Wellness Wednesdays: Service

A PE survivor shared on our patient group how she's been coping after being forced to retire because of misdiagnosis which eventually led to her PE. She was serving in the military when she fell ill. Her illness became complicated and she eventually had to retire. It took her awhile to get better, but she started doing volunteer work. It's made her feel more energized and she wrote a very inspirational post in our PE survivors group. 

It's true. I was at my happiest when I was serving in church and working with communities. It was what powered me through difficult times. I realized this just before I had my first PE. Tried volunteering in the local church in SG, but they turned our application down (maybe because we didn't speak the local language). Well, after that I got sick. 

Last year, I was chatting with Rowie and told her that I'd be happy to help with the book, Mama Mary and Her Children. I couldn't do anything physically, but I thought I could help with any online tasks if needed. Just after another bout of heart failure, Rowie messaged and said she needed help to do last minute editing for the book. She gave me four days to go through the book. 

I was very nervous because I have good days and bad days. I prayed for stamina so I could finish the task. I was able to read and edit three out of the four days with some time to spare. It was truly a joy to read the stories made by contributors. It powered me up. Soon after we started planning for the launch and Sweetie helped out for the social media aspect. 

Serving others is one thing you can do to improve yourself. The joy of giving heals :)

#BeKind #StaySafe

Miracle Sundays: Serving

Writing this blog post today from our neighborhood Starbuclks. The place is busy so I'm keeping my mask on. I was forced to leave the house because of the ongoing fumigation of the premises. My doctor friend dropped by earlier with some goodies from Binan and told me I should evacuate. It was good advise because I already had a sneezefest this morning when they were just injecting pesticide in the soil. So Sweetie whisked me away.

Today's Gospel is about showing God you love Him through service. It was a really good reading for me because I was mulling over whether I did the right thing about sending the video of a possible crime we witnessed right in front of our house. Okay, let's backtrack a bit...

We're truly a strange lot because we normally peek out whenever the trash truck comes. When we hear the sound of their exhaust we usually check if they get all the trash we brought out. Yesterday, Sweetie peeked out as usual and saw one of the crew open up a trash bag. That wasn't unusual because they normally do some sorting already. He was surprised though when he saw two laptops and a bag full of accessories brought out from the bag. He immediately told me about it and our first thought was, "Wow, our neighbor is so rich they just threw out two laptops."

An hour later we were still talking about it and I remembered that there was an incident in my Mom's neighborhood where vendors were taking out stolen devices. Well, we don't really know the circumstances surrounding the laptops in trash. My initial thought tbh was "There's really money in trash!" Then I remembered about what happened in my Mom's area. I immediately sent some videos to our homeowners association so they could check if there was any reports in the neighborhood. 

I haven't received any response from our homeowners association. I guess it's because of the weekend and maybe there was nothing to it. I thought though maybe I was just overreacting? Or maybe it's PTSD from what happened at my childhood home. I also thought maybe I should have just ignored what we saw and let it be. Was I being too pakielamera? 

I've gotten in trouble many times for being pakielamera. Kuya said it's not a bad thing, I just care too much. Today's Gospel though comforted me. I did the right thing to report what we saw and it's up to them whether they want to check or not. There's always two sides to a story anyway and I hope it's the good side.

Now... do we tell our neighbor we discovered anay in our property?

Here we go again...

Happy Sunday everyone!

#BeKind #StaySafe