heart matters

saw this on fbook and thought it was quite cool. we all identify with that kind of sentiment once in a while right?
but well. without the heart... then there's no real reason for living is there? everything would be emotionless and sian. (i say this but i'm still struggling with mine on a daily basis)


on a side note, i was totally absolutely floored at school today - and not in a good way
2012 is looking to be a challenging work year: last class (ALL THREE CORE SUBJECTS OMG), challenging kids (thank God i'm the co-form teacher instead of the form), english department (a very busy department!), staff welfare committee, the usual CCA stuff

man. Lord. help me see that the giants are my bread... and that Your grace is sufficient for me, Your strength made perfect in my weakness (heck. everything that's got to do with work is a weakness as i see it)

[edit] department's changed... just so the info on the web is correct lol [/edit]

simply worship

this home-alone for a week thing is rather liberating

suddenly it's just me and God.... no more hiding cos the parents might just choose an unfortunate moment to walk in/ ask me to do something in which case i'll have to discreetly wipe away the traces of my communion with God and go on pretending that life's cool and i've got it all together

nah. i really don't have it altogether at all... and i'm finally ready to admit it to myself. worship, cry, pray, disintegrate, whatever.




hello Daddy... i'm home now. sorry i ran away.

i'm not busy... i'm just in hiding

hey Lord, where are you? i need to be swept up and away and be lost (and found) in You

i still haven't done my christmas shopping!

rather... i've thought about doing christmas shopping but i dunno who to buy things for at the moment aside from the parents #epicfail

alamak. that kinda shows how dry i really am, how i haven't thought about other people and have no real leading to bless anyone. oopsie.

less than 10 pages into this book i find...

"As a result, I grew up with serious feelings of rejection, fear, depression, anxiety, hopelessness, painful loneliness, and a sadness that planted a perpetual lump in my throat. It was the kind of lump you get when you have a constant ache in your heart and you must continually choke back a lifetime of uncried tears. you have kept them back for so long that you know they have become a torrential flood building up behind a dam. you learn to keep that dam from breaking at all costs because, if it ever did, it might destroy everything in its path. The kind of tears i'm talking about can only be released in the presence of unconditional love and acceptance. And where on earth can you go to find that?"


wow. so perfectly eloquent and real - and that depth of emotion that i cannot don't know how to release, except in the presence of God (which incidentally is the answer to that last question)

a few pages later there's this bit which describes the dryness i've been facing this last month or so (well not all of it, so i'm taking out snippets)


" On the outside it looked as if I had nothing to be concerned about. But on the inside I felt paralyzed to the point of not being able to do much of anything. And I had so much I needed to be doing. Good things. Things i have always wanted to do. yet i couldn't bring myself to do any of them. I had not been like this since i became a believer.

I had lost my vision for the future and couldn't seem to regain it no matter how I tried. I felt useless, aimless, and alone. Even despairing at times. I couldn't see beyond the day, and the day was a struggle to get through... It seemed as though I were being squeezed in a vise and then wrung out like a rag to dry in the heat of the day. I felt trapped by my own blessings - by the answers to my own prayers. i wanted to be anywhere but where i was, if that meant I could escape the misery. And this was a hard place to be because I had so many responsibilities and deadlines that going anyplace except to my laptop would have been criminal."

the answer to that she found to that predicament... and that i've been discovering this week...
the Lord said 'Simply worship Me'




kudos to the author being used by God...
and kudos to sam who forced me to talk, caused me to cry, reminded me that i'm loved till i had the emotional capacity to say 'i love you' again... it's such a blessing to call you my friend =)


excerpts by Stormie Omartian
The prayer that changes everything - The hidden power of praising God

my name means love

so i'm all about Christmas! cos Christmas is about LOVE and GIVING and the GREATEST GIVER OF ALL! and in the midst of this i'm still learning to love myself for who i am rather than what i do

i'm me as God has created me to be
- whether or not i am visible/ am mopeing at home/ am singing and sounding horrible/ am quiet and uncomfortable/ am doing crazy things/ am running an event
- and i'm loved, whether or not i feel it.

and i just wanna to appreciate all the opportunities that God provides to love other people and to be a part of all these CRAZY THINGS

like yesterday's Christmas party:

cutting

drawing

sticking

climbing

pretending to climb?

and God was so very PRESENT there =)

i feel strangely depressed

brought the mother and grandma to have a go on the singapore flyer today and got 2 lovely photos out of it!

but as the title says... well...

i think it must be that time of the month again.

floating priorities

the school hols for teachers are here and i've finally been able to rest! (albeit enforced cos i'm ill =.=)

anyway the feeling i've been getting as i've been resting is of someone having toiled and climbed up this mountain towards some goal... and then having reached that, to turn back and see... well. this.

not that i've climbed out of destruction, but that i've forgotten about what's really important... and left some important relationships behind (feels like i've left them behind to die =P)

what's the point of throwing in all my time and effort? dunno.

i forgot my priorities... put work in first place - and i was consumed by my need to do it PERFECTLY and my inability to do so. but when it was all over, there was no sense of accomplishment, only an incomprehensible sense of loss, like i've forgotten something important... as if i was looking down the hill i climbed and seeing only the carnage of the relationships i didn't protect. so the last few weeks i kept looking at what was going on around me and wondering - why is it that they can have XYZ and i can't seem to let go

the something i forgot => GRACE GRACE
perfection was never mine to begin with - only mine to receive. and only Jesus can take first place in my life. here's to a new and growing revelation of that.

bubbles

i've was thinking about how my life has been in a bubble all these years. incidentally, bubbles is a nickname for one of my friends =P

first the home bubble
then primary, secondary, JC bubble
then the bubble of 'everything provided for' scholarship
the bubble of 'overseas singaporean in london'
and now it's back to the school bubble (just on the other side of the classroom)


anyhow i was thinking that i really don't know anything about the world and how it works. and that i've been too sheltered my whole life. maybe i've 'missed out' on life and really don't understand the world (i really don't understand myself, much less the world...), missed out on some opportunities that i never grabbed.

but by chance God's timing i listened to this sermon by Louie Giglio http://www.passioncitychurch.com/watch/#20111127
and i started thinking... in the God-perspective, it's the grace zone isn't it? Living where God has put you and living for what is right in front of you. so thank you Lord... for Your grace bubble encircling my life.