Wisdom Quote #6-6/9/16
- What makes you excited to spring up from bed and start a new day?
- Do you stay up late, stealing few hours from your sleep time because you’re working on a project?
- Do you see yourself five years-ten years from now and envision what it would be like?
- Do you have a bucket list? And what are you doing to accomplish items on that list?
- What are the things you are very passionate about?
- Are you excited about learning new things?
Answers to these questions are driven by hopes and dreams. I hope you do have at least some of these things for these will:
- make you LOVE LIFE
- keep you EXCITED
- make your life PURPOSEFUL
Friends, keep hoping and dreaming and act on them. This is a good way to live. ———————————-
Wisdom Quote #5- 6/1/16gilvalenzuela.net
Many of us cannot control saying hurting words when we are angry. Oftentimes we utter something we don’t really mean, so we regret what we’ve said. Although apologies can be asked, words that had been uttered cannot be retrieved. Someone said its like spilling a bag of feathers in the air. Once scattered, it’s impossible to retrieve them anymore. Therefore, it is wise to caution ourselves. We need to learn how to control our tongues. Literally, we need to BITE it so we can’t talk. Some said it in another way: “ZIP your lips .” While the Psalmist says: “I will put a MUZZLE in my mouth.” Psa.39:1. And in Proverbs 10:19, the wisest man who ever lived-Solomon says for us to HOLD our tongue.
The Bible has warned us about the use of our tongues. “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Prov. 12:18. “The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit. Prov. 15:4.
Let us learn from Apostle James. This is what he says regarding taming the tongue:
“When we put bits into the mouth of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take a ship as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark . The tongue also is fire, world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth comes praise and cursing. My brothers this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. ” James 3:3-12.
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Wisdom Quote#4 5/30/16
In God’s economy, all life experiences have value-even the bad things in life. He can transform, redeem, convert, recycle/reuse every nasty event into good and pleasant things. That’s simply God’s nature. Indeed, “From ashes to beauty, that’s God’s activity.” As a line in one of my favorite chorus says, “He makes all things beautiful in His time.” Cast your cares upon Jesus, put your trust on Him and He can turn your sorrows into joy, and the nasty experiences to something beautiful and something good! ——————————–
Wisdom Quote #3 (5/24/16)
In God’s economy, all life experiences have value. God does not waste anything, even the bad things. He can transform, recycle, convert and reuse bad experiences to good. That’s just God’s nature.
The extreme economic difficulty I experienced growing up taught me valuable lessons in life. I’ve just shared resourcefulness as one of them in my previous blog. When I started receiving income as an Agricultural Engineer in Oman, I was very careful in spending my hard-earned money. It was very tempting to spend on such things as electronics- television, betamax, music components, fancy watches, VCR and the like, but I disciplined myself. I came up with several reasons why I should NOT spend money on such things. These are my arguments to myself, Electronic items are bulky, they require a lot of money when you ship them to the Philippines. These things can be out-modeled quickly. Why buy now when the next models would be better? (And of course I ended up not buying because the new edition is yet to come…always). What will I do with them when they break? They become junk! Do I really need it? Can I live without it? The conclusion is always: Don’t buy! Therefore, instead of spending my money, I saved. Also, I bought pieces of gold jewelry for my wife which proved to be a good investment. True enough, when we needed cash, we converted the gold pieces to money. Therefore:
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Poverty made me a very resourceful person. You may recall how I survived during my first semester in CLSU (Please refer to the articles Survival pt 1 & pt 2.) My resourcefulness started early in my childhood and I learned it from my mother. She would take me and my sisters to the field after farmers harvested their crops. There would always be left-over ears of corn and rice stalks for us to pick. My favorites were the sweet potato (kamote) farms. Few days after the harvest time, young shoots would grow out from potato tubers left underground -we call them tartarubong. I found it very exciting to dig those young shoots and found various sizes of tubers. Not only did we learn resourcefulness, we also had a lesson on generosity. On our way home from gleanings, mother would share to the neighbors our food finds. And before we reached home, half of our loot had been given away! Also, I remember when I was in 5th grade when our class had a scrapbook project. My resources were very limited unlike my classmate Emmy, whose mother was one of the teachers at our school and had a brother in the US Navy. I was so amazed with the stuff she brought to school for her projects. “These colored pencil set was given to me by my US Navy brother. They were made in the US”. She said. “There’s no way I could make as good a project as she can with all that she had.”I told my self. But I tried my best. That’s when my resourcefulness came into play. I asked mother to bring home old magazines and newspapers when she came home from her laundry jobs. I gathered leaves and twigs, tree barks and what not, to incorporate them in my project. When we turned in our work one of my classmates noticed how thick my folder was. I opened and showed it to him and he laughed saying “Ano yan?” (What is that?”) Our projects were returned to us with grades on the front page. Both Emmy and I got 98%. The note on her project read: “Very Good” while on mine it said: “Very Resourceful“. Recently, I had an opportunity to teach resourcefulness to my grandson Camden. I took him to the movie one day. He asked me to buy him an flavored ice drink. While inside the theater, he lost his drinking straw. So I removed the the icee cover and fashioned it into a scoop. He was so amazed with what I made that when we came home, all that he talked about was the scoop Lolo made out of the drink cover–not the movie we watched. 5/23/16. ———————————
Wisdom Quote#1. My wife changed her profession from engineering to nursing. I was glad she did, otherwise we would have not known a simple fact that would save my life! When she was studying to be a nurse, she learned that men must have their colonoscopy done when they reached the age of 50. I already missed 2 years because I just turned 52 then. “Sweetheart, you have to have your colonoscopy done soon. I will call the doctor and have you scheduled for one.” I laughed at her and said “No way! I’m good. I don’t have any problem…not any symptom..no bleeding, no constipation, no pain….nada… I’m good, don’t worry!” We guys are simply stubborn at times and we just don’t listen. “You know what mahal? You’ve paid thousands of dollars for our family health insurance this year and we hardly used it! That insurance will lapse in three months. Please listen to me and just go.” She pleaded. That got me thinking. Why not? And so I did. Then I got a call from my doctor: “Mr. Valenzuela, the mass that we found in your colon is malignant (cancerous), we have to remove it before it spreads.”* I’m alive today because I listened to my dear wife!!! Thank you sweetheart! Colon cancer is a silent killer, when symptoms show it is already in it’s advance stage. Don’t wait for tell-tale signs. Do something now if you’re a guy my age. And…..listen to your wife! (*I agreed for surgery only after a second opinion confirmed the findings.) 5/20/16
myJOURNEY 