The famous smile that will be missed along Taft and Vito Cruz.

Who was Jenny? Why was he popular? Why was he loved? Why was his life celebrated and his death received an out-pouring sadness from the students and alumni of the two prestigious academic institutions (DLSU and CSB) in the Philippines? Why was he given respect that he has a Facebook Fan Page? What did he do to deserve such treatment even in death?

Was he a student or an alumnus of DLSU or CSB? No! Was he a professor? No! Was he a staff member of any of the two institutions? No! Who was he, then?

Jenny was a gay personality in the vicinity of DLSU and Vito Cruz corner Taft Avenue. Where the De La Salle and College of St. Benilde students were he was there! He was an errand boy, a help and say any job similar to those he was the answer!

He was featured in the university’s paper. And when one of the first online social networks (Friendster) started to be known he was given an account. He lived by the generosity of the students of these two famous campuses. I heard that some students were able to open for him a bank account for his savings (though I wasn’t able to confirm).

What did he do to deserve such respect and love? He was there for the students, he helped them and he cared for them!

Those were the three things he did so the students also loved him, helped him, and cared for him, when he was still alive and now that he passed away many are willing to help and attend to his wake and interment, just to give honor and respect for the person who was there for them!

One big lesson anyone can learn from the example of Jenny’s life is: to be there for the people, help them in their needs and care for them.

Thank you Jenny for your life’s example! See you in the life-after-here!

• Who among you wanted three to four nights a week for yourself and your sweetheart to dine out, watch movie and go to an entertainment place?

• Who wanted more time to spend in the gym, running and getting physical for a better health and a hot body?

• Who among you wanted to have more than one month to go to a vacation get away?

• Who wanted an extra or more than enough left over money to do anything you wanted?

I guess your arms are aching now if I request you to raise your hand if you answer positively to all the questions. Then, if you answer yes, it means you are desperately needing a MARGIN since Yesterday!

You needed MARGIN to enjoy life more!

What is a Margin?  It is the extra space in a pad of paper or in a page of your note book where you can write any extra point, important thought or just entertain yourself by drawing cartoon characters of your teacher or your boss.

In life Margin is anything available beyond what do we needed! It is anything where the best things happens. It is something most of us missing and do not have because of prioritizing the seemingly essential and urgent things we thought we needed to work for, to acquire or to accomplish.

To give concrete examples:

1. We do not have extra “Time Margin” because we work longer to earn more money to sustain the needs of our loved ones but as a result we lost connection with them.
2. We do not have extra “Time Margin” due to the demands of life that we neglect health practices so our body suffers.
3. We do not have extra “Time Margin” because we needed more time for our daily activities and chores that we neglect our relationship with God who can guide us how to have a better lifestyle, as a consequence we mess things up.

When you’re busy busy busy and tired of doing things over and over then you get less Margin in your life and most probably you are stressed out and your relationships are suffering!

Do you wanted to increase your Life Margin and enjoy life more? Jesus has something to tell you today: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11: 28, 29)

If you wanted to learn more about LIFE’S MARGIN it is the topic of our church family’s message series every Sunday!  This coming Sunday (January 24) we will learn “SCHEDULING MARGIN.” How to schedule to have Margin? I am inviting you to visit us, leave a comment below so that I can communicate with you!

You may ask, “Why after blogging about initiate new relationships, nurture existing relationships and restore broken relationships you now post about ending a relationship?”

Guys, I’m not saying sever one if you just wanted to end one! I neither talk about a marriage relationship, it has to be preserved! Save, fight and exhaust all things possible to keep your marriage!

Prayerfully consider cutting the connecting ribbon of friendship!

My point here is: Severe a relationship that makes you a sinner! Cut off a relationship that messes your life! End a relationship that makes you a worst person than before! Stop a relationship that leads you to do bad things!

You may say again, ‘Shouldn’t we love everybody for God?’

There are times that God’s love is tough too. He knows that we are weak and that when we associate with “bad” people it will pull us down because it is easier to influence a good guy to become bad, than influencing a bad guy to become good.

St. Paul said, “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” (1 Corinthians 15: 33)

Let me mention some situations that you should prayerfully consider ending a relationship:

• Your friend is putting you to several very tempting situations.
• He/she is introducing you to try destructive vices.
• Your business partner or a colleague in the office or workplace is involving you to illegal transactions and unethical work practices.
• A friend is suggesting you to illicitly flirt with someone.
• This friend of yours is happy bad-mouthing about someone else.
• Your friend is starting to poison your mind to think evil about somebody.
• You notice that a friend is making you stop having personal devotion, stop going to church or practicing generosity and discouraging you to serve others.

Again a passage in the Good Book said, “…you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler.  With such a man do not even eat” (1 Corinthians 5: 11)

May you prayerfully consider to severe a relationship when you sense that the friendship you have is corrupting you!

To answer that question, I would like to present a similarity between physical wound and emotional wound!

Healing of a physical wound is natural but it takes time because healing is a process. Sometimes, specially when the wound is fatal and an infection occurs, a medical intervention is necessary to facilitate good healing. Aside from that, every wound leaves scar, because it damages skin tissues. This scar remains even if the pain is not there anymore. The healing maybe complete but it leaves unfavourable souvenirs!

A scar is a reminder of the wound but the pain isn't there anymore!

Same is true with any offense that causes emotional pain. It is like a knife that slices a wound. It can be very nasty with emotional pain! It is not always good! It can create chaos in life, its healing isn’t easy, it takes time!

God asks us to forgive immediately, like the way He forgives us! He asks us to give Him our anger, our bitterness and hatred and allow Him to handle vengeance! But forgetting the offense, the harm, the hurt and trusting again is another thing. It is like healing, it is a process. It has to be dealt with time. Trust has to be regained!

There are times that we will not forget the offense and the harm but the pain will not be felt anymore. Remembrance of the painful incidents becomes a reminder for the offense not to happen again. It is a reminder that if we sense circumstances leading to an offense and hurt, we learn to excuse ourself from those!

Even if the healing is taking some time, what’s important is to forgive the person who offended us…because in doing so the healing happens!

I pray that we will learn to forgive immediately and bear the memory of the offenses until the time will come when we won’t remember the excruciating emotional pain caused by the offenses and harms done to us!

Bless your emotional healing time!

Now I’d like to say, BE LINKED TO HIM & HE’LL IMPROVE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS!  Relationships not only in your family but in your work places, neighborhood & your church as well.

Reasons for awful relationships are attitudes of big-headedness, self-centeredness & pride.  People with these attitudes are pain in the *** & are irritants.  Nobody would like to be with them.  They are miserable and they would like other people, specially those whom they love, to become miserable also (that’s terrible isn’t it?).  They easily get hurt, wreck their own relationships & the relationships of people around them.

Think of someone like that…if you can’t think of anyone it is YOU!

A promise of a good relationship this 2010!

If it is you and you would like this year to have better relationships be connected to God & He will create in you a new person with a humble heart! He will transform you to become a person who is genuinely interested & concern with other people.  He will make you a person who doesn’t try to impress others to be accepted.  He will make you give up the thought that you are always right & not insist with others what you want.

The Bible said you will become a person who is ‘quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…’ Or you will become a person who ‘Seek first to understand, than to be understood’  (as Stephen Covey worded it).

If you become a humble person before God, He will make you a person who accepts your faults & accepts your dependency to Him & to other people.  You will be come a person who will learn to say the two most important lines in the world: “I was wrong” and “I need help.”

Then people will be attracted to you and as a result your relationships will become better if not the best!

May your 2010 be filled with great relationships!

Relationship is like a garden, if you do not nurture it it will become messy – the flowers, the fruit plants and the vegetation will be overcame by the weeds, those will wither and will eventually die.

There are a lot of challenges in every relationships.  Again like a garden the soil needs to be cultivated, the plants has to be watered and it has to be given nutrients. Do it regularly! If not this relationship will fade away!

The question is: how do we nurture relationships?

St. Paul told the Galatians this, “…Serve one another in LOVE…’Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out and you will be destroyed by each other.”

The key word in nurturing a relationship, aside from Love, is SERVE! I don’t mean you becoming a servant or a slave of your friends but I mean you act love to them. When you see the word love in the Bible it is always a verb not a noun. That is why the King James Version of the Bible called it Charity – Love in action!  When you love you serve, you act it out, you do something that will benefit your friend.  You extend yourself even if you do not feel like doing it.

To be very practical, let me suggest: have a time once a month or a week to go out to a gimmick, lunch or dinner with your wife, fiancée/fiance, friends, parents, siblings, kids!  This time technology makes it easy for us to connect with our friends where ever they are! Communicate with your friends in Facebook, Twitter, chat in IM or you can send text messages, on this I strongly do not suggest forwarded messages – by all means please make something personal.

Let me end this post with a challenge: What are you going to do this Christmas to nurture your relationships?