Journey mercies

I felt the calendar new year started with the right foot forward and the Chinese new year did not disappoint either!!!

But since CNY this year fell on a Monday, no celebration at all beside last Sunday at Shanx2's place. I don't really mind.

I was telling somebody about some classes I've been taking up and she asked me in an awed voice on where I find my energy to do all of that! That was the first time I paused and took stock what I've been packing my days with and realised last year I would have been incredibly daunted to do this much, but this year I've just eased into all of it without thinking.

I'm still quite impressed how God has helped me to make specific new year's resolutions and make specific plans around those and helping me to follow through it all.

And rather than find myself tired out from a hectic week, I actually feel quite energised overall! Except when the alarm goes off in the morning.

We had a Chinese New Year lunch today after morning service at the Coach House by the ever hospitable Hong Kong Shanx2 and China Alex who prepared amazingly good Chinese food. Yum.

After lunch I went for a walk by the Thames with girlfriends Marianne and Anna followed by cakes.

After evening service I had a long chat with two visitors in church who I got along with relatively well.

I went home feeling happy and refreshed with a day full of interactions with people and realising how important it is for me to plan my week to make sure there is a strong balance between social interactions and quality alone time.

I've been in my present company for about 8 months. Because I can be a bit of a withdrawer, but also because I can get quite intense when I'm fixated on something, and because I am also a bit of a perfectionist and I am very goal-oriented, throw all that in together, and you get an irate person if you tried distracting her from her work with pointless social interaction.

I've often been criticized in all the companies I've been with (just a few) that I'm aloof, that I can be snobbish, that I need to build on my teamwork a little more.

I wonder why my critics didn't realise if there was any particular reason why I was not as friendly to them as they think I should.

But I will have to admit, I've never been as aloof as I've been with my present company before. Maybe a big part of it is that it's a different culture and people and I'm still not fully confident to be the extrovert I can be with them.

My job scope has changed a bit, and though they were sure more or less they would give me the additional responsibilities, they still made sure they followed formal processes and made me go through an interview. The managers in the interview was concerned because the additional responsibilities required a lot of interaction across the business, and after 8 months, their perception of me is still one of me being introvert and shy in building up relationships.

Could I cope with managing people the question was, especially bugging the people to give me what I need done.

I could have laughed at the question. Some ex-colleagues would attest that I have no problems with that. The only time I regretted being too aggressive in getting things done was when I marched up to a chief executive's office because I thought the manager who reports to him was sitting on the job, only to have the manager walk in in the middle of me explaining to the executive why I was in his office, with the papers of my request in her hands while her eyes spoke volumes of censure at me for undermining her.

Well, they didn't employ me to be a salesperson and gently wait for processes and people to take their natural course of time.

So anyway, I guess I convinced my managers that I was aggressive enough for the job, so my current role now has a wider scope and I'm happy.

But today there was a company meeting, and seatings were free for all. Not having established strong and widespread friendships yet, I was left to find a seat alone at the start of the meeting and I felt like a poor little schoolgirl with no friends in high school. :(

No matter how assured I can be to get a job done, at the end of it all, we're still human beings in need of affirmation. Sigh.

But as the meetings progressed and with breaks interspersed in between, we kept changing seats, and I was glad that for the rest of the afternoon, even when I found a seat by myself, the people I was closest with sat all around me and kept me from feeling like an outcast. I quite nearly felt loved, if it was ever possible!

Lesson to self: some amount of social interaction apart from work in the office isn't all that bad an idea.

How is it that life can be so busy without you really realising it?

Work has been much slower pace since my last job in Malaysia, but still no less busy! Sometimes I am dead bored and feel my will to leave sap through the cracks of slow moving time. But when I start to moan ever so slightly, I am reminded to be thankful to have a job in times like this. Especially a job outside my own home turf. God's blessing has been numerous.

It has also given me the time and energy to pick up other things. I'm again thankful for the Lord to help me sit one afternoon to decide to do different things this year, learning new skills and new hobbies and helped me to actually follow through with it though I was tempted to just forgo it and slip back to my comfortable pattern of last year's life.

I've since met new people, learned new things and have a fresh shot of adrenaline running in me! Nothing like adrenaline.

I only recently realised that I've had to contend with huge learning curves in the last 5 years, with change of jobs, new environments and new people dynamics. And last year, the learning curve slowed a bit and I was not used to it. So now that the learning curves have picked up again, I'm a much happier person!

In between classes, work, church activities (which is certainly much less and balanced!), I'm also learning to squeeze in time to read books (I've already started on my 3rd book for the year!) and even in the small minutes in between work have squeezed in some revising of lessons. I'm having an unexpectedly good start to the year that I'm quite happy.

But as always, my problem is I have poor skills on multi-tasking and relationships is once again not doing all too well. I don't spend as much time with friends anymore, and trying to squeeze in as much alone time as I can (thus more blog posts).

I'm glad that during working hours and being stuck to the computer as I do, it has allowed me to have good chats with friends across the globe, and I think that that has been feeding me with my interaction needs. I can't chat with too many people at one go, usually only person at a time, so I'm actually glad things has worked out that I chat with one of them in the mornings, another person in the afternoons, and sometimes catching some time with another person in the evenings! The three people that have been absolutely essential to my well being for the last one year plus! Without these three, I think I could be half mad by now.

Anyway, life is good! :)

Labels: Friends, Musings

Yesterday evening I felt a little tinge of unwellness. Tired, slightly dizzy and slightly nauseous so went to sleep quite early. Even though I had close to 10 hours of sleep, I still woke up this morning a little late. Late meaning by 3 minutes.

But the bus was late by 5 minutes. By the time it came, there was a huge crowd at the bus stop. By the time most of the people got on board, it took an additional 1 minute than quieter days.

Then the bus insisted on stopping and letting all other vehicles go first in the narrower lanes. Oh yes, it was raining as well.

When the bus finally inched closer to my stop, I could see my train arriving. Got off the bus to rush to the station and nearly (by nearly, not really all that nearly lah but enough for drama sake) got run over.

That still didn't stop me. I wanted to catch the train, so kept running. Only for another car to splash cold puddle water all over me. Lucky this morning I decided to wear a waterproof jacket rather than using an umbrella. But my jeans was thoroughly wet.

And I still missed my train by 10 seconds and had to wait for another 30 minutes for the next train.

Sigh.

In order to deceive the universe, I told people I have maxed out on bad luck, so the rest of the day must really be super good and let self-prophecy be tricked. It didn't do too bad. I actually ended the day well.

Labels: My stupid moments

Three months ago I struggled with my understanding of prayer. I understand less of it than I do 11 years ago when I followed after God. Today, give me a blank sheet of paper to write what I do understand, I'll give that blank sheet back to you as my answer.

I have learnt in the last few months to unlearn things. Habits, preconceived notions, even teachings of the Bible received in earlier days. I know less today, and yet in the same paradox, know more.

I've had so much thoughts as many people would, in the last number of days, particularly of the controversial war in Gaza. I wish I could let my opinion be heard, but admittedly the opinion is changing day by day. The voice of loudest protest the world has comes from a desire to deny God's rightful sovereignty and righteousness and my instant reaction would be to shout back louder lest they think that by the might of their voice proves the righteousness of their condemnation.

Fie!

But I sense a brand of silence, and the one message that has been repeated to me for days is 1 Peter 2:21-23 - To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

It is not just to my boiling opinions that the Gaza war has precipitated; it is also to other personal experiences that this verse has been addressing.

Jesus' closest friends betrayed Him, abandoned Him, denied Him. He was flayed, flogged, left to die, and He did not retaliate but prayed for their forgiveness. What I begin to feel, is nothing compared to the loneliness of Jesus' suffering. What I begin to suspect, is nothing compared to the eventual gloriousness of the new heaven and earth when Jesus' work is complete.

What do I know about prayer?

Nothing.

Who am I to tell God how to do His work? What do I know that I should ask for God anything, when He knows better than I do what is good for me? If I claim to trust in His goodness to provide (Romans 8:28, Ephesians 3:20) then what can I ask for in prayer except but to give thanks? For be it good or bad, there can only be days filled with joy for me (James 1:2-4).

I can no longer associate prayer as an activity of asking. I am slowly associating prayer as an activity of aligning with God's will, even if I don't understand it.

I can't pray for the Gaza war to stop. Just as I cannot pray for the suffering in Darfur to stop. I can't pray for the unrest in Nepal to be calmed, I can't pray for order in Afghanistan to be restored, I can't pray for Myanmar to be freed, I can't pray for Robert Mugabe to be struck down by lightning.

How do I pray for peace for war torn countries when whether I pray or not, it is God's intention for peace to reign in all the earth!

I can only pray for my willingness to hear and obey, to be ready to follow as God unfolds His will especially when it leads me to the valley of death.


Matthew 16:21-25 - From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"

Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

We sometimes pray and expect God to follow our requests. But we are meant to follow Jesus. Sorry, I won't pray for the war in Gaza to stop. But I will pray that if and when I am to be used as an instrument of peace, I will obey and respond.

There will be disagreements to my opinion. There will be opinions that I am over-religious. I won't justify myself. That is God's brand of silence.

Labels: Musings

I find it interesting that in the one year plus I've been in the UK, kids have dominated a lot of my time and energy.

I live with two of them, every Tuesday I'll play with my church elder's kids during homegroups (sometimes the mom tells me to settle down and if I want to play, to go outside the kitchen), every Thursday is with the kids in the youth work, Saturdays used to be spent with the kids in the park not so since I returned after my trip in Malaysia, and Sundays it'll be all other kids.

This afternoon, when I was walking back to the flat, I saw a few kids playing outside the church. As kids here can be a little more destructive than kids in Malaysia, I started talking to them and asked what they were doing.

After awhile, I found out that they have been attending the Saturday football games at the park and they were killing time until it started so I told them they could come in with me and hang out in the flat instead. I very quickly found out that all three had not had their lunch (it was 1.30pm) and were planning to play football without anything in their tummies.

I've come to accept not to question what kids around my neighbourhood backgrounds are and what kind of family life they have, so I proceeded to knock something up to fill their tummy. Shortly after that I joined them for a short while in the park and another one of the girls who is familiar with me asked for chocolate biscuits.

I was reminded again why I should be grateful the doorbell to the flat isn't working.

These kids can be really encouraging and you think we've got great hope for the future they bring. Sometimes they are just plain pests. But really, whenever I look at them, I just wonder at the kind of future we're influencing. Hopefully, some of them could look back on these days and acknowledge we did make some sort of difference, even if we would never know if we did or not.

Some weeks back, I visited a church where the congregation was predominantly Chinese people, and Malaysian too. The speaker was a black guy, who I watched with a tinge of doubt when he got up to the pulpit to speak. But the moment he opened his mouth, he assumed an unexpected confident and assured mien and spoke with conviction.

He started his sermon by holding out an apple and he asked the congregation what they saw.


Congregation: Apple!

Pastor: Really? What else?

C: Err... fruit?

P: What else?

C: Food! Red apple! Creation! Nourishment! Apple seed!

P: Come on, I know you guys can do better. What do you see?

C: Apple tree!

P: Who said that!? Thank you!! Most people see this on my hand for what it is, but you saw the potential possible what this small apple had.


The pastor proceeded to continue with the rest of the sermon with a prayer. What particular stuck on my mind was that he prayed that our spiritual eyes may be opened to see His truths and ways beyond the obvious. Incidentally, the person who said apple tree was the senior pastor's wife.

His sermon was about how we fail to see people and events and the future opportunities and potential it could bring. And because we fail to understand, we fail to anticipate and fail to encourage the future potential to come to pass.

It brought to my mind how different things could have been, if I was not criticized for being bossy when I was a teenager when I was helping out with the school Christian Fellowship, when I could instead have been encouraged that I had the potential for leadership, but good leadership meant tampering with the desire to control, the desire to give orders, the pride to be acknowledged as good and efficient. That good leadership meant humility, the first to serve, the last to be given affirmative praise, to have the skill of encouraging people to rise and meet the needs of the people.

How different could it have been, if someone did not see an annoying person craving for attention and using inappropriate ways to get it, and instead saw a hurt and fallen sinner whose heart could be transformed through God's grace and be used far more greatly than a person who never knew what it meant to be in pain and in need, and embrace the broken-hearted with comfort and understanding.

After all, which parent would look at their new-born baby only sees a small person with no abilities to feed and fend for itself? Most would see future presidents, doctors, astronauts, movers and shakers of the world.

Perhaps this is what it truly means to have the gift of prophecy that Paul wished everyone of the Corinth church had! My life as a Christian really begun to make sense only when I was sat down by Bro O and was told what were the strengths he saw in me, the weaknesses, and the possible things I could be doing for the Lord.

What difference it makes, this lesson of looking beyond the obvious and interpreting people and events with the understanding of God's Word and His character.

Labels: Musings

To the dear friend,

I'm glad I risked betting on a RM150 I did not have, in absolute confidence that I would not lose a RM150 if you came with me to the camp.

I'm also glad God made sure I wouldn't lose RM150 that I did not have, and that you did not know I did not have RM150 and would not be able to honour my promise for a long time after that.

Funny how our friendship started from RM150 and is now invaluable. Funny because you were the last person I wanted to say yes to the camp at that point of time. :)

Labels: Friends

Someone once mentioned that the first time he saw me, it was in a church camp, and I was by myself and the first thought that came to his mind was, "There's a withdrawer."

Another friend also mentioned that I would often appear in the midst of my own world even among crowds and he attributed it to the youngest child syndrome.

Sometimes I feel that people around me looks at me, but doesn't see me. Most times I feel the stare of disapproval boring down on me, whether existent or not, simply out of habit. So sometimes, I feel as it doesn't matter whether I'm there or not, and/or to avoid being disapproved, I withdraw into my room, my inner sanctuary, my world. Although, most times, it's also because I enjoy spending time with my own thoughts and entertainment, be it the laptop or books.

Last week, a friend mentioned several times that she found that I always seem very certain of myself and of my beliefs, and very much in fact, compared to most people. It's how I never seem to be in doubt of my Christian faith, how I'm quick to state what I like and dislike. Example, someone asked whether I would help to usher during the evening services and I immediately said no (giving him a bit of surprise). I don't do two things in church as a rule, usher and wash dishes. Not because I'm lazy, when it comes to church, my forte is interacting with people. Not being stuck in a corner hidden away.

I am a person of extremes.

On one hand, I have an innate need in me to interact with people, and yet, I am also afraid of them and would like to withdraw from them completely during interval periods. But I find that also gives me the time and space to reconsider my person, how I influence others and how I am being influenced.

I am a person with an amazing amount of self-confidence, at times bordering arrogance. But in the last few months and maybe even year, my self-doubts has been more aggressive. And in the last one a half month, it quite nearly overwhelmed me.

But I think there's a need for these tensions to exist in our lives. It pulls and stretches us that we are capable for more. Friday night I found myself in one of those stretching exercises which was more painful than usual until something in me snapped and I muttered a grumpy, "Oh shuttup,"
to the insidious nagging doubts in my head and just like that, peace settled back in.

Sometimes it isn't about jumping over hurdles, just kicking it aside.

Labels: Musings

The BBC weather forecast was showing positive news of a warmer week ahead. It's been so cold last week and there was even snow early Monday morning.

Yesterday was supposed to be quite warm and sunny, but when I looked out of the window in the morning, it had snowed!!! Bah. I canceled all grand thoughts of going out and getting some chores done.

Today it apparently is as warm as they predicted (between 6-10 degrees) so I'm finally getting my arse going and go get my groceries done if I want to eat. Which honestly, I'm tempted not to. Convenience tend to overrule sense sometimes. But because that will leave me starving tomorrow as well, I'll just have let convenience take a backseat for now.

Do I see skid marks on 2009?

Busy. Getting right stuck into work. Should be going to bed now to face tomorrow.

Met a cuuuuute Malaysian girl at church yesterday. She's like this little pint-sized cutey (who's probably waaay older than me). When I first heard she was looking to join the church I felt my territorial claws coming out because I wanted to be the only Malaysian around. I also get annoyed when people assume that just because I'm Chinese, I naturally want to be close to Chinese people. Most of my closest friends are not Chinese.

But I met Penny and fell 'in love' with her nearly immediately. Found out later that we had lots of indirect links that helped us connect at a greater level. I'm excited that she's joining the church now!