The dark shroud

The dark shroud that veiled my mind got lifted up. I feel hope arising in my heart once again. :)
I'm Thankful.
A heart operation. It seems. A replacing of the jaded heart with a young heart. Being able to dream once again makes me feel alive. Makes me feel liberated.
Realise there are different options to go by.
Realise I'm not stuck in my situation.
Realise that I need not live in defeat.

Christ has brought light and He is victorious.

Each day is a daily surrender of ones thoughts to the Cross. The Cross life, comes with pain. It also comes with joy and liberty.

I pray that this remains!

While I'm waiting

My sis bought the Fireproof DVD, and I watched it yesterday with my mum.
I kinda liked the movie, though I found the front part a bit preachy.
But there was a question asked- who would be able to keep loving, and get rejected? It was a good reminder of Christ who loved us while we were sinners, and He has kept loving us.
It brought to mind the question of what Love means, and what loving someone really means.
I liked this song, cos it really spoke to me.

While I’m Waiting
Psalm 5:3, 27:14, 33:20, 37:7, 38:15, 40:1, Isaiah 30:18, Lamentations 3:24
John Waller

"The explanation for this song is simple, I was waiting on God and I was hurting when I wrote the lyrics. I probably wouldn’t have written a song if my friend, Mike, hadn’t encouraged me to document what I was going through during that time. I’m sure there are few people who can’t relate to this song, but the important thing to remember while we’re waiting on God is to not just wait but to actively wait.
Serve, worship and be faithful with what you have, where you are… “even while (you) wait.”

I’m waiting
I’m waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I’m waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience

While I’m waiting
I will serve You
While I’m waiting
I will worship
While I’m waiting
I will not faint
I’ll be running the race
Even while I wait

I’m waiting
I’m waiting on You, Lord
And I am peaceful
I’m waiting on You, Lord
Though it’s not easy
But faithfully, I will wait
Yes, I will wait

I will serve You while I’m waiting
I will worship while I’m waiting
I will serve You while I’m waiting
I will worship while I’m waiting
I will serve You while I’m waiting
I will worship while I’m waiting on You, Lord

I could not love thee, if I loved not honour more

Just a short continuation to the previous post...
Read more of C.S. Lewis's Four Loves, and one statement caught my eye:
"I could not love thee, if I loved not honour more" by a poet.

At once, I could grasp the parallel. That I could not love (X), if I loved not God more.
Loving X, is because I loved God much more.

C.S. Lewis says that it is not exactly christian to love with a protectionistic stance.
"We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him, throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken and if He chooses this is the way in which they should break, so be it."

This is a certain sort of liberation I think. To think that it is more of the "smallness of our love for God, not the greatness of our love for the man, that constitutes the inordinancy."

It is true that someone said.....God knows all our desires. The key is not to deny those desires. It is to surrender the desires to God.

I hope I'm making sense, and that I didn't misquote C.S. Lewis in any manner. His book is too "chim", and its hard to actually express in totality the points that he brought out.

Love and the Pain of Leaving

Should I or should I not love?

"Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies ... the pain of the leaving can tear us apart.

Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking."

Henri Nouwen

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

C.S. Lewis

Whether it is choosing to love someone in a relationship, or to love someone in ministry, it requires one to be vulnerable and to give of oneself to another. Sometimes...we grow tired in ministry and disillusioned and jaded, cos we have given, and it's painful when what we have given is perceived as unreciprocrated. Or we have given, and it seems like there is no point in giving. We then numb ourselves so as to hide from the pain of rejection. We pretend that we don't care.

One thing I realise though, in order to love others properly, we ought to know that we are loved by God, greatly precious and valued by Him. Because we have the right perspective of ourselves, we know that we should be treated rightly by others. And to learn to say no, when boundaries are crossed. To love oneself enough to be able to say no.

Its such a thin line to thread on though. When is loving a person enough? How does one know that one has crossed beyond the boundary, such that loving others becomes harmful to oneself? I guess....when loving others becomes a means to receive love, rather than being able to love out of a sense of security of who you are in Christ. Does it make any sense?

The Invitation

I found this poem on Irwin's blog and I really liked it, so here goes:

The Invitation
- by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Doing some merciless thinking

Heh...I have been kind of missing from my Blog for some time =) Shall post some thoughts here...
I guess I have been pretty distracted by some issues for the past 2 weeks, and the complication keeps going round and round in my head. Another thing- Fear abt the future, has made me feel rather incapactitated. I am after all, quite a "feeling" person, and often my moods affect me much more than I really hope them to.
Though, during this time, I treasure the deep and comforting presence of God & His Spirit more than ever. If He is all that I got, I cling on to Him.

Watched Watchmen today. Not the type of show that I will usually watch, but watched it with a friend cos he wanted to watch it. And it actually turned out pretty good!
I liked the part whereby the miracle of life was being described by Dr Manhatten. He says it is like air turning into gold. Indeed, the preciousness of life.
It was depressing looking at all the crime scenes. I also thought about justice and who determines justice? What happens when justice ends up in the hands of people? Individuals have their own sense of right and wrong. And something is wrong when you take matters into your own hands, because in the process of seeking justice, you end up like the very people who are performing the attrocities.
It speaks also of the hiding behind masks....that we all do. Its easier to be a superhero behind a mask. We all wear masks, its easier to do that then to deal with whats really on the inside.

I'm kind of like sleepy so I hope that I am making sense.

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Work hasn't been that busy, and in the quietness of the office, I actually (gasp) have time to reflect and to think. The ironic thing is that sometimes thinking about issues is so scary that I've not managed to think too much. Its stressful to be on the reactive mode all the time- as I had been doing for the past 9 months or so. And when the dust settles down, and its just me, and the computer and the quiet office, the silence sometimes scares me. Forces me to really think on the inside, what really really should be done. And in the silences think about my own life, what I really really want. And then to pause, and realise, gosh, God- where are you in the picture? What do YOU really really want with the ministry and the work?

Without a vision the people will perish. There is no hope when people are like just moving round and round in circles. And I feel that even though it is painful to face the truth sometimes, it is important to mercilessly do some thinking about issues and life. Then.....we can move forward and deal with them...

Thankful for the guidance of a few people here and there to support and show me the way. Maybe the above, doesn't just relate to work, but relates to ministry, to relationships...to everything in life. =O
That quiet place of aloneness. To redefine oneself over and over again....
To face the fears on the inside.
To not be afraid to deal with the darkness.
And this thinking...I'm afraid, only happens in solitude, when one is alone....When the distractions and fearful thoughts are put away, one thinks clearly.

Of Rainbows and Covenants

Saw a beautiful rainbow in the sky on Wed night. =) What a sight! It caused all the shoppers along Orchard Road to pause and take photos or look at the Rainbow.
We city dwellers don't get to see much of other beautiful natural sights!

Rainbow is a sign of God's Covenant. We also make covenants with people in relationships. What does a commitment and a covenant entail?

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Watched Slum Dog Millionaire on Wed. My goodness....the kind of conditions that the kids went through, scavenging for rubbish in the slum areas. Same conditions I recall at Cambodia, at Philippines. And I see these kids begging for money when I am a tourist in different cities. We think some of these kids are scums or thieves or pitiful, but we hardly see them as individuals. Each with a past, a family and a story.

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Learning to love people. When I say I love migrant workers, what does this mean? Or when I love people in China? Etc. etc. I find that I need to have more love. How is it that it is so difficult these days to share my faith with others or to pause and talk to them. How do I move from seeing the multitudes to seeing the indvidual? How do I move from pity to love?

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3 interns in the office have been a blessing. 2 of them are from RGS, tho they are 8 years my juniors. heh. I feel like a girl gang leader, going for lunch with them etc. I miss peers in the office. But thank God for providing 3 of them to help out with work. They bring so much cheer and hope into the office.

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Felt a bit down today. And I met J, one of the volunteers. She started asking me abt the work in Aceh. I was feeling overwhelmed by problems in the ministry (esp Aceh), plus other personal issues. Wow, and God provided me with someone to talk to. She prayed with me.
Next thing another partner called me and also shared words of encouragement with me.

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So yeah, I definitely believe in rainbows, and God's covenant love. He has shown me so much of His love through work in GB. May I learn to love, as He has first loved. To love Him, to love him, to love her, to love myself.

Resonance

That elusive sense of restedness, as one gets bombarded by emails, calls and deadlines.
It comes when I realise that I am loved & secured & known.
And...this is what I have been searching for. ;p

When one is secured, one loves others better. As the lenses are no longer coloured, and one is able to let go and allow others the freedom of expressing themselves. Even if their behaviours are different from yours.

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I have been enjoying long walks at Bedok Reservoir and ECP. I like to be next to the water, to see the glistening reflection of the moon or the sun on the waters. Most of all, to talk freely about God, nature, books, songs. Bliss is when the deepest heart cry resonates with another.

Taking a pause

heh haven't been blogging for awhile..
Work is building up again in the office as March Holidays approach, and there are multiple teams going to do community service.
My email inbox is flooded again with loads of emails!
The thing is, the more busy I am, the more I find difficulty in concentrating on each task, and the more I want to chat with people, and do other interesting things. ;P

Life is a little overcrowded with so many things! And this sounds like a line from many of my other blog entries.

I was sorting my pile of letters on Monday and as I was filing something, I stumbled across this certificate of acknowledgement from Singapore Children's Society. And then I recalled during sec 2, I was in the interact club and I made weekly trips to Bukit Merah to give tuition to a pri school girl. Had to walk for a long time from the MRT and climb up a slope of stairs. Remember buying her stickers and sweets. That triggered memories of me in sec 3 and 4 when I went to Jervois Special School to teach the youths there as well. :) I bought marbles to teach counting. We also did craft work with them. Heh..

Its good to remember the meaningful things you did. To pause and take stock of life. Otherwise its just continuous running and running.....

Alrighty, back to my running............

Gentle Kindness

Today I experienced the kindness of some people. :)
And I thought of how this is a glimpse of God's love. And the Holy Spirit who guides me gently. The tenderness of God's love :)

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Few days ago while I was walking, the wind wrapped around me. And I thought to myself, "I was embraced by the wind". It was nature/or God's way of loving me :) The sun, the breeze, and the sky above me.