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read between the lines
parent trouble god is relly testing me today. i had the first major dispute with my parents in a long time (not very long but long enuff la)....n it's all becos jus for once this week i thot i shud sit down n have dinner with them. but i shudda known that rarely do we have a decent meal when we sit down together. it's like putting sandpaper and wood next to each other. we saw each other off, there's huge friction, n none of us understands the other. it relly sucks n somehow i dun think i'm ever gonna love my parents until i live on my own. seriously. i relly don't see myself reconciling with my family any time soon....n it looks like we'll never at least be mutual friends until i move out n they start to miss me.i relly hated it when i went for meta n my mom kept calling me or sending me msges on behalf of my parents like "hope all's well there...love, mom" or "i love you jessie".......every single time it never failed to create some kinda cognitive dissonance within me when i got it. i remember thinking....mom n dad, why do you love me only when i'm gone? why go all mushy on me only when i'm not around, n when i return, drive me up the wall? do i have to die to please you? i relly relly felt that their smses n their calls, their expressions of love for me, were relly relly insincere. it felt so fake. n i'm thinking of it now. n it all started, as usual, with sth insignificant. mom n i jus came back from church. i had planned to have dinner with frens or at least spend some quiet time in starbucks, but i thot, hey mebbe i shud relly sit down n have a nice dinner with them, since they're my parents n i'm supposed to spend time with them. boy was i so wrong. when we got back, n everyone piled into the car to go for dinner, nothing was wrong. nothing was wrong when we reached our destination n started eating satays for dinner. until halfway during our chatter. we were nearly ending n i commented that satay alone was not a healthy meal (i was brought up by my mom to think that a proper meal shud contain carbs, protein n at least some vege to get the minerals). it turns out my family had eaten up the relatively small portion of available ketupat (carbs) n cucumber (vege) n left me with almost nothing. so i said i wanted to order extra stuff to make up for my loss. i wudn've used my own money, had it not been for the fact that i didn't bring my wallet, n my parents were like no, no, we're not gonna let u waste our money. n i was like, come on man, i'm gonna pay u ppl back so what difference does it make? n somehow that escalated into a heated argument. n on the trip back my dad was saying relly unfair stuff like "i wish i cud jus lie down on the road n let a steam-roller roll over me" (i felt like saying "i wish so too" but i jus refrained) n "can't we even have a decent meal?" ("i agree" i said in my mind) n "everytime we go out with [my bro's name] we never have any problems" (n i'm thinking like duh, that's becos he's too young to state his opinions) n "i dunno why this has to happen...what did i do to deserve this?" (i so felt like saying "i feel the exact same way too" but once again--it must've been a miracle--i jus shut up). n what they did was to drive me home n drop me there with the hse keys. INCENSED was the word that came to mind as i opened the gate n the grill, walked past my noisy dogs n sat down in the stillness of the hse. i can't do this! i said to god. how can i forgive my parents when they drive me up the wall every time we spend long hours together? just great, god, i said. you give me enemies for parents when your very word says to love your enemies. you knew this was going to happen! (as in you knew we wudn't get along ever.) how do you expect me to love my parents when all i wanna do rite now is strangle them to death?! n then i said the word i had been trying to refrain. the f word. n then i was like, oops, no not again, this is *not* deja-vu. n then i realised sth, which i believe was a way of god speaking to me. i suddenly understood my motivation for saying the f word consciously in anger. i said it cos it gave me power. somehow i jus felt power over the situation...a sort of way to counteract their mean acts. all my resentment and hate was contained in a single word of F. n this led me to a very important conclusion: i'm saying the f word to "serve them back", to retaliate, to return an eye for an eye n a tooth for a tooth (only applies to when i say it consiously, not when it's stuck in my head). n that totally changed my perspective. cos i knew i was supposed to forgive those who anger me, but i didn't noe why i cudn't even though i was trying to. this was one of the undiscovered issues that prevented me. n after that i jus stopped. i lost the desire to say the f word with every verb, noun or pronoun. n i prayed the prayer of power using jesus' name to remove all anger and hatred from me. n after that i felt a bit better. but definitely stronger. but i cudn't stay in the hse...somehow the emptiness n silence was deafening to me. i knew i wanted to spend some time with god or some moment of peace but i knew i had to get out of there. n i'll admit, sometimes i like to, i dunno how to call it, "test" god? as in i'll try to do sth else even tho i feel pretty sure that's not what he wants me to do. like call ppl up n ask if i can take refuge in their home even tho i know he wants to spend time with me...alone. the thing is, sometimes it works, most times it doesn't...n i dunno why but at moments like these my mentality is jus to try my luck n see if there's a way out...which is pretty bad of me n i'm still trying to stop this. so i called my fren, one of the few i used to run to for refuge in their homes when i had major fights with my parents (esp the months after spm when i had no sch n i was at home practically everyday cos i was going broke from trying to spend time staying away from them)....n yeah...fren wasn't free. so, okay. that settles it. i know what to do. so i locked up the hse n walked up to the row of shophouses a few roads away, up the hill. they had your usual mamak stall so i went there n finally got myself a proper meal with vege (some leafy stuff that wasn't too fibrous to chew) n carbs (roti canai). n of cos my regular glass of teh tarik. sat down, ate a proper meal, thot over the whole situation in an environment that allowed me to think more clearly n feel more at peace, then walked home quickly before my parents got back. thank god they didn't. i'm glad He kept them away. cos they wud've probably picked a fight over that too. when i got back the first thing i did was instinctively go to the piano. n i played my heart out on it like i haven't for months. cos these days i jus don't feel comfortable playing the piano at home when my family's ard, cos i don't like them to know how i'm feeling, n then use it against me to ridicule me like they sometimes do. n these days it's not been possible to not have them ard cos i'm mostly out n when i'm in, they're in. i felt like i needed assurance, so i played songs that came to mind that spoke of that. stuff like "i know who holds tomoro", which was played in church service today. it's always been one of my rare old favourites out of the hymns but today i saw the last part with new light: "but i know who holds tomoro, n i know who holds my hand." ever since meta uni, in some of the times of trouble, i've always felt that god was holding my hand. whether he was guiding me n leading me thru the crowd, or pulling me up from the waters (think the passage where he walks on water) or jus giving it a reassuring squeeze, i felt that jesus was holding my hand. not that i cud relly feel it, cos if i did, i honestly think i wud freak out, but i felt it in an analogical sense. n one of the thots that calms me of death which came to mind in meta over one of those mass prayer thingies was of me, walking thru this relly dark tunnel with a light at the end, n of someone (jesus) holding my hand firmly n leading me toward the light. but that's not to say my fear of death is over. it jus calms me, if only for a while. but when my family got back i jus closed the whole piano shutter thingy n replaced the covers. i was in no mood to face my family. so i jus went to my room, took out my favorite mat, n of all things i blasted hillsongs' "blessed" album into the room. ppl who know me know that i'm not exactly a fan of hillsongs or planet shakers, n i tend to lean more towards the american style of rock n alternative (in fact i only got this becos a fren lent it to me to burn). but rite before i shut the piano i had been playing my fave song on the album, which jus came to mind (shout of the king or sth like that) n i wanted to hear it out. n so i heard it...n after that i jus let the cd play n i felt stronger as the minutes passed. n as i was looking around the room i spotted this old booklet which i hadn't picked up for months which, the last time i saw it, i was planning to give away to someone since i relly had no heart to read it. it was a supplementary booklet from the daily bread titled "why did christ have to die?". n i jus started reading thru...n realising that this was actually good stuff. very concise stuff about what one can learn from the cross n why it had to be done, etc. up to as recent as less than 5 months ago i wud never have dreamed of reading stuff about the cross simply becos i had been blocking out the pain n goryness associated with the cross. it reminded me of my impending doom to this earthly world. n as i was reading thru, i found that it mentioned one point which i had to find out for myself thru my recent time of trouble: the cross is the only way to feel the extent of god's love. everything else jus pales in comparison n feels somehow...incomplete. n as i read thru, with the music keeping me in that state of mind (yeah, i was deliberately multi-tasking again), i found the answer to a question i had been asking myself since wednesday. i found the meaning of the last part of phillipians 3: 12. no, the answer wasn't stated directly to my face in the booklet, but it helped me to understand n see the light. the "enlightenment" came from this bit: "his death produced spiritual life for all who would trust Him. we are the fruit of His suffering and death." the 2nd sentence relly got to me, made a few gears in my head click. they were talking about how jesus, like the grain of wheat in john 24-25, had to fall to the ground aka. die to produce much grain aka. produce more fruit or rewards than the current ones. i equated the "we" to our spiritual aka. eternal life, from looking at the sentence before it. n i thot, if spiritual life is the fruit of his suffering n death, can't it also be the prize? n then i looked at my good old good news bible which said (v. 12) "...i keep striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to himself." n compared it with the puzzling niv bit: "...i press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me" replaced the word "prize" with eternal life. n the last part of the words jus started to rearrange themselves in my head n make sense: ...christ won / took hold of eternal life for me. i strive / press on to take hold of eternal life that christ won for me. n voila. those were the magic words that cleared the fuzz in my head. it seemed to make sense with verse 14 in both versions as well, n i asked god about it, n i felt very assured that it was right. so i guess being willing to wait for an answer in due time worked. n another thing that i kept coming across today by the indirect words of others was yesterday's topic for the engage booklet: giving generously. actually i realised it yesterday as i was browsing thru the christian books, but it was magnified n reaffirmed today. i saw that giving generously doesn't jus mean giving my tithes / offerings willingly n donating stuff to welfare homes or the tsunami victims n all that, but it also means giving the love that god loves me with freely n willingly, even to parents who relly piss me off or to frens who treat me like someone they don't even know. yeah, yesterday's issue of that fren came up again in my mind today right before yf started...cos i was thinking about how...betrayed...i felt when i had to find out from somoene else news that everyone else knew about already. i mean, to me it relly sucks when you're the last person to find out something that your so-called friend has told to everyone else but you. n it's not even anything worth hiding from. but i surrendered those feelings to god during yf n thru the songs (they were having some mini-marathon for worship) i did manage to focus back on god n forget about the problem. n later when we broke into groups to pray, i was prayed for n i myself prayed....n now i feel...almost willing to "share the love". almost. so my fren n my parents two sources of which i'm gonna have to give my love generously n willingly even though at times i jus don't feel it in return. i'm not supposed to expect anything back when i give, i'm supposed to jus give. btw after i bathed n i came out to watch tv in the living room where my mom was, i didn't feel like mentioning anything about earlier, as in i didn't wanna apologise or assure her or anything, cos i felt we wud break out into a fight again, so i said nothing n jus spoke like nothing happened. for now, i think it'll be ok, cos i think it's better than getting into a fight, but at the same time, it's not like we've officially reconciled. some day i'll be able to do that with my parents. but i think that day will only come when i'm out of here. (no, not when i'm dead i hope, i mean when i live on my own.) as for today's topic in the engage booklet about praying like paul, as in prayers of intercession for other ppl, i cudn't agree more...now. a few months back when i was giving up hope over ppl who didn't seem to be affected by my prayers i wudn't have agreed totally. but now i have faith...and the understanding that it's ok if the prayers don't work out the way i want them to. |
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