Life can be so unpredictable... you may make plans for the future but one hard ball thrown at you can bring you spinning all over you're at a lost on what to do next again. My company provides good medical care for its workers. Last year, they allowed all employees to go for a full-body medical check-up. Why? Coz they strongly believe in "Prevention is better than Cure". Just like many of my colleagues, we thought is was a great opportunity to get ourselves all checked up to give us a few more years of peace eating that slice of meaty burger or chunky pizza! But what we didn't think of is the fact that reports may not be so great, and with no excuse for ignorance, we might end up cutting those pizza and burger days short!

Ahh.... life!

It's funny how sometimes God tests us on what we commit so blatantly. I was reading the passage about the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus told the people to give an eye for an eye, but instead to go the second mile when people make you go one mile. Just today at work, I had a scuffle with a colleague early in the morning. This colleague of mine made me go one mile with her on something that I thought wasn't my job. I was quite annoyed by it as I had a lot on my plate as well.

It was until later when another colleague came to tell me that I had answered that particular colleague quite loudly that I remembered what I read last night. There and then, I decided I would help her. But it didn't mean that I was all happy to go the one mile too! After performing what she requested, I was told to do more. My anger flared up instantly and I had to quickly fan myself out quickly before I blow at her face again. Thank God for His strength to control myself and also His favor, to be able to complete all the tasks without any more trouble. Going the extra mile isn't easy. But there is still work to be done, and I am just hoping that tomorrow will be a better day!

Reflection

Little is said when life throws you a tough ball. To appear strong, we would rather bury ourselves further in our misery, to which we know at some point will lay us bare and probably kill us (not literally, but perhaps emotionally), rather than face the truth and proclaim it out loud. If there’re no secrets of the past, the past can’t haunt you.

I just watched a TV show that made me realize how much I belittled a thing of the past. Now this thing did not happen to me, but to a friend of mine. Back then, there were those who were angry and hurt and sad about it, but I couldn’t seem to have such strong emotions within me regarding that. Perhaps my mind is wired in such that I have to see it to fully understand it. I usually rely on graphical images when I study, so maybe it’s the same way too when it comes to other things. After watching the show, I am now filled with anger and wish those people responsible for my friend’s predicament will rot in hell.

And to my friend, I’m so sorry that I wasn’t able to feel what I was supposed to feel for you when you needed me to. But I’m glad you did not choose to hide it from me.

The Battle in My Mind

A friend of mine recently sent me an email with an interesting story that went like this:

In a small town, a person decided to open up a brothel, which was right opposite to a church. The church and its congregation started a campaign to block the brothel from opening with petitions and prayed daily against his business.

Work progressed. However, when it was almost complete and was about to open a few days later, a strong lightning struck the brothel and it was burnt to the ground.

The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, till the brothel owner sued the church authorities on the grounds that the church through its congregation and prayers was ultimately responsible for the destruction of his brothel, either through direct or indirect actions or means.

In its reply to the court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection that their prayers were reasons for the act of God. As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork at the hearing and commented:

"I don't know how I'm going to decide this case, but it appears from the paperwork, we have a brothel owner who believes in the power of prayer and we have an entire church that doesn't."

It’s interesting to note how this story speaks to me as a Christian, I often pray to my Father for something but when it turns out to be something more than what I had bargained for, I begin to question if it was actually a result of my prayer or mere coincidence. I have prayed for many things, big and small in my 24 years of life, and often God gives them to me, sometimes as I had hoped for , and sometimes not as I had hoped for. It is often these times that I accept my answered prayers with reluctance. And who’s to blame, for I was the one who asked for it. There were times when I even rejected it out of fear.

In one of the seminars in the course Battlefield of the Mind, the speaker, Joyce Meyer, urged her listeners to ‘think about what you are thinking about’.  Often we have thoughts running through our minds, but not all these thoughts are necessarily healthy and promote a sound mind. Therefore we’ll have to constantly pause and think about what we are thinking about, and figure out if that thought is from our own critical thinking, or our own imagination, or whether it is from God, or from the devil.

When I think about the times when I chicken out of God’s promises because I let fear get the better of me, I regret it. But it’s not to say I don’t battle with negative thoughts or fear anymore. I still do. Everyday, actually. And each day is a tough battle.

 

 

Life Ponders

The past week has a been a rather eventful one... firstly because it was also Chinese New Year, and I got to experience working in the office with just a few people and was really tempted to just sit back and relax and enjoy the air cond... but alas, my conscience said otherwise! I am proud to say I did work as much as I could under the circumstances :D Secondly, I revisited KK and am once again convinced that I wouldn't mind going back there again! Thirdly, an incident happened that made me realize how unpredictable life can be. But over the mountains and the sea, I saw the magnificent hand of God at work in my life and those around me, and in Mother Nature.

 Life is short... one day u're fine, the next u're not... whatever life throws at us, live it to the fullest.

 Be like the rock that stands firm in adversity and the water that adapts its path to find its way to sea.

Here's a toast to better days.

A Barbie Fashion Fairytale!

　

The show was short and sweet and many people enjoyed it. I heard that the casts were flown all the way from US. Great job ppl! The stage was awesome... that’s what I liked most! I’ve missed stage shows and can’t wait to catch another one! I’m glad I’ll be going down to Melaka for one next week and I hope it will be way better than this! ROC here I come!

           

The 3 fairies being "flari-napped" (their word for kidnaped)



Barbie looking for the 3 fairies and asking the kids for help... I kinda like it that it was an interactive play.



The main cast: (from left) the 3 fairies, Elis (Barbie’s clothes designer), Aunt ??? (some big name Parisian designer from Barbie world) and Barbie.

The highlight of the play was not a ball, or a prom, but a fashion show! Elis graced one of her designs by parading it herself.

And for course the star of the fashion show is Barbie.
Duh~!

And as all fairytale goes, Barbie meets Ken and they live happily ever after.

Never in my the world had I thought that I would actually watch a Barbie musical and enjoyed it. But I did! LOLs.

Christmas has passed and it was time to go shopping for new year! My mom and I went to Queensbay to do some shopping coz we realized that we had not paid a visit to the grand sale yet, and it will be over soon!... so, on that fateful day, we went to shop... but lo and behold, when we arrived, we noticed banners concerning one “fashion fairytale”... and my mom recalled reading it in the newspaper that it was “quite interesting”... as we neared the center court, little girls were all dressed up and dolled up as little Barbies and had their pictures taken. And I realized that the Barbie musical would be on that day and the little girls were joining the Barbie contest.             

Now if I had went there alone, I wouldn’t have bothered. But mom was kinda excited about it and wanted to “go have a look”. I tagged along behind and was thinking that we’ll just take a peek and continue walking. But that peek lasted about 30 minutes!

Well, just so you get the idea on how it was like... here are some pics :)

An early Christmas Gift

God is great. God is real. God can do wonders.

100 copies of newly photocopied Myanmar song books sit in my study room right now. I’ve just brought them in from the printers yesterday and spent an hour or so folding them into little booklets. I’ve not finished them all yet—maybe around 50-80 more to go. They are thick and hard to fold, but looking at them makes me marvel at how God has brought this entire thing about.

You see, the idea of taking up this project began when I was taking a shower after work. I recalled my pastor, P Dan, talking about how simple it is to bless the Myanmar church by providing them with songbooks for their services. I visited their church once and found that they were lacking of song books. And because they are not very well off, and the song books are thick, it was probably very costly for them to print a book. But as many ideas go, this idea was just an idea... floating around in the air, waiting for someone to catch hold of it and put it into action. And so, I decided that I would be that person to bring this idea into reality. And because Christmas was coming, I made it my goal to have the books ready in time for Christmas.

I SMS-ed P Dan and told him of my desire. He was delighted and said that he would borrow a copy of the song book for me. That was a Monday, the 15^th of November, exactly 40 days to Christmas day. By Tuesday, I had the book in my hand and was ready to get things going! I started typing on Wednesday and found that the task was more complicated than I had initially thought. Due to the difference in language, I had some trouble with the spelling and how the words form from one to another. As a result, it took me longer than expected to complete typing out a song.

As the days went on, and December arrived, it dawned upon me that I was running out of time. Just when I was beginning to panic, Lydia came forward on Saturday, 4^th Dec to offer her help. Apparently P Dan told her I needed help. I wondered who told him about it as I never shared my difficulties with him before, but that was exactly what I needed!  However, Lydia would not be around that week and will only be available the following week, which was the week before the Christmas week. I thank her for volunteering and set about getting some 50 songs photocopied so she can refer to them and type them for me when she comes back from her holiday. At the same time, I bucked up on my own typing to cover for all the lost time before. Lydia came back the following week, I passed her the songs on Saturday, and she had them typed out and mailed to me by Tuesday, as she understood the importance of getting the books ready by  Christmas. I later found out that Samuel helped as well. Those two were a great blessing indeed. By Wednesday, I had all the songs compiled and printed the very first copy. I had some trouble with the printer and the ink; the fonts and page alignment were incorrect too. I had to print several times before I got the final copy right. But due to the many error trials, the ink was running out and so the final copy came in colours of blue and red and whatever colours in between! The alignment was not perfect too, but I was too frustrated and tired by then to print another round.

Next, I had to decide which Photostat shop to go best to get my books photocopied. Since the master print was not in perfect order, I felt it was important to go to a good printer to help me straighten things up. After consulting with my mom and dad, my mom suggested a shop at the back of a row of shops in Kelang Lama. I didn’t know which shop she was referring to but promised to take a drive around the next day to check it out.

On Thursday, during my lunch break, I brought the master copy to the shop, selected what I thought were the best and worst pages and told the man in the shop to print a copy. He cautioned that the red ink might be a problem but said he’ll try anyway. He did and it turned out almost as nice as the blue. Then I told him about the page alignment problem, and he said he’ll try to adjust it for me. He did a sample and I found it satisfactory. I asked him about printing the entire book, having it stapled and bind with a thicker cover. He said he could do it. And I thank God I had gone there that very day and not one day late as I had earlier planned, because he was going to leave town the next day. If I had been one day late, I would have missed meeting such a wonderful man! He said he could complete the 100 copies before he left the next day. I asked him to calculate the cost for all 100 copies and was shocked when the figure came up to RM 303, and he immediately said, RM 300! See, when I first started on the project, I made a mental dedication of RM300 to the Lord for it. But as the project progressed, I realised that RM300 would most likely take me only as far as 50 copies of the book. However, after consulting with the Chairman of the Myanmar Church, Peter, P Dan had told me to print 100 copies! I was a little dismayed when I heard the figure, as that would mean I have to fork out double my budget.

When the master copy didn’t turn out alright, and when I was contemplating on whether or not to just go ahead with the printing, regardless of how it turned out, God spoke to me through 3 John 1: 1-8. I repented of my initial thoughts and decided to check the Photostat shop out first. If it was not satisfactory, I would re-print the master copy and do whatever was needed to get the books done in good order. I told the Lord, if it has to be so, let it be so. I had expected about RM 500-600 for the 100 copies, and so it was a really pleasant surprise when the man told me RM300, the exact amount that I had dedicated to the Lord for this project. I sang praises all the way back to the office.

I collected the books on Friday, and was delighted when the man offered to carry them for me to my car. He is indeed a good man. May God bless him and his family and save them from the grasp of the devil! After work, I began the task of folding the 78-pages-thick books. It was hard work indeed, but a joyous one nevertheless! Tomorrow, I shall have to finish folding them all before sending them to P Dan to bring them to the Myanmar church. I’m sure the church will be blessed. I have already been blessed. I’ve seen the hand of God at work and experience his provision first-hand once more. Thank you Lord for this early Christmas gift!