innocent hope

When you are hopeless and filled with gloom, not even the cheeriest sun can melt away the despondence. But when you are glowing inside, the heaviest downpour becomes a dance stage.

This is the 3rd week of Term 1 of SH2! January is about to end, time really flies, its only about 9 months to the A levels! The 2nd and 3rd week have been great for me. I think God have been guiding me and answering my prayers! I feel that my daily bread is provided for, and inner peace pervading my heart And I also know, that because I confess Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit lives in me, a symbol of my salvation. I know that God will provide for me what I need and show me the path I should walk. I will thus pray that I be wise and observant enough to know what He is trying to tell me to do.

Thanksgiving:

I thank God for giving me a friend, Stephanie, who recently started sending me daily biblical messages, sort of like a Daily Bread sms. It is sweet of her, and I see this as God assuring me that he will take care of me and guide me, for the night before Steph asked me whether I would like her to do so I prayed for God to guide me.

I thank God for the peace I feel in my heart, instead of weariness, uncertainty and worry, I can feel God’s presence enervating me!

I thank God for listening to my prayer, that I would like to feel His presence more, for I am of the flesh and weak, thus needing a stronger affirmation that He is indeed with me always!!

I thank God for letting me share with Bernadine, my ex-pri school mate and current school mate, the Lord’s Prayer after Shi Ming’s teaching on Sunday 17th of January 2010. I am thankful for the opportunity presented to me to spread what I know about God to other fellow Christians, and I got to become closer to her!

I thank God for letting me show my non-believer friends like Nicholas, Keith and Deon that I can stand up for my faith, and I keep an open mind to challenges instead of shutting down and running away. I hope that God will speak to them and soften their hearts, so that they may, too, believe and receive the Gospel, accepting Christ as their saviour and attaining salvation.

What I will pray for:

I pray that my fellowship will improve and the youths will be more strongly bonded to each other to better learn about God and experience God as well as each other’s love.

I pray that Solomon will join our fellowship more and that he will grow up knowing his parents love him.

I pray that Shermaine will be wise in her choice of partners in her relationships, and that she will be able to lead the fellowship well with Ryan.

I pray for wisdom and knowledge to be able to manage my time well for my academics, CCA and church, and do well for my academics.

I pray that I will be more fluent in communicating with other people personally, and come across as sincere, kind and patient, with qualities of Jesus Christ.

I pray that I will be able to bring people into Christ, through my interactions with them.

I pray that I will love God more and grow closer to Him!

David’s song of deliverance

2 Samuel 22:3

The Lord is my rock, in whom I take refuge,

my shield, and the horn of my salvation,

my stronghold and my refuge.

2 Samuel 22:7

In my distress I called upon the Lord;

to my God I called. From his temple he heard my voice,

and my cry came to his ears.

2 Samuel 22:29-31

For you are my lamp, O Lord,

and my God lightens up my darkness.

For by you I can run against a troop,

and by my God I can leap over a wall.

This God- his way is perfect;

the word of the Lord proves true;

he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

Colossians 3:23

What ever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.

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I sat and pointed fingers at the world.

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Nothing stirred. Nothing changed. Life still went on as usual.

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After a long while, I started to realise that beneath all that finger pointing lay a, shall we say, slothful mentality, which bred escapism in me. “Why could I not have been born in Australia, and live an idyllic life with a lumbering pace?” I yearned for something easier, something that I could handle and excel at. Because my reality denies that to me, I wanted to escape from that reality and escape to a fantasy in a shell moulded by all my accusations at the unfairness of the world.

But life still goes on.

My environment is what I cannot change, or, if I could, would only be changed by an insignificant amount. What I am sure that I can change, is of course, myself. The past me had a heart devoid of light. It only withheld darkness, constructed by blame and hatred. That darkness bled into my surroundings, into tangible things: my actions and eventually my grades. Without changing that mentality, I would only have flitted from place to place to find a suitable habitat for me, one that has no need for me to struggle to survive. Invertebrate.

But I opened a window in my heart, and allowed sunlight to flood in, bleaching the hatred and blame in me. I thought positively and worked harder. I gave my best, my best being what effort I’m willing to sacrifice for my academics alongside with keeping a balanced lifestyle (running, gyming, eating well, sleeping well). I believed that God would bring me out of this dark period.

And it happened.

I did my tutorials, listened (tried to) attentively in lecures and studied for tests. Most importantly, I’ve had a turning point for my Chinese. Ever since my childhood, I’ve hated Chinese to the core. My mother used to scold me, leaving me in tears, as I was weak in. And of course that had a negative impact on my attitude, and so a vicious cycle ensued, causing my Chinese standard to remain stagnant. In secondary school, I labelled Chinese as a waste of time and should not be examinable. If I told Ms Liu that, she would be heartbroken. However, in J1, H1 chinese textbooks contain passages that are different from those of secondary and primary school syllabi, passages which I like, passages which are rich in philosophy and life values. I fell in love with Chinese and my teacher, for her passion and her undying care and concern for her students. She is like the gardener, watering his beloved plants daily, smiling as he hopes for the day to see them blossom in season. Though at that time I was listening to her more for my knowledge than for my Chinese standard, unconciously my newly aquired passion for listening in Chinese lessons about her explanations and dissection of the wisdom contained in the passages caused my Chinese standard to improve.

Promos: the period of reckoning and judgement, the time when all students will be judged of their ability to handle the heavy load heaped upon them. I was not as prepared for them as I liked, but I did put in my all for what little time I had in my hands at that time, and secured all of my subjects to be 50 and above. All O-level passes. D and above. I was not proud of my General Paper, though my grades are around the 80+ percentile of the cohort, as I’ve still not managed to score consistently for essay-writing due to not writing on point. Core Subjects in PCME order: CDBD. For chinese I jumped from D to B. The grades are rather modest, but to me they are a considerable achievement worth celebrating. I’ve managed to pull up all of my worst-scoring subjects and my Math to a B.

As Armstrong says, it is one small step for a man, but a giant leap for mankind. That little improvement is the embodiment of my change in attitude and I hope that I can tackle all of my future exams and challenges in life with that attitude: unwavering perseverance and optimism. Just give it all I’ve got, and I can account to myself. Don’t escape reality, whatever you do, you are simply delaying your impact with reality, and when you do create contact you’ll simply experience a harder shock. Dear Chiho, I do hope you have changed your mentality of giving up J2 to go poly, as that, my friend, is the escapism attitude I once had. Hope you have benefitted from the little sharing I’ve had with you.

I’m sure all of us meet difficulties and obstacles in life. It is simply a matter of time. For me, I went down in June and came up again, so it was an early experience fortunately. Others like Chiho are not so lucky and experience failure, and changes in their mindset, later. It is up to us to pick ourselves up and do our best to press forward. Only when I’ve given in our all will I step back and let it be, even if things do not go exactly the way I want it to.  The most important thing of all that I’ve gained from my J1 experience, can still be summarised by my motto: Perspective is everything. From our mentality flows our actions, speech and ultimately events that impact us in reciprocation. I believe that with this mentality, I will be able to meet any hardship that comes my way. The road may be rocky, but with the correct attitude, we will be able to appreciate every jitter and bounce along the way.

So let us all open the windows in our hearts and wash away the darkness.

Is God happy? He must be. All of his desires, if he has desires, are fulfilled. This comes hand in hand with omnipotence and omniscience.What if God gets stripped of his omnipotence and omniscience. Will he then lose Godly characteristics and thus have unfilled desires? Or does he even have desires in the first place. Are desires created by imperfection, since perfection will yield no yearnings for anything. Perfection is God. Thus God must not have desires. If so, losing his omnipotence and omniscience would thus create desire? Or can perfection even become imperfection at all?

I wonder how, I wonder why, yesterday you told me ’bout the blue blue sky, and all that I can see, is just a yellow lemon tree

We settled down and my fears were assuaged: I had passed the paper, and am one of the better scoring people in my class. “How did you know you would do well?” she beamed at me. That question sounded more like a statement – has she always believed that I could attain greater heights?

Soon, she had gone through paper I and II. My main errors were misunderstanding of the idioms and an over-inference of them. I tended to think that “that is not all to it” and would falsely read deeper. As for composition, it was the first time in 2 years that I had attempted writing a continuous writing styled composition, and to top that off, I structured it in a flashback and had forgotten to end the flashback in the conclusion, so scoring 43/60 was satisfactory for me. My teacher liked the aspect of my composition in that I tend to focus a lot on individual character’s gestures and speech, though my language was quite elementary. I told her that I don’t really care about results that much anymore, as she helped kindle a new fire in me – my passion for the subject. Instantly a smile broke out over her face – what teacher does not love her students appreciate her? I was sincere about what I said. In the past, the subject’s textbooks and materials were boringly dry and usually had little or no meaning. However textbooks comprises of stories that stir one’s heart and gets one pondering its deepest meaning. I promised her that regardless of my A level result, I would continue to read and appreciate the subject. What’s a result to me now? Can a grade be placed on a person’s language and proficiency? Or is a person’s love for it more important? She nodded and professed that that is exactly what is lacking in Singapore students – the passion for mothertongue – and its breaking her heart. And she smiled, knowing that I had learnt to love my mothertongue.

Our conversation wandered off eventually from passion to happiness. “I know it’s tough being in NJC. Its tough on me too, believe me, I know how you students feel.” she admitted. “Sometimes its just so difficult to live, to even catch your breath and hold on. Sometimes it seems that its a miracle to be standing here.” She spoke of a time when she had been so troubled and when it was so painful for her, that its difficult to imagine how she managed to pull through.

“When you meet a problem in your life, when that problem looms over your head and seems to be on the verge of overwhelming you, when you feel like you simply cannot hold on, simply set it down, put it aside in a small corner in your mind. Later on, you look at it again. Somehow it will have changed. Somehow it’ll seem easier to solve, and somehow there will be a way. “

Ill never forget that voice. It is delicate, and it tinkles melodically like porcelain. Sometimes it has edges and curls and whistles that are  so delightfully adorable, and at other times, it is firm and unyielding in announcing its beliefs with a wisdom that bellies its age.

“During the time when I was 15 -16, I used to go up to those mountains in China, where the peaks would puncture wispy pearl-white clouds, and where the valleys are so deep they seem an eternity away from where I’m standing. Standing there, sometimes I would think to myself: if I were to die, I’d like to die, falling endlessly as the tendrils of gravity pulls me towards the earth, falling amongst the clouds, falling…..falling….Such a beautiful way to die, don’t you think? Just as we are borne by the earth, so we should return our body to its origin, and give back to nature.

“It was a time when I grasped no purpose to live on for. So I frequently thought of dying my beautiful death. And yet, I told myself then that I would pull through, push through the thickets of unrelenting worries and problems. Looking back now, I feel that the past me was so very foolish in wanting to die. Dying is not only about yourself. Dying is also about the people around you -  the people who care for you when you’re in need, the people who comfort you when you’re down and the people who cuddle you when you need a shoulder by your side cry on. That’s why come what may, I will not take my life away. Understanding this, the people who kill themselves over any slightest thing such as a self-perceived grossly imperfect body, or over love squabbles, now seem ignorant and unable to grasp the enormity of suicide. Three of my students in my class in University committed suicide. It was then I told myself that no one who has been under my teaching shall develop a notion of suicide. I can’t help students of other classes, but those belonging to mine shall not!

“People constantly seek happiness. They see it as something that they do not possess, something that is to be. Yet I find it in my daily life. Take for instance going on a holiday. I love scenic routes and places where I can learn a country’s culture. In contrast, I abhor shopping for the sake of buying cheaper goods. It is quite meaningless, don’t you think? To travel a few thousand km and end up buying a homogenous product which you could have bought at home. Whereas, can I bottle up an experience of a country’s culture and put a price tag on it? Can I buy other people’s bottles which they are putting out for sale? Being happy is not living in luxury nor being rich. Being happy is your perspective, and, essentially, your choice. A flower’s bloom. A father gently closing a door behind a seemingly sleeping daughter, despite his habit of slamming doors. All these can bring happiness, and yet they are not very far from reach. Rather these events occur in everyday life. Its up to you to look for them, and when you look, you’ll find and you’ll be happy.”

Then she told me a story that she had written, about her little hands and feet. The right hand and left hand are like a match made in heaven. They are born on the same day. They look entirely identical, except for some differences in grooves and markings. Maybe the right hand is livelier than the left, and could write beautiful poetry with a pen. Sometimes the hands are happy, and they would clap against each other in unison. Sometimes the hands are solemn, and would face each other’s palms and pray. Sometimes the right hand gets angry, and balls into a fist. The fist punches the wall repeatedly, emptying out its immense rage. The left hand would stand by, uncaring. “Let the right hand get carried away with its temper and get bruised all over, I don’t care!” But sooner or later, the left hand will wrap around the raw knuckles of the right hand, as if cradling it, comforting it, forgiving it for its temper.

As for our feet, in the day, they will each be wearing their individual clothes. They can’t see each other, so one foot would listen to the sound of the other foot striking the floor and be comforted by knowing that his companion is there, only a small distance away from him. They look forward to night time, when my teacher put them side by side so they can cuddle together under the bedsheets, while the hands are clasped, also enjoying each other’s company. Only when assured that her hands and feet have company for the night will my teacher fall into slumber

I looked down at her feet as she absentmindedly kicked her ankles together. She wore plain white canvas shoes. Except that they were not white at all. They were decorated with lovely hues of blue and red and black, twisting, melting into elegant vortices, swirls and streams.

My teacher has taught me a great deal today, in that warm, sincere and bright way she always does things. She reminds me of the song Five Loaves and Two Fishes by Corrinne May, when she speaks about simple truths which contradict all of the ways of man today, ways that overcomplicates things, ways that make life miserable.

"He spoke with such wisdom, even the kids could understand"

How I wish my teacher will always be that: my teacher, holding my hand and guiding me along in this never-ending journey of learning. And I’ll be the kid, marvelling with every step we make together with wide-eyed wonder.

Now, with all the stress and work I was supposed to do lifted off me, I feel kind of restless and unsure of what to do for leisure. Maybe a book, or exercise? Perhaps staring at the ceiling would be a great activity (one will only know how much being able to do that is a blessing after having been through the craziness of the promos – well apart from those who have already metamorphosised into beings similar to the promos in terms of horror).

WELL, Im done with my first ever post after a 1 year long blogging hiatus, off to gym now