Monday, July 09, 2007

Break my heart for what breaks yours...

I don't even know why I am hardly angry with the control freak in my office. If I know myself, I should be, even if it's not for myself.

But instead of psuedo-ly staring at the computer screen plotting how to exhaust the last bit of milk before she makes her coffee, my heart was turned to what happened during the weekend.

I was unintentionally thrown into a conversation with 2 friends. While it wasn't a bible-bashing session, I thought one of them was being rather unobjective, claming that a 'slick marketing ploy' was used to lure her into Christianity, and how she finally saw the light and got out of it. Who you choose to believe is your perogative, but re-pledging your allegience and biting the hand that feeds you during your down-time, and attempting to persuade others to think on your side is principally despicable. Of course, the other friend was happy to claim that there's no point in believing in anything, because doing good works will be her passport to heaven/happiness etc.

One day later, I bumped into a friend in church. This is a not-too-close friend whom I've been praying for his cancer to just leave. He's 30, newly married, and after a merry-go-round of ups and downs, he's been given 6 months to live by doctors. Even if I don't know him that well, it's surreal to have someone you know to be hit by news like this. I was in a 'no-you-must-be-kidding' stage, thinking that I'll see him well soon. He walked up to me, said Hi, and I asked him how he was. He told me that the doctors have all given him the bad news, but "I'm still beliving for the best and that I'll be well". At this point, I really do want to cry... I don't know where he got his faith from, why he's even in church, but I tried to maintain a happy face. I asked him what he's doing, and he was occupied with buying a new bible for his mother. I now know why the people who visited him came back and related his story with tears in their eyes- not the sad kind, but 'I-really-don't-know-where-he-got-that-kind-of-strength-from' type of tears.

Surely this sick friend has not placed his last bet of life and death on a marketing ploy, nor is he hoping to rely his hope for living by getting more good works done.

"Break my heart for what breaks yours...."