Thank you.

 Thanksgiving 2023

2023 saw the end of my 43 years of work life. I am so thankful for more than four decades of a very colorful worklife. I think I worked with maybe a dozen workplaces the last of which was the biggest. At some point in my life I found the Jabez prayer where I asked God to bless me indeed and expand my territory. And he did!!!  

I have told this story many times in the past - that when I was very young I told myself that my measure of success would be my positive effect on people around me. Not a big house, flashy cars and lotsa money in the bank, but happy and fulfilled people around me because I have affected their lives with my life in very positive ways. I love my small house, my normal sedan, and a little money in the bank that I could spend in a flash if I wanted to haha. But seriously, I never imagined how much God did expand my territory - I thought back then that my life would only affect my family but God had other plans. Thank you Lord, I entrust my life to you and your good plans. 

The other half of the Jabez prayer was “Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain”. Thank you so much, Lord for your guidance and your protection always.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and I am once again spending it in the US with my family. I still remember my very first Thanksgiving with my American family - where my stepfather Drew asked all of us gathered around the table to say what we were thankful for. And since I don’t really get to spend Thanksgiving with them after that, I started writing about what I am grateful for every year. Thus my annual Thanksgiving note was born. I am thankful for all those notes because it tells me how rich my life has been, with all its challenges and triumphs. My journey is recorded in those Thanksgiving notes.

After retirement, I decided to spend six months with Nay and my siblings and their families here. I feel like I owe them time, the time I have spent so much on work. For two months now, I have been just hanging out, spending time, doing dishes, taking care of laundry, some housekeeping here and there, cooking meals, driving to the supermarket, doing Nay’s hair, making egg sandwiches, taking walks, watching Hallmark movies, shopping on Amazon instead of Lazada, really, a thousand and one mundane things. So different from my past life, yet I am not missing any of that, and always surprised that another day has passed and it is time to rest. Thank you Lord for giving me this time to just be, maybe “doing nothing” yet doing everything for Nay and the rest of my family.

I am so thankful I do better now on my daily morning walks. When I first arrived, I could not even walk every day because my sciatica pain was just too much. I could hardly finish one round around the neighborhood. Fast forward two months, and I am now doing 3 rounds, still in pain but making it nonetheless. One mile each time and looking forward to more in the weeks and months ahead. And because I am moving and eating less, I am dropping some weight. I am now really hopeful that I will finally lose the weight I have been carrying all these years. I pray everyday that God would help me move out of the morbidly obese zone and move into a more respectable and healthier weight so I could do more housework and walk more.

At this point, I do not really know what to pray for but I have been led to read a book called “Gospel”. The book has been in my kindle and I have started it many times in the past but I guess it was not yet time then. So recently, I restarted reading the book and the Gospel prayer, like the Jabez prayer, found me…. “In Christ, there is nothing I can do that would make You love me more, and nothing I have done that makes You love me less. Your presence and approval are all I need for everlasting joy. As you have been to me, so I will be to others. As I pray, I’ll measure Your compassion by the cross and Your power by the resurrection.”

Thankful that I now have this time to read this book. It is actually very scary, moving and deep. I am not done yet but I know that this will be the prayer for the next part of my journey in this life. God, help me… open my heart, hold me close, be with me…. 

Thank you that you have loved me first.