Vessels, Clay and Butterflies in the make...

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted a new blog. It’s been a tough last couple of weeks. Besides not being able to get rid of my late bed time habits and going to sleep at 12ish/ 1ish all the time, there are bigger more important things I’ve faced.

I feel like the more I try to be better, the more I fail. It’s like the harder I try to improve certain habits or areas in my character/ persona the more bad and sinful areas I discover about myself. It’s like there’s another rock in the way waiting to see me fall.

In the Bible, Jeremiah got to see a more figurative and symbolic example of this. God tells Jeremiah: “Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words. So he went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do”. (Jeremiah 18:1-4 RSV). I am a broken vessel, and my God I cannot count the times in which I have broken in my potter’s hands. So God is the potter, I am the clay. By the way, this pottery stuff takes a lot of patience to do. I’ve always been the type of person who never liked to get their hands dirty with gunky stuff but hey, this clay is gunky. My life for that matter is gunky. And God don’t mind gunky. And I always ask myself why??? If I was God, I’d choose to never get my hands dirty but I’m not God, He is and he chooses imperfect people.

…(Small tangent) I’m not a Lady Gaga fan but her song “Bad Romance” says: “I want your ugly, I want your disease, I want your everything as long as its free, I want your love blah blah blah….etc.” Ok, what if we think for a minute and realize, isn’t that what God is asking of us; our ugly, our disease, our love?! So many times in relationships people get hurt by their partner, over and over and over but yet they stay together and have patience and people say “man you’re lucky he/she hasn’t dumped you”. Well heads up, God doesn’t dump people , ironically people dump Him out of their life.

So I’ve realized, life is a matter of realizing we are in the potter’s hands. The question is, who is your potter? Who’s molding you? Is it your friends, your job, music, the media, or is it God? And it finally came to me, the part where it states in Jeremiah: “the vessel spoiled in the potters hands”. So even if I willingly want to be in the hands of God, even in his hands I spoil.

If you’re broken, recognize it, but look at it with purpose. Everyone else around is walking around with issues. If you’ve spoiled, recognize it’s best when you spoil in His hands because otherwise you’re just a rotten case.

If you’re waiting for the perfect day when you stop sinning to jump in the potter’s hands keep in mind, he wants your ugly too, its not just Lady Gaga singing it. Give him your gunky life, he will work wonders with it and make you into a beautiful masterpiece. It’s in the ugly stages of our life in which he works best. One of my favorite proverbs (not from the bible) is “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a beautiful butterfly”. Who knew a caterpillar would become a butterfly. But there lies a process: The cocoon. I am in my cocoon, and someday, I know I will be done with that process. In the meantime, just know that God’s promises are true and he is not finished with you.

The picture of the rainbow was a few weeks ago on my way home. In the midst of my hectic day, that reminded me that there’s a rainbow after every storm.

We are vessels, we are clay, and we are butterflies in the make….

THIS TIME

THE FOLLOWING IS A RE-POSTED BLOG I WROTE LAST JANUARY DURING NEW YEARS... ENJOY.

During this time of year the cliche' arises of those well known "New Year Resolutions". Although many start strong, it's very few who finish strong. I regret to say that I can't even remember what resolutions I set at the beginning of of last year but this year, things will be different.

I have learned so much about God. We THINK we have him all figured out at times and we're sooo wrong. You see it's not about God being so concerned with our spiritual life. The fact is He is overall concerned with our life in general! He doesn't just want to be a part of our spiritual life, he wants to redeem our life- yes all of it!

I received a very interesting e-mail forward once- (let me just say I hate forwards whether it be through e-mail or a text, it's got to be EXTREMELY inspiring for me to even read it nonetheless to even pass it on). With that said, I opened this one and it was brief- short and to the point it read as follows "To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did."

To make my point.... I was reading in Genesis when Jacob made an agreement with Rachel's father to work 7 years to make Rachel his wife. Note: Rachel was beautiful and radiant and she had a sister (Leah) who was "not so pretty" so the Bible states I just rather use the word ugly haha. Anyway, At the end of the 7 years, rather than getting Rachel, the woman he worked so hard for, he gets Leah. Jacob, although he did not love Leah, he gave her a son. Leah gives birth to their first son and says "It is because the LORD has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now" and named him Reuben. The second time she said "Because the LORD heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too" and named him Simeon. The third time around she said "Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons." So he was named Levi. She conceived again ( I know you'd think Jacob would stop by now...), and when she gave birth to this son she said, "This time I will praise the LORD." So she named him Judah. To make the long story short, God saw Leah's struggle for her husband's love but in her struggle she turned to God and said "This time I will praise you" and God beautified her!

I dont know what your struggle is, but I do know mine. What I'm saying is no matter what we went through last year and years before, all though we complain and nag sometimes "THIS [YEAR] PRAISE THE LORD" this year will be different if you believe it! Sometimes all we can do is praise because you wont always get an answer. Maybe you will or maybe you wont but that is up to God. We can only do what's possible and leave the rest to HIM.

Continuing with the last part of what the forwarded e-mail I received, it read: "The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you. " This year I am choosing to live in God's Grace and that will overlap all my resolutions and transform them into his exquisite sublime plan. It doesn't matter what the future holds as long as you know who's holding you. What will you choose to do THIS TIME? Will you finish Strong?

A Flash of Life

So many times throughout my day, I have such wonderful experiences which are 99% random in which I think to myself: "Hey, I could blog about this!" but then I forget. So I don't have some fun topic to blog about but here we go with reality...

What I can tell you, dear reader, is that this moment is just a flash of life. Do you ever think of how God has the power to pull the plug on us at any given moment? It's a scary thought if you ask me. As many have experienced before they died, one minute you're here and the next moment you're not.

I was on my way to pick up Ivan's sister yesterday and as I was waiting for the green light, I was first at the light and right before my very eyes, I see this car hit another guy on his motorcycle in the intersection. I was in complete shock! I don't think it really hit me til' I saw the guy fly off his bike. I don't want to say all the details but he landed face down and didn't move. I immediately called 9-1-1 and pulled over to wait for the paramedics. I never approached the guy myself because people were already surrounding him so I stayed on the curb and said a prayer for him. I didn't know if he was alive or anything. My thought was that he was just really really hurt.

Today I drove by the same intersection and I saw flowers and candles at the corner which means........ he didn't survive. I know I never knew the guy but had that been someone I knew! My brother, my boyfriend, cousin, friend! What a fatal way to end life and it flashed before my very eyes. I'm still puzzled at this whole thing. I mean, what happens when you die? Do you see the bright light? Or do you just black out? I guess we'll know when we get there.

Life is short and so many times we take it for granted. I know people say that all the time but we do! We make promises we don't keep and we keep saying "someday...". Just stop it, do it today. Your next breath is not guaranteed and if we keep living like it is, we might miss the big picture. Be thankful for what you have and stop contemplating and what you don't.

Today I wrote a short quote:
"Some people work so hard in life to just get by, while so many of us have it easy. Sure we struggle here and there but at least we know our meals are certain, shelter is guaranteed and even if you only have just 1 friend, you are still not alone. Everyday i wake up and think of the many ways God has blessed me without deserving it - that my friends, is called GRACE".

^{Romans 3:23-24} states : "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

Here's to a second chance at life. The fact that we woke up this morning is enough to be thankful for.

Til' next time...

Grilled Shrimp and Spinach Salad - How Shrimples came to be and Shrimpy got her name...

I've never had an allergic reaction to food - til' Applebees introduced their new "Grilled Shrimp and Spinach Salad". Have I mentioned that shrimp is one of my favorite foods? I Say....uhhh, Murphy's Law!

For the past 4 days I've been dwelling in the joy of hives, itches and scratches along with my new nickname: "Shrimpy". For the sake of unnecessary medical terminology, let's call this the "shrimples".

If there is anything good out of this, let is be, the thought that we take our health for granted. It's not fun or pretty, but rather a force of necessary time to check out of life and meditate on the things we forget to be thankful for. In my case, Health.

I'm fervently praying that I can still have shrimp, (please God, I just had lobster for the first time a year ago, I'm bearly living....take the veggies but not my shell-fish...).

Last week I had just told my friend: "Dont you ever wish you can just check out of life for a few days and chill?" Well, had i realized the power of my words I wouldn't be lying here in bed, itchy and well, shrimpy at such a late hour.

For some reason it seems so much worse when my mom is out of the country and I have to make soup for myself. It's not as good even though I followed her same recipe. It's the mom touch you know?

Be careful what you say and don't take your health for granted!

Credits: My Dad, Brother and Ivan- for being my proud supporters in Urgent Care, Poli for all your calls and name-calling, Michelle for sharing my last shrimp meal with me and Valerie for all your texts, Marlene for covering me at work (poor thing) and to CVS for my pills along with Benadryl and lastly, to you, for reading my ridiculous little blog about seafood.

Bon Nuit!

Catch-up and Ketchup: two different things

On CATCH-UP: This morning was amazing. I woke up a little earlier (ok 1/2 hour earlier) to meet APU's Coordinator for Mexico Outreach to discuss some things about becoming more involved with the program. I feel compelled to stay connected not only with the University but the service in which Mexico is in great need for. After talking with the coordinator, I knew that this is an area in which God wants to strengthen my spiritual muscles. A wise man once said that the greatest gift is a portion of thyself- it doesn't cost a thing! I am so excited for the future, I encourage you to get involved in donating a fraction of your time to help others, buy a homeless a meal ... do a random act of kindness! Just do it.


On KETCHUP: On the flip side, today I also celebrated my best friend's birthday. We went to Ketchup, cute name huhh? It's an innovative little "rouge" place out in West Hollywood in which their food specializes in well, yeah, ketchup. There's something about celebrating another year of life not only with gifts but to celebrate the life of the gift God gave to me: my best friend. The food was awesome, I ate her free birthday dessert (without hesitation because she was "too full") and the topped the night off with visiting Rodeo Dr. for the first time. I know, I've lived in LA my whole life and I've never been, I couldn't believe it either.


Today was a day that reminded me to serve others and to be thankful for those who are dear to us. Not long ago, I lost one of my favorite aunts and sometimes I wish I could have told her one more time that she was special or that I loved her. People come and go, so do something nice for them while you still can, better now than never.

Til' next time...