22:02.
Flu-ish, throat uncomfy, head heavy. Mind on Melbourne, drag it back to work. Noticed some small red ants running around my laptop just now, while I was sat on the floor in front of my mirror, taking off the make-up. Majesty by Delirous is playing. I got to do a DVD review of a scary movie. The potential fever worries me slightly. I think of how I have to go into work early tomorrow and probably work late. Work seems to somewhat taking overy my hours. And its familiarity is not lost on me.
A whole great amount of missing exists in me even as I adapt to work, to life here, to this working girl's life. Been trying to adapt, aware that whining or articulating the missing probably makes people around me wish I shut up, keeping chin up, counting blessings, and there have been stuff I enjoyed doing. I wonder if my general quietness is a bad testimony to my faith.
Just reached out and killed an ant. Just now, when I first saw them, I remembered how ants invasion never happened back there. Pulled my mind back to Sg. I feel like sleeping in late but know I can't. I may have an interview tomorrow evening but I also have band practice.
Stayed in the office during lunchtime both yesterday and today, to spend more time on a story so I won't stay in the office till too late. Been leaving at 8pm-ish the last two days.
Thought of how nice it would be to spend my weekend differently.
Thought of how I want to support my parents.
Thought of the loan I have to pay off and wonder briefly at how it would be great to be able to clear it with some sudden financial breakthrough.
Believe God will take me through all these.
Still feverish....
I walk through life with that Truman Show thought, thinking, wondering, longing.
The two times I weighed myself today - when I changed to go to work and when I changed just now - the figure reflected makes me pause a bit and wonder too if I should worry slightly. It's not drastic but I realised a couple of days ago that it might not be healthy to drop weight so within less than two months.Any more and I have to be careful.
I got to walk on. Adapting now. May feel tough now. But all things are with purpose. And one day, we will get to the other side of the rainbow.
See rainbow with you.
Dad, hold me. I'm kind of tired, still feverish and very quiet.
I love You, Lord. Help me to be who You called me to be, and be more like You even as I accept I am who I am.
I pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
11:04.
I am disturbed... just disturbed.
Quake in Indo... again.
Tremors felt in Singapore.
As a kid and teenager, I never remembered reports of tremors or feeling them before here on my safe sunny island. I learnt and was taught that Singapore is incredibly blessed because we don't get natural disasters. It's still true... we are really blessed but this... in recent years, news of tremors and aftershocks. My memory could be incorrect but I remember two more instances within the last five years like last night's aftershocks.
I'm disturbed. I really am.
I am disturbed... just disturbed.
Quake in Indo... again.
Tremors felt in Singapore.
As a kid and teenager, I never remembered reports of tremors or feeling them before here on my safe sunny island. I learnt and was taught that Singapore is incredibly blessed because we don't get natural disasters. It's still true... we are really blessed but this... in recent years, news of tremors and aftershocks. My memory could be incorrect but I remember two more instances within the last five years like last night's aftershocks.
I'm disturbed. I really am.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Sunday, March 27, 2005
20:16.
"'Stand still, and see the Salvation of the Lord' - Exodus 14:13
These words contain God's command to the believer when he is reduced to great straits and brought into extraordinary difficulties. He cannot retreat, he cannot go forward, he is shut up on the right hand and on the left, what is he to do?
The Master's word to him is, 'Stand still'.
It will be well for him if at such times he listens only to his Master's word, for other and evil advisers come with their suggestions.
Despair whispers, 'Lie down and die, give it all up.' But God would have us put on a cheerful courage, and even in our worst times, rejoice in His love and faithfulness.
Cowardice says, 'Retreat, go back to the worlding's way of action, you cannot play the Christian's part, it is too difficult. Relinquish your principles'. But, however much Satan may urge this course upon you, you cannot follow if you are a child of God. His divine fiat has bid thee go from strength to strength, and so thou shalt, and neither death nor hell shall turn thee from thy course. What, if for a while thou art called to stand still, yet this is but to renew thy strength for some greater advance in due time.
Precipitancy cries, 'Do something. Stir yourself; to stand still and wait is sheer idleness'. We must be doing something at once - we must do it so we think - instead of looking to the Lord, who will not only do something but will do everything.
Presumption boasts, 'If the sea be before you, march into it and expect a miracle'.
But Faith listens neither to Presumption, nor to Despair, nor to Cowardice, nor to Precipitancy, but it hears God say, 'Stand still', and immovable as a rock it stands.
'Stand still'.
Keep the posture of an upright (wo)man, ready for action, expecting further orders, cheerfully and patiently awaiting the directing voice, and it will not be long ere God shall say to you, as distinctly as Moses said it to the people of Israel,
'Go Forward'."
- Charles H Spurgeon
"'Stand still, and see the Salvation of the Lord' - Exodus 14:13
These words contain God's command to the believer when he is reduced to great straits and brought into extraordinary difficulties. He cannot retreat, he cannot go forward, he is shut up on the right hand and on the left, what is he to do?
The Master's word to him is, 'Stand still'.
It will be well for him if at such times he listens only to his Master's word, for other and evil advisers come with their suggestions.
Despair whispers, 'Lie down and die, give it all up.' But God would have us put on a cheerful courage, and even in our worst times, rejoice in His love and faithfulness.
Cowardice says, 'Retreat, go back to the worlding's way of action, you cannot play the Christian's part, it is too difficult. Relinquish your principles'. But, however much Satan may urge this course upon you, you cannot follow if you are a child of God. His divine fiat has bid thee go from strength to strength, and so thou shalt, and neither death nor hell shall turn thee from thy course. What, if for a while thou art called to stand still, yet this is but to renew thy strength for some greater advance in due time.
Precipitancy cries, 'Do something. Stir yourself; to stand still and wait is sheer idleness'. We must be doing something at once - we must do it so we think - instead of looking to the Lord, who will not only do something but will do everything.
Presumption boasts, 'If the sea be before you, march into it and expect a miracle'.
But Faith listens neither to Presumption, nor to Despair, nor to Cowardice, nor to Precipitancy, but it hears God say, 'Stand still', and immovable as a rock it stands.
'Stand still'.
Keep the posture of an upright (wo)man, ready for action, expecting further orders, cheerfully and patiently awaiting the directing voice, and it will not be long ere God shall say to you, as distinctly as Moses said it to the people of Israel,
'Go Forward'."
- Charles H Spurgeon
Friday, March 25, 2005
20:31.
"Oh you look so beautiful tonight
City Of Blinding Lights"
Sometimes, I feel like wishing upon a star to wake up where troubles are far behind me, where problems melt like lemon drops, way above the chimney top...
that's where you will find me.
Sometimes, Melbourne seems like another life. A life I know I have had and am beyond thankful for but "another" in its distance from me. It sometimes seem like a dream.
Life is life. I can't wake up somewhere else just like I might in a dream. That's not how it works.
I look at the photographs I took in Melbourne, I see images of my city of blinding lights in photos on other people's blogs, on travelogues, and so on and I feel like... I am pinned up flattened on a wall, paralysed by dissonance and powerless to do anything.
The last of which is not true.
I can go get an air ticket and fly to Melbourne. I have a choice. But I am not willing to run on my own time. Dear God, do this for me, Dad. Teach me to run besides You. Even as Dad, I pray You help my heart beat to Your heartbeat.
I want.
Learning to just keep putting one feet in front of the other is such a real matter. Not in debilitating fashion, though sometimes that paralysed feeling is so real, but I would honestly say the last few months and now have been a season where I am truly learning faith and trust.
One feet forward. Now the other. One feet forward. Now the other.
Lots of thinking to be done this weekend.
And a lot of constant missing.
Dad....
*runs to God*
"Oh you look so beautiful tonight
City Of Blinding Lights"
Sometimes, I feel like wishing upon a star to wake up where troubles are far behind me, where problems melt like lemon drops, way above the chimney top...
that's where you will find me.
Sometimes, Melbourne seems like another life. A life I know I have had and am beyond thankful for but "another" in its distance from me. It sometimes seem like a dream.
Life is life. I can't wake up somewhere else just like I might in a dream. That's not how it works.
I look at the photographs I took in Melbourne, I see images of my city of blinding lights in photos on other people's blogs, on travelogues, and so on and I feel like... I am pinned up flattened on a wall, paralysed by dissonance and powerless to do anything.
The last of which is not true.
I can go get an air ticket and fly to Melbourne. I have a choice. But I am not willing to run on my own time. Dear God, do this for me, Dad. Teach me to run besides You. Even as Dad, I pray You help my heart beat to Your heartbeat.
I want.
Learning to just keep putting one feet in front of the other is such a real matter. Not in debilitating fashion, though sometimes that paralysed feeling is so real, but I would honestly say the last few months and now have been a season where I am truly learning faith and trust.
One feet forward. Now the other. One feet forward. Now the other.
Lots of thinking to be done this weekend.
And a lot of constant missing.
Dad....
*runs to God*
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
00:47.
For some reason, my laptop clock just switched itself back to Melb time. So those numbers at yonder top left reflects Melb's clock, not Sg.
Went back to the old company this week. Saw the doc on Sunday, had tonsilitis and a temperature of 37.5 degrees. Woke up on Sat with a sore throat and muscles so sore I limped and hobbled for the first couple of hours I was awake. Was at a local AG youth conference on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Planet Shakers were playing at night rallies.
And to end the counting days backwards bit, today (in actuality, it's still Tuesday in Sg) is my first day of work. Yesterday was spent at a computer programmes' refresher course. Would blog again. I'm adopting a try-to-sleep-by-midnight and wake by 7am rountine. Or trying it out. Want to have time both in the morning and night to do devotion before I leave the house or conk out.
Keep me in prayer :)
Love your.
*muack*
For some reason, my laptop clock just switched itself back to Melb time. So those numbers at yonder top left reflects Melb's clock, not Sg.
Went back to the old company this week. Saw the doc on Sunday, had tonsilitis and a temperature of 37.5 degrees. Woke up on Sat with a sore throat and muscles so sore I limped and hobbled for the first couple of hours I was awake. Was at a local AG youth conference on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Planet Shakers were playing at night rallies.
And to end the counting days backwards bit, today (in actuality, it's still Tuesday in Sg) is my first day of work. Yesterday was spent at a computer programmes' refresher course. Would blog again. I'm adopting a try-to-sleep-by-midnight and wake by 7am rountine. Or trying it out. Want to have time both in the morning and night to do devotion before I leave the house or conk out.
Keep me in prayer :)
Love your.
*muack*
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
11:11.
"When I feel afraid, Your Love, it covers me"
- Enter In, Planet Shakers
Singapore perplexes me. Or maybe, I'm just perplexed.
I felt like blogging the last few days but when I sat down, could not write, so this is going to be a composite picture of sorts.
Queued up two and a half hours outside the indoor stadium on Saturday, to get into the Benny Hinn Crusade. As with all queues, in humid weather and a queue 12-people wide and hundreds upon hundreds deep, people grump and are not in the best of spirits. Heard some people saying they wouldn't have come if they knew it would be like this ("this" referring to the queue and wait). Heard others saying how the organisation could be way better and how to better it. They gave suggestions ("Open all doors") and so on. There was an entire family - two girls, one six and the other in her early teens, their parents and I presume, an aunty, just in front of me. They got my attention when the girl suddenly swung back and snapped at the mom, next to me, "I want to go home. I don't want to wait any more". The Mom placated her, the Dad - carrying the little girl, apparently the cause of this excursion 'cause she "goes in and out of the hospital"- looked passively frustrated, the Mom visibly flustered, the teenager annoyed in a very "caught" manner, a manner I remembered feeling before often so I could relate.
Folks from Indonesian, Sri Lankan, China, Malaysia, Korea were around us.
A Singaporean girl near to the back of me on the right said in Chinese to her friend, "The Indian man next to me keeps pushing me!"
Then later, as the crowd shuffles and some shoved forward once the queue started moving, the flustered mom told her husband, in Chinese, of another dark-skinned compatriot who "can really push".
Mind you, I understand how our colloquial language sounds rude at times or potentially rude when no such meaning is meant.
I also understand our multi racial make up and some of its dynamics.
But I didn't know what to think or how to feel. Every thing felt so us to me. So Singaporean.
The two day rally with three services - one a last minute add-on to accomodate the crowd - was filled to the brim every service with people left outside. So that's 10,000 people inside the venue every time. And the first service had 5,000 people left outside.
Numbers do speak.
But I was... confused. When Ps Hinn said on stage that this is a nation hungering for Jesus, when the friend I went with remarked the same, I was in dissonance.
Are we hungry?
Are we really hungry?
I don't know and I am sorry to even raise such pointed doubts. But numbers... I don't know. Singapore, my loved country, we get great speakers, we have many blessings, but do people go to such events as part of the sub-culture, do they go to witness spectacles, what is the condition of our heart, Singapore? What??
What.
Oh, what....
We all went through the queue. We all waited to get in. How many waited all the way 'cause it would seem a waste to leave halfway? How many left their hearts in the rush and shove of the classic push in?
I am perplexed.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Planet Shakers would be here Thurs to Sat, at an AOG annual youth event. I've been trying to find info about the Planet Shakers conf for a while now and always came up empty. Last night, I realised when I checked out the AG website that ah, it is an AOG youth conf with Planet Shakers playing and Pastor Russell as main speaker alongside a number of local pastoral staff.
I was immediately hesitant, God help me. And to be truthful and perhaps to sound rather prissy, the fact that the night programme with the band is sold as "concert", that makes me apprehensive. 'cause you go into a concert and into worship with different attitudes. City Church and Planet Shakers have always been worship, not concert, from the time I attended. Before I was a regular attendee, the "concert" and "performance" connotations - since they are a recording band - played a part in me staying away but every week I attended, I had entered to worship and found it to be worship, not concert.
God help me. The local church youth sub-culture rouses ambivalent feelings in me. Here, I always been in a congregation where youth is minority, not majority and in a way, this arrangement sort of allowed me to stay away from a sub culture even as I am youth.
Back in Melb, I was deep in the youth ministry and identified with it completely. So what's this, girl? A kneejerk reaction? Maybe. Double standards? Possibly. Plain illogical stupidity? Very possible.
Here's a girl who feels for the international student ministry in Melb and who always felt drawn and still feels drawn to try to "look after" the young Asian foreigners here for work and study and yet she's so very hesistant here in her own backyard about her own countrymen.
Here's a girl who pray for her own nation with a real sense of ownership, and who yet, is so perplexed about her people.
What's up, girl? What's up.
Why does it seem that I am always less confusing when I am not in Sg?
Hypocrisy, double mindedness, fickle, weak, insincere, self-centeredness... I've run the whole gamut of description through in my head and still can't explain myself.
Maybe when somewhere else, we are all different and out of our home countries and can relate. And maybe when I am here, while I always felt and feel different, no one else share the same distinct unsettledness. Everyone is home.
I really don't know. It's so perplexing.
----------------------------------------------------------------
I am wearing my U2 tee and Giordano shorts, the same get-up that were my home clothes too in Melb. These shorts have never felt so big. I don't know why. I think Mom ironed it. And as a sidenote, you know, I miss doing my own laundry at my own time, cooking when I want to, and ironing if I have to.
----------------------------------------------------------------
During the rally, Hinn called out a young man from the crowd and prophesied over him a great calling and an "explosion within within one year" if the man would let go of a person standing between that anointing and him. Hinn asked the teenager - standing there with a shell shocked expression - if there is someone praying over him, he said his parents are pastors, Hinn called the parents on stage and the whole stadium reached out our hands and prayed for that young man.
I was tearing away. I always do when people get called out. And I know why.
On Sunday, while having ramen with a friend at Funan, lo and behold, that same family sat a table away from us. I glanced at them once, twice to ascertain their identity, thrice to observe and toyed with the idea of going over and talking to them, just asking questions, just me being curious, just me wanting to know what leads up to something so wow and what transpires after.
They seemed like such a normal family.
Sometimes, I wonder for so many of us, our default tone of voice is this flat, bored, potentially whiny, disinterested with the world, tone.
They spoke some Cantonese. The mom sounds like every other Singaporean mom, they talked about some people they know, I presume from church, he sounds like another teenager speaking to his parents non-excitedly and quite, dully.
You know what I mean. We all done it now and then, or always.
It made me more curious. I wanted to grill these people. I wanted to follow them about. See how they live. I wanted to know how often the parents pray for this son. I wanted to know does this young man love God with all his heart. I wanted to know, more.
The friend with me just started going to church and I didn't want to freak her out so I abstained. But I am perplexed. I am. I am. I am. Argh.
Yesterday, on my way back home while on the train, a lady sat at the seat right in front of me looked up at me with the same bored, disinterested stare so many people have.
I wanted to scream.
Despite knowing that many of them are possibly very happy, and I have no doubt, are interesting people, and I know they are all precious, that stare... so common and vacant and lifeless. It scared and still scares me and I was flustered - brow furrowed and caught up thinking - of the possibility that I will join their ranks come Monday when I become a working girl again.
I have nothing against work. In fact, I enjoy it.
What scares me beyond any thing you can conceive is the idea that that working life lot, trying to find meaning, not having time to do the things that matter, not having time to just spend an unplanned day in without the press of knowing a work day is coming and I have got to "make use" of a weekend to do the chores and every thing, spending time at work every day with half a heart not there and half a mind always looking forward to after-work or weekend before the cycle again begins.
I can do all that. I can.
And I can even be happy and keep against the vacant stare syndrome.
I can.
But I would like something else, Lord.
One day.
Please.
"When I feel afraid, Your Love, it covers me"
- Enter In, Planet Shakers
Singapore perplexes me. Or maybe, I'm just perplexed.
I felt like blogging the last few days but when I sat down, could not write, so this is going to be a composite picture of sorts.
Queued up two and a half hours outside the indoor stadium on Saturday, to get into the Benny Hinn Crusade. As with all queues, in humid weather and a queue 12-people wide and hundreds upon hundreds deep, people grump and are not in the best of spirits. Heard some people saying they wouldn't have come if they knew it would be like this ("this" referring to the queue and wait). Heard others saying how the organisation could be way better and how to better it. They gave suggestions ("Open all doors") and so on. There was an entire family - two girls, one six and the other in her early teens, their parents and I presume, an aunty, just in front of me. They got my attention when the girl suddenly swung back and snapped at the mom, next to me, "I want to go home. I don't want to wait any more". The Mom placated her, the Dad - carrying the little girl, apparently the cause of this excursion 'cause she "goes in and out of the hospital"- looked passively frustrated, the Mom visibly flustered, the teenager annoyed in a very "caught" manner, a manner I remembered feeling before often so I could relate.
Folks from Indonesian, Sri Lankan, China, Malaysia, Korea were around us.
A Singaporean girl near to the back of me on the right said in Chinese to her friend, "The Indian man next to me keeps pushing me!"
Then later, as the crowd shuffles and some shoved forward once the queue started moving, the flustered mom told her husband, in Chinese, of another dark-skinned compatriot who "can really push".
Mind you, I understand how our colloquial language sounds rude at times or potentially rude when no such meaning is meant.
I also understand our multi racial make up and some of its dynamics.
But I didn't know what to think or how to feel. Every thing felt so us to me. So Singaporean.
The two day rally with three services - one a last minute add-on to accomodate the crowd - was filled to the brim every service with people left outside. So that's 10,000 people inside the venue every time. And the first service had 5,000 people left outside.
Numbers do speak.
But I was... confused. When Ps Hinn said on stage that this is a nation hungering for Jesus, when the friend I went with remarked the same, I was in dissonance.
Are we hungry?
Are we really hungry?
I don't know and I am sorry to even raise such pointed doubts. But numbers... I don't know. Singapore, my loved country, we get great speakers, we have many blessings, but do people go to such events as part of the sub-culture, do they go to witness spectacles, what is the condition of our heart, Singapore? What??
What.
Oh, what....
We all went through the queue. We all waited to get in. How many waited all the way 'cause it would seem a waste to leave halfway? How many left their hearts in the rush and shove of the classic push in?
I am perplexed.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Planet Shakers would be here Thurs to Sat, at an AOG annual youth event. I've been trying to find info about the Planet Shakers conf for a while now and always came up empty. Last night, I realised when I checked out the AG website that ah, it is an AOG youth conf with Planet Shakers playing and Pastor Russell as main speaker alongside a number of local pastoral staff.
I was immediately hesitant, God help me. And to be truthful and perhaps to sound rather prissy, the fact that the night programme with the band is sold as "concert", that makes me apprehensive. 'cause you go into a concert and into worship with different attitudes. City Church and Planet Shakers have always been worship, not concert, from the time I attended. Before I was a regular attendee, the "concert" and "performance" connotations - since they are a recording band - played a part in me staying away but every week I attended, I had entered to worship and found it to be worship, not concert.
God help me. The local church youth sub-culture rouses ambivalent feelings in me. Here, I always been in a congregation where youth is minority, not majority and in a way, this arrangement sort of allowed me to stay away from a sub culture even as I am youth.
Back in Melb, I was deep in the youth ministry and identified with it completely. So what's this, girl? A kneejerk reaction? Maybe. Double standards? Possibly. Plain illogical stupidity? Very possible.
Here's a girl who feels for the international student ministry in Melb and who always felt drawn and still feels drawn to try to "look after" the young Asian foreigners here for work and study and yet she's so very hesistant here in her own backyard about her own countrymen.
Here's a girl who pray for her own nation with a real sense of ownership, and who yet, is so perplexed about her people.
What's up, girl? What's up.
Why does it seem that I am always less confusing when I am not in Sg?
Hypocrisy, double mindedness, fickle, weak, insincere, self-centeredness... I've run the whole gamut of description through in my head and still can't explain myself.
Maybe when somewhere else, we are all different and out of our home countries and can relate. And maybe when I am here, while I always felt and feel different, no one else share the same distinct unsettledness. Everyone is home.
I really don't know. It's so perplexing.
----------------------------------------------------------------
I am wearing my U2 tee and Giordano shorts, the same get-up that were my home clothes too in Melb. These shorts have never felt so big. I don't know why. I think Mom ironed it. And as a sidenote, you know, I miss doing my own laundry at my own time, cooking when I want to, and ironing if I have to.
----------------------------------------------------------------
During the rally, Hinn called out a young man from the crowd and prophesied over him a great calling and an "explosion within within one year" if the man would let go of a person standing between that anointing and him. Hinn asked the teenager - standing there with a shell shocked expression - if there is someone praying over him, he said his parents are pastors, Hinn called the parents on stage and the whole stadium reached out our hands and prayed for that young man.
I was tearing away. I always do when people get called out. And I know why.
On Sunday, while having ramen with a friend at Funan, lo and behold, that same family sat a table away from us. I glanced at them once, twice to ascertain their identity, thrice to observe and toyed with the idea of going over and talking to them, just asking questions, just me being curious, just me wanting to know what leads up to something so wow and what transpires after.
They seemed like such a normal family.
Sometimes, I wonder for so many of us, our default tone of voice is this flat, bored, potentially whiny, disinterested with the world, tone.
They spoke some Cantonese. The mom sounds like every other Singaporean mom, they talked about some people they know, I presume from church, he sounds like another teenager speaking to his parents non-excitedly and quite, dully.
You know what I mean. We all done it now and then, or always.
It made me more curious. I wanted to grill these people. I wanted to follow them about. See how they live. I wanted to know how often the parents pray for this son. I wanted to know does this young man love God with all his heart. I wanted to know, more.
The friend with me just started going to church and I didn't want to freak her out so I abstained. But I am perplexed. I am. I am. I am. Argh.
Yesterday, on my way back home while on the train, a lady sat at the seat right in front of me looked up at me with the same bored, disinterested stare so many people have.
I wanted to scream.
Despite knowing that many of them are possibly very happy, and I have no doubt, are interesting people, and I know they are all precious, that stare... so common and vacant and lifeless. It scared and still scares me and I was flustered - brow furrowed and caught up thinking - of the possibility that I will join their ranks come Monday when I become a working girl again.
I have nothing against work. In fact, I enjoy it.
What scares me beyond any thing you can conceive is the idea that that working life lot, trying to find meaning, not having time to do the things that matter, not having time to just spend an unplanned day in without the press of knowing a work day is coming and I have got to "make use" of a weekend to do the chores and every thing, spending time at work every day with half a heart not there and half a mind always looking forward to after-work or weekend before the cycle again begins.
I can do all that. I can.
And I can even be happy and keep against the vacant stare syndrome.
I can.
But I would like something else, Lord.
One day.
Please.
Friday, March 11, 2005
18:05.
"Xiao Mei".
Do I look in any possible way like a Xiao Mei??!
....
I do understand it and respond to it if the people employing the term (meaning "little sister" or "small girl") are significantly older but argh, this next one goes on the list of things I honestly detest sincerely - middled aged men at pasar malams or shops first, calling me "xiao mei" and then, eyeing me the way they do.
Grrrrrrrr.
[Bkgrd info: That happened just now when I went to the neighbourhood shopping centre to get an early dinner. There was a little pasar malam about the centre. I was make-up-less, clad in pink Planet Shakers conference tee and jeans (I still pull on my jeans even when I am just popping out nearby) and loping along quietly blissfully before I realised a chorus of grrr, "xiao mei"s sounding from behind while I waited at one of the stalls for the taiwanese chicken snack I ordered to be re-heated].
Bah, don't take your boredom out on me or something.
Go away.
"Xiao Mei".
Do I look in any possible way like a Xiao Mei??!
....
I do understand it and respond to it if the people employing the term (meaning "little sister" or "small girl") are significantly older but argh, this next one goes on the list of things I honestly detest sincerely - middled aged men at pasar malams or shops first, calling me "xiao mei" and then, eyeing me the way they do.
Grrrrrrrr.
[Bkgrd info: That happened just now when I went to the neighbourhood shopping centre to get an early dinner. There was a little pasar malam about the centre. I was make-up-less, clad in pink Planet Shakers conference tee and jeans (I still pull on my jeans even when I am just popping out nearby) and loping along quietly blissfully before I realised a chorus of grrr, "xiao mei"s sounding from behind while I waited at one of the stalls for the taiwanese chicken snack I ordered to be re-heated].
Bah, don't take your boredom out on me or something.
Go away.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
01:16.
It is March 9.
About four hours ago, some courier staff delivered my bag - that blue and white Adidas sports bag I had to leave behind in Melb last month because I was overloaded - to my doorstep. The airport called me this morning to let me know the bag's here and I arranged for it to be sent to me.
I didn't want to open it till later, when I wake up and the day is bright, thought I would unpack from start to finish without pausing and get all things neat. Then I found myself turning the combo lock on the bag and opening it. Wanted to just get out the shoes and some clothes so I can get them sorted and throw some clothes into the laundry pile.
So I did.
There's a baby blue U2 T-shirt that I used to wear to sleep in Melb. It wasn't in this luggage, it came home with me on Feb 5 and has been sitting in my wardrobe drawer since the day I unpacked it.
Wanted to wear it a few times but never did. What I did, however, was kind of run my left hand over it now and then (it sits at the left side of the drawer), and about three times now, I lifted it up, kind of lightly squash it between my hands and just... breathed in its smell.
You see, it smells like home.
It feels softer than the rest of my home clothes here for some reason, I rub my cheek against it.
And it smells like home.
And so I am reluctant to wear it because once it hits the wash, it just won't be the same again.
Just now, about perhaps two hours, very possibly lesser ago, I unzipped the bag that has found its way back to me and took out first the People Of Asia cloth bag containing some clothes. And I kind of squashed it a little like I did that U2 tee and just brought it up and did the same.
It smells like a place that was cold, where clothes were hung indoors and not on bamboo poles outside HDB flats.
It smells of a climate that I once lived in.
It reminded me of a place I once called home and still call home, even as I am aware Singapore is home.
Guess it's still the same, this two homes syndrome.
Put the make up and tolietries that fell out when I pulled out something else into a box and placed them neatly in this little Ikea plastic shelf unit on wheels I have to my right, under my table, next to the full length mirror.
Carried the three bags of shoes to the living room's white shoes drawer. Pulled out the mis-shaped darlings and placed them into the white unit. Discovered some rather um, funky looking organic substance I can only deduce as some microbacteria growth that have sprouted up on the slightly damp black ballerina flats from Target.
They are fine, don't worry, except for a slight tear on the surface from my enthusiastic rubbing, but holding them in my living room and realising that slight dampness... I immediately remember why they were wet.
It was that Wednesday stretching to Thursday morning, in that veritable gale. From getting transcripts at RMIT to walking to town and saying goodbye to places just by walking though them. Having dinner at 609 for the last time (until next time) and Ray walking me back at Thursday morning, 2am+.
Those ballerina flats never had time to dry out completely in the cold weather that led up to my departure (I do not have particularly friendly feelings towards this word at the moment) .
I suppose every thing that was in Melb never really stopped somehow for me. And I don't exactly reckon it's bad but sometimes, when I stand up, I get dizzy.
My Dad told me last week about an article of Melbourne in the L i a n h e Z a o b a o, the chinese broadsheet he reads daily. As he told me about it, he walked towards where the newspapers were and searched to show me the said article.
That two-page spread is now to my left, folded into half on my (music) keyboard, which I place at an appropriate height-arranged shelf on my bookshelf.
I haven't got around to reading it. Glanced then looked at the photos the other day. Chinatown, Great Ocean Road, Flinders Street Station, Bourke Street buskers, Southbank.... Amidst the Chinese copy, English words like "Victoria Street", "Lygon", "Yarra River", "St Kilda" and "Miss Marple" popped out at me.
.
copyright.skye.t/
I once lived there. All these places were the physical, geographical construct of my home. You know, where I lived and felt like I belonged.
Now, they are pictures in a travelogue, a travel feature, written by some writer sponsored on some junket. And I didn't really know if I wanted to read what he/ she had to say.
Perhaps... because all those were part of what made up "home", when I look around at my physical and geographical construct now, my head whirls and my heart doesn't know how to react though it commonly settled for dull aching, numbness or rationality.
My comfort is in Christ and is Christ.
Knowing that God is in control, that He has some purpose for all of these, that every thing will make much sense to me one day, though I see in shadows only now.
My first slated return date to Sg was Nov 15 2004. Then with graduation on Dec 15, I pushed it back to Dec 21. And then, I pushed it back to Feb 5.
Three times.
Come 21st this month, three months after that 2nd would-be departure which I spent instead sending my folks off, hitting the shops for some therapy after I got back to the city, getting home and bawling, then meeting Ray for coffee at Nortturnos that night, I would be starting work here in Sg.
Unless any thing happens between now and then.
Going back to journalism, going to give my best in what I do, love people, avoid politics, and if I step into them, I hope and pray I can deal with and behave as Christ would have me to.
"Big" is playing now on Qmusic, my lappie's music programme.
It's 512am now in Melb.
For some reasons, my lappie's time jumps back to Melb now and then.
For some reason.
And for some reason, Blogger still registers my posts at Melb time. I searched for a main time zone setting to alter this schizoprehnia but couldn't find one.
It is 214am now in Sg. Two minutes away from an hour from the moment I started writing this post.
I wonder when it will all seem clearer. Though I do not doubt it will all look much so one day, and things will make sense.
On Sun, while I was on my way back from town, on my way to the escalator at Somerset MRT, I looked across the station and saw to my surprise a M o u n t Z i o n bookshop at the side of the station, where I don't recall there ever being retail space and definitely not Mt Z.
That's the shop where at 17, I first took up my first job and returned to subsequently during holidays. The Sun after I got back, I discovered the store I used to mostly be stationed at at Causeway Point was gone. This Sun, I stared in surprise at the shop cut into the wall - with some shelf displays outside and signs announcing its presence - and recognised the glass displays that held the Precious Moments figurines. They were from Causeway Point.
It was too late for me to detour and go visit. I had already gone past the ticketing gates so I continued on my way, to the blasting music of History Maker which I could hear even when I got underground and waited for the train.
"Is it true today that when people pray?
Cloudless skies will break?
Kings and queens will shake?
Yes it's true and I believe it
I'm living for you"
Is it true?
Is it true?
Is it true?
Yes it is. And I BELIEVE IT.
Oh Lord, You whose ways are higher than mine, whose ways are divine mystery, whose heart and hands I know I can trust. You who are eternally faithfully, and the source of all that is good and right and pure and lovely, You who are my Lord, my sun and shield, my refuge and the Lifter of my head.
I need You and want You so much more.
I'm running after You.
I'm running after You.
Jesus.
It is March 9.
About four hours ago, some courier staff delivered my bag - that blue and white Adidas sports bag I had to leave behind in Melb last month because I was overloaded - to my doorstep. The airport called me this morning to let me know the bag's here and I arranged for it to be sent to me.
I didn't want to open it till later, when I wake up and the day is bright, thought I would unpack from start to finish without pausing and get all things neat. Then I found myself turning the combo lock on the bag and opening it. Wanted to just get out the shoes and some clothes so I can get them sorted and throw some clothes into the laundry pile.
So I did.
There's a baby blue U2 T-shirt that I used to wear to sleep in Melb. It wasn't in this luggage, it came home with me on Feb 5 and has been sitting in my wardrobe drawer since the day I unpacked it.
Wanted to wear it a few times but never did. What I did, however, was kind of run my left hand over it now and then (it sits at the left side of the drawer), and about three times now, I lifted it up, kind of lightly squash it between my hands and just... breathed in its smell.
You see, it smells like home.
It feels softer than the rest of my home clothes here for some reason, I rub my cheek against it.
And it smells like home.
And so I am reluctant to wear it because once it hits the wash, it just won't be the same again.
Just now, about perhaps two hours, very possibly lesser ago, I unzipped the bag that has found its way back to me and took out first the People Of Asia cloth bag containing some clothes. And I kind of squashed it a little like I did that U2 tee and just brought it up and did the same.
It smells like a place that was cold, where clothes were hung indoors and not on bamboo poles outside HDB flats.
It smells of a climate that I once lived in.
It reminded me of a place I once called home and still call home, even as I am aware Singapore is home.
Guess it's still the same, this two homes syndrome.
Put the make up and tolietries that fell out when I pulled out something else into a box and placed them neatly in this little Ikea plastic shelf unit on wheels I have to my right, under my table, next to the full length mirror.
Carried the three bags of shoes to the living room's white shoes drawer. Pulled out the mis-shaped darlings and placed them into the white unit. Discovered some rather um, funky looking organic substance I can only deduce as some microbacteria growth that have sprouted up on the slightly damp black ballerina flats from Target.
They are fine, don't worry, except for a slight tear on the surface from my enthusiastic rubbing, but holding them in my living room and realising that slight dampness... I immediately remember why they were wet.
It was that Wednesday stretching to Thursday morning, in that veritable gale. From getting transcripts at RMIT to walking to town and saying goodbye to places just by walking though them. Having dinner at 609 for the last time (until next time) and Ray walking me back at Thursday morning, 2am+.
Those ballerina flats never had time to dry out completely in the cold weather that led up to my departure (I do not have particularly friendly feelings towards this word at the moment) .
I suppose every thing that was in Melb never really stopped somehow for me. And I don't exactly reckon it's bad but sometimes, when I stand up, I get dizzy.
My Dad told me last week about an article of Melbourne in the L i a n h e Z a o b a o, the chinese broadsheet he reads daily. As he told me about it, he walked towards where the newspapers were and searched to show me the said article.
That two-page spread is now to my left, folded into half on my (music) keyboard, which I place at an appropriate height-arranged shelf on my bookshelf.
I haven't got around to reading it. Glanced then looked at the photos the other day. Chinatown, Great Ocean Road, Flinders Street Station, Bourke Street buskers, Southbank.... Amidst the Chinese copy, English words like "Victoria Street", "Lygon", "Yarra River", "St Kilda" and "Miss Marple" popped out at me.
.
copyright.skye.t/
I once lived there. All these places were the physical, geographical construct of my home. You know, where I lived and felt like I belonged.
Now, they are pictures in a travelogue, a travel feature, written by some writer sponsored on some junket. And I didn't really know if I wanted to read what he/ she had to say.
Perhaps... because all those were part of what made up "home", when I look around at my physical and geographical construct now, my head whirls and my heart doesn't know how to react though it commonly settled for dull aching, numbness or rationality.
My comfort is in Christ and is Christ.
Knowing that God is in control, that He has some purpose for all of these, that every thing will make much sense to me one day, though I see in shadows only now.
My first slated return date to Sg was Nov 15 2004. Then with graduation on Dec 15, I pushed it back to Dec 21. And then, I pushed it back to Feb 5.
Three times.
Come 21st this month, three months after that 2nd would-be departure which I spent instead sending my folks off, hitting the shops for some therapy after I got back to the city, getting home and bawling, then meeting Ray for coffee at Nortturnos that night, I would be starting work here in Sg.
Unless any thing happens between now and then.
Going back to journalism, going to give my best in what I do, love people, avoid politics, and if I step into them, I hope and pray I can deal with and behave as Christ would have me to.
"Big" is playing now on Qmusic, my lappie's music programme.
It's 512am now in Melb.
For some reasons, my lappie's time jumps back to Melb now and then.
For some reason.
And for some reason, Blogger still registers my posts at Melb time. I searched for a main time zone setting to alter this schizoprehnia but couldn't find one.
It is 214am now in Sg. Two minutes away from an hour from the moment I started writing this post.
I wonder when it will all seem clearer. Though I do not doubt it will all look much so one day, and things will make sense.
On Sun, while I was on my way back from town, on my way to the escalator at Somerset MRT, I looked across the station and saw to my surprise a M o u n t Z i o n bookshop at the side of the station, where I don't recall there ever being retail space and definitely not Mt Z.
That's the shop where at 17, I first took up my first job and returned to subsequently during holidays. The Sun after I got back, I discovered the store I used to mostly be stationed at at Causeway Point was gone. This Sun, I stared in surprise at the shop cut into the wall - with some shelf displays outside and signs announcing its presence - and recognised the glass displays that held the Precious Moments figurines. They were from Causeway Point.
It was too late for me to detour and go visit. I had already gone past the ticketing gates so I continued on my way, to the blasting music of History Maker which I could hear even when I got underground and waited for the train.
"Is it true today that when people pray?
Cloudless skies will break?
Kings and queens will shake?
Yes it's true and I believe it
I'm living for you"
Is it true?
Is it true?
Is it true?
Yes it is. And I BELIEVE IT.
Oh Lord, You whose ways are higher than mine, whose ways are divine mystery, whose heart and hands I know I can trust. You who are eternally faithfully, and the source of all that is good and right and pure and lovely, You who are my Lord, my sun and shield, my refuge and the Lifter of my head.
I need You and want You so much more.
I'm running after You.
I'm running after You.
Jesus.
Monday, March 07, 2005
16:24.
My God is big
So strong so mighty
My God's plan for me
Goes beyond my wildest dreams
My God is Good
He's so good to me
He's my God and
He is my Refuge
He's the Rock on which I stand
He's my Fortress
God He is my life
He holds the oceans in his hand
My God is Big
So Strong so Mighty
My God is Good
He's so good to me
There's nothing my God cannot do
- Big, Planet Shakers
My God is big
So strong so mighty
My God's plan for me
Goes beyond my wildest dreams
My God is Good
He's so good to me
He's my God and
He is my Refuge
He's the Rock on which I stand
He's my Fortress
God He is my life
He holds the oceans in his hand
My God is Big
So Strong so Mighty
My God is Good
He's so good to me
There's nothing my God cannot do
- Big, Planet Shakers
Saturday, March 05, 2005
21:54.
One month.
Precisely.
And somehow, because it's Sat this 5th and it was Sat last 5th - due to Feb precisely having 28 days - it creates some bit of happiness inside.
And as random as that last thought, over here. Random photos of life in Sg.
One month.
Precisely.
And somehow, because it's Sat this 5th and it was Sat last 5th - due to Feb precisely having 28 days - it creates some bit of happiness inside.
And as random as that last thought, over here. Random photos of life in Sg.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
11:02.
Dad,
You spoke to Moses like a friend.
You showed up, face to face.
You drew near, taking on human-ness and discarding divinity so You could communicate with us and commit the baffling deed of dei-cide (deity-suicide) so we could be close.
You appeared to Your disciples, Mary and those who followed You.
You appeared to Saul and turned him into Paul, on that road to Damascus.
You are the same yesterday, today and for every one of my tomorrows and after that.
You are eternal.
You said in Your Word to draw near to You and You will draw near to us.
You said call and You would answer and show us great and unsearchable things.
You said I would seek You and find You when I seek You with all of my heart.
I want to speak to You.
Not just like this.
Not even like during QTs.
I want to speak to You like Moses did.
I want Your Voice to be so real to me that I know it like a sheep knows its shepherd's, like Abraham recognised it was You even when You made such a seemingly needless, impossible and cruel request for Issac.
Surely it's possible.
Surely it's possible because past greats have known You in the same way.
Surely it's possible to hear God clear-er than this when You are the God who chose to draw near.
Surely it's possible.
When Your Word and Your deeds scream of a God who loves, a God who has given access to Himself and His throne, a God whose throne of mercy behind the tore veil I can approach.
See, Dad. I know and understand the practice of putting out fleeces and I know sometimes, You may say it's my call or You may simply want me to choose.
I know.
But I also know surely it is possible to hear Your direction and still Voice on my decisions, on all the crossroads that seem to come at once, on all of these in my life.
I still want You more in my life than all else.
I believe.
Word of God, speak.
Dad,
You spoke to Moses like a friend.
You showed up, face to face.
You drew near, taking on human-ness and discarding divinity so You could communicate with us and commit the baffling deed of dei-cide (deity-suicide) so we could be close.
You appeared to Your disciples, Mary and those who followed You.
You appeared to Saul and turned him into Paul, on that road to Damascus.
You are the same yesterday, today and for every one of my tomorrows and after that.
You are eternal.
You said in Your Word to draw near to You and You will draw near to us.
You said call and You would answer and show us great and unsearchable things.
You said I would seek You and find You when I seek You with all of my heart.
I want to speak to You.
Not just like this.
Not even like during QTs.
I want to speak to You like Moses did.
I want Your Voice to be so real to me that I know it like a sheep knows its shepherd's, like Abraham recognised it was You even when You made such a seemingly needless, impossible and cruel request for Issac.
Surely it's possible.
Surely it's possible because past greats have known You in the same way.
Surely it's possible to hear God clear-er than this when You are the God who chose to draw near.
Surely it's possible.
When Your Word and Your deeds scream of a God who loves, a God who has given access to Himself and His throne, a God whose throne of mercy behind the tore veil I can approach.
See, Dad. I know and understand the practice of putting out fleeces and I know sometimes, You may say it's my call or You may simply want me to choose.
I know.
But I also know surely it is possible to hear Your direction and still Voice on my decisions, on all the crossroads that seem to come at once, on all of these in my life.
I still want You more in my life than all else.
I believe.
Word of God, speak.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
19:50.
I wonder.
Yesterday, I was going through the stack of photo albums piled in rather undignified fashion on the top of my open concept black metal and birch shelves Ikea bookshelf (Yup, my room is quite decked with Ikea furnishings). Armed with a wet cloth, I climbed onto a stool and attacked the dust that had gathered before taking all those booklets and A4 sized albums down.
While I waited for you to come online, I sat on my white tiled floor and looked through those albums, placing them into little piles, roughly categorised Secondary Sch; Qi, Yiling, Shuhui and me; Poly and Bintan, both times; then the window of time after poly and before Melb, the period where I was adult, journalist and living the dream, in very real ways, no, I have not forgotten. Then there was that other window of in-between-ness... photos I didn't really know which pile to put in - that year when I took my Os as a private candidate, when I went to Sydney as a church delegate.
There were times when the face that was mine looked like someone I do not know.
Times when I cringed and silently went "gosh". Yes, there you go, I admit that. Hah.
Then, there were times when I could remember the moment when I took that particular picture, the smile, and the accompanying emotion that prompted that smile.
In Mayflower's (my Sec school) beige uniform, taking last day photographs with teachers and friends. The loosened counciler's tie, the shirt tucked loose instead of tightly, figure-skimmingly in like certain cliques wore theirs, the Hush Puppies socks (lol), before braces teeth (*cringes*), the short bob, and darn was I skinny or what....
The boy band photos (*laughs*), Mark Owen press conference, photos with Stephen Gately and Shane something and all that. Me gosh.
There were years when I looked good, and years when I was frightful, though my Mom is adamant that I was not. And I am still rather impressed with how skinny I was.
-----------------------------------------------------------
But I am perhaps taking a really long time to get around to a chief thought.
See, as pictorial memories flipped before my eyes and I remember the years that have gone before, one chief idea, impression, thought that first came to me was this - The happiest times in my life were the times when I could focus completely on God.
The Sydney trip, when I first experienced holy laughter and being used to minister to people, not to mention camaraderie so extraordinary, and a lifestyle with God so in the smack of it all, that I was so... well, happy. Very innocent and very happy. As every photo taken then of that skinny girl - short bob, hair kept neat by wraparound shades on head, berry coloured lipstick on, in fitted black and white Nike windbreaker - testified.
The mission trip to KL and Ipoh with Campus Crusade. Cold showers, shared toilets, sore throat for the better half, witnessing at TARC, their canteens and hostels, taking photos on the LRT, trying to be ahem, strong and insisting I can take my packed-to-the-brim Adidas bag myself on one shoulder and half dying on the (it felt) long walk to the bus deport. Oh, memories, memories, memories.
Sharing my testimony during a combined poly crusade meeting, witnessing to a monk and a lady in a wheelchair at the night mkt, prata downstairs from the service apartment where we stayed, the Methodist church we attended, going gate to gate in a neighbourhood in Ipoh, singing Jesus Loves Me to a little girl, happy that she attended the evangelistic meet we put up at the local church who hosted us.
Oh, memories, memories, memories.
Praying the sinners prayer with people. Going through discipleship booklet. Writing notes of encouragement to team members and receiving them. Gosh. Buying a pomelo at a night mkt near the only Ipoh shopping centre in the district.
Memories, memories, oh memories.
And now... this.
Melbourne.
O C F.
City Church.
Such passion, such unbridled passion and freedom and worship.
Oh, such fellowship. Prayer meetings and worship at home. Such fellow runners in the race. Such loved sisters and brothers.
Feb 10 2004 to Feb 5 2005.
Where again, my life was changed.
The sense of free joy, unbridled happiness and freedom is so real even in recollection. So sweet and good.
And gosh, so real. More real than so many other things.
------------------------------
After I had that thought and sat in wonder at that thought, aware at the back of my mind that it was not a wholly new thought, I wondered.
I'm 23 going on 24. When I was 10, I accepted Christ and gave my word to give my 100 percent for this God who loves me so much He died for me to make me new. When I was 17, that year studying at home gave me much time to seek God. It was also the year I went to Sydney, and - I can't be totally sure of the year here - Joshua 21 and I gave God "a blank check" for my life. When I was 23, and left for Melb, I left knowing that "missionary" means "sent one" and I was sent to Melb.
I didn't know that God would so utterly blow my mind in Melb.
And I didn't know that now, seven years after that blank check, I would sit here at midnight and wonder the same thought I had for two days and ponder if it is true those three episodes were really times when I was most free and happy.
And does that point to what I should do with the rest of my life.
Oh, big question. Such big questions.
-----------------------------------------
Then I thought calmly and rationally. I know for a fact that there were countless times in my life when I was genuinely happy, at peace, loving it. And there were other phases in my life that I remember as beautiful too.
Can I be justified in seeing the three mentioned episodes as those that stood out?
-----------------------------------------
I can imagine myself very happy, at peace and fulfilled doing something that seems a lot more clearly with God smack in the middle of it.
It's not that You are not right now, You know that.
But You also know what I mean and can't aptly put into words.
------------------------------------------
Is it true that I was happiest then, Lord?
Oh, I don't mean to even suggest that I won't be as happy again. That is untrue and I know it :)
The best years have not passed, they are coming.
----------------------------------------------------
Me, I am just wondering.
I wonder.
Yesterday, I was going through the stack of photo albums piled in rather undignified fashion on the top of my open concept black metal and birch shelves Ikea bookshelf (Yup, my room is quite decked with Ikea furnishings). Armed with a wet cloth, I climbed onto a stool and attacked the dust that had gathered before taking all those booklets and A4 sized albums down.
While I waited for you to come online, I sat on my white tiled floor and looked through those albums, placing them into little piles, roughly categorised Secondary Sch; Qi, Yiling, Shuhui and me; Poly and Bintan, both times; then the window of time after poly and before Melb, the period where I was adult, journalist and living the dream, in very real ways, no, I have not forgotten. Then there was that other window of in-between-ness... photos I didn't really know which pile to put in - that year when I took my Os as a private candidate, when I went to Sydney as a church delegate.
There were times when the face that was mine looked like someone I do not know.
Times when I cringed and silently went "gosh". Yes, there you go, I admit that. Hah.
Then, there were times when I could remember the moment when I took that particular picture, the smile, and the accompanying emotion that prompted that smile.
In Mayflower's (my Sec school) beige uniform, taking last day photographs with teachers and friends. The loosened counciler's tie, the shirt tucked loose instead of tightly, figure-skimmingly in like certain cliques wore theirs, the Hush Puppies socks (lol), before braces teeth (*cringes*), the short bob, and darn was I skinny or what....
The boy band photos (*laughs*), Mark Owen press conference, photos with Stephen Gately and Shane something and all that. Me gosh.
There were years when I looked good, and years when I was frightful, though my Mom is adamant that I was not. And I am still rather impressed with how skinny I was.
-----------------------------------------------------------
But I am perhaps taking a really long time to get around to a chief thought.
See, as pictorial memories flipped before my eyes and I remember the years that have gone before, one chief idea, impression, thought that first came to me was this - The happiest times in my life were the times when I could focus completely on God.
The Sydney trip, when I first experienced holy laughter and being used to minister to people, not to mention camaraderie so extraordinary, and a lifestyle with God so in the smack of it all, that I was so... well, happy. Very innocent and very happy. As every photo taken then of that skinny girl - short bob, hair kept neat by wraparound shades on head, berry coloured lipstick on, in fitted black and white Nike windbreaker - testified.
The mission trip to KL and Ipoh with Campus Crusade. Cold showers, shared toilets, sore throat for the better half, witnessing at TARC, their canteens and hostels, taking photos on the LRT, trying to be ahem, strong and insisting I can take my packed-to-the-brim Adidas bag myself on one shoulder and half dying on the (it felt) long walk to the bus deport. Oh, memories, memories, memories.
Sharing my testimony during a combined poly crusade meeting, witnessing to a monk and a lady in a wheelchair at the night mkt, prata downstairs from the service apartment where we stayed, the Methodist church we attended, going gate to gate in a neighbourhood in Ipoh, singing Jesus Loves Me to a little girl, happy that she attended the evangelistic meet we put up at the local church who hosted us.
Oh, memories, memories, memories.
Praying the sinners prayer with people. Going through discipleship booklet. Writing notes of encouragement to team members and receiving them. Gosh. Buying a pomelo at a night mkt near the only Ipoh shopping centre in the district.
Memories, memories, oh memories.
And now... this.
Melbourne.
O C F.
City Church.
Such passion, such unbridled passion and freedom and worship.
Oh, such fellowship. Prayer meetings and worship at home. Such fellow runners in the race. Such loved sisters and brothers.
Feb 10 2004 to Feb 5 2005.
Where again, my life was changed.
The sense of free joy, unbridled happiness and freedom is so real even in recollection. So sweet and good.
And gosh, so real. More real than so many other things.
------------------------------
After I had that thought and sat in wonder at that thought, aware at the back of my mind that it was not a wholly new thought, I wondered.
I'm 23 going on 24. When I was 10, I accepted Christ and gave my word to give my 100 percent for this God who loves me so much He died for me to make me new. When I was 17, that year studying at home gave me much time to seek God. It was also the year I went to Sydney, and - I can't be totally sure of the year here - Joshua 21 and I gave God "a blank check" for my life. When I was 23, and left for Melb, I left knowing that "missionary" means "sent one" and I was sent to Melb.
I didn't know that God would so utterly blow my mind in Melb.
And I didn't know that now, seven years after that blank check, I would sit here at midnight and wonder the same thought I had for two days and ponder if it is true those three episodes were really times when I was most free and happy.
And does that point to what I should do with the rest of my life.
Oh, big question. Such big questions.
-----------------------------------------
Then I thought calmly and rationally. I know for a fact that there were countless times in my life when I was genuinely happy, at peace, loving it. And there were other phases in my life that I remember as beautiful too.
Can I be justified in seeing the three mentioned episodes as those that stood out?
-----------------------------------------
I can imagine myself very happy, at peace and fulfilled doing something that seems a lot more clearly with God smack in the middle of it.
It's not that You are not right now, You know that.
But You also know what I mean and can't aptly put into words.
------------------------------------------
Is it true that I was happiest then, Lord?
Oh, I don't mean to even suggest that I won't be as happy again. That is untrue and I know it :)
The best years have not passed, they are coming.
----------------------------------------------------
Me, I am just wondering.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
01:00.
Over here, the world is blue at 726pm.
Blue with orange street lights scattering a soft dusty glow.
Blue like that envelope.
And yes, blue like we sometimes get.
As blue as every song sung and the emotion every songwriter languishes over.
As blue as... Smurfs.
Hah.
It is the first of March.
I meant to write this on the 28th of February but was caught up chatting.
Officially now, ladies and gentlemen, it was last month that I left Melbourne. On QF 9 on the 1710 flight to London, transit Singapore.
Come a few more days, specifically when the 5th strides around, I would be able to say that it has been a month since I left.
Do I still miss Melbourne?
Heck, yes, I do.
Over the weekend, on both days, there were moments when I crawled onto my bed and slept 'cause I didn't want to think. Or 'cause the thinking got too much.
Thinking, Missing - the two are still rather entwined within me at the moment.
But how am I?
I am good. At the end of the day, when all is said and done, even when I had days I won't classify as good or burst into tears during an Msn convo, I can say it is well with my soul.
And truth is, I am well. Despite the missing. Despite bad days. I am more than well.
I am good.
If God used Melb and its people to teach me to love and give in a capacity I never knew, again, leaving this place and people I love is teaching me a capacity to miss which I never knew I had.
So again, I am amazed. The realisation is painful, sure, but all things work together for good. And the truth is, I really have a lot to give thanks for. And the truth is, I know things are happening. And the truth is, God is good.
And I am doing good.
God is still so real.
I love my friends and touching base with them again.
I'm back in the music ministry, helping to check through our song book for accurancy, and slotted for keyboard, drums and for the first time ever, guitar duty this month.
Last Friday, I went for prayer meeting and prayed my heart out. Probably surprised people to have someone pretty much shouting - or praying really loudly - in real desperation but it's cool.
God is still so real.
Two, three hours sessions of praying, worshipping, journaling and reflecting and reading the Word have been a staple.
As much a staple as the Missing, which I don't believe in skimming over out of convenience.
Continued with the organising/ cleaning/ tidying up my room today. So many memories continued in semi-messy clusters round and about this about 3-by-3-metres room. From the cutest hair clips, many bundles of ribbons for my hair as a child, to receipts and memorabilia from my first mission trip to Msia in 1999, some health check form from the same year (I was once 18??), to offer letters from Mass Comm, from S P H, from my first company, to all the clippings of bylines and work.
The other day, I organised paperwork into files. I have a file for banks transactions statements, one for insurance, one for CPF and medisave and all that, one for get this, taxes, even though I have never made enough money per annum to actually be taxed yet. Being organised about these things... kind of feel... adult. How strange all these in such real ways too.
So many things around, so many memories, so many things which I had to decide to be clinical about and throw out (did I ever mention I filled up two big trash can sized bigs, u knw the black type, of clothes to give away?).
For some reason, I feel so... new now.
And that sounds weird, I know. And I can't quite put my finger or word processor on it, that feeling of new-ness, but it is there.
All things must pass away except the things of God....
His mercies are new every morning....
His love and mercy pursues me....
Knowing that I am in the arms of a loving God who is so close is why I have not imploded or expired.
3,500 miles is not too large a distance to contain my God.
Uncertainty about my future is not strong enough to overcome my Jesus.
My weaknesses do help me see how strong I can be through Him and in Him.
God is doing something in my life and I am just going to be putting one feet in front of the other, keeping my head up like the child of the King I am, praying, interceding, worshipping with my life, seeking to live for Him and through Him, and just loving.
It's all going to be okay.
It's all going to be more than okay.
And today, I am hitting that top shelf of my Ikea bookshelf where all the photo albums are. Gosh, how did You bring me through all that, Lord?
And yet You did and will do so again.
So yet will I praise You. Because You deserve to be so, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Always.
Always.
Over here, the world is blue at 726pm.
Blue with orange street lights scattering a soft dusty glow.
Blue like that envelope.
And yes, blue like we sometimes get.
As blue as every song sung and the emotion every songwriter languishes over.
As blue as... Smurfs.
Hah.
It is the first of March.
I meant to write this on the 28th of February but was caught up chatting.
Officially now, ladies and gentlemen, it was last month that I left Melbourne. On QF 9 on the 1710 flight to London, transit Singapore.
Come a few more days, specifically when the 5th strides around, I would be able to say that it has been a month since I left.
Do I still miss Melbourne?
Heck, yes, I do.
Over the weekend, on both days, there were moments when I crawled onto my bed and slept 'cause I didn't want to think. Or 'cause the thinking got too much.
Thinking, Missing - the two are still rather entwined within me at the moment.
But how am I?
I am good. At the end of the day, when all is said and done, even when I had days I won't classify as good or burst into tears during an Msn convo, I can say it is well with my soul.
And truth is, I am well. Despite the missing. Despite bad days. I am more than well.
I am good.
If God used Melb and its people to teach me to love and give in a capacity I never knew, again, leaving this place and people I love is teaching me a capacity to miss which I never knew I had.
So again, I am amazed. The realisation is painful, sure, but all things work together for good. And the truth is, I really have a lot to give thanks for. And the truth is, I know things are happening. And the truth is, God is good.
And I am doing good.
God is still so real.
I love my friends and touching base with them again.
I'm back in the music ministry, helping to check through our song book for accurancy, and slotted for keyboard, drums and for the first time ever, guitar duty this month.
Last Friday, I went for prayer meeting and prayed my heart out. Probably surprised people to have someone pretty much shouting - or praying really loudly - in real desperation but it's cool.
God is still so real.
Two, three hours sessions of praying, worshipping, journaling and reflecting and reading the Word have been a staple.
As much a staple as the Missing, which I don't believe in skimming over out of convenience.
Continued with the organising/ cleaning/ tidying up my room today. So many memories continued in semi-messy clusters round and about this about 3-by-3-metres room. From the cutest hair clips, many bundles of ribbons for my hair as a child, to receipts and memorabilia from my first mission trip to Msia in 1999, some health check form from the same year (I was once 18??), to offer letters from Mass Comm, from S P H, from my first company, to all the clippings of bylines and work.
The other day, I organised paperwork into files. I have a file for banks transactions statements, one for insurance, one for CPF and medisave and all that, one for get this, taxes, even though I have never made enough money per annum to actually be taxed yet. Being organised about these things... kind of feel... adult. How strange all these in such real ways too.
So many things around, so many memories, so many things which I had to decide to be clinical about and throw out (did I ever mention I filled up two big trash can sized bigs, u knw the black type, of clothes to give away?).
For some reason, I feel so... new now.
And that sounds weird, I know. And I can't quite put my finger or word processor on it, that feeling of new-ness, but it is there.
All things must pass away except the things of God....
His mercies are new every morning....
His love and mercy pursues me....
Knowing that I am in the arms of a loving God who is so close is why I have not imploded or expired.
3,500 miles is not too large a distance to contain my God.
Uncertainty about my future is not strong enough to overcome my Jesus.
My weaknesses do help me see how strong I can be through Him and in Him.
God is doing something in my life and I am just going to be putting one feet in front of the other, keeping my head up like the child of the King I am, praying, interceding, worshipping with my life, seeking to live for Him and through Him, and just loving.
It's all going to be okay.
It's all going to be more than okay.
And today, I am hitting that top shelf of my Ikea bookshelf where all the photo albums are. Gosh, how did You bring me through all that, Lord?
And yet You did and will do so again.
So yet will I praise You. Because You deserve to be so, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Always.
Always.
