Thanksgiving...

I thank the Lord for...

my God and my savior, Jesus Christ for saving me and giving me no reason to fear death because eternity awaits in heaven.

my parents for not abandoning me and rearing me with imperfections. Those imperfections have taught me to accept that no one is perfect, and that I should never expect things to go perfect.

my husband and son. They gave me a reason to live my life with a purpose.

my parents in law for naming me God-given and believing that I was given by God to their son, Miggy.

my siblings who made my life exciting and who made it depressing sometimes too (which is part of what we call life.)

my work for paying the bills and for erasing my boredom. Also for being the reason why I'm forced to look good everyday. And of course, it's the reason why I'm making the most of my time when I'm with my son, Matt because I know I'm missing 9-11 hours a day of his life.

my reliable helper/yayay for taking care of my son in those hours we miss.

my aunt Liza for bringing me to church when I was only 5 years old. Sunday schools had become my spiritual foundation among many church activities that I grew up with.

my friends whom I could count on all the time. I thank them for being my listening ears in times when my mouth just can't stop talking.

my skills and passion for cooking which balances my life. It's the best stress reliever!

my trials for making me call on HIM. Trials are reminders for me to kneel down and lift everything up to HIM. They make me stronger and tougher too!

my blog which serves as a venue for my thanksgiving! :)

Wisdom for Life's Trials

James 1

¹James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

²My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

³Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

⁴But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

⁵If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

⁶But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

⁷For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

⁸A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

⁹Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:

¹⁰But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

¹¹For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

¹²Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

¹³Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

¹⁴But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

¹⁵Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

¹⁶Do not err, my beloved brethren.

¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

¹⁸Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

¹⁹Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

²⁰For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

²¹Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

²²But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

²³For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:

²⁴For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

²⁵But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

²⁶If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

²⁷Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

The Grind

I seldom talk about work. Not for anything; I just don't find it interesting to talk about. But I just realized today that I've been in this company for 5 years now and surely, there must be something interesting about my work that would me make stay that long. I turned 5 last Oct. 13th and the company is planning to give us a treat. I'm hoping it would be something interesting. Last year it was a set of Rudy Project watch (for couples).

Okay, so let me start. I started out as a trainer for disneyshopping.com, then got transferred to AT&T and now Adobe. I've learned so many things in 5 years. I've learned how crazy Americans are about disney products, that there are other ISPs much better than AT&T (kidding), and that Adobe and MAC are not really in good terms (there are a lot of Adobe products not available for IOS.) But the most important thing I learned has nothing to do with what the classroom (my comfort zone) can teach us but it's the relationship I was able to build with my co-workers. In a callcenter industry you will meet diverse kind of people - young and old (student meeting his former teacher), registered nurses, teachers, engineers, commerce graduates, and of course ex-bummers. We address each other by our first name (one of the American cultures we acquired) since most of the callcenters in the Philippines are owned and managed by Americans anyway. We love to eat pizza and hold rally on special occasions like halloween and Christmas. And we call midnight snack, lunch! Being a trainer, I get to meet a lot of people, most of them I remember by face but not by name (memory gap, I always blame it on my CS operation). And after a while, you'll wonder where did this person go? Transition is so fast, before you know it, the man or woman you were training a few weeks back is already training for another company. This where reunions happen too. I once have a class where half of them came from CVG and the other half is from Teletech and you can just imagine how chaotic a class would be where everyone is familiar with each other. In a callcenter, relatives in the same workplace is also not an issue for as long as the other is not reporting to the other relative.

Okay, you may not find interesting all of the things I stated above maybe because you're already aware of them. But what's really interesting at least for me is the fact that in this workplace is where I met my husband. What's even more interesting is that he was my trainee. And don't imagine me being an old conservative trainer/teacher who has a hidden desire with his trainees/students. I'm only 30 now and I was 27 when I met him, he was 28. Let me just emphasize that.hehe. We started dating after he graduated from my class and started working as a full time agent. He's now a QA analyst and we work for the same account, different department. Quite interesting huh?!

I'm always thankful to God for my work. There are better days, but heck, most of the time, it's not bad at all. It's paying for our bills, giving me knowledge and experience, and it builds relationships (just like what happened to us) ;)

pic courtesy of dreamstine.com

There are better days

Yesterday was not one of them. It was far from good. Family problems once again and I just hope it ends soon. May God grant all my prayers!