Promise Ha?

I will give you one of these luscious cakes (courtesy of my niece Nina) if you promise me one thing:

No new year's resolutions!

Whaatt? No new year's resolutions? That's just like Christmas without Santa Claus!

Precisely! The concept of Santa had been a lie peddled through generations of unsuspecting minds. In fact, Santa has perennially stolen the thunder from the real intent of Christmas---God offering salvation to lost mankind. Christmas is Christ, Savior, not Santa or the lighted tree and the gifts under the tree.

Pure superstition or myth. That's how we too should view new year's resolutions. We bundle them with "new-year-gotta-haves" like firecrackers to ward off bad luck or wearing polka-dotted clothes or filling our baskets with round fruits when the clock strikes "new year."

Aren't all these vows just a lot of bubble which bursts as soon as the euphoria is over, with no result to show for it?

Let's run through our usual new year's resolutions and how we break them at the first instance:

"I will be honest."

Yet in a matter of seconds, another lie straight from the horse's big mouth! White lie naman, excused naman yun, di ba? But come to think of it, does heaven color-code lies?

"I will be more patient and kind."

Crossing the intersection soon after, someone rudely overtakes my driving, and all hell breaks lose! (unprintable)! Oh, where did my vow hide this time?

In fact, how many times have I promised to brush my teeth after every meal? The simplest of vows, yet I'm still unable to keep it! What gives?

Because promises are meant to be broken.

No wonder Jesus warns us from making any solemn promises. "Do not swear at all," He says in the gospel of Matthew, "either by heaven or by the earth, or Jerusalem, or by your head."

"Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No.' Anything beyond this comes from the evil one," He added.

Grace! That's what we really need if we want change. It starts with asking for His grace for a changed heart.

Wanting to be upright is not a matter of willpower. We need a heart-attack. Attack the source of all lying and and cursing and greed and lust. All these come from the same murky fountain anyway.

It starts with surrendering our heart to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He alone can tame the savage beast within, making it sensitive to His leading and molding and changing.

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. and I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws" (Ezekiel 36:26)

Er... about that cake. What cake? Oh that cake! Oops, sorry I have to break that promise. Gosh, didn't I promise never to make a promise?

Happy new heart in the new year, everyone!

An Open Letter to Team Excel

Dear Clarice, Tanya, Joessaine, Kisha, Gatch, Michael, Nathan, Dee, Joshua, Shantelle, Denise, Dria, and other members of Team Excel,

I encouraged you to believe in Jesus, to trust Him to give you wisdom and give you the victory.

So you did! You gave it your all, worked your case study through nights and weekends when your friends were out there gimmicking while you were cooped in a room, debating, arguing, converging. And I from time to time badgering you with need-tos. I’d give you an AAAA++++ for perseverance.

I’ll admit, there were times I had been discouraged, seeing how you “kids” struggled with analyzing and processing your case.

But we prayed—you prayed—everyday for wisdom and direction. And everything fell into place. Amazed, I saw how the details fell through the cracks, a giant puzzle put together by little hands anxious to prove that you indeed were winners.

Then I beheld the tapestry, amazed at the clarity of your assumptions, the design of the research projects, the integrity of the culled data. Making it through the finals was a breeze. And I knew you would be the champion team.

This conviction in my heart was nailed down when you presented to the panel of judges. Clearly, it was a superb presentation, towering above those who presented later. Then the stunner: Another team declared champion.

Like all of you, I could not understand it. Their data was questionable, research tools not in keeping with the case company’s internet and desired global presence. In other words, a shabby work full of holes and shallow assumptions. “Real marketing people would have seen through those,” I thought. But the judges’ decision was final.

And you, of course, reacted near to violent. I seethed inside too.

My other dilemma: how could I now convince you that God honors faith when He did not answer your prayer. You believed and persevered and never missed a beat. Though there were some mishaps in the earlier part of the project, you made up for it and never complained that I took you to task for them. And boy did you learn to excel! And you became a team!

This morning I asked God, why again. What I said yesterday, He confirmed. He's not finished yet. He’s molding your character, like gold in the fire. To be exalted, be humbled first. That’s easier said than done. It needs to be experienced. He’s molding your character to equip you for more battles. He wants you to win your entire course, not just one battle. He wants you to win the war. We expected a direct answer to our prayer. God's answer is different, and it's impact is for the long term.

Come to think of it, this one was peanuts compared to what’s in store.

Be ready for more molding and shaping and beating and stretching. One day you’ll look back at this experience and say, “God is great! He let me fly on eagle’s wings, let me through the storm and enabled me to glide above it.”

You’re now no longer wearing kid gloves. You’ve been primed for real battles. But you know what, nothing can change the fact that on that sound stage, you proved and behaved as the REAL CHAMPION.

Prophesied

I received a precious gift recently.

It came from my new-found friend Marilou Rodriguez. We both attend a ladies’ bible study.

“Why Yay?” She asked me one day, curious about my name.

“It’s the name of my father’s favorite writer during his time,” I replied.

Then on my recent birthday, she handed me a book—its pages already brown with age, a compilation of articles from a popular magazine column entitled “Where a Country Begins,” from 1955 to 1962. It’s author: Yay Marking.

Marilou scribbled: “This book has sentimental value to our family. We have taken good care of this book for about 48 years. Hope you’ll take care of it.”

I was close to tears as I leafed through its pages. Then it dawned on me. Tatay must have prophesied about my purpose, even when I was just a baby. Well, father knows best!

And our heavenly Father definitely knows! The bible says He calls us by name. He definitely knows me! All my days have been ordained by Him from the beginning of time.

What could have caused my father to own that name for his bunso? I never imagined I would—could—be a writer, much less a book author. No wonder Tatay didn’t allow me to take a course I wanted after high school; and I even begrudged him for that. He definitely treasured something in his heart for me.

Tatay passed away a long time ago. If he were alive, he would surely be grinning from ear to ear, knowing that his little girl finally fit into the mold.

No wonder I found that name cool, and use it more often than my real one. When I started to write for magazines in the 80s, a friend suggested, “Use Yay!” And so I did, ever since.

Oh, wow! I have a name to keep up with. Yay!

MCU Community

I recently conducted a seminar for some 300 high school and college graduating students of the Manila Central University—courtesy of my long-lost friend and former San Miguel Corporation colleague Ira Maniquis—to commemorate the University’s 106^th anniversary.

Thank you Ira (Ira now heads MCU's Communication Affairs on top of doing what he loves most—coaching basketball. Ira used to handle SMC's basketball teams aside from managing its Corporate Communication Office), Student Affairs Dean Lourdes Cruzat, University President Dr. Aristotle Malabanan, and the school’s various deans for your warm welcome.

I sensed the University leadership's efforts to be student advocates, be up-to-date and viral—to make learning fun and relevant to the needs of the students.

Case in point: In its recent anniversary mardi gras, everyone, from the university's management to its student organizations and groups, put together their talents and creativity so that booths could be put up and everyone tasting and enjoying whatever they could share to bless others. A practical lesson in community building.

Great packages indeed sometimes come in subtle tones. MCU had been a really low-key institution but search its website and you’d be surprised at what it’s contributed so far—some of the country’s best doctors, dentists, pharmacists and nurses, with its board examinees always making it to the top-notchers’ lists.

Hats off to you, MCU!

SCARE

Had a recent bout with the ultimate fear-faith factor.

“How long do I have?”

“Lord, will I see you soon?”

“No, still need to enjoy all my grandchildren, even those soon to come!”

“Streets of gold at last!”

“Whose hand will my hubby grasp in his old age?”

“No more pain, no more crying!”

“More books to write, more souls to win, not yet!”

“No more white hair! Forever young!”

“Lord, if this is it, let there be no more complications. Just let me walk into the light.”

I’m sure you could identify with this tug-of-war between leaving and staying. For crying out loud, I’m turning 59 before month’s end. Some of my younger friends have gone ahead. Who’s to say the next buzz isn't for me?

And what would you have thought if your doctor orders a colonoscopy because you reported a series of bloody poo days? (Could one Briton’s similar incident a long time ago have prompted the by-now classic expression, “that bloody loo?”)

Anyway, before I digress, thank God the colonoscopy confirmed that whatever I hemmed and hawed about for four days was plain and simple hemorrhoid.

But just for the sake of argument, what IF?

How can I even bargain with God? He said He held my life in His hand. My life is not my own. He created me. He knows exactly the number of days I have on planet earth.

Couldn’t our Maker who appoints the seasons and times of our lives do with us like the turning of leaves from green to orange to yellow to brown, then falling off their branches and finally finding their resting place in an obscure patch of land?

But I’m not a leaf. I am His beloved. We are His beloved!

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that those who believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

So how can I even fear death? As far as I am concerned, death has lost its sting! Like Paul, I believe that to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord. I will not be a wandering ghost instilling fear in the hearts of my loved ones. Hey, heaven is heaven! I won't be staying here a second longer.

That’s why when the trumpet or the buzzer or the whistle sounds, I’m all ears. Neither am I packing anything. I have everything I need. Jesus promised salvation to all those who believe. My good works? He’ll surely reward me for those but those will not be the reason I’m entering heaven. Jesus is! Check out His conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, the bible.

Believe in Jesus. That’s your ticket to foreverland! And this is no fantasy either. Jesus promised He would go and prepare a place for us.

Proud, directionless, I-me-myself-self-centered Yay one night yielded her heart to Jesus. Little by little she grew in her faith; learned to distinguish her priorities; realized that life is not about position or power or possession, but knowing and obeying Jesus, the author and perfecter of one’s faith.

You could have that too, and no longer be afraid of death or anything. He has you covered!

Forever Big Brother

Kuya with his grandkids Raffy and Uriel

Happy birthday, Kuya!

Kuya Tony turns 73 before the end of this month. He’s the eldest among eight siblings, with me at the bottom of that ladder.

So you can imagine that when I was yet a whiny toddler (my siblings always chorused I was the ultimate cry-baby), Kuya was probably busy chasing after his crush and getting quite serious with “where-do-I-go-from-here?” thoughts.

He was, I’m told by his contemporaries, the “crush ng bayan.” I don’t doubt that at all because his old photos show a striking resemblance to current heartthrob, actor Jericho Rosales. “Pero hindi lang gwapo,” a high school classmate said, “magaling pa!” He was always on top of his class.

As expected, even while working to finish his engineering course, he excelled in college, then pursued a career which brought him to executive level in one of the country’s biggest corporations. We both retired from San Miguel Corporation in 1998.

Kuya is not so well nowadays, and he and Ate Cora, his wife, have bravely coped with the challenge. We make it a point to visit him once in a while for a tete-a-tete and to discuss some family business. Funny it’s only now that I’m seeing my brother in three-D. Coming from a big family and with six siblings in between, we hardly spent time together in our younger days.

Nowadays, he regales my brother Dan, our sister Mita and myself (our other siblings live abroad) with stories of his youth and we’d always end up laughing our heartiest laughs, hanggang maiyak sa katatawa.

Then we’d once more reminisce nung unang panahon incidents which would draw even more teary laughter. When our cousin Kuya Ador (Kuya’s contemporary) joins us in these visits, our conversations turn more hilarious.

Kuya Tony recently talked about his first pair of leather shoes, bought after religiously saving money to afford his dream brand. “Besa shoes!” This new yuppie sat on the bus one day, excited about his prized acquisition and imagining everyone admiring it when he got off in our hometown (Sampaloc, Quezon). He sat like someone on cloud nine, extended his foot a bit too far, then felt a scrape. Besa's been scratched! “Mayabang kasi!” He now laughs it off.

But really, Kuya had never been a show-off. I remember him as a hard-worker and passionate about life, even music—he was my Pavarotti! But never boastful.

After his recent hospital stay, Kuya lost considerable weight. Well, we all grow old and lose weight and never look like our former selves. That’s life.

But my image of Kuya will never change—kind, funny, considerate, self-controlled, patient, intelligent and wise, lover of life, a good son, father, husband and provider to his family.

Kuya Tony will forever be my big brother!

Yuppie Map

(With Butch Jimenez and cover artist designer Nixon Na)

“You’re trying to make your mark in the corporate world. The workplace will test your character and your faith. You either go with the flow – you compromise. Or you go away – you resign. But there’s another way. You go up – you submit to God and trust Him to mold you as you do your job in the best way you can.

”In Going Up? the author, Yay Padua-Olmedo, shares with you lessons she learned from 30 years of navigating through the pitfalls and highpoints of the corporate world. Going Up? is filled with nuggets of practical wisdom you can apply in your everyday work situations.”

This blurb basically describes my second book, launched recently by OMF at the Manila International Book Fair.

If you’re a yuppie, I pray you’d go and get the book, now available in OMF Literature and other Christian bookstores. Penned in those pages may be something you can relate with, for a sort aha! moment you may need re your current work situation.

That of course is the Holy Spirit’s work. Mine was just to dig up the experience. His is to flavor your reading with wisdom.

I hope this excerpt from Butch Jimenez’s (currently senior vice president and head of Human Resources and Corporate Transformation, PLDT) foreword helps:

“Yay’s book is a balance of everything. While she drives home principles, theories and more importantly values that will help a person navigate through the corporate maze, she draws these principles not from textbooks but from actual experience, as she herself rose from the ranks in some of the country’s biggest companies.

“In many respects, this book is like a map. It helps guide you. A map can’t take you to the place you want to go. You have to ride in a car or start walking to get there. But a map does guide you where to turn right or left, or what to do when faced with a fork in the road. If you want a ‘heads up’ on what you may experience in your corporate journey, this book will give you the insights.

“Finally, a distinctive of this book is that it is written with a lot of wisdom. A lot of business books are filled with tech­nical knowledge. But in truth, it is wisdom that will help you make the right decisions and take the right path. God once asked a young man what he would want most in the world. The man asked for wisdom. And he went on to become the most powerful man of his time.

“For those starting on the journey into the wild and crazy corporate world—here’s a map to guide you along the way.”

(With loved ones, the OMF family, friends and book lovers)