relief and rest

this week was absolutely great.

1. got my scholarship offer from nus. woohoo!
2. cleared ippt once and for all. pretty well done too, considering that i haven't done much training since bmt...
3. had lots of fun during unit cohesion. running 4.2km, playing soccer and prawn fishing at east coast park are things i don't do too often haha.
4. attended my first two driving lessons. i've only done daytona once or twice, so driving a car was quite the exhilarating experience.
5. got a new phone to replace my second-hand five-year-old phone which was becoming very uncooperative.
6. cleared my final theory trial test which makes me eligible for the actual one.
7. had a good talk with my parents about family time, and it yielded results.
8. churchwide bible study was very relevant to me and allowed me to get my bearings right again.

i'm sure it's certainly enough to make anyone leap for joy twice over. but it wasn't easy for me the past many weeks. i was on the verge of giving up on my faith and on everything else. i couldn't even feel my soul and spirit anymore, as though it had simply disappeared. a walking zombie, bitter and resentful, i was for quite a while. and worse still, i couldn't (or at least i thought so) find anyone to talk to in detail about it. i tried to handle everything on my own and i felt like dying. i mean if you've been a christian all your life, your parents are devout and you're always looked upon as someone steady in the faith, who do you go to talk about such issues? you would think that your parents would be appalled and threaten to disown you; you consider the possibility that spiritual leaders would start the preaching you've heard a thousand times before and obviously would not work in such situations; you guess that church members would just give you the "huh why oh okay" and probably not understand a thing after you've tried your best to explain what a nothingness is. and it's not failure to see logic or struggles with real-life problems you can talk about. it's simply spontaneous emotional and spiritual self-destruction. thoughts like "screw it, i just want to get away from all of this" kind-of-thing when nothing is actually happening on the surface.

i can tell you that it is far easier to pull through the toughest physical trainings or hectic days with a strong and positive spirit than to lead a seemingly worry-free lifestyle with a dead soul. it was plain torture for me for the past weeks. i didn't realise that my soul was getting killed bit by bit with every day i was too lazy to seek God and every time i was sharply challenged by my army mates, until it was too late and nothing just seemed to matter anymore. i didn't want to serve in ministry, i hated my parents' prayer meetings at home, i thought of every possible reason why my beliefs were so worthless and the list of !#$%^ can go on. simply put, i thought everyone thought i sucked, and i thought everything else sucked too.

by the grace of God, i managed to rediscover the 'initial love' for God which pastor kong was sharing during churchwide bible study. that started happening before this week, so it wasn't this series of fortunate events (haha.) that made me think "oooh God i suddenly love you so much just because you've been nice to me". it's something that came straight out of my heart and took me over, dismissed the negativity building up within me and scrubbed me clean of all the dirt and muck i allowed to accumulate onto my spirit. i don't know how it happened but maybe God thought that He'd stretched me enough for now and pulled me out of this horrible mess just as quickly as i fell into it.

so i went back to God and i tried to see things in a different light. i cried out and attempted to love a God i couldn't relate to anymore. i told Him i had enough of this walking on my own, and sure enough He came to my side and picked my tired, weary self up on His back. i really did set my heart on rediscovering my relationship with God, not because someone told me to or it was the right thing to do, but because i simply had to do it. and in those kind of situations, meekness, dedication and humility are at their best because now you're so desperate for anything to hold on to. He then swiftly cut all the binding chains that were slowly pulling me apart and nursed my bruises. i realised that life must really be walked with God. and somehow, all things did indeed work together for good to those that love Him, to those that are the called according to His purpose.

well we've all heard before that what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. and in future i'd better tend my vineyards properly first, before anything else.

-.

i'm deeply convinced that inner peace can only be achieved by constant meditation to the realisation of God's purpose in whatever we do, and that whatever happens in the future shall and can only be a direct consequence of what happens now.

when i'm faced with an identity crisis

Who am I?
That the Lord of all the earth,
Would care to know my name,
Would care to feel my hurt.
Who am I?
That the bright and morning star,
Would choose to light the way,
For my ever wandering heart.

Bridge:
Not because of who I am,
But because of what you've done.
Not because of what I've done,
But because of who you are.

Chorus:
I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I'm calling,
Lord, you catch me when I'm falling,
And you've told me who I am.
I am yours.
I am yours.

Who am I?
That the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love
And watch me rise again.
Who am I?
That the voice that calmed the sea,
Would call out through the rain,
And calm the storm in me.

Not because of who I am,
But because of what you've done.
Not because of what I've done,
But because of who you are.

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I'm calling,
Lord, you catch me when I'm falling,
And you've told me who I am.
I am yours.

Not because of who I am,
But because of what you've done.
Not because of what I've done,
But because of who you are.

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I'm calling,
Lord, you catch me when I'm falling,
And you've told me who I am.
I am yours.
I am yours.

Whom shall I fear
Whom shall I fear
I am yours..
I am yours..

some rely on their reason to find the meaning of life. reason tells you that you're nothing more than dust before and after this transient existence. i just refuse to believe that. simply because i know in my heart and spirit that i can't possibly be just dust tells me that we are not, unlike the plants and animals of this earth who live to die. surely we're more than that. we are the children of a great God, and i look to Him.

a process

sometimes i ask myself, why isn't there any end to all this - my pains, my troubles, my difficulties? things just seem to get harder and harder. when it isn't physical, it's mental. when it isn't mental, it's emotional. when it isn't emotional, it's spiritual. i've long stopped deceiving myself that there'll be a time on this earth where people, places or events seem perfect.

i can go on and on about the shortcomings of my environment, but somehow i'll get lost for words if you ask me to count my blessings. why this inclination towards criticism? maybe it's because we're all wired as human beings to strive for progress. i like to think that people who are mature in this aspect usually follow up with actions on their criticism to make a difference for the better. others just do the first part and forget about the second - not a very good thing to go around destroying what you don't like and leaving the place in ruins. it'll perhaps be wiser to build something more ideal out of the rubble.

having said all that, i think some amount of destruction should still be necessary to leave room for creation. beautiful cities couldn't be built without first clearing the land, great empires couldn't have come into existence before smaller civilisations were conquered and assimilated. now i come to my main point - a better person can only emerge out of challenges in life. hardship acts as a huge sledgehammer that break you down bit by bit. during that process, the pain can be almost unendurable. and you cry out for help for someone to put you back together again... as God does it, you realise it's all part of His plan.

daydreaming

I can really get lost dreaming about the future sometimes, especially when my life now isn't exactly anything to cheer about - it's just the same old routine everyday. Yet, thank God I have opportunities to read at work. At least I live vicariously, and more importantly, slowly shape my worldview reading the newspapers, books and magazines. The world out there is simply so exciting, hurrying me to finish my term in NS. ORD faster come!

Just a great quote I found in Newsweek: It doesn't matter where you come from, only where you're headed. Inspiring? Haha.