Becoming the Better Person

A lot of us have experienced being hurt, being picked on and being wronged. One of the easiest things to do is to lash out in anger and cry. It's a bit harder to brush it off, to ignore the bullies and to pretend nothing happened. What is hard is to turn the other cheek and to treat them with love.

This past few days, I have experienced this nagging depression, sadness, loneliness, homesickness, betrayal, hurts, pain and etc. It hurts when you hear bad news. It hurts when the people you thought you could trust talk about you behind your back. Numerous people have experienced this. You're so blessed if you got away without having to go through this. Just two days ago, I opened my Bible desperately. I felt called to read something and for some reason Psalms 31 jumped in my mind. Now, I've never read this passage before. I'm not too big on Psalms, I have to admit. I've always been an Ecclesiastes girl. However, after reading this particular Psalm, I suddenly... understood everything.



God needed to get my attention. He wanted me on my knees. He wanted me to turn to Him; He longed to have that level of closeness that we shared in the beginning of the year. Everything I've been hearing lately is a clear arrow to: TALK WITH GOD!!!!

And I did.

And everything is now right.

Well, not everything. In my heart I have peace. But quoting Charles Stanley, "When God speaks, He usually calls for an act of courage in our part."
My act of courage was to be the better person. To turn my cheek, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing, and to love them with the love of God. Now that was hard. But for some reason, after asking for help, it became easy.
I'm not bragging. All of a sudden, I felt this overwhelming love for these people. I wanted to do everything I could for them. And knowing how a few days ago, if I saw these guys, I would confront them or worse, cry. Now, I just want to smile at them and talk and hug them and just be the weird one.

If you're dealing with something like this, I know that it's hard. But you don't have to go through it alone. Read Psalm 31. It is a wonderful, uplifting psalm. I just want to encourage you, be there for you the way some people were there for me.

I'm doing well now. Blessed be the Lord.



Peace and love.
Andrea
xxo

Day #3 Random Challenge

Day #3 Challenge


6 Things I see in my room.


Fairly easy since I live in something like a studio type apartment. Sorry this'll be short.

1. Laptop

2. Books.

3. Contact lens case

4. Family pictures

5. My Kindle Touch

6. Diary


-andrea
xxx

Day #2 Random Challenge

Well I should have written this yesterday. 


7 Things I like




1. When I have a good photo. 
It's not that I'm vain or anything it's just it's nice when you see a good picture of yourself. Especially a self portrait. Haha. 


2. When I see people who really care for each other. 
It doesn't matter whether it's real, on TV or on movies, but when you really see love and people cherishing each other, I feel like crying because it's a beautiful picture. Love is good. 


3. Good hair. 
Who doesn't appreciate great hair? Especially on guys? And by good I don't mean random weird. I mean a great style. Talk about the quiff. Best hair on guys ever. Well, some guys. 


4. Great conversations. 
When you're chilling with your friends on the bed having a great conversation that is half funny and joking while you're talking about some serious stuff. Then occasional throw of a pillow at your friend's face. 


5. Food
I love food. I don't cook, but I do love to eat. And judge what is good and what is not. I would love to be a food critic. I like ice cream and frozen yogurt. And cake, lots and lots of cake. Omelettes are amazing too and so are pizzas and vegetable salads. Taco Bell is my favorite place to eat lunch, they serve really yummy food. :-) 


6. The Perfect Song
It's amazing when a great song comes on right at the perfect time. The show Chuck has a lot of these moments. The show Veronica Mars does too. Sometimes I get this feeling that I need to start playing some music out loud just to suit the mood, but that'd be really weird in real life. 


7. Covers on YouTube
I like to discover neat unsigned artists who have great potential. Sometimes they sing really good songs but lately a lot of the YouTube people have started singing a lot of mainstream songs. Still good, but my type to listen to are indie, folk and alternative. Anyways, it's still great to watch covers on YouTube and any other videos. 




7 Things I dislike




1. Selfish brats.
They're selfish. Brats are spoiled. They're opposite of what I like. What else can I say? 


2. Really bad acting. 
This is mostly seen on soap operas who hire good looking people with no experience. Sure they look good on TV, but these people still make us barf. 


3. Famous people who are famous for no reason. 
No talent, but they do have an important last name, important connections and good looks. Here in the Philippines, you add foreign blood and that's the making of a superstar. Great job. What happened to old fashioned working hard for something and being good at it and being rejected until you get your big break? Most big breaks shouldn't happen because you were at a mall and someone asked you if you had foreign blood. 


4. Ignorance. 
Sometimes ignorance is bliss, but othertimes it makes you look stupid and like a selfish brat, which is one of the things I dislike. When people are ignorant, they have to decide on two things. Do they want to expand their knowledge or stay like that? And if they pick the latter, well, I have nothing really nice to say so I''ll move on. 


5. Cockroaches. 
Ew. Ew. Ew. 


6. When something is wasted. 
Especially food. Food not used or finished should be given to people, or dogs. They shouldn't be thrown away if they could still be eaten. That's just sad. I hate wasting anything. 


7. When someone is mad and doesn't say why. 
They should just be honest. Direct confrontation is better than someone living in agony for days without knowing what she/he did wrong. 






Sorry this was short. Oh well. I'll post again for Day 3. 

8 Day Challenge - Day #1

So since I’m still not consistent in blogging, I’m going to start training myself by accepting some random blog challenges.

Now this one is called the 8 Day Random Challenge. Today is Day One.

1.       Post 8 facts about yourself.

Wow ok so that’s kind of hard. I’m just joshing; okay here are some important/random facts about myself that I’ll share with you.

#1
I am a third culture kid.

What does that mean? According to the book Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, a TCK is a person who has spent a significant amount of his or her developmental years outside his/her parent’s culture. I spent half of my life in China. When I was there, I was raised surrounded by American kids. I always had trouble feeling like I actually belonged somewhere even though I was able to adapt anywhere. The only time I ever felt like I fit in was when I was with other TCKs.

#2
I am a bookworm.

A lot of my new friends don’t know this about me. However, a lot of my friends in China know me as the bookworm. I used to wear glasses and I was the kid who carried books around all the time.  I didn’t like playing outside and when I was outside, I’d be reading. Now, I got a Kindle Touch and contacts and I became way more sociable. I also stopped reading in public and talked to people instead. However, I am still a geek inside and though I haven’t been reading much this year, I still keep a list of books that I read. For the past few years I’ve gone to averagely 130 books every year. However this year, I just passed 30 something. And as of this moment, I have no idea where my notebook with my list is. :-/

#3
My guilty pleasure is watching reality television.

I know, I know, I know that it sucks and it’s not really ‘real’ since a lot of it is scripted. But it’s like, it’s there and you can’t look away. More confessions, I voted twice in Pinoy Big Brother Unlimited, the season earlier this year. I’ve never voted before, and I probably won’t again since the people I voted for didn’t even place in the top four. And I am not just a watcher, when the people from Pinoy Big Brother had a mall show in Trinoma, I dragged my cousins to accompany me while I screamed and clapped. I didn’t hold any banners though. Haha.

#4
Even though I am mostly an indie/alternative/folk music type of girl, I do listen to boy bands and Justin Bieber.

Yes, I am a Belieber. I am also a Directioner. I am not a die-hard fan though, I haven’t been to any of the Beebs’ concerts. Same goes for 1D. But their music is catchy and Justin and Zayn and Harry are such cuties. I have a thing for boys who are talented, with a few tattoos and have really good hair.

#5
I prefer hymns to worship songs from bands and stuff.

I do, I really do love hymns. Growing up in China, we went to house churches with Americans and we sang hymns. Usually acapella. So listening to “Be thou my vision” and “Come Thou Fount” puts my mind and my heart in a worship mode immediately. It’s a bit funny coming back to the Philippines and seeing how my church here which is mostly composed of youth singing songs from Jesus Culture, Hillsong United and Planetshakers. Songs I haven’t heard before, apart from some famous Hillsong ones. Then its also surprising to me that they’ve never heard of the songs I know!

#6
I write poetry.

And no, it’s not mostly emo poetry. I write a lot of children’s poetry too. They’re about random things like bikes and funny things. But yes, I do write sad poetry sometimes. I might post some on here, but I don’t know. I’m very protective of my poems though. When writing blogs, and short stories or little novellas that I never finish, I am a different kind of writer. When I write poems, I feel raw. Words in poems are different and poets are different from other writers. When we write poetry, we are drifting dreamers, taken out of this world and so attuned to our hearts. At least that’s how I feel when I’m writing poems.

#7
My name was supposed to be Samantha. If I was a boy, I would have been named Aidan.

AW Tozer is my dad’s favorite writer. So my dad wanted to name me Aidan, but I turned out to be a girl. Still, they went with an A name. After that the rest of my siblings followed the alphabet. But my dad never got his son Aidan. He got a writer daughter though. Still it would have been nice to be named Samantha. I would have called myself Sami.

#8
I like to try to relate to a character in every TV show I’ve seen.

So in 90210 I used to be Annie all the way, now I’m a mix of Annie and Silver. In Smallville, I’m Chloe and Lois. In Pretty Little Liars, I’m Aria. In The Vampire Diaries I’m Elena and Caroline. I’m a mix of the good girl and the outgoing, crazy, wild girl. In How I Met Your Mother, I’m Robin. In Full House (old one) I’m totally DJ even though I wish I was as awesome as Stephanie. (Another fact, I watch a lot of TV)

Ok so this sums up the first day of the blog challenge. Stay tuned for more random writings.

XXO
-A