Thankful

Yesterday as I stood in one of my classes, I was thinking about how awesome my life is.

What on earth am I doing in Japan? Imagine, students calling me "sensei". Who would have thought that I would be in a place like this. Traveling to other countries. I've been to the Philippines - me and my baby. I've been to South Korea - me and my baby. We have visas for places that we never thought we'd have.

I look at the students and I think about how I was once their age. I was once a student. Amazing. 

The Lord knew the plans He had for me. He knows the plans He has for our lives.  

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29: 11)

Be Nice

You don't fight fire with fire; you fight fire with water. 

When you're angry and when you've been wronged, your first line of defense is to fire back. Right? But what if firing back is not the appropriate thing to do or only adds to the problem? 

I felt very wronged by someone recently. Man was I piping mad. I felt like punching something. I asked God to help me calm down. I said, "God please help me". And you know what? The response I received was, "Be nice". I smiled. やっぱり. (It's no surprise). It's no surprise that God would expect that.

Seems pretty unfair though that God would expect you to be nice when you are not being treated nicely. But it's kinda His way of doing things. I guess on a practical level, if you think about it, it does make sense. If one person is shouting and the other person responds by shouting, then what you have is a shouting competition. If a fire is raging and you add fire to the fire, you're gonna get more fire. To put out the fire, you'll need water. 

Being nice when all you want to do is fight back is a challenge. Although it might not seem fair, being nice as a service to the Lord will not go unrewarded. 

明けましておめでとうございます！Happy New Year！

Testimony Time!

O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. (Psalm 34: 8)

My husband and I had the opportunity to taste the goodness of the Lord recently. Remember our trip to the Philippines? We had to go there because we had applied for visas for travel to a particular country. The process could not be done in Japan. We didn't even know this until after we had made the applications. So the whole trip was an unexpected one.

So here we were in the Philippines, convinced that our visas would be granted. After all, we had travelled all this way. Oh dear, remember the post about Realistic Expectations? Well, well, things do not always go the way you expect it to! We were told, "No". We would not be granted the visas. Are you kidding me?! And we travelled all this way?????

In times of trouble, the Christian man or woman knows no other place to run but to the Lord. At least that is where we should. And might I add, this privilege is available to anyone who will. My husband and I therefore needed some sort of comfort in this situation. We decided to try again.

I got an idea about how to make our case more believable this time around, and so we added some new information. The remarkable thing about the whole situation was that before this new application could be done in any case, a couple of things would need to be in place:

1. We needed to be in the Philippines - When we first learned that we would have to go there, hubby's first suggestion was to go for the weekend, deal with the business on the Monday and return to Japan on the Tuesday. We would have been in Japan when we received the news which would mean we couldn't apply again. But we ended up on a ten day trip instead. Here's the breakdown:

• Arrived in Manila Saturday August 16. 
• Went to the Embassy on Tuesday August 19.
• Got the terrible news on Wednesday August 20.
• Thursday and Friday remaining. Saturday and Sunday would clearly be out, and we had a 6 am flight on Monday. 

2. I would need to be able to get a letter from my employer immediately - With Thursday and Friday remaining, I needed to get the letter on Thursday so we could go back to the Embassy on Friday. I sent an email to my employer on Thursday morning. On that day, every single person who needed to be there were in the office; usually my boss would have been out. On Thursday evening, the letter was emailed to me.

3. I would need my PC with me - In the post Anxiety: Out!, I told you that I've been feeling sick going out to work and what not. When we learned that we were going to the Philippines, although it wasn't planned for, I was happy. This was the break I really wanted. Therefore, I didn't want to bring my PC because I wanted to use the time to relax. I had purposed it in my mind to not bring it but I ended up bringing it any way. Now the PC had all the documents that we needed to apply again! 

4. The credit card would need to work - My credit card has a cut off point. Once I get my bill, I can't use the card until the bill has been paid. The card worked, which meant that the bill had not yet been sent! 

Mi seh! Can I tell you! Now put on top of all of this, the wifi in the place where we were was HORRIBLE. We spent hourzzzzz (literally) trying to upload the documents. It was during this time, we couldn't help but wonder if maybe we shouldn't bother. Then in my mind I was thinking what if we do everything and the credit card doesn't work? And hey, the application isn't free! 

Well, I was able to email a few of the documents to myself and then we used the lobby in the hotel to upload the rest of the documents. Now even sending that email was not easy because the wifi was just awful! Anyways, everything was uploaded, credit card worked and now we have to get up in the morning to go back to the embassy.

You know nervous? Jeezam peace, I was so nervous. I even started to question everything and doubt everything. Why on earth did we apply again? But I remembered the scripture verse above and I thought about how everything seemed to be in place for the whole experience. The PC, the time and everything.

Fast forward to a couple days after being back in Japan, we were asked to submit our passports!!!! Fast forward some more (last week Wednesday), passports returned with the visas!!!! God turned our sorrow into joy!! Hallelujah!! 

You know, my husband's dad said that sometimes God does something for us and we don't remember to go back and say thanks. Lord, I thank You. Thank You for such a wonderful Christmas gift. :) 

I hope my testimony has brought a smile to your heart. God bless you.

メリークリスマス！！　Merry Christmas! !

Anxiety: Out!

The truth shall set you free. My truth is I've got a problem with anxiety and I need a way out.

A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that I have been feeling sick for every single morning that I have to go out to work. I am fine on other days. I've been just going with it but one morning in particular, it just struck me, "Hey, what is going on here?" My mind has since gone on a spree to figure out the answer to the question.

I began wondering about my job. Is it time for a change? For a long time, I've been saying that I need a break. And well, one came when hubby and I had to go to the Philippines a few weeks ago. I felt better after we came back but I still felt like something was missing.

I was teaching a class one day and it came to me that I have some how lost the desire and love that I had in the beginning. I smiled to myself and realized how true it was. But the more I thought about the anxiety, the more I realized that I am anxious about pretty much anything. Sad! I realized that I am not confident about pretty much anything. Sad!

A swarm of thoughts about the possible reasons behind my anxious feelings have surely swept over me. I have nailed it down to these: my confidence, stresses of my job and my future in Japan. You know, it helps to be honest with yourself and to just let things out. It's like one morning this week as I was getting dressed for work, I remembered something that happened to me. I was at an elementary school and a student came to get me for class. It was my first time to go to that class. The child began blurting out, "Kowai. Kowai". That means scary. I realized how things like that have formed possible walls in my heart and I don't realize it. I wasn't angry at the child. I was angry at the adults. It took place in the presence of the teachers and not one of them said anything!! Now this happened maybe two or three years ago, but all of a sudden I remembered it. I've also realized that my schedule sometimes causes me distress. One ALT having to go to three schools. One ALT to service hundreds of students. I think the teachers making the schedule don't even get it. Then they want you to smile away every single moment of the day. Anyhoo….

I have been trying to look at the good points of my job, though. Hubby reminded me one night this week how I wasn't even going to apply for this current position. The deadline had passed. The Board of Education had however, extended the deadline. God gave me this job. You know, I have a job that pays me good money. It is 'good' money in the sense that, I can pay my bills, do things for my self, help my family and save. Oh, I can also travel! Lest I forget our recent trip to the Philippines! And although it does get tiring, sometimes all that is required is to stand in the class and smile. And then there are times when 'real' work is required like on elementary school days when everything is left up to you.

So! At the moment, I am trying to be careful about what decisions I make because of how I'm feeling. When you're in the middle of a 'crisis', you might do something that you regret. What's worse is moving away from the purpose that God has for you. Remembering His promises to you is gonna be crucial.

Living this way is definitely not God's will for me. Getting rid of whatever fears and worries that are hiding in my innermost thoughts and subconscious mind is kinda what I'm working on.

Anxiety: Out!


Some pics from Manila below :)

                              Mode of transportation called a Jeepney. Thought they were pretty cool!

                                                                   hahahaha

At the Greenbelt Mall in Makati City. One day!

                                                      In the lobby about to say goodbye to Manila

Great is the Measure

While enjoying the warm and loving embrace of my husband, I had this thought, "Great is the measure of my Father's love". If a man could be loving me in such a wonderful way, then how much more does my Father in heaven love me? Amazing!

See you guys, again. :)

Developing Realistic Expectations

What do your expectations looks like? I think I need to develop realistic expectations. I need to know how to strike the balance between hope and reality. I need hope to expect God's 'perfect' for me; while facing reality, and understanding and not becoming overly depressed if things don't work out how I thought they should. You know, leaning not to my own understanding (Proverbs 3: 5-6). I don't want to be negative but I want to be realistic. So if things don't work out as I thought or planned, I won't end up crashing to the floor in disappointment and despair.

Hubby and I had an unexpected trip outside of Japan the other day; and having realistic expectations is what I spoke to the Lord about while I got ready one morning before our trip. I had gotten angry, miserable and negative the night before when things didn't work out how I had been planning and laid out 'perfectly'. Sadly, that always happens to me. I therefore wanted my reflection after-the-fact to not be only a reflection after I've reacted badly, but it should be what I am thinking about at the onset of trouble. Like the Bible instructs us to resist the devil (James 4: 7), and this is done best at his onset.

I was very happy that I had had that talk with the Lord then because while on our trip, a very unexpected thing happened to us that could have derailed us (our spirits) significantly. I had to keep reminding myself (my hubby usually handles things much better than I do) about the note I had made in my diary. Each time I felt myself wanting to get upset, I could fight it off with that reminder.  I also believe that God put the following thought in my heart while we were struggling to deal with the situation at hand:

"Not because there is a fight, doesn't mean it won't work." 

I was definitely encouraged by that. The fighting part can surely put a damper on your hopes and what you're trying to do but the reality is that, that's how life goes! 

またね！(See you later!)

Loving is Easy When It Doesn't Cost a Thing

In my previous post I said how I want to be able to show love to others. I used the example of me watering some flowers at one of my schools and how they blossomed. I also want to water someone's life. 

Heh. People say that you're likely to be tested on something you've preached about. I surely was. And I failed miserably. :(

I was feeling quite downcast last week and it really peaked on Friday. I felt so angry and miserable. I was so down I didn't even write anything in my journal. But my reaction to how I was feeling was giving me another piece of something to share with you. 

When I am feeling down, I usually like to remind myself that I am not the only one going through something. But on Friday I was so caught up with how I was feeling that I didn't bother to show concern to someone who probably could have used some cheering up too. I was so absorbed in my own pain that I didn't bother to try to reach out to the individual. I only realized afterwards how I had the opportunity to give love but I didn't. Honestly, I didn't want to. 

When you're hurting it's easy to be thinking so much of yourself that you can't even see that there's someone right in your midst hurting as well. You might sense it, but can't seem to reach out or really don't care to. After all, you are hurting too. 

But you know, that's really how true love is shown - when you can do it no matter how hard it is for you. It's always easy when it doesn't cost you anything.