God's Better Plan

On this 15th anniversary of God's Message to mankind through the mineral stones I was cleaning, I planned to talk about how God continuously showed His endless love to me despite my endless expression of disappointments.

I cried like a child when I, together with my husband and special needs child were denied of U.S. tourist visas early this year. Maybe because my husband and I were just retired employees without any business who wanted to tour some parts of the United States and visit our close relatives, like our eldest daughter who will be giving birth to her second child this July.

A Plan B was already in my mind in case we will be denied of the tourist visa, so I could recover fast from such disappointment. Plan B was to visit places in the Philippines I have never been to, like Dumaguete City and El Nido. God's plan is always different, as usual, and it is always the best plan. When I went to Dumaguete just to take a peek of the city so I can bring my family there in the future, God also showed me the beautiful island of Siquijor through several "angels" that included a couple who are both pastors.

It took me more than a month to research and plan our trip to El Nido, what tourist spots there to visit and what hotels would be best for us to stay and still take photos in case it rains hard.  I would also like to go to the place with the best sunset, I've researched that would be in Merimegmeg Beach but it seemed going there would be difficult if we would be carrying our special needs child on a wheelchair.

Among the island hopping tours, my priority was "Tour A" because I'd like to see the Big Lagoon and Small Lagoon around Miniloc Island but I also would like to see the "Paradise Beach" which is part of another tour as far as I know. On my way to Art Café to book the tours, a tricycle driver approached me to offer the same tours but when I insisted I'd like to book at Art Café, he offered me to also see a nice long beach called Nacpan Beach where the view of the sunset is great, according to him. My special needs child will surely enjoy a long beach, so I accepted his offer. The road to Nacpan Beach was not yet completely concrete and would be hard to travel at night so the driver offered an alternative to Nacpan's sunset view which was at Merimegmeg Beach near Las Cabanas. Getting there was really one of my wishes so it was a better offer.  The Nacpan Beach schedule would take the place of the tour that would include "Paradise Beach", for lack of time.

When I went to Art Café to book for "Tour A", I was told that they are replacing the "7 Commando Beach" with "Paradise Beach" because the former was always crowded the past days. "What a blessing"  I thought, "it seems like the change was made for me!"

Nacpan Beach was really beautiful, it was the clearest beach I've ever seen so far, just fine white sand and clear sea water.  As expected, our special needs child enjoyed the beach, playing with us and the waves.

After Nacpan Beach, we were brought to Merimegmeg Beach near "Beach Shack" to view the sunset while taking refreshments. It was indeed a great view but I thought maybe it would be more beautiful if dark clouds alternately covering the bright yellow color of the sun were not present. To my surprise, I saw at least 2 hearts formed by the dark clouds, one at a time. The formation and disappearance of the hearts were too fast for my camera to capture but looking at the photos, there was one where I could see two hearts, one overlapping one third of another, though it required the help of my imagination.

God never fails to show signs of His love, I'm sure some of the tourists saw the hearts also. The tricycle driver who came near me to tell me it was time to go because it was getting dark, also saw one when I told him about the hearts. He pointed to a heart-shaped space inside a square-shaped dark cloud.

This unusual view of the sunset with alternating dark gray color of the clouds and the bright color of the sun showed that beauty is not all bright colors, and that even life as a whole need not be all bright colors to be beautiful.  And even in those dark moments, one can still see and feel the love of God.

During the "Tour A" island hopping the day before the trip to Nacpan Beach and Merimegmeg Beach,  the boatman brought me to the Small Lagoon through a "kayak". It was showering, but when we were already inside the Small Lagoon, it really rained.  I was still able to take photos of the lagoon by covering the top of my camera with plastic. I told the boatman it was totally alright because the rain could just be a sign of God's blessings pouring on us. The other tourists on their "kayaks" were happy and laughing while it was raining.

So many signs and symbolism in the whole travel to El Nido reminded me about life and God's blessings.  I am now back to reality, continuously advocating to leave a legacy of orderliness to my children. This is the kind of advocacy that one is often misunderstood.  I don't want to leave unsettled issues or problems to my children.  Even the responsibility to take care of our adopted special needs child, I wouldn't want to pass to my two biological children believing my husband and I will always be capable of caring for her, maybe in our later years with a helper. That is why it is very important for me that my husband and are always strong and healthy. Any small sign of abnormality, even considered normal in old age like memory loss should immediately be addressed with coconut oil and techniques for memory retention. I have no choice but to be very strict with our food, practices, and lifestyle in general. I know this is another very difficult role that can make me indifferent even to relatives who want to enjoy life to the fullest. As far as my and my husband's lifestyles are concerned, I can be as strict or even stricter than Rody Duterte, the newly elected President of the Philippines.  I continuously pray for him by the way, for God to always guide his thoughts, words and actions, and I hope every Filipino will do that, so that all our dreams for changes will be implemented peacefully.

I also hope every Filipino will always remember that God loves us and will always intervene with a better plan, but Divine Intervention happens when one has exerted an effort to move to achieve his goals or needs, not while one is sleeping.

Year Ending 2014

It's now New Year's Day in the Philippines.  I'm glad that my last blog post was about health and wellness in my "Amusing Tips" blog, titled Meridian Therapy.  It was a public service post though it also advertises a particular gadget used for the therapy.

I'm also glad that on New Year's Eve,  my most read blog post was also in the same blog, "Amusing Tips", about a recipe of a fish steak, titled Quick Gindara Steak.  That only shows that fish as part of the menu of "Media Noche" or New Year's Day is a must. I had planned to include it as part of our "Noche Buena" or "Media Noche"  but found the fish too expensive for our present budget.

I hope to be able to post in this blog, which was my first, more posts that will help mankind this 2015. But I'm also hoping that more people will be able to read the post which was the main reason why I created a blog.  It is now in two versions, an updated version titled My Conversation with God on June 12, 2001, and the original version, God's Message. I know that in God's time, these two posts will be read by the right people.

An "Agent of Change"

I wasn’t capable of writing a post last month because my mind was preoccupied with options for changes in my family, triggered by several signs, strengthened later by a letter from the National Visa Center of US.

Most of those changes it turned out, would require other changes affecting some members of my clan and my husband’s clan, so it was indeed hard to think about them, much more to talk about them. But once again, I’m the only person who could open up a topic about changes that directly affect my family, and it was hard because I’m not a sweet talker, I was a Systems Analyst for thirty years writing and giving instructions about specifications, and I had to choose the most specific words in sentences that were direct to the point. I did the best I could, but as usual, some if not most of those affected were not pleased with my “requirements” or requests to go about some changes. That was understandable and the main reason why there is such a short course for change management. Maybe I need to undergo that course first.

Sometimes it is disappointing to consult a life coach or a counselor because you will be told to go back to your past so that with their help you will be able to understand your present difficulties. I tried to do it on my own and it was hard at first because I couldn’t find any connection.  Until I looked at myself at a different perspective, a more positive perspective with the premise that God placed me in this situation because He loves me.  Thank God, I found the answer!

I now understand that I am an “agent of change”.  Understanding that did not happen instantly.  My recent activities like looking for an online job helped me understand that.  There was this job that I liked a lot I felt it was for me until it was awarded to another applicant. I studied this applicant’s credentials and I was amazed because she was a Russian but had masters in English and English Literature and had several job experiences related to writing in English. I just told myself, they chose the right person.

I realize now that I can be an agent of change because of my experiences since I was a child. The earliest I could remember was playing a lot with my brother and cousins in an airstrip of an airport where we had a family restaurant, and for a 4 year-old child like me it was an endless playground. I was surrounded by relatives, there were my cousins, grandma, uncle and aunts.  I could understand only English at that time.

Suddenly, we were in a city, some of the relatives I used to be with were no longer around, my brother and I had many playmates and our playground were the streets.  These playmates said we were rich because we had two buildings though the highest was just a four-story building.  I couldn’t believe that because we were staying at the ground floor of the other building, it really looked like a basement because it had a low ceiling but the floor was always very clean.  There were other people at home whom I felt were our relatives but they said we were not related at all. After a while, I believed we were rich because my grandma was referred to as “Donia” or a rich woman by the lady at the ticket booth of a theater who let me and my brother enter the movie house for free. On Christmas Day, I saw my grandma giving away big paper bags of goods to the street children.  Once in a while, I could see some new dresses and bags in my closet.  Whenever my brother and I got sick, we would be given a new toy to cheer us up.  I could understand a mixture of Tagalog and Ilonggo at that time.

When I was 8, we were in another city.  My playmates were speaking in Cebuano so I learned to speak and understand the language. A year before that, my grandmother passed away.  The next thing I knew was we were already in Manila, reunited with my aunt at her apartment in Caloocan City.  My brother and I were transferred to St. Joseph Academy, a private school there.  My mother and aunt thought of having a beauty parlor and dress shop so they looked for a place to make that possible and they found one in Manila also, somewhere in Sampaloc.  My brother and I were transferred to a public school.  Before we graduated from elementary, we were at another place where my mother revived the restaurant they had in Mindanao. It was near the Manila International and domestic airports.

I can’t remember when was the time we transferred to 20^th Ave. in Cubao, Quezon City because I was already studying in Manila as a first year high school student.  My brother and I had to be transferred to another school in the vicinity, it was called Quirino High School.  As usual, my favorite subject was Math, and my favorite teacher was my Math teacher who told me I was indeed intelligent, Ms. Aurora Venida.  We didn’t learn to know more about each other because I had to stop studying for a while to be able to take care of my youngest brother who was 3 years old. I knew how it was like to be rich, and our situation at that time was quite different. Sometimes there was not enough food to eat. But the apartment we were renting was big so who would say that?

This house where I am now was the longest I have stayed, even as a single woman. It used to be occupied by Ms. Venida, my favorite Math teacher I mentioned earlier but it was not from her where we learned about this house because she migrated to US long before my family transferred here. But even when I was already married to her nephew, the son of our landlord whose house was right beside ours, I preferred to stay in another house, until my in-laws requested us to watch over this house meaning for us to transfer to this house while they were at the US, as immigrants. Our eldest daughter was 10 years old at that time.

There were six companies I worked for, from the time I started working.  Two of those companies were worth staying until retirement, but one closed, while the other one was a private agency under Marcos that was why it had to close after the “People Power”.  To implement changes, companies usually hire consultants who are not familiar with the employees of the company. The recommended changes can be “brutal” to most of the employees  especially when cost cutting is the objective. These companies have no choice but to implement those changes, just like the company I worked for which closed down. We were suddenly called to a general meeting at the canteen where the General Manager, after explaining the status of the company, announced that it was our last day in that company, we could get our separation pay then pack our things. We were all crying, including the General Manager.

As the “House Manager”, I usually implement changes fast. My husband got used to follow those changes that were new learnings to his children, not really changes.  I have no tolerance for dilly-dallying, my husband knew that. I mellowed down when we started to bring our adopted special child to school where we practically became pupils also, supporting our special child.  But also because of this child, I realize there is no time to procrastinate because we her adoptive parents are not getting any younger and are not getting any richer.

We have to grab every opportunity that will help us sustain our health, increase our meager income and our special child’s development so that the people who will take care of her when we are gone will not be burdened too much nor for too long. I have no choice but to ignore the people who would still be skeptical or resistant to the changes we need after allowing some time for awareness. One of the most important among the objectives of these changes is to reverence our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. This is also the most important legacy of change I would like my children to remember, since our bodies will continuously require changes in food, habits and activities over time.

The photo shown here was my painting based on a photo I’ve shot during my tour at the Underground River of Palawan. The tour guide told us that we might not see the same stones we have seen when we come back especially if it would take long for us to come back. The title of my painting was “The Prayer” because I was praying hard half of the time I was painting it because my son was sick, though it was just a group of stones undergoing changes. This whole picture of changing stones is so beautiful, isn’t it?  It was God’s work!

Thank you God, for all the opportunities, to write this, and to be part of the Dance of Faith art exhibit that started last November 24 at the “Pamanang Bedista” (San Beda Heritage Center) where this painting is on display for one month along with my two other paintings of the Underground River of Palawan and the other Dance of Faith artworks!

Dance of Faith

Now ongoing until July 13, 2014 at the Health Hub of SM Center Pasig (beside Tiendesitas in Pasig City, Metro Manila, Philippines), "Dance of Faith" is an art exhibit celebrating women, art and spirituality. It is participated by 6 women artists from different age groups, the youngest 9 years old. I was one of the artists and my artworks, which are oil paintings, were inspired by the Underground River of Palawan except the portrait of my special child Lyca who was my inspiration to join the exhibit.  Featured here are my paintings in the exhibit where I "walked my faith", my "dance of faith".

"The Challenge"
Size:  15" x 20"
Medium:  Oil Paint

Instead of heeding to my request to paint this piece from my shots of the Underground River of Palawan, my professional artist brother Gabriego challenged me to do it.  This year, 2014, I accepted the challenge when I had the opportunity because I believed that challenges are what life is all about.  We face some amount of challenges, some big, some small, but all of them to make us grow into better persons each day of our lives.

"The Prayer"
Size:  18" x 12"
Medium:  Oil Paint

The most truthful title for this piece is “The Prayer”.  This was a copy of an artwork of God found at the Underground River of Palawan.  Every attempt to copy a detail of His artwork from a photo I shot was coupled with praises and adoration for His creation. Every attempt to highlight a detail was coupled with a prayer for a miracle.

"Mama's Angel"
Size:  12" x 14"
Medium:  Oil Paint

Who else can dream for this blind and multi-handicapped angel than the person she first called “Mama”? That person is Bel Venida (my artist name),  her adoptive mother. It was this child, Lyca, who brought me back to painting. 

"A New Beginning"
Size:  16" x 20"
Medium:  Oil Paint

The Underground River of Palawan is only one of the evidences of God’s existence,  and a reminder to people that He can make miracles happen any time, they just need to have faith and believe that He exists even in the darkest places, whether in a person’s thoughts or in the darkest spot of a cave. The journey in the dark always ends and leads to a new beginning.

Aside from my special child Lyca, I have never expected that the artworks I found at The Underground River of Palawan will tremendously inspire me to give my best to paint on canvas some of God's artworks on the walls of this river. It was very awesome to realize that they were all done through stone formations, and that God conversed with me and said "I love you" to mankind through small mineral stones on June 12, 2001. 

"God works in mysterious ways"

I've always wondered how can God work on a situation that only He can solve, and how mysterious can be His ways? His message to mankind through the number of stones that I have counted was surely one of His mysterious ways, and just this morning, I had another taste of how mysterious is mysterious.

Our family choir was singing in a Sunday mass this morning and when my son gave the pitch of our second communion song, I felt it was too low and thought it could be for "altos", so I thought I can decipher the soprano counterpart which was my voice. It was a new song, I forgot the song starts in unison, so I was wrong to conclude what I heard was for "altos". My mistake led me to lead the other choir members to the wrong pitch and of course I was sorry. But the incident opened my thoughts to another issue that doesn't concern the choir at all but that I'd been silent about, resulting to my being vocal about the issue for a while after the mass.

The past days, I was asking myself if I should be silent about the issue and said to myself, perhaps if ever I should do something about it, God will do something to make me do that. I didn't expect that could be through a mistake in getting a pitch, a mistake I almost never commit in my lifetime. The "not related issue" I was talking about was opened to the people concerned, but that was not my intention though I was hoping that I can soon talk about it. No need to do that now unless they ask me to. Indeed, God works in mysterious ways, through very simple situations nobody would ever imagine.

What's next?

After my anniversary post about my conversation with God, what's next? Every time I talk about God's message, it's as if I've done the finale of a story, so I tend to rest. As if there's nothing better to talk about than God's message. His "I loye you" message to mankind was so comforting but I hope it won't make mankind sleep.

That last statement "I hope it won't make mankind sleep", I just realized was so "human", so lacking in trust in God. Perhaps I was speaking for myself because I was sleeping. We may sleep but God is always awake to watch over us. And then He wakes us up even through simple things like a tv show, or a text from a friend. Like what He did to me...

The next thing I know is I'm at Georgie's place and met her sisters Coroy and Pempi there. Pempi has inspired me since I was a teenager through her artworks, and now it's clear it was Coroy's turn to inspire me too. She said I should continuously and intelligently converse with Lyca, my special needs child, because she will understand me. Lyca is blind and because of cerebral palsy cannot utter words that can be understood. But she could verbally respond, most of the time with actions, and I know she's intelligent because she laughs whenever a song familiar to her was sang out of tune, and would clap her hands unceasingly whenever her favorite choir, the Novo Concertante Manila, would sing. Time will come we will completely understand her and send her to school.

I just can thank God for His wake up calls to meet inspiring people. Shame on me to ask "what's next?".

Marketing with Compassion

First of all, I'd like to thank my son for inspiring me to write this post because of a discussion we had yesterday morning.

I was telling my children to notify me whenever there will be a wellness exhibit or similar program in their office because I might be able to participate, using my Tiens Acumagic or Electronic Acupuncture gadget. Just last week, we participated in the wellness exhibit of my husband's former office and I found the experience very fulfilling because I felt that I helped people. What I wasn't able to clarify was I couldn't do that without the gadget. In fact I was supposed to market the gadget, and not just tell people what steps they should take to prevent illnesses they will most likely have after 6 months if they don't do any preventive measures. Usually, I leave everything to God, and just focus on what I think can help people at the moment. Perhaps later, they will be interested to own that gadget too. But at that moment, the thought that I could sell a product worth more than 10,000 Philippine pesos never entered my mind.

Marketing Tiens products should be my objective in participating in a wellness exhibit but I tend to forget about that. I am a distributor, not a doctor. But I also want to share everything that I learned about TCM or Traditional Chinese Medicine, which is the philosophy behind the products of Tiens, so I believe I can speak about it too. The question now is what do I want to share? TCM or the products of Tiens? If I want to talk about TCM then I should not mention any Tiens products. That would be hard on my part because I am not a TCM Doctor, though I have some medical background as a Medical Technology graduate, and have been exposed to the medical clinic industry supporting its Information Technology applications. But TCM is quite different from Western Medicine. The good thing about TCM is it was designed to be easily understood by laymen, except acupuncture which has to be studied in detail, though the electronic acupuncture of Tiens was made for laymen so it included instructional "recipes" that can be easily followed by laymen.

Well, I guess, as long as I know I can help people because I'm sure of what I'm talking about, that's all that matters. As far as Tiens products are concerned, especially the supplements, I have my own laboratory results to show, before and after I took a specific supplement.

ILLAC DIAZ is my cousin!!

After watching that video, you would understand why I was very proud to shout to the world that "Illac Diaz is my cousin!", although he doesn't even know me. His grandfather and my grandmother are second cousins.

How stupid of me because i was already at the same place where he was last Friday, at the venue of the seminar of Francis Kong where he was one of the guests and I was an attendee. During his portion in the seminar, every time he would present one of his projects, the audience would applaud while I would be very touched and controlling my tears. During the break, there was a long line of people who'd like to talk to him that seem to have more important agenda to tell him, but I still fell in line until there was no more time and the seminar has to resume. Well, maybe there will be a more appropriate time for me to meet him, perhaps when I already have the time for My Shelter Foundation where he is now an AVP.

Illac's purpose in life and his missions are very clear, may God bless him always!

God's time

At this point in time, I can say that I will have a bright future as far as my career is concerned. I can feel that I will soon be able to put to use the expertise that I have developed when I was working in the corporate. That cannot be immediate, because I still have a lot to learn that concerns wellness, the natural or TCM way. I can feel that will happen in God’s time so there’s really no need to hurry.

Why wait for God’s time? If you wait for God’s time, the reasons for waiting will become clearer when it arrives. I’d like to use as an example that “message of God to mankind” again, which I believed I was tasked to spread. The message was relayed in 2001 and it was strengthened by a proof for me to fully believe it in 2002. Obviously, the time was not right for my task in 2001. The succeeding years, a lot of changes happened in my life, which resulted to my being more confident with my decisions. I was optionally retired from work in 2005 but I became busy right after, studying and becoming an entrepreneur at the same time. Business was not good by late 2007 so we had to stop by early 2008. For the first time in my life, I had time for lighter activities like writing. God’s time has arrived for me that 2008, to finally spread God’s message, because everything seemed ready. That was seven years after the message was relayed. It was that year, 2008, when blogging became the best medium to spread a message, because it was a year the population of blog readers and bloggers all over the world increased tremendously.

The term "kairos" is used to refer to God’s time. In the New Testament, kairos means "the appointed time in the purpose of God", the time when God acts (e.g. Mark 1.15, the kairos is fulfilled). It differs from the more usual word for time which is chronos (reference was Wikipedia).