Thursday, March 29, 2012
Start again
So this week has been crazy busy for me. I'm learning new things, insights and having different shifts of perspective and mindsets. But I do feel woefully inadequate for the challenges in front of me, like great big iron steel gates towering over me menacingly. Mocking me, that the small person that I am will never be able to climb and get past it.
On Tuesday, having challenges after challenges thrown at me within a span of 3 hours, I barged into my manager's cubicle declaring that
there must be an answer to everything. Even if I have to dig a grave to find it.
He amused me by listening to my problem for a while then gave me a few pointers and nudges and sent me off again to find my elusive answer.
Sometimes Most times I think he has too much confidence in me.
Today I met with a senior sales person who is highly respected by those who know her in the industry and as she shared her past experience and stories, I felt more and more keenly my inadequacies, my lack of experience, my limited knowledge and anything and everything.
Later I had supper with a colleague of mine after golf classes. He has always made me a little nervous as he has such high expectations over things and people. Towards the end he addressed and pointed out the weaknesses he saw in me, which were fair and true. I have so much more years ahead of me of learning before I can come close to the level of some of the people I deeply respect.
I remember the early days of being in this industry, crying as I never have, despairing as I never want to again. Then, my team lead shook his head and said the way I was going I'll never make it. Three months later, he nodded his head with satisfaction and said I was doing fine. Seven months later I was acknowledged with a Best Individual Performance award and a clap on the back from a team member that I deserved it. The latter was far more affirming than the former.
That was six years ago. It was never a pinnacle of a career I stood on. But I think I need to avoid making the easy mistake of looking back in the past and thinking it is anything that I can stand on.
Right now I feel I'm in the beginning of a new league season, a new game, and I've nothing to stand on until I bat and score some points before I can be a player of any value. The balls are whizzing by me faster than ever, I've had a few strikes and I've gotten nowhere except a few near hits or touches that wobble and stop short before I can get anywhere near first base. I feel I just need to grit my teeth and drive all thoughts of what kind of hits I've done in the past and what kind of hits I want to do to wow people. I just need to focus on being the best that I can with all that I have right here right now.
30. Start again.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Music and colours
I was in Sabah for a whole week beginning of the month, 5 days for a Christian workshop on
spiritual gifts and 2 days in the interior village for mission work with The Pastor. He has been involved with the indigenous tribes for the last 2 decades of his life, but this was the first time I've joined him on one of his trips.
The workshop itself was quite energy consuming. On the second day, someone said, "Its only been 2 days but it feels like a month!" And everyone agreed wholeheartedly. By the fourth day, on Thursday, I felt like a fever was about to overtake me.
It felt like the last 7% of my energy battery was running out and all I could do was wave to The Pastor's Wife who was with me on the workshop and barely spurted out, "James. Pray."
James is a pastor from Singapore with the gift of healing. He came over and they prayed for me. Half an hour later, everyone was running about the room and I was zooming past people (don't ask me why we were running) and waving.
Friday, even before the workshop ended I was whisked to the interiors to join The Pastor (The Pastor's Wife had to return to Singapore to rejoin their daughter). We had to go through two mountains to get to the village in a valley and I thought I was going to die in the first hour going through the steep windy roads through the mountains.
The indigenous folks were a crazy bunch. We would end and I at least (I'm sure the rest slept later) would be asleep about 2am or so and the indigenous folks were back up and about by 5am. They thankfully allowed their guest from Singapore to sleep in till 7am. I survived by taking 5 minute naps in between sessions on the bench. But boy, it
was hard going.
Sunday morning I was having problems as my body was stretched beyond its limit. By the time I got back to Singapore in the evening it was shutting down very quickly. I was incapacitated the next 3 days with cold, cough, a dehydrated and heaty body though thankfully the fever stayed away. I still feel the lingering weariness.
But man o man, the experience of the POWER of the Holy Spirit that week. Wow. I don't think that I have ever experienced anything that could compare with it. Even while I lay on the wooden floor in the village at 5am while the worship team was practising, I felt my spirit being tugged towards them. That I wanted to sing and dance in worship of God. Well,
the spirit was willing but the body was definitely weak!
Though I could hardly move when I got back to Singapore due to heavy meds as well, the spirit was soaring. When you taste the overwhelming presence of the Holy Spirit, when God moves and speaks deep within your soul, you know that nothing in life can compare to being in His glory. It isn't even about being at peace with yourself or your life, it transcends even beyond just
mere peace of a person. Peace in your heart! Hah! I scoff at peace! No, peace is emptiness compared to the
power of the Holy Spirit moving in the heart.
Peace is but an affect of God calming the turmoil of sin in our lives. But the power of the Holy Spirit, now that, is an
explosion of life that comes from
Life itself.
4 year old Ana, The Pastor's kid on one of her first trips to East Malaysia, perhaps had it right. They were in a time of worship and a touch of divine had come upon her.
She looked up to her father and said, "Daddy, I see music and I hear colours."
I think she caught a glimpse of heaven that is truer than anyone realises.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Comical sisters
I had 5 days of workshop in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia last week. A lot of different people from different places. The non-local delegation had a good time bonding together as we travelled between the hotel and the church everyday.
This two ladies were the only non-English speaking folks and so couldn't flow as comfortably with the rest of the group. But on the last dinner, a few of us sat with the Chinese speaking people and only discovered how CUTE these two ladies well and truly are.
Sister Lan on the right really stretched my Cantonese as that was the only language we were mutually comfortable conversing on. I never knew how good I was until she made me translate the conversations other people were making in English.
Sister Mirian on the left was really quiet throughout the week until the last dinner we had together. Then, she shared her experiences and it was WOW.
Sister Mirian has a very interesting gift from the Lord; the gift in spiritual warfare. What is most interesting is how God uses her in that area when she is scared of EVERYTHING. Sister Lan and I went for massage and we kept hearing her say, "I'm scared. I don't want." And eventually she chickened out of the body massage.
She didn't want to eat certain seafood because she was scared her body couldn't take it. She seriously seems scared of everything. Apparently she can see spirits, but because she's so afraid of them, she asked God to make her blind to them. She now can only see fuzzy shapes and senses them, but she can't see them clearly.
Both the ladies are in-laws, and they've travelled a bit together. They were telling us stories on how they encountered spirits along their trip. I missed out on certain details because The Pastor's Wife was trying to translate for me as fast as she could. Sister Lan is the complete opposite to her sister-in-law. She is talkative, outgoing and mm chai see (ignorant of death) person.
I can't remember how it got to it, but Sister Lan was telling a story about how during an evangelistic trip to Taiwan, there were spirits that were disturbing them. And Sister Lan actually RAN and chased the spirit around the area they were living. Or something to that affect. She kept telling us how mm chai see she is.
Sister Mirian on the other hand, while she is petrified of everything, what is interesting is that when the Lord tells her to do something, she usually gives a blank look and obediently says, "Ok!" and does it. There was once both of them were at Geylang, a red light district in Singapore, and God suddenly told her to run around a particular building. Why He did isn't too important since He has His reasons, so she said "Ok!" and turned to Sister Lan telling her what the Lord asked her to do. To be as inconspicuous as they could in doing the Lord's bidding, Sister Mirian said to her sis-in-law, "You chase me ok? I run and then you run behind me like you chasing me ok?"
Hehe... she cracked us up. I can't imagine these two old ladies running around a Geylang building and pretending to chase one another. *Slap head*
The Lord even asked her to teach a certain dance to the church, which she saw in a vision. She told God it was too difficult. She won't remember. He got angels to pose each step of the dance for her, which she then copied and posed and made someone else sketch her poses. He later helped her sort the sketches to its proper sequence. It was comical hearing her narrate and trying to imagine her striking some pose for someone else to draw.
I so get why God picked both of them for such a contrary calling, and putting them together as partners. I get why they both delight His heart so much! We certainly fell in love with these two ladies.
