Tender Musings

We all hold on to seemingly important things in our lives thinking that it would make us eternally happy. But if we look at life in an eternal perspective, we would realize that Heavenly Father is willing to bless us with so much more if we would only give up the things that we think is important now for blessings of eternal value. The story below was shared by my brother many years ago and illustrates the principle of sacrifice and trust. It has served as a great reminder when I find myself having a hard time deciding between holding on to things that provide temporal happiness or making sacrifices that brings blessings of eternal significance. There are different versions of the story online and I found this one from skywriting.net , which I like the most. Jenny's Pearls Jenny was a bright-eyed, pretty five-year-old girl. One day when she and her mother were checking out at the grocery store, Jenny saw a plastic pearl necklace priced at $2.50. How she wanted that neck...

I'll be honest. It took me a while to accept the reality that I'm going to be a mom. And when I say a while , I really mean a long while ...like end-of-my-2nd-trimester-a-while. Hey, no judging! Of course I was happy when the pregnancy test came out positive, but I also had some feelings of uncertainty which was such a surprise because I've always been into "mothering." I've always been fond of kids and I love babysitting for friends back in college. I would even choose babysitting than go out on some Friday nights. That's how much I adore children, so it was quite unnatural that I didn't have this magical feeling when I found out that I was pregnant. I expected that I would feel something more. As the weeks passed and the symptoms of pregnancy were getting harder to ignore, I realized that the reason why I somehow felt emotionally disconnected with the whole thing was because I still had a lot of selfishness in me. When I was babysitting for my...

You've probably heard a lot of couples say how it such a blessing to be married and how life is just better when you're with the person you love and all that stuff. Well, it's true. There have been many researches that have gone into great lengths to discuss the benefits of being married. But I'm not gonna go into the details of those studies. I just want to share a few of the favorite things I've enjoyed in the eight months that I've been married. I've learned to eat grass. Gian is Ilocano and he's used to eating different kinds of greens like Saluyot (jute), Ampalaya leaves, Alukon, Horseradish fruit, Parda, etc. Unfortunately, I didn't grow up with those kind of vegetables. I've never even heard of Alukon until I got married. Also, growing up in Davao, I always thought of Saluyot as grass. LOL. It's not that I'm a picky eater, it was just never served/cooked in my house. So when my husband asked me to cook Inabraw, I knew my li...