i got a nice, nice email forwarded my friend, mae-chan. i thought it was too good not to share with others so i decided to put it in my blog. ^_^
the teacup
There was a couple who used to go to England to shop in the beautiful stores. They both liked antiques and pottery and especially teacups. This was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.
One day in this beautiful shop they saw a beautiful teacup. They said,"May we see that? We've never seen one quite so beautiful."
As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke. "You don't understand," it said. "I haven't always been a teacup.
There was a time when I was red and I was clay. My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over and I yelled out, 'Let me alone', but he only smiled, 'Not yet.'
Then I was placed on a spinning wheel," the teacup said, "and suddenly I was spun around and around and around.
Stop it! I'm getting dizzy! I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, 'Not yet.'
Then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I wondered why he wanted to burn me, and I yelled and knocked at the door. I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head, 'Not yet.'
Finally the door opened, he put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. There, that's better', I said. And he brushed and
painted me allover. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. 'Stop it, stop it!'I cried. He only nodded, 'Not yet.'
Then suddenly he put me back into the oven, not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. All the time I could see him through the opening nodding his head saying, 'Not yet.'
Then I knew there wasn't any hope. I would never make it. I was ready to give up. But the door opened and he took me out and placed me on the shelf. One hour later he handed me a mirror and I couldn't believe it was me. It's beautiful. I'm beautiful.'
'I want you to remember, then,' he said, 'I know it hurts to be rolled and patted, but if I had left you alone, you would have dried up.
I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I knew it hurt and was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked.
I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn't done that, you never would have hardened; you would not have had any color in your life.
And if I hadn't put you back in that second oven, you wouldn't survive for very long because the hardness would not have held.
Now you are a finished product. You are what I had in mind when I first began with you.
MORAL:
God knows what He's doing for all of us. He is the potter and we are His clay. He will mold us and make us, so that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing, and perfect will.
Let this story be an encouragement to you and remind you that God has a perfect plan for your life. He may need to place some struggles in your life to strengthen your character so that you may be strong in the days of greater adversity.
Don't get discouraged when you feel like the heat of the struggle is going to burn you. God knows exactly when to pull you out and deliver you from that problem, and when He does you will be much wiser and stronger than you were before.
God will never give to us more than we are able to withstand, so remind yourself that if many problems are coming your way, it is only because God knows your inner strength and ability to be strong even in the midst of a problem.
"Let GO and Let GOD"
Posted by Unknown at 09:42
my life in early april
april 1, thursday
april fools day...i happened to finish writing my resignation letter and i was supposed to hand it to my supervisor. unfortunately, she wasn't around. the big boss wasn't, too. so i had no other choice but to hand it in the following day.
april 2, friday
in the morning, i was still trying to gather up my courage to finally submit my resignation letter. i was thinking, maybe i was making a stupid mistake by quitting. or it could be one of the best decisions i will ever make in my whole life. in the afternoon, i was able to do it. clem, my super-duper-supervisor, was a bit shocked but got over it quickly. we talked for quite a while...she asked my the reasons why i wanted to quit. so i told her everything. i wanted to go back to school and i wanted a job that will help pay for the school fees. grad school doesn't come cheap, especially at
de la salle. and i wanted a job that has a more or less fixed working schedule, and no unexpected overtime. i also told her, while trying to keep my tears from falling, that i am looking for professional and personal growth. i felt that my responsibilities at the office had become, well, not so challenging. so i am looking for a job that will ensure that i keep on growing. clem understood my situation; she said she fully supports whatever i wanted to do in my life *sob, sob* she also told me that she had been in the same situation before...i thought it was freaky! i mean, whatever's happening to me right now happened to her several years back! and look at her now...anyway, she did not persuade me to stay, and i appreciated that. if i wasn't happy with my job anymore, she said i will never be as effective as i was when i started this job more than a year ago. anyway, she told me that we have to talk to the big boss the following week to formalize my resignation. i wasn't looking forward to that.
later, after talking to her, i got a text message from my classmate, gigi-san, informing me that THE MIDTERM EXAMS HAD BEEN POSTPONED TO AFTER THE HOLY WEEK!!! woohoo!! what a blessing! i was actually planning to study the whole night, without a minute of sleep and then comes this message. wow! turns out, sensei had to re-write the exams so he had to move the examination date to april 17, with april 10 (black saturday) being a holiday.
april 3, saturday
with no exams, you would think that everyone in class would just sit back and relax our brains (or mouths) for a while. but no...turns out, everyone had so many questions for sensei about the past lessons and it was a good thing that we didn't have exams that day! nobody seemed to have prepared enough! if it wasn't bad enough, sensei gave us some additional kanji and reading selection to study. i must be a prophet or something...because the selection was about blood types and personalities! ha! we found out that half of the class are b-type people while the rest (myself included) are o-types. sensei is a-type. maeda-san, the japanese lady who was observing our class, is also type b. if i remember correctly, the selection said type o people are the leader types...and the selfish people. haha! so true!
later, after class, we (grace, gigi, gigi's son marty and myself) went over to maricel sasaki's house. she's making us lunch! i specifically 'ordered' tonkatsu. ^_^ when we got there, i tried to help her but she shooed me out of the kitchen, hehe. my cute little pal, and maricel's daughter, kozue just got back from her ballet class. daichi, her equally cute kid brother, was there too, running all over the place. cel wasn't kidding; daichi can be quite a handful. now that he has learned how to walk, he wants to try and climb all the furniture in the house!
it was a feast! we had tonkatsu, ebi furai, veggie salad, miso soup. maricel's older sister, maribel, made us some onigiri-zushi!! we almost drowned in our drool, hehe! the food was so yummy we kept on kidding each other, 'oi, don't forget to breathe'! the food was that good.
after eating and after gigi and grace had left, i was still at the sasaki home, too full to move and too lazy to go home. i was playing peek-a-boo with daichi, and kozue was laughing with us. they were so cute! i really love playing the two of them, especially with kozue because she can understand almost everything i say in japanese. she even sang for me, though i couldn't understand what she was saying because she still can't get all the words out properly. but it was cute, just the same.
later, i went with maricel for coffee and some more chat. after that, i got a new swim suit...and that cute sleeveless blouse i saw at cinderella weeks ago. i didn't want to buy it before; i was trying to control my credit card spending. but that day, i had some cash with me so i ended up buying the blouse, hehe. ^_^
to be continued...
Posted by Unknown at 10:48
happy easter!
after a long hiatus, i know i should be writing something about what i did during the holy week. but i am too busy/too lazy right now so i'll just paste yoshi's pic to bring a little sunshine-y smile to my blog. ^_^ (yoshi is my colleague's first born son ^_^)
Posted by Unknown at 14:55
