|
|
|
read between the lines
rise and fall dunno what's with blogger but i cudn't log in again for quite some time.i'm still continuing in this time of struggle...but it's opened my eyes to old truths in a new light. this past week i rose and fell in terms of my spiritual strength. at times i felt i conquered my problems and my worries, but at others the devil got to me and i must admit, i felt hopeless at certain points. HEBREWS 12: 5-6 "And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addressed you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." over the past week the Lord has spoken to me thru His word, thru music, as well as thru a few precious friends. and yesterday i was reminded once again of this old truth which i had somehow forgot along the way: that if i pray for something and it doesn't happen, i shouldn't just give up but continue to pray until it happens. reminds me of the PUSH bracelet (Pray Until Something Happens) that i used to see on my fren's wrist. i asked my fren, what if it doesn't happen in the end? what if it's not God's will? and his answer from the Lord was so simple and yet so meaningful: then let God show u if it's not meant to be. the key is to pray with faith, without a single doubt in one's mind. it could take a day, months, years....but success comes from trying and trying again. reminds me of the old adage "if at first you do not succeed, try and try again". and i was reminded that the devil wants us to give up. he wants us to lose faith in our prayer, he puts doubts into our heads and makes us think, what if? what if the answer to my prayer is a no? but it is better to pray with faith, without doubt, cos at least we have a shot at getting our prayers answered compared to if we just gave up and "died". i admit, i don't do long term prayers cos i give up so easily. i can't recall praying consistently for something beyond a year, or even reaching up to one year. and i think it's high time i started doing it. continuing the walk yesterday i watched the sun set over dinner...just me alone, n God. it was a very awe-inspiring time. even after the food court closed, i walked down the steps n sat at the cement steps of the "stadium"....jus stared at the green grass in the field and the beautiful sky in motion above and jus lost myself in the beauty of His creation. jus a quiet praise and adoration of his masterpiece.it was one of the rare moments in my life i actually get to do that with nature, that i actually really get to just...be still and know that He is God. today not relly. wanted to rush home to do quiet time cos sun nite n mon nite slept relatively late, and it ended up making me fall asleep at work for one hour per day....some of my colleagues were telling me to get up before the boss sees me, "cos it's not nice"....i mean, hey i know it isn't, but what if you can't stop yourself? what if your so tired and the room is so frickin cold that you just feel like sleeping? anyway, gonna rush off to do quiet time now, n hopefully sleep enuff not to doze off at work tmr. how do i feel? er....walk with God is...well i feel protected, but at the same time i can also feel i'm not totally in the safe zone yet and i feel vulnerable. but i will continue to persevere and keep on praying. picking up the pieces i have been ministered. yesterday was the first time in my life that i didn't treat myself on my birthday, that i stopped looking out for my own interests, that i actually broke down and cried several times to God in prayer, that i experienced a greater intimacy with God. and today was the first time in years that i have ever cried during the the closing prayer (after sermon)cos i felt it really applied to me. thanks all who have prayed, do continue to keep praying for me.i definitely feel stronger in God and more in touch with Him. and He really reached out to me, which i saw in today as well during the "sermon"...we invited this guest speaker from s'pore, n he said he felt that we should hear a "sidetrack comment" before going on to the notes he had prepared...but his "comment" ended up becoming the sermon becos he ended up speaking more and more about it...and it concerned healing the sick, whether it's spiritual or physical sickness....and it relly opened my eyes to a few things n made me look at old verses in the Bible in a new perspective. the last nite of camp i ended up praying with some frens n staying up till 6.30am....and on hindsight, i was glad to have been given the opportunity to do that. i also realised tonite that ultimately, my problems and my worries were only the tip of the iceberg. throughout my time of "suffering", i identified a few problems along the way, n each problem got deeper and more into the heart of me than the one before. and rite now the latest problem that God has opened my eyes to, is that i have not been spending enough quiet time with Him for a very long time. all along when things were going well, when they were fine and dandy, i was blind enuff to think, hey, i'm doing relly well. everything's okay so i guess my walk with God is good. but now that i'm going thru this struggle in my life i realise that all along i was wrong....and that God is using the problem to tell me, hey jess, you haven't been spending enuff time with me. --> which is why you do not know me or my love for i am the One that provides for you and for God is love, which is why you have let your worries and problems overcome you, which is why you find yourself struggling to not place your hope on earthly things. and i have hope for the future and my faith in God is renewed again. one of the revelations that i felt when the speaker spoke his words was when he pointed out that "faith is not something you conjure up, not something that's inside of you that you can evoke." and he showed us that in Romans 10: 17 it says that "faith comes through hearing the message", the message being the Word of God. so basically i realised that like what he said later, i have been relying on my own strength, trying to "conjure up" my faith...when all along the only way i could actually build my faith was to hear more sermons and talks on God and hear more of what my frens were saying when the Holy Spirit was speaking thru them to me. there's a lot of other key, or what i would call fundamental, revelations i received in tonite's talk, n i was relly glad that the speaker postponed his sermon cos i was greatly ministered to in the impromptu words from the Lord that he had to say. it's amazing how much knowledge he had, and how in the world he recalled so many Bible verses, and how much he had to say on the spot.....the Holy Spirit really empowered him and spoke thru him cos there's no way he could've done it on his own. anyway i hope this new interest and desire/fire for God continues to byrn in me and not fizzle out in the days or weeks to come. this is not good feel bad. still. think i'm worse today cos i feel bad longer. i almost feel like hurtling myself down a steep cliff or jumping down the twin towers. i don't wanna be here. i don't wanna face the pressure and the burdens here. it's tough. my heart's not even ready for camp yet. i feel like shit. my emotions are swinging back and forth from two extremes: anger and sadness. frustration, rage....and then hurt and pain....and then back again.god loves me. he takes care of me. he's got my life in control. but i just don't feel it right now. i don't feel secure in the knowledge that god's got my back and he's looking out for my best interests in the future. i don't feel much of god's love tonite. i don't feel loved or cared for at all tonite. i can't even feel like i'm talking to a great and powerful mighty Being up there in the heavens. i just don't feel it. i'm too caught up in mulling about things down here. the worries and problems i bring onto myself on earth here are distracting me from the one true God i should be paying full attention to. i know that. i know. but somehow i can't bring myself to turn over a new leaf, to switch myself over and be spiritually up again. it's tough sometimes i place way too much expectations on ppl. and i get relly frustrated when they don't meet my expectations. it's relly too bad...but it's all my fault. all my wrong thinking. i thought these ppl were my friends, my mind thinks. i thought they'd at least read my mind and do what i thought friends do. but i often find it hard to believe that everyone's not perfect, and that no, ppl can't read my mind, no matter how close they're supposed to be. and i find it hard to not "judge" them, in a way, and place so much expectations on them to do things.guess that's the story of life. and it's not like i can blame them cos basically it's my fault for expecting them to meet my expectations. it's not like i can scold them or tell them or ask them why they can't even do something so simple for me. it really pisses me off but sometimes i feel like my closest friends treat me like distant friends and my distant friends treat me like close friends. God really has a funny sense of humour sometimes. i'll be off for a camp that's supposed to lift my spirits from tues-sat next week. i'm hoping to use it as a time to sort things out and get my priorities rite, as in put God first and put my problems and my complaints and my worries last. it's true sometimes i live like i'm an orphan. i live like i don't have a Father who loves me so much He sent His son to die for me. but it's tough, i admit. sometimes i just can't feel the love. and i block out the painful memories of the cross because it is just so gory and excruciating to think of at times...and i think this is part of why i can't really feel it sometimes. i'm thinking to myself, jess, you've got a direct connection to the One who is in control of life and what happens to you, so why are you mulling about your worries and your pathetic problems and troubles? like i said, i know what i must do, i know what needs to be done, yadda yadda yadda...but walking the talk and just doing it is so hard to do. i really don't noe about the camp. i want to take the opportunity to use the time i'm given to set myself right with God and put away my problems once and for all but i don't know if i'm actually gonna do it or not. there it is. the action thing again. oh well. this is life. never perfect, always challenging. four words four words: i need a life-change. or i need a revival. i cannot go on living life like this. but the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. i know what i must do but i can't bring myself to do it. i can't bring myself to change. and i don't wanna lie. i don't wanna put on a plastic smile and an artificial joyful personality when deep down i'm bubbling like a pot about to burst inside. a potpourri of emotions, most of them negative. it's bad, i know. but there's no switch in my head where i can flick on that says, "happy. god-focused. not concerned with earthly things." so i'm still waiting. trying to figure out how to get out of this situation.hope it doesn't take too long. work sucks my dog, the temperamental one, bit me again friday nite after i came back from work so one strip of skin from my little finger got torn off. [don't worry, he's sorry now, looked really repentant up to yesterday for what he's done. honestly dogs are smart and they can remember, and my parents were scolding him bad enuff on friday nite so it's 100% unlikely he'll be biting me soon. and anyway i'd rather have him here biting me than not have him around at all. he bit cos he has a temper sometimes and he's very much like a cat in the sense that if he doesn't wanna be petted, he'll bite without warning just as cats scratch without warning. usually i avoid, but sometimes i'm not quick enuff.]long story, i dun wanna go into details cos i got work tmr, but yeah, it was tough having to not get the bandage wet or do things with one hand. bathing is tough. playing the piano is a little tough, cos instinctively my little finger reaches for the keys. other things in everyday life are tough. tomoro i return to work and i am so so so so sad i have to go back. it sucks. work sucks. i really really hate work. the cold. the numerous hours at the computer. the insanely early mornings. the terrible jam on the return trip home. the exhaustion from a whole day's work. office work is so not the life for me, esp being given jobs fit for a clerk or something. man i so fear for my eyes...i'm really scared i'm gonna end up wearing spectacles after this shit is over. 4 weeks to go. i cannot wait. i cannot wait. but i don't wanna go straight to school after that either. but no choice. i hate work. i hate work. it sucks badly. life sucks because of work. it's terrible. tomoro is gonna be such a terrible day. i am gonna suffer terribly. and i am gonna suffer alone. this really sucks.
recent items i wanna take my mind off work life now sohere are a few things i found interesting during the break week... 1)adrian mole finally has a new book (or shud i say sue townsend)....the latest series, of which i saw at MPH tonite, was a nice thick hardcover version of Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction....that means the book's relly recent! cool! i cudn't believe my eyes because i had just seen it on the Top 10 List in Malaysia in the Star papers this weekend. unfortch, it's RM52.95 so i'd rather wait til next year for the price to go down....i haven't read the book prior to this yet, the Cappucino Years (it's the only adrian mole book i haven't yet read), so i'm not exactly in a rush to get the latest one cos i dun wanna spoil the surprise by reading. hopefully they'll still have new stock coming in next year, or at least one book in good condition. i take extremely good care of my books, cos they're like prized posessions to me. that's partly why i find it so hard to lend ppl my books. another is becos they forget to return it. 2) duran duran's new album is finally out! they're one of my fave all-time bands and the fruit of their reunion (with the original band members) after 20 years has finally seen the light! it's called astronaut and their latest single is the remixed oldie sunrise, which i've been hooked on for months before the thing was released. i've also listened to a few of their tracks in the new album prior to its release on officially-released sites online. i was frequenting the official site a few weeks before their album came out last month, n i got to see the news headlines leading up to the big day. it's a pity the sunrise album was done rather poorly though. not for its time i think, more meant for the 80s. and i noe duran duran mtv's can do better than that cos they did. all the same, can't wait to get the album when it's here. nick rhodes is a cool pianist and simon le bon has this thing of using his hands to gesture different motions when he's singing, which i think is really appealing too. 3) kevin max's latest E.P. album, between the fence and the universe, which was out in september. this is his second solo album since he took a short break from dctalk. i was lucky enuff to happen to visit around the week before his album was due to be released, so i got to join in on the action. his 6 songs are played as a background track on a preset player on his official site, so it's really cool that i got to listen, cos his album's prob gonna reach here in a year or two's time :(. he mentioned releasing the full album next year, but this E.P. is a preview of what's in store for the coming album. pretty good stuff, reminds me of stereotype be, his first album. blogger works? man oh man. it works, it doesn't work. mite as well type quick while it still works. and if this whole window exits again or it shows me that "internal error sign" i'm gonna go ballistic.this week was a drag. week 2 of working here. i'm counting. so i've got 4 weeks left to get rid off. so sad, then i gotta jump straight back into the fish pool of school. no holidays. horrible. there were a few points in time this week that i felt it was not worth it to work, where i had to practically drag myself back into the morgue (it's freezing there...you can practically store dead bodies in there) and sit down and let my eyes deteriorate over the hours. every day. wake up insanely early, suffer from loss of sleep, and even if i do sleep more or less enuff i still fall asleep cos the coldness in the office makes me sleepy....where was i? yeah. wake up, suffer from sleep loss, fight my way past the human jam at customs (the usual culprits responsible for pushing, shoving, stepping on my toes, banging into me, messing up my hair, etc.. all devils for all i care), fall asleep standing up in the mrt (yes, it is possible cos i've done it all week...all i have to do is lean on the back of those glass "windows" where they always stick the ads -- 2 at the sides of each mrt door -- and fall asleep. seats always taken. worst to the worst grab on to a metal pole and droop my head off to sleep), take the bus again and reach the workplace bleary-eyed and sleepy. at work, battle the awful winter inside, and sit down and stare at the computer for 4 to 5 hours on end. my eyes have been hurting lately, so much so that i've had to take vision-breaks more often, but they (my eyes) still hurt and the words on the screen still look a little blurry when i return. i wonder if 6 weeks of this is gonna affect my vision. i really really really really really really really don't wanna wear glasses. i'm praying i don't have to. and i realised it is impossible to NOT fall asleep at work, cos there's this point at around 2 or 3pm in the office where it is just so cold and i feel so fat and contented from having my lunch that i just feel like sleeping. i will just drop my head on the table and lie there for anywhere between 5 to 25 mins. really bad. but my colleagues have learnt not to tell on me and not ask me if i've passed out or fallen ill. speaking of which, the colleague across my table, separated by a really low wall of partition, is pretty okay. it just so happens that his wife happens to share the same name and the same initials: jessica chong. and so far he's been doing a good job of not saying anything when i drop off to sleep. he's been pretty cool to in the sense that he's the only guy that dares to make jokes with me and he was the first to ask more about me. but overall my colleagues are, overall, nice. so's my boss. but i think they're all polite cos they don't know me well, so it's common courtesy or sth like that. but i'm banking on it....cos at least i want to be on good terms with them as long as i'm slogging it out here. yesterday was my boss' birthday (surprise surprise...i noe so many november babies) and it was also "bosses' day" which i dunno why, but at my workplace, is like having april fool's day. so the mood yesterday was pretty light and jovial. i had people telling me jokes and playing pranks on me all day. and i ate different types of cake...and ppl from other departments came over to talk and hang around...and they asked my boss a few quiz questions and made her wear a garland of feathers and take a photo of it. this goes to show one thing: adults are really kids at heart. i mean, yesterday was turned upside down and it was like everyone was in high school again or something. pretty cool. adults in adult office clothes acting like high school people. pretty fun. but one main thing i realised since i started working here was....boys will always be boys. they never grow up. from day one until now, whether it's bosses' day or not, the men are always telling jokes and the women will laugh. especially my colleague across my desk...i found out he always likes to tease my boss' secretary, who is a 50-something lady who sits behind me and is the person to report to if my boss is not around (most times she's gone for a corporate lunch date or a meeting and she's always taking the company cars out to gain publicity for the company n stuff...an envious lifestyle to some extent)....and sometimes he'll get the secretary to do some work for him and when she expresses her dislike, he'll jus joke around with her and she'll get over it. even the other two bosses, whom i don't have to report to, who are both male, they're always telling jokes whether they're on the phone with their customers or whether they're walking out to just hang around and talk with the employees outside their office, meaning the area of tables where i'm at. interesting observation of the male species...hahaha. just kidding.
blogger really has a prob this thing's screwed. the thing jammed again while i was trying to post my last post. very frustrating when you wait so long only to get a "500 internal server error" problem. and i suspect either blogger is screwed or my computer's really screwed. my mouse is still going crazy and exiting windows while i'm halfway typing, and opening windows i never requested for, and i'm already using mozilla and i've run spysweeper and hijackthis umpteen times. i give up.the spyware, adware, hackware devils are at it again. heck, even my tagboard's full of shit, which i jus deleted. what is this world coming to, that a simple writer cannot pen down her thoughts on the net? i'm tired of trying to post again. it's frustrating. if this problem persists, i might not post here again for a long time.
blogger has a prob if u noe me, u'll noe i always have a lot of things to say every single day and i wud like to blog....but i haven't written here all week becos:-i seem to have a prob logging into blogger. i'll click the thingy and wait for like 10 mins n the page will display the words "internal server error". -when i rush back i wanna sleep quick, so trying and trying again and seeing the minutes tick away is not sensible. i realise that even 5 mins means 5 precious mins of sleep for me. n some nites i'm jus too tired that i go straight to sleep after i do what i have to do oh well. everything on earth has its faults. machines, people, things....they all fail us at some point or another. sad to say, but it's the "anomaly" principle in the matrix kinda thing....a law designed by the Creator that every thing on this earth is and must be flawed. sad but true. ok. enuff of that. i thot i was over that already. btw a question someone asked me many years ago comes to mind rite now. last time one of the people i spoke with constantly got rather frustrated at me because i called that person the day right after i last called. so in frustration the friend asked me, "jessica, what went on in your life yesterday?" and there was silence on my end cos i was wondering which event to tell my friend since i cud think of so many....but the person took the silence as a lack of thoughts and said "see, nothing right?" trying to prove a point, the point being that i can't call someone the day after we last spoke because there's nothing new to talk about. man, that person was so wrong. and that person so doesn't know me, or the meaning of life, or the fact that every day brings a new thing to talk about, a new event. i mean, even if i do the same routine thing every day the unpredictability of life allows me to experience new incidents along the way every day. even my thoughts are different everyday. i don't think of the exact same thing everyday. but whatever. guess that person either looks at things through a tunnel vision or that person just plain couldn't stand my company. that incident happened many years ago but i'm just using it to say that having nothing to say will never be the reason why i don't blog. it's not that i got nil to say, in fact i can think of tons, but the time and the logging-in problem didn't allow it. |
|
|
.jpg){kind=link}