I received nothing that I wanted, but everything I needed.

Well... The sun's still shining, the sky's still blue, the trees are still green, and my family still loves me. My friends changed a bit but I found some true ones, reconnected with old ones, and made so many new ones.

Life is good.

"I believed. You [have to] believe it. You can't believe [anything] if you're hating. You can't achieve [anything] if you're hating." -R. Kelly

Love unfailing / overtaking my heart

Friday night home alone after a long week and I'm entertaining myself to FFIX, new music, youtube and the internet and laughing so hard by myself at the things I see and read.

I actually needed this so bad :') lol

"What's a saviour?"

"A saviour...is a really important friend."

-Wei to her child, FFIX

"Don't let our memory become a burden. You must always be light-hearted and free." -Morrison, FFIX

"Vivi, have you figured out a solution to your problem?"

"Not really. But I'm moving on."

-Zidane & Vivi, FFIX

"You'd think with all the problems in this world, there'd be more answers... It's not fair... but that's the way things are. The choice is yours. I just wanna protect the people I'm with. Doesn't matter whether I can or not. It's what I believe in." -Zidane, FFIX

"He wanted to know more about himself, maybe...One day, the man left and went on a quest to find the answer. His only clue was the blue light he saw in his dreams..."

"A blue light?"

"Yeah. He thought it might be a memory of his birthplace. An ocean, maybe...?"

-Zidane (to Garnet), FFIX

"He's going to come out again one day, right? When he does, I'm going to wash him off in the pond." -Black Mage No. 56, FFIX

Not too sure how I'm doing right now, but I'm really glad that I chose to go to mass today.

I'm sorry.. but thank You.

I hear Your voice... deep in the stirring of my heart. Barely though, like a whisper. But it has moved me more than the loudest praise and worship or the confidence and fire of a leader.

It's a bittersweet feeling. A sweet, peaceful, quiet and refreshing drop tied with the deepest sorrow and suffering I have ever felt.

It's filled with the cry of that undying light inside of me that was given to me by You (because it is that little piece of You, I believe) that desperately wants to be united back with its Creator, with its whole self.

It hurts so much in the most beautiful way and it's the greatest mystery that in the next second of adoration, I could desecrate and revile it with a simple "free choice" into darker oceans.

One moment I blame You for everything, the next I'm begging You for forgiveness.

It's true.. I can't have two masters.

I need to make my choice.

But how many times have I made that choice?

Hum dee dum...

This feels weird.

Today we (Surrey 2 Core) had our meeting today to relay and finalize our new leaders for 2013. I'm so glad and proud for Sean who will be stepping up as the new brother chapter head next year. Also I'm happy that Ronn will be moving on, I really think he needs this. Emily is staying which is awesome; she'll be a great help to all the new leaders since we'll also be having 3 unit head slots, each one for St. Matt's, Precious Blood and St. Ann's and each needing a brother and sister. Right now for brothers we're hoping for Patrick Ruiz, Irvin Villarama and Kevin Locsin and for sisters we're hoping for (excluding Emily) Jenny Labayog, and either Kathryn Cruz or Angelica Cacatian. Abby I know has desires to leave but after Tito Jun's comment today, I'm not too sure what's going through her mind right now. But right now, from the core's perspective, she's staying.

Ya...

It's a bit weird that I'm leaving now all of a sudden. Although in a way, it is what I asked for, it's just... odd. Either way, I want to be firm in my decision and not look back. There's still so much to see and experience outside of YFC, and I thank God so much for all the friends and lessons I've gained through my 4ish-5ish years through it. It's honestly been such a blessed chapter in my life altogether!

I'm pretty sure I can write a so much more heartfelt post about this but it's not like I'm leaving for good so I'll try my best not to make it appear so.

Anyway though.. I want to say goodbye with a smile on my face. =]

Here's to the rest of my term, and to the new life next year, and to my future!

God bless

Despite all the sins, hurts, hate and wrongs in my life, I know I'm still living here on Earth. And every second is a choice to do better, to be better, and to surrender it all to Him.

Life sucks sometimes, but only because I make it suck. I know through it all, beneath it all, above it all and around it all I'm so blessed to have God's love.

"There is nothing you can do to God to make Him love you less."

One of the first lines about Him that I ever learned and it's something that is crucial to my well being. Sin does exactly as its supposed to and it's been doing so now... but it's power is nothing compared to the power of His love and mercy.

Whatever hope and joy that I experienced in the past is something I should realize to have come from God alone. My friends were instruments of His love, but the love and growth itself came from Him alone. What was once in the past is not lost, it is just time now that I find and apply these things to the present. To now. It came from different sources in the past, but that's the thing, it's the past. God wants to carry me through so many more chapters and take me to views of different highs and lows, but nonetheless ever closer to Him.

There's beauty not just at the view of the high mountain peaks, but in the low valleys where the forests and rivers are as well.

"Sometimes I wonder what it feels like to be God.

What it feels like to create a living being from nothing and love it more than anything. What is it like to create millions of these wonderful beings knowing full well that so many of them will despise your very existence and create them anyways. What does it feel like to be hated by the thing you love most. What’s it like for one of them to say they love you more than anything but for their actions to prove the opposite. What is it like to give knowing they can never give as much back to you. What is it like when you give someone a second, third, fourth, tenth chance knowing that they will still fail you. What is it like to always end up with the  short end of the stick. What must it be like to be the most powerful thing in existence yet place yourself very last. What is it like to be hated for being love itself. Sometimes I wonder these things and it makes me unbelievably thankful that I’m on the opposite end.

I know I can never return the love that God has for me to the full extent that He has given it but it doesn't mean I can’t give Him everything I have."

-Adriana Maravilla

Introduction

On my 19th birthday, Kathryn gave me a book called "The Four Loves" by C.S. Lewis. I've just started to read it now and he's already said so much just in the introduction that really stood out to me and got me thinking. The book is only about 141 pages long but it took me two nights to finish just the introduction. The first night was because I fell asleep (I was pretty tired that day) but on the second night (today) it took me awhile to finish the other half because on almost every paragraph I read there was something that just applied to my life and then my mind would just wander and philosophize and I would have to put the book down for a good 5 minutes thinking about whatever.

Anyway, I really want to note down some of the stuff that have just opened my eyes.

Just some keywords that C.S. Lewis made that appear a lot in the introduction:
Need-love: the desire to be loved
Gift-love: to love

"We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves."

"A tyrannous and gluttonous demand for affection can be a horrible thing. But in ordinary life no one calls a child selfish because it turns for comfort to its mother; nor an adult who turns to his fellow "for company." Those, whether children or adults, who do so least are not usually the most selfless."

"Where Need-love is felt there may be reasons for denying or totally mortifying it; but not to feel it is in general the mark of the cold egoist."

"Since we do in reality need one another ("it is not good for man to be alone"), then the failure of this need to appear as Need-love in consciousness—in other words, the illusory feeling that it is good for us to be alone—is a bad spiritual symptom; just as lack of appetite is a bad medical symptom because men do really need food."

"Every Christian would agree that a man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God. But man's love for God, from the very nature of the case, must always be very largely, and must often be entirely, a Need-love. This is obvious when we implore forgiveness for our sins or support in our tribulations. But in the long run it is perhaps even more apparent in our growing—for it ought to be growing—awareness that our whole being by its very nature is one vast need; incomplete, preparatory, empty yet cluttered, crying out for Him who can untie things that are now knotted together and tie up things that are still dangling loose."

*"Mountain walk to the village" analogy on the difference between "nearness to God by likeness" and "nearness to God by approach", pg. 5

"What is near Him by likeness is never, by that fact alone, going to be any nearer. But nearness of approach is, by definition, increasing nearness. And whereas the likeness is given to us—and can be received with or without thanks, can be used or abused—the approach, however initiated and supported by Grace, is something we must do."

"Hence, as a better writer has said, our imitation of God in this life—that is, our willed imitation as distinct from any of the likenesses which He has impressed upon our natures or states—must be an imitation of God incarnate: our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions."

"St. John's saying that God is love has long been balanced in my mind against the remark of a modern author (M. Denis de Rougemont) that "love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god"; which of course can be re-stated in the form "begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god." This balance seems to me an indispensable safeguard. If we ignore it the truth that God is love may slyly come to mean for us the converse, that love is God."

"We may say, quite truly and in an intelligible sense, that those who love greatly are "near" to God. But of course it is "nearness by likeness." It will not of itself produce "nearness of approach." The likeness has been given to us. It has no necessary connection with that slow and painful approach which must be our own (though by no means our unaided) task. Meanwhile, however, the likeness is a splendour. That is why we may mistake Like for Same. We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then they become gods: then they become demons. Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves. For natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves. They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred."

Those moments when you realize that it's time to let go of a friendship.

Hmm.

His plan? Or my pride? Always the question for every time this has come up and I've never been able to answer it until the consequence has already happened.

Are You an Introvert or Extravert?

Ambivert

You're an ambivert! You possess traits of both extraverts and introverts, lying somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. While you do enjoy spending time alone, you also equally enjoy social situations. Where you fall on any given day really depends on your mood; some days you want to keep to yourself, and on others you're the life of the party!

55.3% of people that have taken this quiz have achieved this result.