
    
14. Ride a hot air balloon in Turkey 
    
15. Swim the waters of the Blue Caves in Greece
16. Climb the Eifell Tower at Paris
17. Visit a Safari in Africa
18. Be in two countries at the same time (through land borders)
19. Step in 0 degree latitude (Equator)
20. Visit a grand underwater park
21. Cruise Europe
22. Not work for a year
23. Drop by the Grand Canyon 
    
24. Stay in a room overlooking Niagara Falls
25. Be friends with strangers from different countries
26. Visit Machu Picchu, Peru 
27. Hike the Himalayas
28. Climb the San Francisco Bridge 
    
29. See Rio De Janeiro while atop the Christ the Redeemer Statue 
    
30. Climb a Pyramid in Egypt 
    
31. Watch the Aurora Borealis 
    
32. Ride a gondola in Venice, Italy 
33. Walk the Tibetan Bridge 
    
34. Surf the waves
35. Work in a farm in New Zealand :)
36. Volunteer for A21 campaign (added Jan 6, 2015)
37. Scuba Dive! (added Jan 6, 2015)
38. Meet people from Every Nation churches wherever present! (added Jan 6, 2015)
39. Speak for a session/talk over a conference! (added Jan 6, 2015)
40. Wander in Chile.
41. Watch a sunflower field waking up to the rising sun.
42. Ride a camel in the desert. 
43. Ride a train from UK to Ireland :)))))
44. Visit the Louvre Museum
45. Stairway to Heaven in Hawaii

The list goes on :)

What I Learned from my 1st Zipline Ride

My thirst for adventures have always made me crave to try ziplines but such in the city are not very adventure-satisfying. I want my first Z experience to be traversing trees and waters. So when I knew I was going to Ilocos Sur this Christmas break, and upon finding out that the longest Z in that province lies somewhere near my lodging, i knew in my mind I would finally have my first Z. :)

Dec 25, 2014 in Narvacan Tourism Complex, Ilocos Sur. I was about to try 520m long and 280m high zipline. 100% confident that nothing bad will happen, that I would finish the line unharmed just as any liners did. With the tour guide leading me, I crossed a miniforest and climbed up a rocky hill to get to the starting point of the line. The crew locked me up with the harness in a darna position and was about to release me when I asked this question: "San ako kakapit?," and got answered "wala po." Then I got out-of-my-mind kind of nervousness that it took me around 3 minutes to finally be ready to be released.

Awtsu. I've always been brave trying out exhilarating stuff such as extreme rides... name it and i think can ride it! But I realized that my courage comes from the fact that my hands can grip upon something i think is safe. It felt so different with this Zipline ride... I was a little hesitant and unsure because instead of me holding to something, I was just being held up by a harness I couldn't even see because of my orientation. Although i know it's the same harness that has sent hundreds of others through the same line, I couldn't stop my heart from pumping fear.

Me in the zipline harness.

Right then when I was traversing the 1 minute zipline, a lesson was prompted into my heart, and I believe it was from God. Sometimes in life, there's no safety bar you can hold onto. No one beside you going the same challenge as you are. But Jesus, like the harness, is holding you up connecting you the the rope.. taking you from Point A to Point B. Most of the time you would not see him, but at one point you will just realize that you've already reached the end of the challenge, alive... and the only participation you had was actually "going through it." You did not do the "holding up" yourself.

That's a hard but assuring revelation that I know was meant for me as I enter the year. It's gonna be a challenging journey from starting to finishing point but I just have to enjoy the view, express my amazement in screams and heart-pumps and be in faith that my harness, who is Jesus will get me there. :)