christmas wish list 2012!

hi guys!

i'm doing my annual christmas wish list entry!  it's a bit late, so i doubt i'll get anything from here.  but a girl can dream, right?  =)  some of these are repeats from last year, but again, wishful thinking!  =D  

1.  People Magazine Subscription - note that i chose the channing tatum cover.  hehehe!

GOT IT!  =D










2.  iPad (still really want this!)

3.  mini guitar (for a mia-sized person!)

GOT IT!  =D






4.  gold plated initial necklace in script

5.  new glasses (should i go for the hipster look?)

GOT IT!  =D



6.  toms! (which color do you guys think is the best?)

7.  the book - This is how you lose her  (i really wanna read this!)

GOT IT!  =D





8.  fake pink hydrangeas - to brighten up my cubicle!

GOT IT!  =D





9.  kate spade bow ring (how darling is this ring?? and i don't even wear rings but this one is so me!)

10.  broadway show!  i haven't seen a broadway show in years!  how sad is that?  (i actually haven't seen any of the below.  that can't be good!)

okay, i'm gonna stop now.  if i think of more, i shall add!  =)  merry christmas everyone! 

understudy to the bride

this weekend, i was a bridesmaid in a wedding.  but that didn't change anything for me.  all the usual things happened to me, as it always does, just like the last 16 weddings i've attended - i can't help but imagine myself being the bride.

i watched julia get married, but amidst reality and my dreaming, i saw flashes of my own wedding - like a scene from a movie.  i watched her dance the first dance as husband and wife.  and i saw myself dancing with my new beaming husband.  i could hear our whispered conversations...

me:  i can't believe we're finally married!
him:  hello my wife.  ;)
me:  eek, this is so awkward...everyone is staring at us!
him:  really? all i see is you.  

he smiles and then kisses me on the forehead, and i realize then how lucky i am because he found me at last - and i am loved.

i saw myself standing on the altar - eagerly waiting for those final words to be uttered - i now pronounce you, husband and wife.  and the rush of excitement as i go from miss to mrs in one fell swoop of a kiss - a kiss to seal the deal, a kiss that is full of promises and hope of a life to live. 

and i saw myself watching our own slideshow of pictures.  watching the story unfold of how God took two seemingly strangers, and weaved together a love story so intricate, yet so perfect, to make this story ours.  to show how that daydreaming little girl would one day meet that batman-loving boy, and their lives would never be the same again.  there will be tears of joy, laughter, embarrassment at the awkward years, but all to return to the cute love story of mia and her love.  and people will say, you know, he really loves her so much.

this is what happens every time i go to a wedding.  i've watched myself get married sixteen times now.  i hope you will get to see her get married soon.

dream a little dream of me

it's been a while since i've written in this thing consistently.  life's been busy, and i can't seem to figure out what i want to say before i lose the idea in my head.

so, i'll ramble a little today bc it's a quiet day at work for the first time since august.  PTL for that!


lately, i keep dreaming about being in a relationship.  i've had several dreams like this already in the past couple of weeks and it keeps happening.  *please let these be prophetic dreams.  ha!* 

one of the dreams, i remember vividly.  i was in a secret relationship with this guy.  and as we were hanging out among my sg members, no one knew that we were in this secret relationship.  it was deliciously fun.  when attentions were diverted from us, we would secretly intertwine fingers under the table.  we would smile knowing grins at each other.  we snuck in quick kisses when no one was looking.  he wrapped his hands around my waist when he stood behind me.  nobody knew that we were secretly in love - that we were bursting with excitement.  it was ours to savor and delight in. 

it was thrilling and exhilarating.  i had forgotten what it was like to be in the beginnings of a relationship - when everything is electric and new.  when a simple touch of a finger can conjure so much happiness and bubbles inside your soul. 

when i woke up, i felt a mixture of excitement and sadness.  i was still giddy from the elation of being so in love, so wrapped up in this romantic secret.  and yet, i was sad bc it was just a dream.  i've been wondering why these dreams keep happening.  am i longing to be in a relationship?  maybe.  is something going to happen in the near future?  let's cross our fingers! 

but in either case, i've felt a need to write these mini stories down.  and even recently, i had dinner with a friend who moved away, and as we joked about how maybe she'd find her future mate in this new environment, i easily envisioned her possible love story.  and again, i felt the need to write it down, and quickly jotted it down in my notebook for just these kind of creative emergencies.  i think my desire to write a love story - one that will touch the hearts of readers everywhere - has been growing and itching to be developed.  perhaps it's time i start practicing and flexing those muscles again.

=)

not just your average Tide soap

it's been a while since i've written an entry, and i've noticed that my entries have become a little darker in the past few months. i think it stems from finally realizing that i've been in a season of character refinement. i'm not going to sugarcoat it - it's been hard and it's been painful. God has been taking me through a time where He really wants to refine me, stamp out those sinful things in my heart that stain and choke so many aspects of my life.

during one of my qt times, i was reaching malachi 3, and i read this verse:

For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.

all my life, i've heard of the refiner's fire. we sang the praise song a thousand times. i always knew that sometimes you have to go through the fire to be purified. it was a nice image. but this was the first time i had ever heard of a launderer's soap. why are there no praise songs about this concept? as i meditated on this phrase, i thought about how soap really works.

my dad's not the cleanest man in the world. i used to yell at him all the time for not washing his hands with soap. he would tell me, "mia! i washed my hands with water! all the germs have been washed away!" and i would yell right back at him and say, "NO, abba! all you did was make your germs wet! unless you use soap, you're not getting clean! you just have wet, germy hands now!" he laughed at me, but chose to ignore my childish notions of science.

but that's how soap works. soap is useless on its own. but if you use the soap, rub it against you, create a lot of friction, then the soap becomes an agent to clean. soap can only be effective if it goes through friction. water alone cannot make something clean. if i get a stain on my shirt, i can't get the stain out with water. i have to put soap on it. and i can't just put soap on it. then i just have a soapy stain. i have to rub out the stain and then rinse off all the soap to reveal the clean shirt underneath.

after all this meditation, i realized how applicable it is to say that God is like the launderer's soap. without God, we can't clean ourselves. we need Jesus to be the agent to clean us. and we need Him to put us through hard situations, a time of character refinement, in order to rub out our sins and stains. it's not easy. laundry is work. but our God wants us to be clean so much, that He keeps coming back to wash us clean. and even though i keep spilling stains on myself, He keeps wanting to wash me again. but on my part, i have to be willing to endure the friction, bc at the end of my life, or rather even now, i want so much to be clean. i am willing to endure the pain of being cleaned so that i can be white as snow after it all.

character refinement is tough. but i'm going to keep trusting in His desire to make me clean, and try to sing His praise a little more as i go through all this rubbing. if you're reading this, please try to keep me accountable to not be so grumble-y about the cleaning, but remind me of my future glory - the mia that God sees me as. =)

in noodle we trust

this week, i went swimming in a pool that had a deep end of 9 feet. for those of you who forget, i am only 5 feet tall, so it's fairly easy for me to drown. ;) (i remember i once almost drowned when someone threw me into water that was 4'8" deep. they thought i'd be fine bc i was 5 foot, but they forgot that if i were to stand up in 4'8" water, the water would come up to around my forehead, so i am pretty much submerged in water. haha)

anyway, so the pool that i was in was 9 feet deep. normally, i would never even venture past the 4 foot end of the pool, but because i was equipped with a noodle (a flotation device), i decided to "swim" out there. once i got to the deep end, i stopped swimming and just "stood" there with my noodle. as my feet dangled in the water with the floor several feet below me, i should've been panic-stricken. it's a scary sensation to be without solid ground beneath you. but i was fine. i had full confidence in my noodle's ability to keep me afloat. i found that i had no fear of drowning bc i knew that i'd be perfectly safe as long as i held on to my noodle.

so as i floated in the water, staring up at the beautiful blue sky, i felt my body relax. all the muscles in my body became one with the water and not a single cell in my body was tense. a sigh of contentment escaped me while i felt nothing but joy of being on vacation.

and as i lay in the water happily floating with my noodle, i realized that this is how faith works. when you have faith that God is going to keep you afloat, that even though you can't feel the ground beneath you, you know you are perfectly safe in His hands, you can't help but relax. i could've been freaked out that there was almost double my height's worth of water to drown in, but i trusted in my noodle. that's the problem with looking down at the "what if's" of the abyss, it makes you freak out and tense up, and make you less likely to float. but if you trust in God, when you look up, all there is is beautiful blue sky, even with the possibility of death beneath me.

i prayed right then and there that i would trust in Him the same way i trusted in my noodle. i prayed that i would be able to hold closely to Him bc there's no way i will drown as long as i have Him. and i prayed that i would have the perfect peace that comes with trusting in Him bc He is bigger than i'll ever know.

thanks Daddy for the lesson in the pool. =)

prayer walk

i meant to write this entry weeks ago, but i was busy. sorry!

a few weeks ago, our church had a YA Conference. for the group activity, we were supposed to go on a prayer walk. i had never done this before in my life, so i had zero expectations for it. i just thought it'd be a nice thing for us to do - to pray over different parts/neighborhoods of nyc. i had no idea that it would be so powerfully eye-opening for me.

my group was assigned to pray over columbus circle. we ate lunch at bouchon bakery, somewhere i have gone to so many times in the past. everything felt very ho-hum, very standard, like an everyday experience. but that changed the moment we began walking around to pray.

as i walked through those very familiar floors, i saw columbus circle as God may see it. i found myself praying against all the materialism that lives in this building. i prayed against all the idols of money that sweep through this place day in and day out. and it was surprising for me to pray these words, bc i, too, have come to this place so many times to shop. and i, too, have dreamed of one day being able to eat at Per Se, to feel like i have "made it" in life.

but the most surprising part was when i walked into sephora. from the moment i stepped in, i felt like i had walked into a very heavy cloud. i felt so much oppression in this one store. as i walked through the crowded aisles of sephora, i felt so much darkness and so much heaviness. it was like i could feel all the self-hatred coming from women, all of the desperation to be beautiful, all of the insecurities they felt, all of the sadness of feeling de-valued for their lack of beauty. i felt satan's attacks on these women so strongly. the lies he whispered into each of these women's hearts were so loud to me. this sephora was such a HUGE spiritual battlefield. i prayed and prayed for these women to know they were beautiful and loved in God's eyes. that no amount of makeup could ever make them more beautiful to the One who's opinion matters most. but honestly, i felt like my prayers were being stamped out faster than i could say them.

as i finally walked out of sephora, my eyes were truly opened to how much we really need to pray for our cities. how many times have i gone to that very sephora to pick up some makeup supplies? and yet, i had never sensed any of this! maybe the enemy was pulling on all of the insecurities in my own head, and i had succumbed to the values of this world that i wasn't worth anything unless i was pretty and loved by some man. there were so many women in this store. if i prayed for each of them, i could've easily been in there for hours.

i hope that i will pray for nyc more. that i will see all the pain and hurt in God's children and love and pray for them. i hope that i will fight against the enemy. maybe if i pray long enough, he won't be able to squash one of them, and someone will feel the love and hope of Jesus.

it's my party and i'll cry if i want to

i've recently been reading "the great divorce" by c.s. lewis. in case you don't know what it's about, basically, a man takes a bus from hell to heaven. anyone who wants to be in heaven, can totally stay there, but one by one, each of them wants to return back to hell.

for a while, i felt like this book totally didn't apply to me. anyone who has spoken with me in the past few months knows that i am desperate to go to heaven asap. so why would anyone turn down the opportunity to leave hell and go to heaven?

and then i got to this part...

"there is always something they prefer to joy - you call it the Sulks."

i sat there thinking about all the times i chose to sulk in a bad mood instead of doing something to get out of it. i thought about friendships i lost when i was younger bc i was too prideful to apologize. i thought about the long periods of silent treatment i gave to my family, prolonging our time of tension when i could've reconciled sooner.

this is how we choose hell over heaven. this is how we can choose heaven over hell.

i know i re-learn this lesson every year, every few months, and perhaps i will for the rest of my life, but we can choose to be joyful. we just have to let go of ourselves.


i choose heaven. =)

not on MY watch! (hehehe)

for some reason, every time i squeeze honey out of bear-shaped bottles, i always feel like i am giving him the heimlich maneuver.

and then i feel guilty bc it feels like i'm killing him. =(

oh honey-bear... i'm sorry i'm stealing your delicious honey. i will be as gentle as i can!

can't help

(Sorry for the low quality. i think my computer is slowly dying. Use your headphones if you can't hear it. And sorry for the whirring sound of my laptop.)




Original Song: I Can't Help Falling In Love With You
Original Artist: Ingrid Michaelson

Here's her version. It's amazing, btw...

The Vow

last week, i watched "The Vow" at the movies.

there was a line from the movie that had caught the attention of me and my gfs as we watched this. on the wedding day of the main characters, the guy said this:

"I vow to fiercely love you in all your forms, now and forever."

2 things struck me about this line.

"to fiercely love you" - the word fiercely pierced my heart when i heard this. when i think of the word fierce, i think of ferocious, violent, wild, intense. and even though the first 2 words i listed have negative connotations, i like that they remind me of an unrestrainable desire. so often, we downplay our love bc we want to be conservative, or we want to be polite. i don't know about you guys, but for me, i want a love that can't be held back - a love that is like a fire so intense, it just cannot be put out.

i was also stuck by the line "in all your forms." you know -- people change. it's inevitable. i'm not who i was 5 years ago. and not that i'm a completely different person, bc of course i will always be mia. and shades and colors of me will always remain. but different experiences and circumstances will affect and shape me. but to know that someone will love you - even when you're no longer the person they originally fell in love with - that's love. attraction alone isn't enough to sustain a lifetime of marriage. it's dedication. it's commitment.

i know you guys think i'm some hopeless romantic. but i'm a realistic romantic. i don't believe in fairy tale love stories. they're not real. but i DO believe in hard work and loyalty. and i think that's why this line is especially touching to me. bc this fierceness - it portrays an intense effort. and "in all your forms" bc it considers the future - in all its ambiguity yet solidifies the certainty that his love will still remain the same.

and by the end of the movie, i wondered to myself, will anyone ever fiercely love me - in all my forms?

and a small voice inside said, "I already do." thanks God for fiercely loving me. =) Your love is all i need.

You made a vow to me, and i walk in that promise everyday.