Pedicures and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

It is Tuesday May 25, 2010. My husband and I had the best weekend ever (May 21-23)! We were blessed with a weekend get away to Rancho Mirage/Palm Desert, California. We went for a couples retreat hosted by our church, and the theme was "Extreme Makeover, Marriage Edition." We stayed at the beautiful Westin Hotel and Resort, where they are known for their "Heavenly Bed." Yes it was heavenly! So was the dual shower head! We stayed for 3 days and 2 nights. It was a definitely a well needed vacation for both of us. Eliana stayed with her grandma for 3 whole days! The couples retreat was great. We met a few other couples from our church and got to fellowship with them over a pasta and salad dinner and comedy night. We attended a few workshops on marriage and came out with a better appreciation for God's design for marriage. It was a blessing to be able to hear other couples talk about their marriages and have them give us encouragement for ours. It was a relaxing weekend, Eli even got a pedicure!

We definitely splurged this weekend. We ate ahi poke, spicy tuna roll, sliders, pasta, crab legs, lobster tail, shrimp, and oysters. So we had to unwind by getting some kind of relaxation treatment. Although I had planned on getting a very expensive full body spa treatment that would include a full body massage, facial, mud bath treatment and mineral water bath, we skipped it for a simple foot refloxology and pedicure at Tina-Ray's Nail Shop next to Walgreens. After a long day of workshops, shopping, and eating things from the sea, a foot treatment was the icing on the cake.

So the guy giving us our pedicures name was Ray. I guess he is part owner of this new nail shop that he said had only been open for 2 weeks. We get to talking to Ray because he is a friendly guy and figures we must be tourists because of our 5 and Dime San Diego t-shirts and our questions about where to go in Palm Springs. Ray is a cool guy, he is Chinese and he gives great reflexology massages for the feet. After he finished mine he started on Eli. He began to tell us that he is an intern Sheriff for the city and that we should avoid drinking and driving down Bob Hope Drive because there will be check points on Saturday night. He then begins to tell us what celebrities live in Rancho Mirage and tells us that Bill Gates was a cheapscate. He said that a certain restaurant gave Bill Gates a free meal and he didn't even leave a tip! We agreed that even if you are rich you might be cheap. Then he ended up telling us that he was a Marine for 5 years. After he mentioned that, Eli mentioned that he was currently in the Navy. Ray began to tell us that he has a disability from serving in the Marines and having been sent to Iraq. This guy was on the front lines in Iraq. He said his job was the communications guy. He was part of a 5 to 6 person team that would go around the Iraqi villages looking for terrorists. From his service in Iraq and dealing with terrorists, he came back with some kind of leg injury that made him unfit to continue service and some kind of paranoia or post traumatic stress disorder. He says he gets paranoid when he hears loud sounds, and he gets paranoid when he gets home and he thinks that he left his shop open for intruders to get in, so he will drive 30 minutes back to the shop to check. He told us that he is glad that he would never go back to Iraq. He saw too many bad things. He told us that one day him and his mates were feeding this Iraqi kid who looked hungry. Then all of a sudden this kid jumps on the back of his buddy and slashes his neck and kills him. Ray saw a lot of crazy things. He saw the truth behind the war and the enemy, Radical Islam.

I decided to write about this because it really touched my heart. When Ray found out Eli was in the Navy he began to thank him for his service. It touched me because while Ray was thanking him, he was also washing his feet. I found it kinda weird that this guy who had been on the front lines protecting our freedom from the enemy, was washing and polishing people's feet. After his 5 years of service he gets a little bit of GI bill money to get his criminal justice degree, but not enough to cover his goal of law school. So here he is trying to live the American dream by opening up shop and washing people's feet. I felt humbled. It reminded me of when Jesus washed His disciples feet, even Judas' the one that He knew would betray Him and turn Him into Pontious Pilate. To me Ray is a hero. A true American hero. I like people like him. It takes a certain amount of character to not acknowledge that you are hero and end up washing people's feet. Ray knows he has a disability in his legs but it is also not stopping him from achieving his goals, he want to be a sheriff. He is also dealing with the post traumatic stress disorder. He saw his friends die out in Iraq yet he perseveres and keeps a smile on his face. He says he tosses and turns at night and checks his windows when he hears slight sounds, yet he is still getting up to open up his nail shop.

I dunno. It just bugs me to think that people think they have the biggest problems sometimes. Talking to guys like Ray puts life in perspective for me. He is just greatful that he came out of Iraq alive. I dunno if I could have seen all the things he had seen and not end up having mental issues. He seemed excited about life still, not bitter. It seems like people can be bitter but not even have a reason to be. As we left the shop I shook his hand and thanked him for his military service. He was like "no it was only 5 years." I said a prayer for him. I prayed that he would be blessed and that God would take the stress disorder away. I think it was a blessing to be able to talk to him this weekend. Him washing our feet really got to me. It was humbling.

Why and How I Came to Be a Christian, and Things you Didn't Know About Christianity

It is true, when one becomes faced with death you will try to find faith or find "religion." Whether you face death at an early age or when you are 90 years old, I believe everyone will try to answer the question, was I a good enough person? Good enough to enter a place everyone knows as paradise or heaven. Or was I not good enough? Will I go to a place that eveyone knows as the place that bad people like Hitler and Manson should be in right now, hell.

As some of you may know I was faced with death last year with my cervical cancer diagnosis. During this time, I asked myeslf these questions and I found myself praying to the God that I have always believed in asking for more time on this Earth for the sake of my daughter and my family. When one gets a cancer diagnosis and you are not spiritually strong enough to accept it, you begin to start bargaining. You say things like, well if i'm going to die I want to die "happy." You then start coming up with all kinds of definitions of what happiness is, and in my case it was to my own demise. With the cancer diagnosis came the search for "happiness." This meant that I was to leave my husband and find someone that would make me happier. Little did I know my definition of happiness was juvenile. To make a long story short, by the grace of God my cancer is in remission and I am now back together with my husband who really loves me.

Well along with the search for happiness comes the what happens after I die? Will I go to heaven or hell. I believe there has to be a hell because where else should Hitler and Manson and the serial killers of this world go? If you believe that you are a creation of God, then you should know that God is a merciful God, but he is also a just God. He wouldn't allow the righteous to be in the presence of the unrighteous. We don't even allow this here on Earth, that is why we have jails, prisons, and asylums, to keep the people safe from evil. So I decided to give the Christian church a try. I was Catholic but like many Catholics I wasn't "practicing" or going to church. I didn't read the Bible(God's word), which is also what Catholics base their faith on. I wasn't religious, but I knew there was God, and I believed John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." I don't know why I believed this since my parents never took me to church or Sunday school. I was a Catholic who believed in God and the death of Jesus for the remission on my sins by tradition handed down to me by being Filipino. I guess my lack of Catholic religiousity actually helped me become open minded about Christianity and "Christian Church." I had not been indoctrinated into the Catholic doctrine or routine. I have to tell you though, it is by God's grace only that I was born into a family that believes in the Christian God and not Allah the moon god, or like tribal societies, many gods.

As a Catholic who even went to Catholic school for a year in high school, I feel I have been blessed to have known of John 3:16, even though I didn't know the whole gospel story of Jesus. I knew it was amazing that my creator said that He sent his only son (Jesus) to die for me so I could have eternal life. It took me 27 years to find out why though. After 27 years I finally decided to listen in on a Christian sermon, and boy was I mesmerized. It only makes logical sense. If you claim to be Catholic or Christian you have to know that the Bible is God's word. Yes, the Bible was written by men, but it was inspired by God. The men were merely the vessel in which God was able to communicate in writing His love for us. In the Bible he explains EVERYTHING! How the world began, how we should live, how we should love, and yes believe it or not, how the world ends. Through the Bible, God tells us exactly what we need to do to finally be back in heaven with our creator. He also tells us exactly how to get into hell. So if you are wondering how to avoid hell then you should read the Bible. And contrary to what the media says about how hard it is to get into heaven, and how unfair God is to allow for a hell, it is not that hard to avoid hell. You just need to overcome the number one sin. Ok what do you think the number one sin is? Stealing? Adultery? Idolatry? Blasphemy? Murder? No! The number one sin is that devil driven PRIDE of ours!

So you think you are a good person? That is your pride talking. The Bible says everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Only God is good, God does not sin. Admit it, you've told a lie, you've stolen stuff, you've used God's name as a cuss word. So already you have admitted you are a liar, a thief, and a blasphemer, that is 3 of the 10 commandments. And Jesus says if you think about a man or woman in lust you commit adultery with them in your heart, and if you talk shit about them you commit murder in your heart! So now you are an adulterer and murderer at heart. If God is the judge and he judges you based on the commandments will you be found innocent or guilty? Again, if you don't want to admit your guilt that is your pride doing the talking. Because you say, well I am remorseful and I have asked for forgiveness. Well a person standing in front of a judge in our courts can't just say sorry please forgive me and have the judge release him from his rightful punishment. The judge will say i'm glad you are sorry but you still have to do the time buddy. Well when we die we will all be judged. I know it sounds scary but there is no way that people can be murderers, rapists, and molesters and get away with it with no eternal consequences. The righteous will be rewarded and the unrighteous will be punished, the same as it is here on earth. So just in case you were still wondering what needs to happen to be forgiven here goes... Do you know what God did? In the Bible God says that he doesn't wish anyone should perish in hell, but that everyone become saved from hell and be with Him in heaven. So what did he do? God sent his son to die on the cross. When Jesus was on the cross all the sins of the world were attibuted to him, thus paying our fine for sin. It was a legal transaction, he paid the fine and punishment so you didn't have to. All that God requires now is that we repent, which means acknowledge you are a wretched sinner and turn away from your sinful ways, believe in God's good grace, and have faith that Jesus' death on the cross was sufficient for your release from hard time. Ok so that is the gospel message! That is all a Christian is, someone who believes this.



On the radio I heard a very successful Christian businessman talking to another successful business man about why he was a Christian. The Christian businessman said "Because it is the best deal that is out there." The profits of being a Christian outweigh the losses. Well actually there are no losses. If you go "religion shopping" there really is no better deal. Read the Koran, it is very hard to get to Allah. Well if you think suicide bombing is easy then go for it. Then with religions like Jehovah's Witness, Iglesia ni Christo, Mormonism, and even Orthodox Roman Catholicism, it is very works based and legalistic as well. Works and legalism meaning you have to do certain things and do some many "good things" to get into heaven. But this is all contrary to what the Bible says. If you read it you will find out the the "moral" to the whole Bible is that there is no amount of good works (like volunteering, healing, fasting, giving, 24 hour Bible reading, perfect church attendance,etc)that you can do to earn your way into heaven. It is by God's grace alone by faith in Jesus' atoning death alone.

Now back to Christian church... At Christian church they actually open up the Bible and teach verse for verse, unlike the Catholic church. I found it very suspicious that there was a lack of Bible reading by Catholics even though they confess also that the Bible is the innerrant word of God. Come to find out, this may be deliberate, which is a whole different blog. It is essential to the Christian faith or anyone who claims to be forgiven by Jesus that they read the Bible. I don't need to be affiliated with a particular church or pastor to understand the word of God, as some religious cults claim. The Bible has been preserved for ages for all to read and understand on their own, which in itself is a promised miracle, (the Bible itself says it will be preserved.) It is better preserved than the copies of the Greek Iliad and Odyssey. It is the number one all time best seller. The Bible is a living work of God, it is evident by the many lives it has transformed, thieves, murderers, and adulterers alike have been saved and transformed by the contents of this book. Scoffers there are many, but God still loves and cares for them, and His forgiveness and grace are still available for those who will diligently seek it.

My ultra liberal psychology teacher gave us a handout that asked us to write down the top 10 things/titles that we identify ourselves as today, and how we would have ranked them 5 years ago. After 27 years of life I didn't hesitate to write that my number one now was that I was a Christian, two a wife, three a mother. Christian would be nowhere on my list 5 years ago. And I am not ashamed of being a Christian regardless of what people say, regardless of how they make fun of my Bible reading, or singing church songs, or listening to Christian radio and sermons, or not watching tv or listening to the radio. Why? Because I've been there and done more than you can ever imagine. And God saved me. He saved me from the pits of hell. God came knocking on my door and I let Him in. I dropped my pride and let him change my hard heart. People think that Christians have to give up stuff, like fun, rap music, and tv. Nope wrong. When you decide to realize that that stuff might be influencing your behavior, changing your values, and hindering your relationship and time with God, God comes into your heart and gives you a distaste for them. So essentailly you aren't giving anything up, you just don't like those things anymore. Lil Wayne, Kendra, New York, and Lady Gaga aren't that cool anymore. The Bible becomes your source of strength, wisdom, and truth, in a world that likes to fool us and tell us there is no truth. No truth means no one can question what you do. You can do what you want to do because there are no rules in which you can be judged. Well it's a lie, there is truth, sometimes you just need to turn the tv off and listen to God to find it. Lady Gaga and Shakira keep talking but they don't know jack shit.

Sucks because because there are people out there who want to know everything and think they know everything. Those people are usually so "scientific" that they refuse to believe in God because they can't see him. Well I believe you can't truly be wise if you don't know God. And wisdom can be acheived by reading his word, the Bible. God straight out said I made the birds and the bees and I keep them alive and fed. What more us man, who He loves and made in His image? If you know how this whole world started and if you know how it ends then I believe you are one up on a lot of people.

It is pride that keeps us from knowing God. That is why we do anything to try to skirt around finding Him. We read all kinds of books with "God" in the title, but we refuse to read his love letter to us, the Bible. We try all kinds of things like yoga positions, breathing tecniques, new age practices, blending in of eastern religious rituals that "spiritual" people/authors say will help us find God. In my study I have found that this Oprahesque trend in spirituality is not the true path to God that gets us to where we want to be, heaven. For Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, nobody gets to the Father in heaven except through me." Note that no other person in history has made this claim except for Jesus Christ. I know it sounds arrogant and non inclusive, but Christianity is inclusive. Remember God wants everyone to go to heaven. But being the loving and just God that he is, he realizes that maybe not all people want to have anything to do with him. He is not an evil dictator who says worship and believe in me or else! So what does a fair and just God do? He makes a place for those people. A place far far away from him, it's hell. Hell is just a place that is away from God. Even on Earth, we know what people are like when they don't have God, watch the Discovery channel. Usually they are savege, prideful, and unrepentant. Does this sound judgemental? Maybe. But it is the truth. I don't want to go to hell, that is why I am a Christian. And if on my way to trying to avoid hell I become a changed person and learn to love my enemies more, is that a bad thing?

Well I will wrap it up with this. Don't let the world fool you into thinking Christianity is intolerant and hateful. It's not true. Christianity is the only faith that will tell its people to unconditionally love your neighbor and love your enemies. If everyone in this entire world lived up to Jesus' standard of love your enemies then we would have zero problems. We would be in that socialized utopia that the world dreams of but could never achieve.

Having Bad Days

I had a pretty bad day today, the day before mother's day. But I gotta say, good thing I have a different perspective of what a bad day could really be like. So today, i'm disappointed by my own mother (again) due to her stupid gambling problem, I couldn't find my car keys before I had to go to work. And then when I was late for work because I had to find a last minute babysitter, I find out that my manager picked me to be a food runner even though I wasn't scheduled to be one. Oh my life! But anyway...

After coming home from an annoying day at work, I sat around and cringed some more. So I smoked a cigarette that I wasn't supposed to smoke and gathered my thoughts. I came to the same conclusion that I have been coming up with my whole life, it can't be that bad! I look inside my house and I'm like damn, what the heck am I crying about?...

Ok so all that stuff above was like last Saturday and i'm not having a bad day anymore, today Thursday 5/13. But I can still talk about how life cannot be that bad for anyone who is living here in America. All of our problems here are not as bad as the problems that people in other countries have. But you say, "oh I lost my Louis Vuitton, oh my iphone busted, oh I don't have a job, oh my life sucks because I can't take a vacation." Geez people, don't you see that we are all spoiled here and we are squandering the blessings that God is giving us? Yes God is the one who is giving, because we ARE living in a Christian nation, (contrary to Obama saying we are not a Christian nation when he was in Egypt.) Yes, I still get frustrated at times because of random things, but it doesn't compare to what people in other countries are frustrated about.

I look into my refrigerator and I see bottled water, juice, soda, cheese, butter, bread, deli meat, hot dogs, chicken, ribs, corn dogs, shrimp, pork, fish, and even alaskan king crab legs. Dude, all that food could feed a family in an underdeveloped third world country for about a year! Not to mention I have a roof over my head, a car, a job, and freedom of speech and religion. I want people to open their damn eyes. Turn off the damn reality t.v and garbage radio and look at the world outside of their safe haven which is this great country the USA. Everyone is a spoiled brat here in the US. Some people are spoiled and they are not even proud to be American. They raise a Mexican flag or whatever country's flag above the US flag, or reprimand kids for wearing a US flag on Cinco de Mayo. If you are not proud to be American then you need to relinquish all the benefits of being an American. I challenge you to study other countries and the plight of people in other countries outside of the US. If you want to be a Muslim sympathizer I challenge you to live in an Arab country under Sharia Law. I challenge you to study a country like Israel, learn its history, and learn about the war they are in.

We are all too comfortable here in the US. We cry about the most absurd things and circumstances. We take everything for granted. We have become ungreatful to the blessings that our creator has endowed us with. It will all have an end you know. You probably see it in the news. People are losing their jobs and their former economic status. God giveth and he taketh away. He does this to see if we will fall on our knees and ask for forgiveness. Crazy because some people do and some people don't. We have some rough roads ahead, but always be thankful that you are here in the USA. I doubt anyone would last a day in another person's shoes who lives as nearby as Mexico. Wake up people. God doesn't care if you are a nurse, who owns a beamer, and lives in The Woods. All He cares about is whether you cried out to Him and acknowledged him when you had a bad day.



"I look into my refrigerator and I see bottled water, juice, soda, cheese, butter, bread, deli meat, hot dogs, chicken, ribs, corn dogs, shrimp, pork, fish, and even alaskan king crab legs. Dude, all that food could feed a family in an underdeveloped third world country for about a year!"

Christian Persecution in Mainstream Media

This is a paragraph from S.E Cupp's new book, "Losing Our Religion, The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity." Note that S.E Cupp is an atheist herself. I appreciate her open-mindedness, observation, and condemnation of the blatently obvious unfair treatment of Christians in the media.

Yes, people in the mainstream media have become a bunch of schoolyard bullies, taunting America's Christians for sport. But make no mistake, they are also trying to marginalize Christianity. The liberalism that pervades the maintream press requires them to-because the fixed and demanding morality of Judeo- Christian values means their moral relativism, where just about anything goes, is in jeopardy. To ensure they will not be judged by their decision or their behavior- by God, by the faithful, by their next door neighbors-and that their lives will continue to be consequence free, the liberal idealogues in the mainstream media want to convince you that Christian morality is out. It's stupid, it's weird, it's backward, it's even a little funny. Instead they will peddle another kind of judgement, one predicated on intellectual superiority, elitist classism, and a philosophy of meaningless causes du jour- environmentalism being the most obvious. By disguising these sanctimonious decisions to buy organic baby food or drive a hybrid car as a moral code, they think they have set up equal system of comparison. And theirs, they assure you, is better than yours. It's not merely Christianity that is under siege- it is American values themselves.

This is so true. Atheists that I have talked to will always say something like, "I cannot intellectually/logically wrap my head around there being a God, a Creator. I believe we might just be "cosmic accidents." Well you know what? I cannot intellectually/logically wrap my head around their not being a God. I'm sorry but science points to creation. There are many things that I could talk about, and if you want to talk about them, call me. There is a DVD out entitled "Case for Creation" and their is also a book entitled "Darwin's Black Box." Christianity is not a blind faith. My genetics has made me a person that likes science and math more than the arts. I have always been interested in science. I used to believe all the science that my teachers spewed out in class, especially about evolution. I used to believe in it. But you know what? I'm an adult now. It was time for me to figure out whether or not all of the things that I was taught was real. Guess what? The books were/are wrong. And the editors are not trying to change the books and are sticking to junk outdated science. There is a substantial list of scientists who dissent from Darwin's Theory of Evolution. And where there is dissent, I believe there is cause to be suspicious. Just like is there really global warming? The scientists do not have a concensus on that issue either. I do not believe in global warming, global cooling, global climate change, whatever they call it now. Like S.E says, those are just "causes" that garbage people cling to so as to cover up their moral relativism, aka their anything goes morality.

Open your eyes to the marginalization of Christianity. Have you ever recently said things like, "I don't agree with organized religion." That is so liberal media induced fake tolerance! The very people that are pushing words like "progress" and "tolerance" are the ones that are feeding the Christians to the lions. Christians are still the majority in America as of today, about 80%. But trust me, the near future looks bleak for Christians in America. Maybe I am just paranoid. Just be on the lookout.

Welcome to the World of Blogging

Tanya T, I took your advice and started a blog. I know everyone is tired of me ranting and raving like a crazy person on Facebook. I have been screaming to everyone about anything from Christianity, blasphemy, Islam, atheism, evolution, socialism, communism, Obama, Obama zombies, Fox News, Glenn Beck, CrossFit, and today Chuck Norris. Every now and then I will post a cute picture up of myself, Eliana, my husband Eli, and our fierce ass dog Chase.

A lot of things in this world have began to bug the crap out of me lately. I guess it comes with age. It is not that I am becoming more angry and bitter with age, "prudish" some may say... I think with age comes wisdom, if you so choose to seek it. On my FB page I say the title of my autobiography would be "Liberal to Conservative, Darkness into Light, Error into Truth, by Breaking the Perfect Ten" In case some of you couldn't figure out what this means, it means I was a screaming libtard but now the sense has been knocked into me, and I had to learn the hard way.

Yes, I am Christian now. I've only been a Christian for the past year and a half, but I have believed in a Creator all of my life. My biggest pet peeve in the world right now is how Christianity has been given such a bad name in the media and by people who don't even know what the Bible is truly about. People want to pontificate and talk about the Bible like they "know" what the Gospel message is, but they prove to me over and over that they are ignorant and prideful people who just don't get it and don't care to get it. I hope to have plety of time to write about the things that I learn about on a daily basis. Christian persecution is not cool. Christians in America are slowing feeling it, but Christians around the world are dying for it. I haven't watched TV or listened to hip hop and rnb for the past 7months. Not because my church said not too either. The world is dirty. I am proud to say that I have discovered that. I hate that things that were once considered bad are now considered good (such as divorce and abortion), and what was once considered good is now considered bad (like marriage and faith). It is the sign of the times according to the Bible.

I am not trying to convert anybody. That is so lame. I just want to challenge people to investigate for themselves what is really going on. There is more than meets the eye, I know that is cliche. Ask yourself, why am I Catholic? Why do I practice Islam? Why am I atheist? Have I done enough research to state a claim? Am I making a premature judgement? Why do men have a million sperm and why do women have a limited amount of eggs? Why do I do what I do? Why do I do the things I shouldn't do and don't do the things I should do?

Thanks for being an audience you late night Facebook zombies. Read mine and I'll read yours.