Is it time to go...

I started writing this blog as a way of recording the 1.5 years I was supposed to be here.

Have I overstayed? Is it time to leave?

I no longer have very compelling reasons to stay on.

Something happened today that has made me ponder over this even harder.

"Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young— a place near your altar."

The Wrong Kind of Love

In the last 8 hours, I have talked to a divorced mother of 2 who turned lesbian, had lunch with a man who married twice, had a drink with a woman recently spurned and rejected by her husband, and got literally carried off my feet by a handsome gay man who got too excited talking to me about his holiday plans with his partner.

It made me wonder about love. Who's found it, who's lost it, and who is the happiest? Did the right way not worked out and the wrong way did?

When Jesus said "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends", he didn't try to be philosophical about love. Think of all the reasons for breakups and divorces and you'll only find a coward with a selfish motivation where love has failed to provide for the insatiable "how-can-i-be-fulfilled" appetite- finding a truer love, a better person, an ideal match, a higher feeling. Have they tried expanding their capacity to love, instead of changing their object of love whenever they hit a snag? Would finding that true love make love so easy and so unburdensome that you can skip your way to 'happy ever after'?

From the selfish coward to the unnecessary hero of love-"Unattainability" as C.S Lewis so eloquently put as the essential quality of love, the intense joy that lies in not having but desiring- celebrates the romantic masochist but had conveniently buried the rest who had their heart sick with deferred hope or hopelessness. Let us not forget that "unattainability" was also the same word that seduced Eve to disregard all that God has given but desire for what she could not have in the garden. Real love always hopes, always trusts and always perseveres.

Give me a real hero who will fight for his love in the real battlefield instead of the pseudo longsuffering romeo in his armchair.

Love is an act, a decision and a sacrifice. The others are best left in fairy tales and the cinema (and the bar that I've just walked out of).

When I woke up and saw the blue skies...

I know people use the topic of weather during small-talk, but when the weather change, I really feel my mood change as well.

We had a bout of warm weather yesterday. It was nicely warm and sunny, and it made me miss the beach. I remembered how there was no where else I wanted to be last summer, just the beach, beach and more beach.

It's not really summer yet, but yesterday's weather was probably a nice sneak. I was recovering, but still ended up doing a long walk in the morning, and another run in the late afternoon.

Today, I ended up still feeling a little under the weather, and while hiding under the sheets with my heater turned up, I'm wishing that I am rugged up sitting on the sand watching the waves and sunset instead.

Till another blue skies day...

Faith like a mustard seed...

If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, "Move from here to there" and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. (Matthew 17:20)

Mum was relating an incident that happened to her recently. One of her acquaintance told her about something she was praying for. Both my mum and her friend are not Christians.

Mum: "I tell you something incredible. My friend told me that she actually prayed to Jesus to grant her a job, and that this job be situated near to a Buddhist temple so that she drop in during and after work.. Can you imagine her shock when she really got a job, and there was a really huge temple nearby? And I don't believe she actually had the audacity to pray to Jesus about it. If your Jesus really did answer her prayer, he must be the most gracious God ever."

We laughed at how incredible it was and agreed that she owed Jesus a great deal.

However, Jesus did answered such a seemingly contradictory prayer; Mum was right, Jesus has to be a ridiculously gracious God to do that. She showed me something that I never saw from my own Christian eyes.

And her friend, though not Christian, knew which God to pour her heart's desires to, totally disregarded the probability of how this silly prayer will be answered and prayed with conviction for her prayer to be answered. She'll attest today that it was Jesus who answered her prayers.

As I was reading the above verse tonight, I ask myself how I approach God for His help. Too often, I fall into the tyranny of analyzing the contents of my prayer, if it was a prayer God will answer, if it's right to pray such a prayer, if I was 'against His will' praying this, if the answer likely to be a 'No', then I might not pray it. I've complicated prayer too much.

Come with faith like a mustard seed, and believe that nothing is really impossible for God, even silly ones. His graciousness is beyond our understanding.

Sick...

Finally succumbed to it... I've fallen sick.

Must be God's way of letting me mindlessly sleep in peace, and get some much needed rest.

I feel like a car right now - the only way to raise an alarm is when it refuses to move any more. Have been pushing myself in every aspect these days, popping panadols just to get through the day without calling in sick. Decided to get off work slightly earlier today to take a hot shower and nap through the evening. Feeling awfully chilly.

Time to sleep again. The car really needs a rest.

For a special person...

I still kept the few old sms that reminded me of how the friendship blossomed. This friend doesn't get enough mention in this blog, because it always seems like there are so many other opportunities to express appreciation.

Someone who has been with me, saw the highest and lowest, listened to me, laughed with me, and even after the many many days and months we shared together, I never got tired of spending time with you.

Friend, if you are reading this blog, just want to tell you the gratitude I feel when I think about you. Even in the rather low moments, my heart doesn't feel totally defeated because I know you are close by.

Thank God for bringing us together. I am really blessed.