Love (not) at First Sight

“What was it that drew you to your significant other? Their blue eyes? Their ginger countenance? Their smile? Their voice?” And the Daily Post Challenge (He’s (She’s) So Fine) continues to prod me on.

If you’ve been a reader and follower of my blog, you would know by now how I met my husband. In a gist, for those who just got here – we were both church volunteers, he, a Logistics guy; me, a Sunday School teacher. You may read our love story here in this link.

But what was it that really drew me to him. Hmm, let me think for a moment. Because as you all know, it was not love at first sight. He grew into me.

Maybe it was because of his quiet countenance of serving the Lord with all humility. No church task seemed to be too small for him to do. Maybe it was his total abandonment of how others might perceive him when he picked up that guitar and tried his best to accompany the worship leader. He would just laugh it all off even when the guitar stint failed. Maybe it was his positive energy that rubbed on my then pessimistic self.  Maybe it was his charm when he seems to be friends with everyone and when he always sees the good in people.

I was drawn to him not by his looks. Don’t get me wrong. My husband is the most handsome to me. But his heart is more beautiful. I am so glad it was not love at first sight. Because my eyes saw beyond the superficiality and discovered what is most important – his great love for the Lord.

What If?

What If?

By Leah Lyn E. Albano

What if Christ was not born,
Then there would be no Christ
To celebrate Christmas.

What if Jesus did not live among the people,
Then they would not know
Who the Master Carpenter is.

What if Christ did not call the disciples,
Then there would be no fishers of men
Who would preach the Good News to the lost and weary.

What if Jesus did not die on the cross,
Then our sins will forever stain our lives,
And we shall carry the burden of our transgressions.

What if Christ did not resurrect on the third day,
Then all the promise of an eternal life
Is but a far cry from the truth that is to be told.

But no, all these,
The birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus
Are all true.

By His blood and grace,
We are offered His salvation from our sins,
If we only receive Him as our personal Lord and Savior.

What if you pray right now,
And ask Jesus to be your Master and Savior?
Wouldn’t that make your celebration of Lent more meaningful?

Busy with the Simple Things

I haven’t blogged in a while, that’s because I’ve been preoccupied with some new things.

1) Discovered Farmville 2 and I enjoyed the game, thus my time was consumed tending my virtual crops and animals, going to the market to buy seeds and to sell my goods, and completing farming goals. Ha! As if these were all true.

2) Watched the Lenten TV presentation of Eat Bulaga ( a noontime show here in the Philippines). This has been a tradition of sorts, for I remember that I watch these mini-dramas since I was a child.

3) Reading the novel “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire. I’m halfway through! Such a thick book, mind you.

4) Planning how to clean and organize our small nook in preparation for my husband’s homecoming.

5) Buying food stock from the grocery to cover our Holy Week meals. Malls and supermarkets are to close operations on Thursday and Friday, so I planned ahead for this.

So there, that got me busy. So no blogs for the last few days. If I won’t be able to blog yet in the coming days, you’ll know where to find me – in Farmville 2. See you there! 😀

Waiting

Sudden burst of inspiration in writing came when the word ‘waiting’ came to mind.

We’ve all been there – waiting for something or someone. We all wait for different things during the different phases in our lives. When I was younger, I would wait for the time when my mom would call us to eat and say that dinner is ready. When I got a little older and about to get into college, I waited for the results of the college entrance exam. When I got a little over twenty-something-ish, I waited for true love to come. When I finally felt that I found my one true love, I waited for the day that  he will propose forever to me.

Now that I’m married, I’m waiting for different things right now. Sometimes, I’m waiting  for my husband to come home from work and have Skype time with him. Sometimes, I think of the two-month waiting time before he finally comes home to be with me. (Yey! Two months is so near!)

Oh, there’s another thing that we’re waiting for to happen when he comes home – the coming of our little bundle of joy. May the Lord bless us with a little Randy or a little Leah in His most perfect timing and if He wills it to be so. May we be ready enough to become responsible, loving parents.

Waiting is not so bad. It encourages us to learn to wait and trust on the Lord and become patient to receive His blessings. It is comforting to know  that while we wait, God is already acting on our behalf. Isn’t that wonderful to know?

Sense of Family

I just got home from a family lunch to celebrate the birthday of my aunt. Good food, good company, good conversations – or may I dare say, interesting and intense conversations. I’ll leave you out the details, but today just got me thinking what is the real sense of being family.

Is it merely eating together over lunch or dinner? Is it looking after one another?  Is it sticking together through thick or thin? Is it giving way and sacrificing one’s desire to meet the needs of the other? How far does a family go through to realize that they all come from the same roots and all they have is one another?

I think, bottomline is, we all need an eternal perspective on what we truly value as a family. We will all pass through this life just once and we need to live it well. We need to live it well enough to be prepared to meet our Maker and be ready to say we’ve been our brothers’ keeper.

This life is too short to waste our energies over family squabbles. We are called to build relationships and not destroy. We are called to love one another just as Jesus loved us. If we can do all these to our friends, why can’t we do it with our own flesh and blood?

God gave us a family for a deep and beautiful reason. He gave us each other to love, to care and to share with one another. This is our earthly practice in familial relationships. Because, heavenward, we will all be relating perfectly with one another since we will all be part of God’s family.

Flatline

I don’t like that word – flatline. It gives me the jitters to think that someone I know might crossover to eternal life or eternal damnation. It forces me to pause a while and think about life after death – not that I’m afraid of it – but more of like, is that person ready to face his or her Creator? Does that person have the assurance of salvation through the blood and grace of Jesus Christ?

My mom’s friend just flatlined this afternoon. The doctors say she had a heart attack. Thankfully, she was revived. But she’s now into coma with all the tubes surrounding her to keep her alive. I cannot imagine the fear of loss that my mom’s friend’s family is experiencing right now. I know that my mom is also deeply concerned with her friend. I hope she recovers from  her comatose condition and still gets the chance to experience the full life Christ has to offer her.

Would you keep my mom’s friend in prayer right now? Let’s pray that she awakes from her coma and becomes her usual bubbly self again. May she come to know the saving grace of Jesus.

Entering the World of Wicked

Before you judge me by the title, just hear me out and read along to discover whose world I am entering.

When I was younger, I ‘devour’ books. I was into self-help books before  because I was a Psychology student way back in my college years. When I ventured into Early Childhood Development – my second career, I got into collecting and reading children’s storybooks. When I got married, my reading books took a backseat for a while. Now that I am more settled in my life, I decided I’ll get back to my love for reading again.

And so the book ‘Wicked‘  by Gregory Maguire was picked up. The world of Wicked Elphaba is the world I am entering. For those of you who are not familiar with her, she’s the Wicked Witch of the West came to be known in the Wizard of the Oz. This is a background story of her life and times.

I’m still less than half of the book yet. It’s a difficult read for there are lots of new words to hurdle. But I think I can manage figuring out what they mean through context. I got the overview of the story through my sister who actually owns the book. We were not fortunate enough to watch the musical play when it staged here in Manila. But reading the book is just fine with me.

Let’s see where this will take me. I mean reading about the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Who knows this might lead me to venturing into and revisiting the Wizard of the Oz afterwards.

I wanna challenge myself to read classic books again. I think I’m loving fiction books now. They take me to places I’ve never been and sets my mind to imagining things I wouldn’t have thought of in the real life.

So whatever season of life I may be in right now, it will always remain true that I love books and the world where they take me! 🙂

Young Love, Sweet Love

 

When my emotions get the best of me, lovely words spring forth. This poem was written with the thought of a blossoming love life in my teenage years. It’s so long ago, but I really liked how the words flow from my heart.

Here it is:

Anticipation

By Leah Lyn E. Albano

Bloom forth,

White rose.

The sun waits

For your beauty.

 

Its warmth

Longs to know

Your sweet fragrance,

Your real substance.

 

Bloom now

And see

How the sun

Shall respond.

 

Will it capture

Your sense of purity?

Or will it hide

And let the rain pour?

 

Ironically,

If both shan’t happen,

Wilted or drowned

You shall be.

 

So let the sun

Feel you freely.

Let the rain

Make you grow.

 

Do not mind

Your thorns.

Set aside

Your weeds.

 

For when you bloom

Fully, wonderfully.

The sun shall be there

Shining on you.

 

—

March 16, 1996

Hurdling Biology 11

They say when you’re good in English and the Language Arts, it’s bound to happen that you’re struggling with the Math and Sciences. That seems to be true to me.

When I was in college, I took up Psychology as my course. One of our course requirements is to enroll in a Biology 11 class. It’s broken down into a lecture and a laboratory class. I dreaded this subject because it has a lot of memory work and details. What freaks me out more is the laboratory portion, wherein I had to identify molecular parts of living things under the microscope and to dissect a frog.

Science was never my strength. No matter how much I study and try to understand the scientific concepts, it was such a struggle for me. I had to take Bio 11 three times. I dropped the subject twice. And for the third and last time, I had to take it again. There was no turning back or else I wouldn’t graduate. I think I got a 2.75 or 3.0 for my grade in that subject. But honestly, I was already so happy even if I barely passed it.

Hurdling Bio 11 is an achievement for me. It taught me persistence. I actually felt desperate at that time. I remember crying about it after pleading with my professor to reconsider giving me even just a passing grade. It was persistence and prayers that saw me through the challenge. I had no innate intellect in Science. But what the heck, I’m good in English and the other subjects! 😀

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Post in response to Daily Prompt: Land of Confusion