keep believing

When I was unpacking my mess the other day, I found this postcard I got from Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, a painting by Jan Steen, Merry Family. It shows a picture of a happy, merry family, and carries a bitter message with it: ‘Soo d’Oude Songen, Soo Pypen de Jonge’ (As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young) – children do what their parents do, even when they are set a bad example, as is here. The children are exuberant and restless and even the youngest are smoking and drinking. The painter is warning against the consequences of a bad upbringing.

We had children baptism in church last week, and Rev Tong talked about the importance of upbringing and responsibility of parents. He said that to be born and brought up in a Christian family is a grace given from God, and child baptism is part of this grace, even before the child professes, or even understands, her faith. Because God’s grace is prior to human’s response. I thought it’s such a beautiful divine arrangement :)

And this is a rainbowish pretty picture of my FYP wrong results, a few weeks (and mistakes and corrections) ago. It’s pretty but it’s not right. I still have some problems understand the whole thing and getting the right mass balance. 6 more weeks to submission. Keep trying, keep praying.

I was once 18! and the world’s greatest one ;)

I was once failing my subjects.. throughout the two years in JC.. Like seriously.

My friends were really weird.. They still are, and getting weirder with age.

I did some digging out of chaos (borrowed term from Noel Piper).

It is such an achievement that I managed to empty two boxes, two bags and one huge luggage today, after months and months of procrastination. I had to separate with many stuff that I would want to keep, stuff that I thought I would read/wear but never did, stuff that remind me of sweet memories but occupy too much space. It was kinda hard you know, I wish I can keep many of this stuff, but I know I don’t have the space, and I’m really not the kind of person who can keep things nice and pretty.

Now I’m left with a pile of laundry that needs to wait (because there are four girls in the house with one washing machine), a huge bag of decent stuff that I’ll send for donation, and things that are pretty much in place. And I feel so much lighter.

Note to self: Procrastinate less. Do what you can do now, don’t wait!

Note to friends: I’m done with exams! (I’m really trying to keep it low profile lol). All the best for everyone who’s still having exams :)

To help us in our quiet time.

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A brief exercise to aid you in ‘re-collection’ (a time to become still, to enter into the recreating silence, to allow the fragmentation of our minds to become centred).

Begin by placing your palms down as a symbolic indication of your desire to turn over any concerns you may have to God. Inwardly you may pray, ‘Lord, I give to you my anger toward John. I release my fear of my dentist appointment this morning. I surrender my anxiety over not having enough money to pay the bills this month. I release my frustration over trying to find a baby-sitter for tonight.’

Whatever it is that weighs on your mind or is a concern to you, just say, ‘palms down’. Release it.

After several moments of surrender, turn your palms up as a symbol of your desire to receive from the Lord. Perhaps you will pray silently: ‘Lord, I would like to receive your divine love for John, your peace about the dentist appointment, your patience, your joy.’ Whatever you need, you say ‘palms up’.

Having centred down, spend the remaining moments in complete silence. Do not ask for anything. Allow the Lord to commune with you, to love you. If impressions or directions come, fine; if not, fine.

- Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline

T-R-Y
Oh baby we can fight like dogs we can fight like cats
A dirty laundry needs a laundry man
Maybe the king and the queen should lay off the caffeine
Baby breathe before you react

Sometimes we do forget to behave
And we regret what we say
Cause words are too weapons
If we don’t choose’em carefully
Ladies and gentlemen this is instrumental
If life’s to be a bed of roses

I know I gave you everything you like
Because you still give me butterflies

If we just try try try
Just to be ni-ni-nice
Then the world would be a better place for you and I
If we just live our lives
Putting our differences aside
Oh that would be so beautiful to me

Are we just dangling in the middle of a galaxy
Well I’m stoked on gravity
To be stuck with you like flowers on the dew drops
Now let it in my direction
My direction is up when everybody’s down
Cause I don’t mind being anybody’s clown
I love a little lift cause I’m an optimistic
In an altruistic way

Cause basically this place is needing instruments of harmony
Spreading my philosophy of love and inspiration
Oh these words I speak I commit to like a crime
With a rhythm I deliver I’m giving them a picture
Of the reasons why

We should just try try try
Just to be ni-ni-nice
So the world could be a better place for you and I
If we just live our lives
Putting our differences aside
Oh that would be so beautiful to me

Well it wouldn’t cost a penny but could save so many lonely lives
From teary eyes
If we just try try try
To open up a can of understanding open up your heart
I’m just planting seeds
Cause I believe

We could just try try try
Just to be ni-ni-nice
So the world would be a better place for you and I
If we just live our lives
Putting our differences aside
Oh that would be so beautiful to me

If we could try, just to be nice
That could be so beautiful to me
I believe,
Oh that could be so beautiful to me

(Jason Mraz)

My exam on 21 will be the first paper I sit for in more than 5 months. The last paper that I sat for was early June in ETH, a written exam for my Human Resource module. There was no a single test or quiz for me this semester, it was just FYP and assignment and lab reports and project.

Only two papers on my seventh semester, I hope I haven’t forgotten how to study for an exam.

And FYP is still ongoing i.e. no result yet!

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‘God did not say to Moses, “Stop putting yourself down. You are somebody. You are eloquent.”

That is not the biblical way.

What God said was, “Stop looking at your own unworthiness and uselessness and look at me. I made the mouth. I will be with you. I will help you. I will teach you what to say. Look to me and live!”.

The biblical answer to the paralysis of low self-esteem is not high self-esteem; it is sovereign grace. ‘ (John Piper)

- stolen from a friend’s blog

I thought the movie wasn’t really good. Probably they got too excited with the whole idea of apocalypse and the effects that they could create out of it: earthquakes, flood, volcanoes, collapse of buildings. Or probably it was me who set the expectation myself. I thought the storyline was weak and many scenes were too dramatized and exaggerated that it was kinda annoying to watch to the end. And it’s really long.

An appealing idea behind it, good trailer and hype, John Cusack, Yellowstone (and places all over the world) should have made a very good movie. The movie had a potential to be great, but I thought it just failed, wasted. Oh well, with all the hoo-ha, everyone will still go and watch it anyway.

So, end of days..

If you know that the end is near, I guess what is important to you and what you hold most dearly in your heart will be obvious. The purpose of your life in the first place, the source of hope you hang onto, the essence of your life will show, and what you believe will be the very reason you still keep going..

Learn how to live, and you’ll know how to die;
learn how to die, and you’ll learn how to live. – Morrie Schwartz

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Sidetrack: I miss Yellowstone, like a lot a lot!

I wish I bought my camera earlier to capture more of the beauty of God’s creation.

Paul personifies love as a person who acts in the ways Christians should imitate. The total picture suggests a description of Christ Himself.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have aprophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and dif I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it his not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends…

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Cor 13

Total lack of self-concern, it seeks the neighbor’s good, and its true measure is how much it gives to that end.

Love is a principle of action rather than emotion. It is a matter of doing things for people out of compassion for them, whether or not we feel personal affection for them.

Love is not resentful. Those who love do not devise evil against others. Those who love do not focus their attention on the wrongs that others do to them.

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Out of love for those who did not love, the Father gave the Son, the Son gave His life, and the Father and Son together have sent the Spirit, to save sinners from misery and lead them into glory. Believing in and being overwhelmed by this amazing reality of divine love sustains the love of God and neighbor that the two great commandments require. Our love expresses our gratitude for God’s gracious love to us, and imitates it as a model.

The indispensable mark of Christian life is Christian love. The measure and test of love to God is whole-hearted obedience; the measure and test of love to our neighbors is laying down our lives for them. This sacrifical love involves giving, spending, and impoverishing ourselves for their well-being.

(Notes from The Reformation Study Bible)

1. When preparing materials to teach, keep in mind the capacity and needs of the people that you’re going to teach. You’re not there to show off knowledge or to prove (to yourself) how good you are, but to assist them to learn and grow.

2. Do not share your life excessively (i.e. random thoughts) to anyone who’s available to hear and easily entertained by you. They don’t need to know that much and there’s already too much crap in this world.

3. Be more sensitive towards others. Be more careful with what you say or do, be more mindful about how it may affect others. Not everyone is like you. Stop thinking that if you don’t mind, everyone shouldn’t too.

The punishment for failure to make proper use of opportunities for service is severe.