yet another day of memories...
yet another day of memories...
yet another day of memories...
(meant to be lighthearted)
1) Salon-pas is my good friend which I use more often and find super effective
2) Memory starts failing.. beginning with I can't remember to do things
despite knowing I have something to do,
then gradually moving on to not even remembering that I have something to do
3) I start getting more stiff muscles and recovering from them is at a much slower rate
4) The pores are getting larger, and harder to conceal
5) I feel droopy
6) I start planning for retirement and considering how much I have in my CPF,
whether to purchase annuities etc
7) I start dreaming about buying my ideal home
8) I start losing track of my age numerically
9) I seem to be unable to survive on lesser sleep
10)I am out of touch with the IT world (twitter???)
7/30/2009 11:21:00 PM
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Some of us may already think we know what is our final destination,
only to have it change as we drift along the path;
some of us are still travelling along the road,
moving on but not really sure where we want to travel to.
Sometimes, especially when we are tired,
we feel that we are travelling along the path alone.
That no matter how I could share with other people what I am going through,
no one truly understands. It’s at times like that
when I get reminded of the story about a single pair of footprints.
Footprints (Margaret Fishback Powers,1964)
One night a man had a dream.
He dreamed he was walking
Along the beach with the Lord.
Across the sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene,
He noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to him, and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of his life flashed before him,
He looked back at the footprints in the sand.
He noticed that many times along the path of his life
There was only one set of footprints.
He also noticed that it happened
At the very lowest and saddest times in his life.
This really bothered him
And he questioned the Lord about it.
"Lord, You said that once I decided to follow You,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that
During the most troublesome times in my life,
There is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why when I needed
You most you would leave me."
The Lord replied, "My precious, precious child,
I love you and I would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
When you see only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you."
Many times, I have felt alone,
but gradually I have experienced that God is our silent companion
who is with us throughout our trip, being our source of strength
from whom we draw the energy to push on despite life’s pains and sorrows.
Yet at other times of this road trip called life,
we find fellow travellers who, like on a group tour, imposes their itinerary on us.
This creates an unseen pressure to conform or to give in.
I often get criticized in life, for the clothes I wear, for the choices I make.
And more often than not, the criticism affects me and draws me down.
In times like that, I have learnt to fight back, to stand firm
on the belief that I am God’s child, loved by our Lord
regardless of whether the world accepts me for who I am.
Psalms 139 Verse 13-16 expresses this belief beautifully:
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
However, knowing that God is there for me
throughout simply is not enough.
With all of the questions that we have and
all the things which are thrown at us in life,
it is hard not to just despair and let it all go.
How then do we hang in there, and form a life that is not only fulfilling
but also one which we know we can account to God for?
In my search, here are some truths which I have gleaned and
I pray will bless you in some way.
1. Build our faith on what we know, and not just on what others know
What is faith to you my dear friend?
Is that the mere belief that Christ is your salvation or what exactly does it entail?
To me, faith is everything,
the basis of why I have a relationship with God.
It’s what makes me be and remain as a Christian.
It’s everything I know about God, and the basis of what I know about Christianity.
“Faith is like electricity, we cannot see it but we can definitely feel it”
Feelings vary from one person to another.
We can describe to another how something feels to us
when we touch it or when we experience it,
but the other cannot fully appreciate how this feels to us.
This is what faith is to me.
It is something that we ourselves feel as we journey with God
and then we ourselves build on.
We cannot live a faith that is built by others’ experiences,
because then your relationship with God is not yours to begin with.
You are living it through another person.
Often, our understanding of Christianity and
what it means is dependent on the people around us.
Some may say that as Christians, we cannot wish others good luck,
but rather we should say “God bless”.
Another example is that we Christians cannot mix around with non-believers
because they may stumble our faith.
And the list goes on and on about what we are taught about
what Christians should and should not do.
Who dictates this?
Your church pastor? Your cell group leader? Your Christian friends?
Not that they are bad sources. But we as humans are exposed to our own bias.
To really know what our faith is based on, o
ne should not be reliant on another’s teachings
without really digesting what is being said.
We need to take responsibility for our own faith,
instead of absorbing blindly like a sponge
all that is said about Christianity and what it entails.
If someone tells you today that Jesus loves the gays but hates the gayness,
question that. Interact with the person why that is said, and pray.
Is the teaching that of the Spirit, or of man’s interpretation?
The bible is a good source of where we can build our faith.
However, even the bible has various levels of understanding.
To blindly take it at face value is dangerous and incomplete.
To fully grasp what is being taught,
one must question and consider the various levels of interpretation.
Have you ever questioned why we must learn
the Pythagoras Theorem & Binomial Theorem in Maths class in school
when we never seem to have a use for it?
Well for that you have no choice because you will be tested.
However, when it comes to your faith, that’s different.
You have a right to question what you are learning,
because ultimately you are accountable to God.
To quote Mark Jordan,
"Texts do not interpret themselves.
They also don’t apply themselves to moral problems.
Even detailed legal codes require judicial application,
because there is a conflict of rules, or a dispute over interpretation,
or a set of facts that do not fit neatly within any of those the code provides.
The diverse scriptural texts require greater feats of interpretation
before they can be applied to the moral difficulties of daily life."
Likewise, Dale Martin too states,
“The text cannot interpret itself” and “the Bible doesn’t actually talk”,
but meaning is derived through the process of interpretation.
“Human beings are necessary for meaning to take place,
and we can experience no interpretation without human agency.”
We need to understand that no process of interpretation can be devoid of biases.
Who we are, our personal histories, our social contexts,
our religious upbringing all shape how we interpret the bible.
We need to approach Scripture with a critical eye
and see it for what it is, and what it is not.
Likewise on a macro-level, our faith of who Christ is
and what He stands for must come from our own understanding
and interaction with God, not merely what others tell you who God is.
2. Live our lives as the Spirit leads, not just as how others tell you to
When I first became a Christian, I was told that I could not offer joss sticks to my ancestors anymore because that was idol worship.
Wearing jeans to church is not respecting God.
I obeyed the rules, but I did not feel any peace. Instead I felt alienated.
Ever question what you were told by other Christians to do?
Sure, they may support their beliefs with bible verses, but again,
question whether that is of Man’s interpretation or of God’s commandment.
God gives each of us the Holy Spirit to help us discern what is right and what is wrong.
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
When doing a certain thing, are there the fruits of the Spirit?
When I first came to terms that I am a lesbian Christian, I shunned away from God.
Not because God told me that I have failed Him as a gay person,
but because people around me told me I am a sinner, not worthy of God if I don’t change.
I made bargains with God to turn straight, but I could not.
I wanted to have God but I was left struggling with who I am
and walking away from Him for a couple of years.
Even after joining a bible study group that studies
the reconciliation of the bible and homosexuality,
I still could not find the peace within.
I kept wrestling with God until one day I heard a voice saying clearly,
“I am here waiting for you. What is holding you back?
Is my grace not enough for you?”
That was what freed my guilt and as I continued
on my spiritual journey with God as the Lord’s child,
I began to see more of the Spirit’s fruits in my life.
It made me realize one thing. Often, we beat ourselves up;
making ourselves feel guilty because of what others deem is right and wrong.
We think that if we want to please God,
we need to do this list of reading the bible,
praying, attending church & cell group, evangelizing etc etc.
We cannot be gay, we cannot be pregnant single moms, smokers etc.
Are these expectations of a good Christian birthed of God or society norms?
I am not saying go ahead and do everything because God’s grace covers you.
But rather, whatever that you are doing, is it drawing you closer to God?
Does it give you joy,peace and bear all the other fruits of the Spirit?
Can you go to our Lord and say “God, this is who I am in my entirety.
Take me and use me as I am.”
God sees us more clearly than anyone else or even we for that matter can.
If you are struggling with something, you think God cannot see it?
He does, and He grieves with us when we cannot cross that particular obstacle.
We need to know that sometimes we beat ourselves up more than what we should.
God does not give us more than we can bear.
Sometimes we need to move beyond people’s judgments and
just let the Holy Spirit do the work.
If there is any conviction to be done, let the Spirit lead you to change.
Don’t be something that you cannot be simply because people expect that of you.
3. Unite with God as one, not just as each having responsibility for ourselves but also being loving to the people around us as we are one in Christ’s body
And while we are each responsible for our own journey of faith building
and living as the Spirit leads us to, let’s not forget that
we are all travellers together on the same journey of Christianity.
God epitomizes love.
As I mentioned earlier, life is a long journey,
and love is present to make the journey a lot more bearable.
Love, as we all know it to be, cannot be done alone.
It requires a love-r & a to be loved.
No one can love alone, and similarly, as Christ called us all to love,
no Christian can ever exist alone. E
ven as there are moments that we may truly feel alone,
in the long run, we as humans need people to love and support us
so that we can travel the longer road ahead.
We need to be our Lord’s support to one another,
and learn to treat each other with the love that they deserve.
While love does not mean condoning another’s actions which we deem is wrong,
it does involve respecting that the other also has a view
and sometimes having to learn to agree to disagree with another.
Loving the other is not to be self-righteous and deem that the other is certainly sinning
when he or she does something we don’t think is right.
It’s not to adopt the view of “love the sinner, hate the sin” and to try to put the other right,
but loving the other is to learn to simply treat the other as a friend,
an equal who is also loved by God, no less than how we are loved.
Despite the differences that may arise because of our different faith beliefs
and the way we lead our lives, we need to always remember that
together we form the body of Christ.
From a micro-point of view, as individual separate parts of the body,
we each have a different perspective of what we need to do, and what the other parts should do.
However this is also the same for everyone else.
We all may very well have different ideas on what everyone else should and should not do.
Amongst the diversity that we have, we all need to learn to unite with God as one.
We need to find common ground despite the differences and that common ground is love.
While we may show love differently,
let’s always remember what love entails as stated by 1 Cor 13.
<1>
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
In concluding, we need to take responsibility for our faith formation,
realizing that each bit of faith building comes
from our own understanding of what God stands for.
This faith formation then leads to the life we will lead in the Spirit.
While people around us can be influencing factors,
they cannot and must not be our sole shapers.
We individually must together with God shape our own faith beliefs
and determine the way our life is to be led.
And as we give the people around us room to have their growth,
we must also be there to interact and form the right faith building blocks.
We do so not in a self-righteous way, but in love,
for God is love and it’s God that unites all of us as one in His body.
As His body, we know we are not alone, and we have each other for support.
The theme for today’s service puts it clearly as to how God has intended for us to be,
not alone, but to be equals loving and comforting one another, as we journey together.
“Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead
Just walk beside me, and be my friend”
7/11/2009 11:42:00 PM
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Feeling super wooszy
Such are the after-effects of flu med
Feeling super incoherent too
Went to the doctor again today
after the flu went from bad to worse
compared to last Thursday
Ended up with 2 days MC, stronger med
& 1 huge dose of antibiotics
Plus lots of scolding from the doc
who used the analogy of hungryness
to illustrate why i must eat medicine regularly..
You don't eat when hungry,
now end up more hungry
then eat more
Dots.. i also want to eat
But how to eat when your medicine blurs me
And I can't work effectively..
Where i put the dot between the numbers can make a huge difference
And errors cannot be tolerated ya
But alright, am rambley
feeling cranky too
I dislike getting doped up
I dislike not feeling well even more
7/02/2009 12:37:00 AM
Dreams
To be out and open
Independence
To be totally Christ-like
I believe that:
Courage is not an absence of fear
but the willingness to face up to the circumstances in spite of the fear.
Desires
A Pair of Pretty Sandals!
CPA! Achieved!
Investment Guru
dislikes
creepy crawly "things"
Unnecessary politics
Goals
get driving license
start my own business
to create my own hedge fund
older memories
my past journey