Justine
15/04/89
KPO
district 10
cuscaden
naive
two fat men
the burger restaurant
norwegian wood
the vow
the lovely bones
everything's illuminated
extremely loud and incredibly close
we bought a zoo
american pie: the reunion
beetlejuice
an education
the great gatsby
TAKEitALLout!!
04/01/2003 - 05/01/2003
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12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008
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12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010
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11/01/2011 - 12/01/2011
03/01/2012 - 04/01/2012
04/01/2012 - 05/01/2012
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08/01/2012 - 09/01/2012
10/01/2012 - 11/01/2012
04/01/2013 - 05/01/2013
05/01/2013 - 06/01/2013
10/01/2014 - 11/01/2014
12/01/2014 - 01/01/2015
04/01/2016 - 05/01/2016
Designer: Corissa
Basecodes: xavqior and Stac'ey
Thursday, April 07, 2016,
" A secret to happiness is letting every situation be what it is instead of what you think it should be, and then making the best out of it."
Suddenly got reminded of this little secret but not so secret place that i used to come and seek "solitude". i'm amazed its been 2 years since i last came and the same feelings came surging in as i read every happy, confused or sad post that i ever wrote.
Much has happened in one year, i guess all the pieces do come together afterall. You may not know why things happen, but its therapeutic when you fought the good fight and you look back overtime to realise everything fell into place just nicely. And it thrills you to see that everything appeared much nicer than it could because you persisted and fought a little harder.
For what it's worth, i have graduated, found a job and is now a 3 weeks old cell group leader. I wouldnt say i have reached a point whereby i have accomplished something, but i would say i have reached a milestone that allowed me to do greater things be it for God or myself.
Even though i do have a job now, writing "Research Assistant" in the occupation clause was never my idea of a destination. I know deep down that i want to be a doctor and i am still fighting for it mentally and physically. The odds are low and i convince myself of other alternatives a little more with each passing year but i just cant shake it off. That's probably how i know its what i was made for. Sometimes i do feel like i am wasting my time with this job because it takes up most of my time and so i cant really work towards the destinations that i want to, but i am trying my best not to waste whatever time i have left beyond work and ministry to make everything count , and i am really trusting God that a year and a half down the road, i will look back and feel like i have done something and not regret that no work was done at all.
In the beginning of the year, i told myself i am gonna make this year count in all areas of my life and so i approach everyday with greater caution, making sure every single day and hour counts for something because many insignificant things will accumulate to something significant over time and i dont want to look back at this year and realise it was significantly insignificant.
Being a cell group leader, i am still struggling to balance a friendship and discipleship relationship with my people. Extra cautious with every move i make lest i become any bit of my leader that i dont want to be. It's even easier to fall into the trap of expecting people to look up to you just because you are a cell group leader, but i've got that under control and it definitely made me much wiser in terms of the emotions i show. I thank God that most of my people are more open now that the group is smaller, i just hope the excitement and openness persists as we build a culture and environment that is enjoyable and uplifting to every single soul that joins us.
and there you have it, me at my rawest,
fighting every single day to be better,
believing that His plans for me will eventually come to fruitition.
♥ 1:14 PM
Tuesday, December 16, 2014,
And so i was.
Spent hours watching trailers (yes, silly things i do to unwind.) and here's a reminder for me to watch them.
- Song One
- Life Partners
- Pitch Perfect 2
- Into the woods
- Love, Rosie
- The Best of Me
- The Age of Adaline
- Annie
- Gone Girl
♥ 5:00 PM
Monday, October 13, 2014,
" There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes outside in words." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
So here i am, back here.
Funny how i always end up back here when my mind clogs up.
Yes, i do pray to God and i do feel a little better, but nothing beats seeing your thoughts thread up into words only you understand.
in-between.
the situation i have been since i came back.
be it my career, my ministry, my thoughts and my heart.
it isn't the definition of priorities in my life that bugs me,
it's the thin line that separates what's expected of you and what you really want to do.
people can say all sorts of things and use all sorts of means to make your decision seem wrong,
it might seem easy to end this sentence with " but you just need to be strong in your belief and not be shaken.", but thats not it.
to be strong, you need to have the courage to go against the social norm, to fight your need to be accepted.
to be strong, you need to have the wisdom to differentiate God's idea and someone's idea because lets face it, there is always that someone in your life that uses God to mask their own ideas, their own inferior complex or covetousness, that someone in your life that wants you to live the way they live, covering it up with "the act of being Christ-like" with a cherry on top.
Sometimes, we get so caught up with following, we mistake it for true discipleship and loyalty.
Sometimes, we get so overwhelmed by our need for social acceptance, we forget to live the life that God wants us to live.
We were never meant to be like another, but to exist as our individual selves each with a unique purpose that God has intended for us.
but to know this is one thing, to live by it is another.
Though I might seem like I'm not doing much,
i do treasure this "pause" in my life.
a time for a good rest, a time to pave and pray for the right path to take, be it in my career or my studies, a time to find the conviction i once had in serving.
whoever said this part of life was a waste of time, would probably be having their "pause" time in their life,realising the time they wasted was the one which they rushed into, because we all need that time to step out of whatever we are in to look at whatever we are in.
No builder has ever built a house without constantly checking the blueprint and making sure they were building in the right direction.
We all need that "pause" in our lives to make sure we are building our future in the right direction.
♥ 11:08 PM
Thursday, May 23, 2013,
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and you watch and you work: You don’t give up.”--Anne Lamott
It's funny how God can convince you to do something with your own perception and still ensure you do it His way at the same time.
It's like trying to manipulate a guy into doing something by making him think that the idea was his.
only in this case, you realise your idea was wrong and there was something bigger in store for you and before you know it, you are already halfway there whether you like it or not.
Academics aside, I used to think that i was called here to save souls, to spread the church culture i experienced back at home to this foreign land.
Visiting churches the first few months and finding one i can call my own was tough, but looking at the dynamics of the churches here, i thought i was right - that the reason why i was sent here was to minister to others, to experience a different type of growth through ministry.
but i guess i was terribly wrong.
For these 15 months..nothing went the way i planned it, but everything went in the way He planned it and everything went wrong.
It was like being shipwrecked, trusting in the Lord that He will send a cruise over to take you to places you never been before, enjoying yourself with all the great facilities and comfort of the cruise on the way to wherever He had planned for you.
But no, a day passed and all you got was a wooden plank.. and another one the next day.. and another one the next day.
You hold on to them, but your eyes is still looking out for that one cruise that you thought God will bring to you.
Days and months pass, and all you got was a bunch of planks. You managed to make them into big floats like Robinson Crusoe, but each time a monsoon, or a storm comes, your boat goes..and its back to picking up the pieces and building another safety raft.
Overtime, you start to blame everyone around you. Blaming people for not looking for you, blaming people for not coming after you, blaming the storm, blaming God and ultimately, blaming yourself for your plight. You start to doubt your faith, that maybe you heard wrong and everything was your own idea, not God's and all that has befallen you was a punishment. You start to feel abandoned and self pity was an indulgence. You start hating the need to build rafts, to fight for your own survival every single day, you start hating. everything.
Till one fine day,you stare at the same horizon you've been staring for the past few months and instead of a straight line, you see a shadow, a bulge,one that resembles an island...And with all that's left in you, you scurry over, full of anticipation, full of hope. The same storms came at you, but you kept moving, eyes fixated on the prize.
And as you set foot on solid ground for the first time in months, all that fills your heart was nothing words could do justice to. And as you stare at the 'raft' that brought you here, the 'raft' which looks totally different from the first one that you ever made, that warm fuzzy feeling in your heart, was thankfulness and gratitude. And for the first time in a long while, you understand Him.
I cant say i am on my 'promised land'. Hearing all the breakthoughs from my friends did make me pretty envious and the number of 'why-s' i asked God was enough to fill the deepest seas. I struggled, i doubted, i hated, i whined, i weeped, only to realise the breakthrough i was intended for this season was in myself. I have to admit it was like karma, where all my advices to people, my beliefs were put to the test and humility was one of the answers i had to dig deep for.
I used to spend my time waiting,
waiting to see who cares enough to come and ask how i was doing,
waiting to receive impartations,
holding back with the mentality that i have ran out of things to give especially when i am not receiving,
treating every friendship i had as an investment and evaluating whether the investment was worth my time in the future with every little thing they do,
waiting and planning things to do in my head to show my displeasure,
and if things dont happen the way i want it,
i spend my time sulking and waiting again, hoping that things will just go the right way somehow or in some cases, go back to what it was.
i just waited...like waiting for money to drop from the sky..
and we all know nothing good ever comes out of it.
if you want someone in your life,
make it happen.
work doubly hard when you arent in the same part of the world,
work at it so hard that your presence could be felt in your absence...
because being forgotten is a choice.
Pride said that if you love them, let them go, and if they come back, they are yours but humility said never let the people you love go even if they beg you to.
For all it's worth, humility was right.
The difference between darkness and a lights out party is this- one makes you fight with all your might to get out of it and the other makes you want to stay as long as you want in it. It's not God's intention to withold the people who loves you from you, but He knows thats the only way to make you grow. Some battles can only be won if you fight it alone.
With all that has happened this past few months, i am thankful to have braved through it all, to finally come to an understanding that the storms that were thrown at me, was not to punish me for making a wrong decision, but to make me a better builder because only the strongest ships make it to the shore.
Thank You, for believing in me.
♥ 3:55 AM
Wednesday, April 17, 2013,
“Starting with ourselves
we’ll change the world around us,
we will make it more.”
— Daily Haiku on Love by Tyler Knott Gregson
Many of us might think taking pictures of ourselves, talking about ourselves excessively, overindulging in material needs like make up and clothes are acts of loving ourselves, but no they are not.
Loving yourself is taking care of yourself, making sure your body has enough nutrients, exercising to stay healthy, trimming your nails and hair when they are overgrown, dressing up to look good mainly for yourself, not for others.
Loving yourself is doing things that make you, not other people, happy.
Loving yourself is not beating yourself down so that other people can pull you up, that's dependance.
Loving yourself is not talking so much about yourself because you are so confident about yourself you are able to share it with others, that's just being egotistical and deep down inferior.
Loving yourself is not taking the same picture of your face over and over again just so you can watch the number of likes soar on your social media, that's just a need to be reminded how beautiful you are, which you can do so yourself if you really love yourself.
Loving yourself is putting your happiness first because only then do you have the capacity to love others.
Love, like the gesture of pouring wine into a mountain of wine glasses in a wedding,can only flow when its overflown. We have to love ourselves first in order to love others or our 'act of love' for others will just be an 'act for love'.
Love yourself first because you are more beautiful than you think you are and you deserve to be loved by you first.
♥ 2:55 AM
Wednesday, October 10, 2012,
today was a good day.
i was just looking through twitter and feeling so amazed that so much can change within a short time,
or maybe cause time feels slower here..
but still, so much has changed.
i used to think whoever was close to me before i left got close to someone else cause that someone else was somewhat like me and it made up for the part of them that was lost when i left.
then i realised that i might have been the someone who was there to fill up the part that was lost when another person left..and it really made me wonder how tangible and fragile human relations are.
that they can just be replaced with time.
so i banished the egoistical thought,
and counted my blessings,
and made a mental post-it to make sure the holes in the heart i make in the days to come can only be filled by me.
and yes, the holes will be limited edition.
♥ 3:25 AM