Friday, October 16, 2009

a stirring

I'm beginning to feel a stirring within my spirit..for the past few weeks, I've felt the occasional susurrus of words longing to spill on white pages. The feeling is like a sliver of moonlight falling on water, so soft and light. I've only just begun to be conscious of such stirrings.

I long to return to writing. The last I wrote was about 5-6 months ago..pretty long. It's been quite difficult lately because of work and ministry. I'm usually busy several evenings, and during the ones that I'm not, I'm quite exhausted and I'll start to nod off at 10.

Dare I take the step to realize my dream of becoming a writer? I was asked, "What do I see myself doing for the rest of my life?" Leading a cell, or doing ministry, is an answer. I can imagine myself leading a cell group for several years and yet not wanting to give it up totally. Sure, I'll get tired many times, but I know I'll persevere because I love doing it. Writing is another thing that comes to mind. I know that if I did nothing but write for the entire day, I'd still feel happy and fulfilled.

There are so many things that are pulling me back from achieving my dream - but I think that the only one that is really holding me back is myself. My fears about my writing ability, and my survival, are stopping me from turning my dream into a concrete structure.

Written at 11:53 PM

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Thursday, September 24, 2009

writing writing

Wow, it's been almost a month since I wrote in here. Well, lots of happened since then...most of it is really just reflections on what kind of career I really want, my passions and where I want to be in life in the next coming year or so.

By nature, I think I'm a rather restless person. I get bored easily and when that happens, I tend to look for stimulation outside, rather than trying to find creativity in the current things I am doing. I suppose in whatever job I do, there will be elements of mundaneness - so I need to find some way of reviving my interest by doing things differently, maybe.

Year is coming to an end soon. Should start planning for the new year. Off the top of my head, the few things that I will focus on next year is writing (be it short stories or my novel), cell group and my office CF. Those 3 things should more than suffice. Prayerfully, my cell group will multiply by Q1 next year. It's growing at a rather slow pace, but I'm sure God will bring in the harvest. :)

A really great thing to note is the near completion of my X Evangelism Explosion (XEE) training. It was a pretty grueling training (12 weeks of classes) and several on-the-job training (aka Connect Activities). But it was a very exhilarating experience of learning a great way of sharing the gospel. I think more than that though, it stoked my passion in evangelism. Am really excited in training some of my cell members in XEE as it really is comparatively the best method of sharing the gospel.

Written at 10:10 PM

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Thursday, August 27, 2009

Holy Spirit session in Alpha

Today was an awesome Holy Spirit session during Alpha. After the dvd talk on Who is the Holy Spirit, I talked a bit about how Jesus has promised us an abundant life. When we accept Christ, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But many of us just leave Him there in the living room of our hearts. He becomes just a guest, when He really should be the Master of our lives. Have we given him the key to every room in our heart? Or do we keep some areas tightly locked under our control, thinking we've got everything taken care of.

If we want the abundant life that Christ has promised us, we need to give the Holy Spirit the key to all the rooms in our heart, and surrender to Him sot hat He will be the master. I issued an altar call, and a lot of the non-CF members raised their hands. Some people prayed for one of my colleagues, who started to cry. At my end, I prayed along with a girl to rededicate her life to Christ. There was also another colleague who recognized that she couldn't let go of everything to God yet. But I can see the passion inside her; she just doesn't know what to do with it. When I prayed for the baptism of the Holy Spirit though, the former said that she didn't feel anything. Haha. I was crushed (a little), but then, it is the Holy Spirit who convicts. And a true experience of the Holy Spirit is more than just an emotional physical experience.

There's only one day left of the Alpha Course. It's really exciting and it looks like our CF has grown much bigger.

Written at 10:58 PM

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Sunday, August 16, 2009

women's bodies

I hate the self-righteous manners in which people claim their "rights" over women's bodies. Women's bodies have been made into public property whereby people (both men and women) think they can claim ownership over them by dissing or sexualizing them. When rapes happen, people look at how a woman dresses. Flip through a magazine, watch a movie or tv ad, you'll most likely see hyper-sexualized women. They're so sexy - they doesn't even look real anymore. Plastic sex on humans.

If a sex video or naked pictures of women leak out, women always get the flak and are gossiped about as "loose", "slut" and a whole bunch of derogatory terms. There is no equivalent of those terms for men. A man's reputation is barely dented, compared to that of a woman's, if his naked pictures or sex videos get out.

See a woman in a bikini - and a bunch of self-righteous people (who are most likely women - ironic, isn't it) question her morals. What is this obsession with women's bodies? Why are women's bodies equated to her morality? There is no such equation with men, so why women? Personally, I am sick of such shallow people who think they can judge women just based on the way they dress up their physical body. A body is just flesh - the real person lies within that body. People who can make such judgments reflect their inner person, showing just how "high" their morality is.

Women's sexuality have been controlled and manipulated for far too long. I for one, am very tired of it and wish that everyone would just grow up.

Written at 11:32 PM

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Saturday, August 15, 2009

Alpha Day Away

Alpha Day Away was great! Although there were only two non-CF members, it was awesome to see one of them grow spiritually through the Alpha Course. She's becoming more and more passionate to know God; a bit like how I was when I first accepted Christ. For my other colleague, just praying for the Holy Spirit to convict her heart and open her eyes to see the truth.

It was just really good getting together and knowing each other outside the office. I felt quite relaxed and it seemed almost like a holiday trip (because of the lovely greenery and swimming pool, I suppose). The Holy Spirit was present with us throughout the event and I believe that this is just a start of it.

One thing that struck me was when Steven said that the Holy Spirit should be in the driver's seat, we should be in the passenger's. Recently, I admit that I've been in the driver's seat and placed the Holy Spirit in the back seat. Perhaps that's why I've been so tired and stressed out lately. This was a timely reminder for me to take a step back and just let the Holy Spirit control and guide my life - to obey His will rather than to insist on following mine. It's difficult. But then, why stress and try to control things so much when really all we should be focused on is following God's will and leaving everything to Him.

Written at 11:06 PM

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Monday, August 10, 2009

Song: Why do I still stay?

This is the first song I have ever written in my life. Don't try to read between the lines too much - just enjoy the song as it is. :-)

Why do I still stay?
I go to sleep alone
You call and kiss good night
My paper dreams crash and burn
I look for you, but you're not here.

Chorus
Why do I still stay?
You can see the cracks in my heart,
The marks you left behind,
Tell me why we can't kiss and part.

Why do I still stay?
You promise you will sing for me,
I try to sing along with you,
But there is only silence to be.

Verse 2
Tell me my crime,
Shoot me first, ask me later,
Did you kiss her good morning?
Held her close when you woke her?

Bridge
With kisses you lied to me,
Sweeter than angels' tears,
I wanna fight alone,
Save myself from fears.

Chorus
Why do I still stay?
You can see the cracks in my heart,
The marks you left behind,
Tell me why we can't kiss and part.

Why do I still stay?
You promise you will sing for me,
I try to sing along with you,
But there is only silence to be.

Written at 11:10 PM

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Thursday, August 06, 2009

Penang trip

I'm feeling bored. Restless. My trip to Penang with my cell friends was good. Found out that I have pretty high tolerance for long-distance driving; actually drove back from Penang to KL for 5 hours with only one break in between. Also discovered some quirky things about some of my cell friends.

There was one really funny quarrel about money. I thought that the seven of us could sit, calculate the toll cost per person and just dole out the payment then. It came out to RM27.74 per person. Naturally, John the accounting student rounded it up to the closest which was RM28. I thought it was pretty reasonable. But then, Jin felt that it wasn't right and asked "Why not just discount the 74 sen and each person can pay RM27?" He got quite worked up about it and thought we were trying to make profit. And John and I were trying to explain that mathematically, RM27.74 rounded up is RM 28. Anyways, we didn't want to make a big deal of it and I just handed everyone RM1 back. Geez...was quite a silly argument. Haha.

Also went to Monkey Beach, which had no monkeys. We took a boat there. It was raining rather heavily in the morning, so we were praying like crazy for it to stop raining. When we got the beach, the rain subsided to a light drizzle, and we were optimistic enough to buy a trip to Monkey Beach (RM43 per person). When we got into the boat, the rain started to pour again. Waves got choppy and the boat man thought it was best if we headed back to Batu Feringghi and wait for the rain to subside. Was quite tempted to stand on the boat, hold out my hand and say "Wind and waves - be still!" After all, Jesus did expect His disciples to have faith in the power He had given them to command the wind and the waves. Read Mark 4:35-41, especially verse 40: He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?.

In any case, I didn't do that. Haha. Me of little faith. And anyway, the Bible says we're not to test the Lord our God. I prayed though..and just a few minutes after heading back, the rain stopped completely and we just continued our journey to Monkey Beach. It's a pretty nice place - though there are no monkeys and no corals or pretty fish. Just lots of oysters, crabs and snails. My cell members caught some poor snails, suffocated them in a plastic bottle, intending to cook and consume them upon reaching our apartment. We never did - just ate a ton of chips instead.

We had a great time. Snapped lots of pictures in me and my new white bikini, which unfortunately got stained pink by the bright red life jacket I was wearing. Sigh.

Another conflict occurred again in the evening. We were pretty tired after a long day at the beach, shopping at Gurney Plaza (bought gladiator-like sandals), eating fantastic Taiwanese beef ball noodles at Gurney Plaza, and a horrible supper at Gurney Drive. Gurney Drive has really terrible food. Ordered fresh cockles and I could only taste mud in each cockle. Urgh. I'd have better chance of finding and cooking my own cockles. Played pool after supper - John-Aidan won five games in a row. Tsk.

Later that evening, there was another fight. Was looking for a peaceful relaxing holiday and my sheep are just clawing at each other's throats. Sigh...so anyway, John wanted to go out with a friend of his and Jin. Abby wanted to follow. But John and Jin gave all sorts of excuses like "We're going to a 'dangerous' place" and they promised to take her elsewhere some other time etc etc. In the end, they must have tricked her, disappeared and left her alone to walk back to our apartment unit. I was quite upset for them pulling this on her - was wondering why on earth couldn't they have let her join them. In the end, they came back rather apologetic; I confronted them and John said that he had told his friend he was only bringing Jin. They apologized to Abby and all was forgiven in the end. :-) I just felt like a mummy the whole time, complete with nagging and waking up at 3 am and all. Haha.

Written at 10:59 PM

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