On being like little children

I have asked the Lord a dozen times what He meant regarding this passage…

Matthew 18: 1-4

“ At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

And as a grown up I have forgotten how it felt like being one, being like that of a child. And buried among the worries of work life, social life, heck even love life, it is somehow impossible to feel like one… well impossible to me, but we all know that nothing is impossible to God and so here’s how He brought me back to 1993.

Being drowned by everything and not having control is not what a child feels like. As children all we cared about was watching Voltes V every Saturday afternoon, get sweaty as we play outside with our friends, heck we never even cared if we broke some bones but we still climb trees… no worries, no attachments, carefree children. And at 23, I can’t do that anymore, I have the whole future to think about, to dream about, I’ve got work, tons of work to do, colleagues who depends on me somehow, and a household to pay some bills. Now… tell me how in the world can we go back and free ourselves from these things, and be like children… And so the Lord gave me an opportunity to go out of the country for a week-long vacation, and experience Disneyland, and go bananas shopping in Hong Kong… little did I know the Lord was answering the very prayer I prayed weeks back…

Before I get to my point here’s a little background of my trip. I was with my brother, sister-in-law, and their son- my nephew, together with us were the family of my sister-in-law, together with them are 3 children with an average age of 9 below. So under my wing of responsibilities were three kids, and a toddler… and boy oh boy they we’re a handful. We stayed at Disney’s Hollywood Hotel within the Disneyland island and stayed there for 4 nights and 5 days. Their food was expensive, but awesome and they have these Mickey Mouse waffles… they’re waffles that has the face of Mickey Mouse.

During the trip I’ve seen these children run around, get preoccupied with toys, and fight amongst each other because of one not letting the other one borrow. Of course as an adult I tried being a mediator, and try some reasoning with a 3 year old and a 7 year old… of course it didn’t work. And of course I couldn’t help but feel some anger, frustrations, and annoyed when these circumstances happen, but even if they’ve done you wrong like accidentally poke a lady in the butt with their toy, or spill a drink on you, or throw up on the pillow you’re going to sleep in, or even slapping you silly because they can’t get what they want… but once they look at you and understand what they did, and tell you “Sorry Tito Marc...” oh my goodness my heart just melts and I completely forget everything they did there. And after saying their sorry they’ll go about their things, and you can just see how confident children are under adults love. Sometimes they don’t even know what they do, but even after they write on the wall of your room, mess up some of your collectibles, even without saying sorry they’ll just run towards you and make hug you where they can, every emotion will just flitter away. And so I understood what the passage meant.

We, as children of God should be confident of the forgiveness that’s there even if we have wronged Him. Even if we have lived unholy lives in front of a Holy God, we know that there’s an underlying fact that He loves us very much that He’ll just look at you with a messed up heart as you ask for forgiveness. If there’s something I’ve learned about that trip regarding this passage is that we can be confident under the wing of God’s love. We see a couple of parables regarding this (Lost sheep, and Prodigal Son) but this experience just made it real.

And on top of that, He reminded me how it felt like being a kid as I roam around the grounds of Disneyland seeing characters come alive right in front of you and the fireworks to end the night was just the perfect coup-de-grace of the whole experience…

I hope I made sense and I hope that like me we gain an inch closer in understanding the love God has for us.

We can do so much better

I just got home from my 1 week Hong Kong trip and what can i say, it was truly a different country. And i couldnt help but compare, and feel sorry for the Filipino people.

Pregunta... for how long can we stand dwelling in a place of complacency? Our international airport stinks of piss for crying out loud, our MRT terminals are being overwhelmed by vandals and people are allowed to spit anywhere...

To be honest, i believe that what i saw in HK can happen here if everyone who can do something will just put their weight together... and don't get me started with the ludicrous MMDA art... please... it's not even helping edsa to attain that metro gwapo campaign.

Their stations are kept clean, shiny floor tiles and basically no pentel pen drawings of the male genitalia, and their trains are packed with commuters too so we have no excuse about the quantity of the people that goes there.

You can't get lost in HK too... there are signs everywhere, and if you can just find your way to an MTR station... you're good as home.

The airport was awesome... it was friggin huge... and doesnt smell... at all...

all i want to say is that manila can do these things too... i think... yes i believe so.

but for what its worth... i still love manila.

Untitled

comforter of my heart
affirmer of my soul
i need you once more
after a troubled fall

a prayer in my heart
im afraid of what might start
i cant hold a guitar
nor sing in front of a crowd

a simple mistake
is all that it took
it gave birth to fear
within my heart where you look

comforter of my heart
affirmer of my soul
i need you right here
to wipe off my fear

its hard to hear a song
the one that took me long
o God feel that my heart is heavy
and i dont know when i'll be ready

i trust in your will
my God you are good
i trust in your ways
the way you put these things to shame

i come to you broken
like i have always been
i pray that you make me whole
o affirmer of my soul

o comforter of my heart
wipe these tears of dark
teach me how to worship
no attachments, set apart

everything i lift up to you
i fear that i might fall away
right now i'm not in my right mind
help me o God, let me stay blind

i remember what you did
i'll remember how you shaped me
molded me into this man
who runs to you after screwing up a band

o God my strength
help me up from the ground
i feel my every pound
pulling me down back to the ground

o comforter of my heart
o affirmer of my soul
my Lord and my God
let me know you more.

A Short Something For You

Your beauty draws me near
Your kindness keeps me clear
Your stories have kept me silent
You make me want more

My heart has been yearning
Something unseen yet greatly felt
One taste, now I'm wrecked
Your love made me love You

-------------------------------

something I wrote dated Feb 16, 2008.
I thought of adding some more... but reading it over and over again...
I can't help think that it's perfect the way it is...

Happy Easter!

Resurrection Sunday is a day to remember the life that we received after receiving the punishment that our Lord took for us on the cross.

It's a beautiful exchange, the Bible has poetic descriptions of exchanges like Beauty for Ashes and the most commonly used, Life for death. Two extreme opposites attained in less than a hundred hours. Thats where our transition from a dying breed to eternal beings, through Christ.

I constantly wonder and wander around searching for something to grasp, literally and sometimes theoretically. Something with meaning, something worth thinking about, and this sick cycle carousel (yes it's from a lifehouse song) that does nothing but go up and down and go round and round, we have fun, be merry for a couple of moments, and after spending time with friends we, well I, find myself seeking, searching and sadly... lacking.

Life can mean alot of things, and mostly we use it to describe a kind of living, hence we usually utter the statement "this is the life" when we're on vacation, lying on the shore and living in that moment. But then again, what happens when this particular moment is done and gone, then we're back to square one. Life, and living cannot be like this, there's gotta be something more than that. We're in a prison, and we don't know how to get out.

Now we usually say that the cross was designed to purge the sins from our past, present and future. But let's stop for a while and talk about sin, what is sin? Have we ever asked ourselves what sin actually is?

I used to think that sin is more of the obvious actions like murder, but I completely forgot that Adam just ate a fruit and got booted out of the garden. Now how can eating a fruit be sin? Eating itself is not the sin, but doing something that he'd been told not to do and did it anyway was sin.

Now what have we been told to do? The Bible simply told us to do two things, simple things like Love God, and love people. Now how hard could that be? And I look back, and I totally failed the first one, and failing the first one would just make me fail the second one. So I guess this is more of eating the fruit. And we didn't know that, we didn't have any clue whatsoever thats why I find these words so powerful and really... out of love, "Father, forgive them for they don't know what they do".

Anyway, I'm just running in circles here, but basically we're free from everything that we did, what we didn't know we did, and things that we have yet to do. These things died on the cross, sent to the grave along with our Savior and left there for good as our Savior rolled the stone and walked out in this glorious day, Easter Sunday. The day where redemption was made, the day where new lives were given.

Happy Easter everybody! God bless

and guess who enjoyed easter too

Shaq played for almost 36 minutes against the Rockets, scored 23 points, grabbed 13 rebounds shot 8-10 from the field and 7-9 from the line.

He really enjoys playing against the man who Philly got to defend the big guy when they faced the Lakers in the Finals years ago. Tough break Dikembe...

Phoenix won against Houston 122-113... thats 7 straight now... :D

I Am Legend

Topic: The inner struggle and how we’ve won.

Conflict: we we’re once sick, as sick as the zombies we’re in the movie. We’re sick of boredom, and that’s our cancer. We inject ourselves with cures that we find in the end that will consume us over time.

2Co 4:4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

The first problem presented here is our ignorance of our demise. We do not know that we’re dying and causing death to happen among others, because at first we do not have any clue whatsoever that sin would lead us to death. Second we don’t have any clue of who Jesus is, what the cross truly meant. We’re completely ignorant of everything that is happening around us.

We’re sinking deep, and we don’t even know it.

How do we know that we’re sick?

It is when our idea of happiness is shattered by a person that has a different pursuit of happiness, this is how we see how sick, and how blinded we are from the truth. We’re in too deep the waters and we don’t even know it, we’ll realize it when we see someone walk on water. And right there and then we’ll wonder how is that possible?

I can never forget that day that I finally gave Jesus a chance to reveal himself to me, when one of my friends, a close one, who was maybe a notch higher in worseness of deeds turn 180 degrees and suddenly find happiness in Christ. My mind was totally blown away, I was swept off my feet, and basically my idea of happiness was shattered. Then I concluded right there and then how screwed I was.

When these two idea’s clash, right there and then you see your heart awaken, and you can only tell if your heart is awakened by the amount of internal struggle you deal with. It is a process, one by one we take away what is being revealed to our hearts. We say no to each and everything that comes in our way, we may lose some of them but always remember that it is a process. This is where our confidence in His grace and faithfulness are put to test. (Phil 1:6)

It is important that we simply put everything behind. Because my friends, we cannot truly say that we’re enjoying Christ if we still look at our past and see it as the ‘glory days’ or the good old days… (Phil past, prize)

Resolution: The solution is not of our hands, in this scenario, if you don’t know you’re sick you cannot cure yourself. It takes someone to notice your disease to get you better. Our boredom and our sufferings has a cure. And that’s what we saw in the movie clip that we watched. There is light amidst the darkness that we live in. and the bible describes it in John 15:13 that states "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." And it continues to passing a legacy to us. What he did, on the cross, the sacrifice, the life that He has given to us is what He desires among other people as well. We can see it in the end of that chapter as Jesus states that we’re appointed to go and bear fruit-fruit that will last, then the Father will give us what we ask in His name, and love one another.

There’s a deeper parable that’s very dear in my heart in John 10:11-18 where Jesus describes and reveals Himself as the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. He continues saying that the hired hand will run away when animosity arrives. And in the movie, the hero, Robert Neville, explained why he remained in NY. He saw it as ground zero, and he saw it as his primary responsibility not to leave the area until He finds the cure for the virus. And that’s what the good shepherd does, he lays down His life for His sheep. And again he left a legacy for us to follow. To bring other sheep that are not within His present pen towards Him.

This is what I’m saying, our lives will be the very proof of Christ’s very existence towards our families and friends. I know it’s hard to talk to them and explain every preaching, every message, every revelation that we have attained through out the years.

Like Robert, we can scream “I know how to cure you” all we want, but the thing is, they wont listen… they’ll only listen if they see someone who was like them gets it. Someone who’s so passionate about their pursuit that will encourage and inspire others that this is how it’s supposed to be. We don’t even have to speak, we just have to be in ground zero where everybody is.

Jesus wants us to have life, and live life to the fullest. And the only way we can enjoy it, is through Him.

Marcogol's Gadget Watch

COMING SOON

Got Myself Twins Instead

So I gave up deciding whether to get the iPod touch or the iPod classic, and instead of getting one expensive gadget, Brian gave me another option and I got it without even thinking twice...

So my Creative Zen Stone can enjoy a longer tenure inside my pockets, because... I got these...

I used to hate this guy... because he's just a year older than me and he's already playing like a king.
He's my 2nd pick overall in this years fantasy draft... And looks like I'll be in the playoffs this season.
and now I just got his kicks.
Feet... say hello to the new Nike Air Zoom Soldier.

#23 for my 23rd (i know it's been 7 days... so shush)

The iPod Touch that eluded me

Yesterday I came to my senses and offered to treat myself with a toy. Something that every music lover would love in their pockets. Yesterday I told myself, I'm getting an iPod touch.

A friend of mine left his in my car, and I did what every human being would do, use it, without permission. I loaded him some of my songs, and I fell in love with its interface and its wonderful browsing. The iPod touch is pretty, cute, and looks like a typical high school cheerleader we see in high school tv series or flicks, but the browser... the browser makes you see that she's a lab rat aswell. Excelling in math and science... I'm on a mission, and I'm gonna make her mine.

So I went on to do a canvass, and my goodness... like how every guy does his binge shopping I went on to agree with the first store that he enters. The deals were, for the 8gb touch, it's 1,250/month for 12 months, for the 16gb touch it'll be 1,666/month for 12 months, for the 32gb touch, I didn't even bother to look, I was sold to the 16gb. These deals were 0% interest and I told myself... whoop-di-friggin-do!!

Well I told my dad sunday morning, and from the get go it seemed to me that he'll go for me. But long story short, my dad iPod blocked me, and gave me until the 31st to decide...

8gb... or 16gb, this is the decision that's revolving around my thoughts right now, on top of the smooth touch screen interface, the touchy touchy awesome safari browser capability, and of course the easy song selection. There's one word to describe all of these things... Sold.

Happy birthday to me... too bad for my budget... hah!

The Edge Of Twenty Two

Exactly an hour from now will be the day I add 1 to my age. It's scary to some, and I know It's a little petty to most.

What can I say, I'm excited and somehow scared. It's been a fun ride, and there's more to expect as you reach the edge of 22. Time just keeps on ticking and sooner or later, I might right something about the dawn of 24.

It's been fun so far, I'm having fun with where I am, but somehow a little frustrated because of reasons that I don't need to write here. I'll just keep on doing what I do until everything breaks loose. Somehow, and in someway I know it will.

Enough about that, what about the 23rd. I'm going to hit my 2nd year of professional life aswell, and I'm starting to budget every cent that I spend from now on. I guess reality will hit you as you recognize that you're far from being 18. It may be fun being young, but it will never hurt leaving that area. You'll just see responsibilities pile up as you add 1 to the total count of you age year after year. I don't know, can't explain but I guess it's all relative and theres nothing I can really do about it. What's better is that Iron Man, Hulk and alot lot more will be showing in the theaters this year so WooHoo!...

So far everything's good, and I guess I should start to act and recognize my age and start accepting the responsibilities that comes along with it.

There, I guess there's nothing much to contemplate when you just start to recognize everything that I said above. There's nothing left to do but write down my goals before hitting 24, and try to achieve them. And that's it as time keeps on pushing me towards the edge of 22... a few more minutes... hang on.

2-22

i toss and turn
bothered by my demise
delight has clearly robbed me of my prize

i thought i could handle it
i thought i could stand
how could i run away from the one who holds my hand

i have to get up
i have to make a stand
i can never let myself go from my fathers hand

i toss and turn
still thinking about the love i consistently learn
always there to steer me away from a bad turn

somehow i wonder, my father
why do you let me go
knowing that my heart will crumble each time i fall

wounded and shattered,
battered when i falter
hopeless in walking, i'll just crawl to my father

how far would you let me be?
i'm desperate for serenity
knowing you, that's how i need thee

my knees bleed
my palms caloused and filled with dirt
when will i come home and wear you son's shirt

i've gone far enough, i know
4 days enough to let these sorrows show
still wrecked to know what a sacrifice i'm worth

everything you've left behind
just to get me back, and only to find
a crippling love that will always remind

no matter the distance i've gone
in your heart, in your arms
there's home that i'll always find.

I Hope I'm Wrong

"a sight that I wish that I won't see this season"

Today, I woke up hoping that the Suns wouldn't do the drastic change I saw yesterday in the news But then again this image turned up as I went to Y!Sports, and I couldn't agree more with what the front page said. Style Senseless...

So what will happen when you plug in the Diesel with the Formula 1 like offense of the Suns? As of now I can't wrap my head with it. I hope they all know what they're doing, and I pray that I'd have my foot in my mouth by the end of the season.

Well Kerr... All eyes on you now. You could be known in Phoenix as a genius, or someone that will be remembered as the guy who ruined the offense that everybody is envious of. Kerr will definitely feel the Heat in Arizona this year.

On the bright side, Marion won't play for the Suns today (i think) and that's one less player against me this fantasy week... Whew! I'm so sorry Simon. This trade surely hurts both of us.

image from www.nba.com

Is your God too small?

Is our God too small?

“Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit: the spirit… that spawns great thoughts of man and leaves room for only small thoughts of God.” – J.I. Packer

We are so used to human thinking and that thinking limits us of our picture of God. And with that image of God in our hearts, even His abilities are limited based on our beliefs. The problem here, when we get drunk and engulfed by our limited human thinking, if this is so… then it’s gets hard to love the magnificence of God for who He is. The uncreated, self sustaining creator who has burning passion for us, and instead of this we run towards our human idols that doesn’t run near to comparison to who God is. We think that other human beings can complete us, this is what I think that’s being spawned on our minds when we think of other men to complete us, instead of running towards a God who can definitely make us whole. We have lost the fear of the Lord, we are so full of ourselves that we even forget to tremble when the Lord is upon us. We get blind and deaf in the spirit. We couldn’t discern His presence and with that said, I’m afraid that because of that, we won’t feel the forgiveness of God. Everything else that we know about God is downsized, this is why we don’t experience God for who He truly is.

I believe from there, from a small view of God everything will go haywire in terms of our spiritual hunger. How will we hunger for who God is when you see him in a fun size, its as if we can’t take the Bible seriously anymore because like what Mike Bickle says in his book (Passion For Jesus), “He is only a little more than an elected official-not to be taken seriously.” It’s like being an adult being lectured by a young man… somehow pride would really take a stand here, we can’t react as to what a book says about our situations and decisions. I believe this is the place where passivity and compromise comes from.

Like who I was before, I was a wee bit skeptical on the idea of having a God. Basically all I know about Him was through the school system and the usual Sunday services where I was forcefully brought each week. Simple formula, no knowledge, no experience/encounters = no interest. And only one thing can turn this equation upside down… an experience/encounter would lead to interest and instantly a hunger for the knowledge of God would be birthed within us.

“Compromise and passivity will be solved as the Lord allows us to gaze upon Him with deeper insight into His personal beauty and glory.” –Mike Bickle, Passion For Jesus

The elements of a miserable Christian life is when we can feel our hearts crying out for God, and yet we still submit to the pleasures of our flesh, we feed the struggle that we usually complain about instead of going all out running towards God or going all out running away from God. Either way I believe that’s how we make our lives a little easier. A choice will really have to be made, its either we run towards Him or run away from Him, there’s no middle line.

But in reality, there shouldn’t be a choice, why do we choose to run away from God? Again, it is because of our limited thinking that’s limiting God of what He can do and what He can give us. With a small knowledge of God we tend to create a “what we think” a greater god, than God. This is where we fashion our own golden bulls. Don’t get me wrong, I fashioned one myself before. I believe that the golden bull is a manifestation of our cry for satisfaction. We want to get satisfied, we want to fill the void that only God can fill up, so we dive into creating something that we think that will get us to the end of the line. And this compromise, again, only results if we’re bored and lacking a personal and deep relationship with God where we can experience and encounter what He can do, and what His promises (there’s a lot in the Bible) are.

If you’re living in compromise, and is struggling to get out of it… there’s only one way to climb away from that pit, we need to delete whatever images we have of God before and start from scratch. The deeper we dwell into seeking His full attributes, the more mind blowing His revelations is of Him and us. And there’s no end to these things, as we reach a depth the deeper He’ll bring us to reveal more of His majesty.

Now ask yourself… is your God too small?

On what transpired yesterday, curfew, and a perfect display of idiocracy

It's not funny anymore. The theatrics that these clowns continue to display just to get seen by the people that they're doing something is not fun anymore, guys maybe it's time for a call for these people to grow up.

I admire their call for reform and everything, don't get me wrong I am definitely in for those things, God bless you for doing that, but come on, for crying out loud, given already the chance to have some say in the political arena, elected to orchestrate some change within the administration and now what... Kids show up in a grown man's body. For crying out loud... you probably have just made things worse. I believe that there is a more mature way of delivering these changes that all of us want. Yes, the Filipino people are tired of corruption and all these jazz, but I guess the Filipino people are also tired of these attempts that disturbs the peace around the country... congratulations, you just forced them to implement a 12:00am - 5:00am curfew around the metro. Well done, well done...

A little wrap up of what transpired yesterday, Sen. Trilianes IV and company we're attending a hearing of their past Coup (Oakwood Mutiny) attempt and years after surrendering to the authorities and spending time in jail, this is what they have in mind... Walk out, and take over another hotel... Kids, the lesson here is that in order for us to counter a Coup trial... is to orchestrate another event thats somehow very similar to what they did before... like uhmm, needless to say, another Coup. And these events gave me another reason to have my sights stuck watching news, and guess what I saw, I saw a feed of the Magdalo group walking out of the Makati RTC en route to Manila Pen, and to my surprise, expecting a serious face from these guys, I saw our former Vice President smiling... and its not even that kind of smile that you take seriously... It was a "Hey, I'm orchestrating a prank" type of smile. Now tell me can you take these guys seriously? obviously their call for the people to get out of their seats and follow them in Makati didn't. Another job well done, you just disturbed the whole business district of Makati, ruined the day of those who we're staying in this fine hotel and raised alot of eyebrows.

I believe that what they say is true... this march wasn't planned... and backtracking at yesterdays events... I found it so evident that these things don't fall into the "planning" category. And if they did, well there's one thing I'm sure of, I won't hire these guys to plan a surprise party with me, they know how to spoil a day perfectly. It was done without class... wait I take that one back, they checked in a fine hotel... The world is laughing at us again, yesterday was appalling and just shows what kind of clowns we have in our country... it was a perfect display of idiocracy.

and oh... another job well done for destroying one fine hotel... *clap clap clap*

Friday Bloody Friday

I woke up this morning not expecting this to happen to our usual lunch getaway.

Today, October 19, 2007, around 1:30 pm, Glorietta 2 became the latest victim of what could be an act of terrorism. Because I doubt that with an explosion with this intensity was caused by an LPG tank.

And now I find myself stuck in front of the television set watching news. I never found myself watching news for more than 10 minutes, but this time it's different. I could've been there, good thing our Glorietta trip that day was called off because others had something in their mind.

My prayers go out to the families affected by this tragedy, and strength to those who risk their time and lives to rescue the people that was there when the bombing happened.

And I guess we just lost one starbucks in that area.

And this just in... PNP is not ruling out an LPG explosion... oh... my... goodness... take a look at the devastation please, i dont think a liquified petrolium gas tank could've caused something like that. This is something else guys... eyes open.

photo from www.Inq7.net

... I know you can heal,
I just don't want to see you hurt...

just heard it somewhere, and somehow i wanted to be that kind of a hero... so that i can say this to you... but i'm not... the best thing that i can do is to share with you the very thing why i'm happy everytime... so that you can be that person that you wanted yourself to be aswell... that kind of person i friggin fell in love with.

now can you just come here so that i can say it to you face to face...

Chuck Norris Legend Of The Week

I know its a little old, but all of it is fun. I don't know about the history of these legends... but all i know is that before History was ever made... Chuck Norris was...

And the Chuck Norris Legend for today is...

When Chuck Norris spits watermelon seeds... He puts the machine gun to shame...

Theories

Acquired Taste refers to an appreciation of a thing that is unlikely to be enjoyed by a person who had not enjoyed a substantial amout of exposure from it...

enough said...

Heads Up!

Heads up... 5 day work week coming...

even now, I miss missing mondays, we should include mondays as a part of the weekend. In that case, the week is shorter, and we usually lose the echo that we hear in the monday vacuum. You know... the "*sigh* its monday already" kind of vacuum. it sucks the energy that you kind of restored over the weekend, and its far off from saturday.

lose the mondays!

Wednesday, 6:30 pm

I'm just sitting here in the office, wondering what I should blog about. Since, I've done my one chapter of learning today, might aswell save the kids with some of my knowledge.

There are only two things that is needed to be done when you find yourself in an odd situation by pissing someone off unintentionaly.

Apologizing and Waiting for forgiveness.

these are the only things that we should do when we find ourselves in that situation. Let's just face the facts that we're wrong and the other party didnt like what we did. Pride has no room in this situation, and neither does self pity. The deed is done, we just need to contemplate about what was done and never to repeat it again. I think that there's no room for justification our wrong doings aswell, we should never place blames on people but accept the responsibility for acting like that. Once we find ourselves justifying the actions, then I dont think that you're really in an apologizing mood, you're just looking for holes that would point something wrong on the other person. Hurt feelings are hurt feelings, whether we like it or not, whether it was a grave insult or a mild joke, something wrong happened.

Reconciliation is another thing, once those two things are done, we should also accept that this is no fairy tale chick flick that would send butterflies floating to give you a signal to go after the other person. Saying sorry is enough, once you said that, I think you already made your point. There's going to be some awkward times here so brace yourself...