What did God do before he created the Universe?

I saw this question in my facebook news feed a few weeks ago. and I can never forget one of the answers posted.


"it's like we're stick figures on a piece of paper. before God made the piece of paper maybe he ate a burger. how do you explain that to a stick figure?"


I couldn't help gaping in the sch library. I thought it was a perfect illustration of the unfathomable mind of God.

Have you ever lived so long in the grey area that it grew white?
In fact, how many black-and-white moments do people generally have in their lifetimes anyway?
my inkling is, you could probably count them with a single hand.

2nd chances

I used to give tuition to this little girl whose father owns a small hairdressing shop near my home. She comes from a family that is emotionally and financially broken. Twice a week, she would come over to my place for lessons and then after every lesson, she'd get an hour on my piano. Once in a while, we'd head to the library together. After 5 months, she became too tired from extra lessons in school so we stopped seeing each other.

Well, it was a load off my shoulders because school work was getting so heavy at that time. But if I were to be ruthlessly honest with myself, it was because I wasn't a good enough teacher who didn't put in enough heart and effort, giving up on her tantrums easily, and I just let her slip by me. Although I gave quite a lot of my time, my heart and mind were seldom there. I mean, seriously, which parent wouldn't keep a teacher if he/she was a good one right? And the thing is... from the beginning when I first interacted with her, I knew God had a purpose placing her in my life. I knew that as much as I knew that I didn't really think much about what God was trying to do with the girl. just getting by for the extra income... that was all there was to it.

Sometimes, I would walk as fast as my legs can carry me past her dad's shop when I head to the train station, so that I wouldn't have to chat with her. it's the guilt that makes me do that. and in the past few weeks, I began asking God for a second chance. I didn't know how or what to do because there was no way I could ask to tutor the girl again.

And then tonight, I bumped into the father and daughter at my lift lobby and had a little catching up with her. and out of the blue, she coyly asked if she could come to play my piano again. She misses playing the piano :) but her dad didn't allow her to. I was stunned by her question... God's really fast in answering. So I talked to her dad about it and he actually agreed! I think he was afraid that he'd have to pay for her music lessons or that he didn't want to just blatantly ask if she could use my piano.

I'm feeling really happy that God's given me another chance :)

Purpose Driven Life

I envisioned myself fighting to finish this mega assignment before church on Saturday. But this is Wednesday night, and it's completed. How in the world did it happen? God is amazing! Ask, and it will be a thrill receiving inspiration from Him!

I'm really happy to be doing this again. Writing academic essays. I forgot how excruciating and pleasurable the experience always is. This time, there's even more room to craft and be creative.

Returning to daily life after a week of comatose in Kedah, I found myself thrown into the deep end of the pool. In a flash, all floats are off our arms and we sink or swim. how did the pace pick up so fast so suddenly? Pile on a stack of church and social commitments, the next couple of weeks will be crazy. I've gotten my dose of working on the go, and it's incredible. I must say, this stress - I love it as much as I hate it.

Scribbles at the back of a car

As I grow older, my consciousness is scattered across different worlds, belonging to them all at the same time. It felt a little like that when I stepped into India. Tonight, arriving in Kedah was like a seamless stroll into a street across. It really feels like home; it feels light to be back. :) When I was a younger girl, flying one and a half hours up north was the equivalent of one bag of nerves on an annual pilgrimage into another dimension - filled with familiar faces of unfamiliar people speaking a gibberish dialect that faded into my background. Apparently, the two stark worlds have merged. Perhaps I've been traveling to Malaysia so often that it is no longer out of the ordinary, and unfamiliar lives have finally turned into loved ones.

It's a pretty long journey from the airport to my grandparents'. The elder brothers in the front chat intermittently, in between comfortable silences. I was resting on my mom, my head trying to catch her shoulder as the car sped and bumped across highway after highway. I secretly right-clicked and saved the moment as a morbid thought scampered across my mind. One day in the future, I'd never get to do this again, and I'd want to remember how her voice sounds like through the hollow of her back. It's really strange how fear can be love's favourite shadow, and I suppose that is partly why people say life is bittersweet! Sentences were beginning to form in my thoughts. Unable to sleep nor dig for my journal, I opened my laptop and here I am typing them out as we race down an empty night road, rows of shophouses half lit and silently cheering our homecoming party.

Anyone who knows me well enough will know that I have the nose of a dog. Before I can swing the car door open, I'm already flung into the welcoming aroma of the night air in this particular part of town. It is distinct, crisp, warm and lightly scented with Chinese ointment. Woo hoo! My grandpa's all ready and grinning at the gate in his stripped pajamas. Hahaha. Time to shut my lappie. Happy CNY everyone!

Why I love my strict Chinese mum
(link)

There's been this hoo-ha over "the western mom vs. the chinese mom" since the Wall Street Journal ran an excerpt from Amy Chua's memoir about her parenting as an Asian mother in the USA. She's received a lot of criticisms and death threats even since the article ran in the paper. So her daughter's (Sophia) written in in response. I'll leave you to read it - you can click on the link below the title. I got it from my friend's facebook page (yay to mobile surfing!) and totally enjoyed the read on my train journey.

Just as I stepped out of the train door, it hit me in a "!!!!!" kind of moment that I was actually brought up in exactly the same way. It seemed unrecognizably different being lived out through another person's life. I've been so conditioned by years of western education to think that the stereotypical pro-open and creative american parenting style is the way to go that I forgot my parents' current laidback-ness is a not too long ago change.

My mom was always the stricter one - and I daresay she held standards as tight as Amy Chua. I was rarely allowed to watch the television as a child (a pastime that is still non-existent to me now); I was forced to learn the piano - a process I hardly enjoyed; my Dad was prone to pampering me but it was a different story with my grades. Very typically Singaporean-Chinese, except for the television part. Yet, they lent a balance in the way they encouraged me to expand my capacities and experiences and was never for confining me to a measured and rigid route to success.

After I hit 18, I stopped buying the "live for the moment" cliche. I learnt that it is almost the cleverest way to make people live stupidly.

There’s one more thing: I think the desire to live a meaningful life is universal. To some people, it’s working toward a goal. To others, it’s enjoying every minute of every day. So what does it really mean to live life to the fullest? Maybe striving to win a Nobel Prize and going skydiving are just two sides of the same coin. To me, it’s not about achievement or self-gratification. It’s about knowing that you’ve pushed yourself, body and mind, to the limits of your own potential. You feel it when you’re sprinting, and when the piano piece you’ve practiced for hours finally comes to life beneath your fingertips. You feel it when you encounter a life-changing idea, and when you do something on your own that you never thought you could. If I died tomorrow, I would die feeling I’ve lived my whole life at 110 percent.

She's right. Creativity counts for nothing without discipline and perseverence. Life will be meaningless without responsibility and morality. It's not just an either-or; they're two sides that a coin must have in order to be of value.

In spite of

I’m a woman of little faith. I’m extremely thankful that God is who He is. Thankful that the great I Am is constant in spite of who I become or what I do or do not do.

Nothing big, but this is almost a mountain-top experience.

~

White dog, black dog.

It’s a brilliant analogy. In every decision we make, we choose either to feed our Godly character or feed our sinful nature.

In a dog fight, who’s gonna win?

Foreign

I wonder if it is something I constantly revisit while it morphs and turns into a figment of my imaginative creation?

Leak

when memories and fears begin showing up in an extremely vivid form of sleep time dreaming, you know it’s time to take a check. unnecessary and obsessive thoughts? i’m still paying the price and learning the lesson. it really stinks. it’s like a montage of blinking lights – the good and the bad – they take turns to fade and reappear; a dance that never takes the curtain call.

the word of the week: attitude.
it changes everything, more than imaginable.
and it’s powerful, more than imaginable.

school’s finally in, and i’m still trying to grasp some form of orientation to a new life in a new campus. nevertheless, in the midst of a series of firsts and strangeness and incredulous hours, there is a joy that is seeping in from somewhere. contrary to popular lament, these things don’t seem useless at all. they are meaningful means to an unending end.

The other start

It is an hour into the last day of the year. So along with millions of other hansels and gretels, i’m gonna turn around to pick up the little milestones that have pebbled my year.

1. Truth – the truth will set you free. hence, true freedom.

2. Baptism – I was always one foot thrust heavenward. In the name of “true meaning”, I’d shun anything that was ritual-like. what’s the point of an outward expression when all that counts is its inward reflection? Little did I know how connected the two could be, and how powerful symbolism actually is. For what are you still holding back? Now, I’ve brought the other foot over.

3. Classrooms – This was one experience that saw God’s hand with me all through the weeks. To say that it was an incredible term would be an exaggeration. But to say that it was pleasant is a huge understatement. It is a career that so many other peers have chosen that it’s taken every sense of special-ness away. God returns it with a purpose.

4. Cell – one heck of a struggle. doesn’t it seem simple enough – it’s just a discussion! oh but no… I’ve come to the point where God has begun to question my efforts and push me further. I dare not tell others of my heart’s desire for us, because there would only be one word to describe it – idealistic. yea well, from my vantage point, it’s so difficult to achieve that it’s only something God can do, which is the whole point, isn’t it?

5. India – i still can’t believe we took that crazy 35hr train ride through an oven. i’ve few other experiences of being truly humbled in an absolutely non-exoticizing manner as that.

6. Graduation – almost the saddest point of the year. the end of one of the greatest journeys of my short young life. the world unfurled at a speed and complexity that was breathtaking (literally).

7. My heart was given back – a brand new one.

I can’t think of the next pebble, for now. A year ago, I wrote that if, at the end of this year, I am still running the race hard, i’ll give thanks and praise. So praise God for His faithfulness!

As for the next, I can’t think of any specific one, so i’ll settle for an all emcompassing one – that is to be challenged and stretched in every area of my existence.