The Savior and Lord Jesus born on Christmas Day

"Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord."--Luke 2:11

"For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
--Isaiah 9:6

A very merry and blessed CHRISTmas to you and your families my darling loving readers, visitors and friends! Jesus is the reason for the season. :)

Thank you for all who prayed with me!

The Lord Jesus said in John 15:5,"...apart from Me you can do nothing."
Now Lord, "Let them know that it is your hand, that you, O LORD, have done it. Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness." (Psalm 109:27, 115:1)

Yesterday(November 25,2012), was the first time I sang the solo part in front of the congregation of our church for our monthly choir song offering. I was also tasked to do a short exhortation for the song. I was so nervous, I didn't want to distract people from worshiping the Lord with such a beautiful song just because of my nervousness. The song is Light of the world by Dennis Jernigan. Thank you to those who have prayed with me on the song offering yesterday. The Lord's grace was amazing, not only to me but to the whole choir. He graciously helped us. I just entrust all the fruits of the message of the song and the exhortation to Him.

Remember dear reader, we can only perform and serve, but apart from Christ, all is in vain.

Just like Jonah, who was called by the Lord, sinned against Him, and yet, when He repented, God still didn't change His mind about Jonah. That is how amazingly gracious the Lord is. God is so holy that He hates any sin! He could have just stricken Jonah by a lightning, or even allowed the ground to swallow Him up. But He didn't do that, He patiently called Him for the purpose that He was called to do. After that, patiently teaching Jonah about the things that he still had to learn in life. The Lord is Holy, He is just when He judges. He is the God of second chances. Let's just be careful to quickly grab the chances He gives us, because we don't know when will be our last.

Once again, thank you so much and have a blessed week!

All the glory goes to my Lord who loved me and gave Himself up for me. ♥
"Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." -Galatians 1:10 

Nervous! I covet your prayers. Please? :)

I'm really nervous because it's my first time to sing a solo part in a Sunday choir song offering in our church, the song is Light of the World by Dennis Jernigan.

It's a very beautiful song about the Light of the world who is of course, the Lord Jesus Christ. You can listen to a Youtube video of it here. :)

I like the whole song and some of my favorite parts are these:

• "Light of the world, shone through my darkest night, brought me into the light.."
• "Helping my blind eyes to see.. Setting me free, living in me.."
• "Precious Lamb crucified.. Savior, Lord, Jesus Christ.."
• "I give my life to say, You are the ONLY way.. "

It worships our Lord, I frequently end up teary-eyed singing this.

Please pray for these:

• That I don't end up crying because parts of the song touches my heart so. I don't want to distract the congregation because of crying and because of a voice that trembles just because of my nervousness.
• That all of us in the choir will be alert and not be the cause of distraction for the congregation as we all worship together through the song.
• That I will not try to win approval of men, but of God. Not to please men but to please God.
• That the Holy Spirit will so move the hearts of each listener and cause them to worship in Spirit and in Truth.
• That above all, the Lord will be honored, seen and glorified. And that none of us will rob the Lord of the glory that is due Him and Him alone.

Glory to God! I should be excited for how the Lord will move, right? Because I know that His grace is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9), that it is a privilege to serve the Most Holy and High King of Glory, and that He don't need any of us but chooses to allow us to participate in His work anyway. Praise God!

Thanksgiving

I thank my Lord Jesus Christ for saving me. I’m already assured that I’ll be with Him when I die.

I thank God for the freedom to worship Him and meet together in His name in the Philippines!

I thank God for not dealing w/me as my sins deserved&the forgiveness through believing in Christ’s death on the cross.

I praise God for disciplining me w/ grace, mercy & love.

I thank God for the privilege of being called to live for Him.

I praise God that I can trust Him in difficult situations.

I thank God for being the Only Living and Only True God.

I thank God for being my God.

1st Anniversary with RareJob

August 13, 2012

My 1st year “anniversary” of being a RareJob Philippines, Inc. English instructor. :)

To the company: Thank you for the fantastic opportunity of being able to share my life with wonderful people all over the world, who also share theirs with me. Thank you for the collaboration and partnership. God bless you more!

To my English students: Thank you for all the support, trust, friendship, and gratitude that you continuously give me. Thank you for helping me through your anonymous evaluations. I didn’t feel that I had already been teaching for exactly 1 year today because of the joy of serving you. All of this, of course, was made possible only by the God of the Holy Bible who had led each of you to me. I also thank Him for the one year of His help, love and goodness to me in teaching. God bless you all! :)

I’m just so blessed. Thank you, Lord for Your unfailing love and unceasing mercies. You made this all possible. :)

¹ “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.”

-Psalm 121:1-2

Pursuing Photography

I personally had loved photography even before DSLRs became popular. I just can't afford a good camera so I always exhausted my phone cameras to practice, and uhh, practice. One day, my church family announced that they are planning to establish a photography club. I'm so glad I can take part in it and learn every month and apply the knowledge in between meetings. Now, I have a digital point and shoot camera. Not yet DSLR but, yeah, I'll work on this first before I finally get a good camera for this expensive but delighting hobby.

I don't really like snails too much but they sometimes are good subjects in photography. I think I can handle it for the love of taking photos. The guideline I applied in this photo is the background, color, and rule of thirds. I was pleased to see that some of my photos long before looked like they are guided by the principles that I'm learning. I just thank the Lord for helping me every step of the way.

Nature capture are always good the eye and the soul. It just reflects the beauty of its Creator.

I hope that whenever you see beauty in anything, you'd pause to utter a word of praise and thanks to the Source of all things that came about.

Have a blessed week, dear reader.

Praise Him for His mighty deeds;

Praise him according to His excellent greatness.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord!

-Psalm 150: 2,6

No Problem Being Single on Valentine's Day

I don't dislike valentines. People are usually so bitter about it for some reason. I think that it's kinda sweet because we see lotsa chocolates and hearts and flowers and balloons. Those are really pretty! Not to mention the colors chocolate brown and pink a lot. :)

These are the stuff I gave my mom. Moms love breads! Lol. These ones are her favorites. Especially the empanada from Red Ribbon Bakeshop and spicy Spanish style sardines.

I’m not too showy all the time but I love her a lot. She’s such a blessing to me from the Lord. I just thank God for entrusting me into her loving hands. Witnessing the love of the Lord for me is enough to feel valentines every day. ♥

On Being a RareJob Teacher and a Businesswoman

As you know, I'm not practicing my nursing profession already. (I'm not closing my doors on that possibility though.) And the main source of God's provision for me is my teaching "profession". I'm a RareJob English Teacher and aside from that, I also have a business wherein I distribute some products and at the same time building some business teams along the way.

For the teaching part, I'm really enjoying it a lot and I'm so not good in teaching, you both know me. LOL. The thing is, I don't know how the Lord does that and I'm just so amazed by student evaluations and verbal appreciations. He is doing it, y'know, literally helping me on the teaching thing. I enjoy it because of the following reasons:

1. Making a difference in other people's lives by helping them become globally competent through language ;

2. Building cross-cultural friendships (I can actually laugh with them a lot and communicate deeply with some of them, can you believe that? I'm so glad.) ;

3. Learning A LOT (culture, life, new insights, broadened perspective, etc.) ;

4. I like this part the best: I'm able to actually speak about Jesus Christ and the Gospel to some of them. I sometimes feel like crying for joy whenever I am able to share the Gospel to a student because I know that gaining eternal life in Christ is much more important than speaking in English abroad. (I think that I was able to share it to about 7-9 students already.) And I never even thought that it is possible for me. I hope that they will be able to take it to heart. Please help me pray for the lost souls and that the seed of the Gospel will be cultivated by God and bear fruit the soonest.

That is for the teaching. For the business, I'm actually having some difficult time in the "building business teams" part because I'm sooo not good with people skills. And people usually look down on females and the younger generation to actually lead them. Plus, I'm so not a leader myself! Starting last December 2011, I drew a line before me and the business thing to slow me down because I felt that it was really pulling me away from my affections toward God. The busy schedule barely gave me time to think about having my devotion times with Him. HOW HORRIBLE WAS THAT and HOW STUPID WAS I AGAIN?

I wanted to do the business because I want to use it for the furtherance of His Kingdom, not for selfish gains which is slowly becoming the motive as time goes on. There was this part where I needed to put my 100 dreams on a list. I realized that my dreams are shifting from the glory of God to my personal desires. I already abandoned the list and I want to make a new one filled with dreams, one which is thought together with my Father. I'm just so blessed that the Lord revealed it to me before I sank deeply into the quicksand. Now, I'm doing it slowly, asking for God's grace to be able to carefully do it not for selfish gains. 

God provides for the needs of the birds and trees which nobody cares for, how much more for humans. Especially us, His children, right? I also don't want to lose sight of Him as my life support.

Anyway, I hope this blessed you in some way and I will stop here now to keep it short, keep posted for updates for the "other" areas of my life.