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read between the lines
the return of the singer by the way, my blog entry is named after kevin max's song title.as i was saying, truly god has indeed done something in my life during these past 40 days that has definitely had a 180 degree impact on my life. not only has He recovered the joy i lost when i fell into depression for three years, He has also given me the freedom to be myself, freedom from insecurities and worries i have been imprisoned or limited by for most of my conscious life. He has infiltrated my mind and changed my thinking and subsequently, how i relate to people as well as how to understand them (still an ongoing process). romans 12:2 comes to mind. but most importantly, my relationship with Him has progressed further as i re-learned to trust, have faith and surrender completely to Him through life's testing moments. it seems to me like we were all born with the innate ability to do all three when we were kids, but as we grew up we got more sceptical and thus lost the simple faith which we try to regain once we realise its importance (and come full circle). life seems to be a lot about coming full circle and repeating history for me, by the way. so yeah, praise, glory and honour be to the One who most deserves it. for it has been a long time coming (and i've been waiting for so long) to finally be free from certain emotional chains of the past. the fast didn't start off on so high a note, though. when i began, i was lamenting for a whole week on the absence of people who "get" me or whom i can really connect with; i couldn't seem to quite get over the fact that there'll always be only one set of me and no replicas anywhere. and then there were these reminders of the past as i cleared up my junk (i am a mild-degree hoarder, by the way) that sort of stung, hurt and angered me but did not provide any answers or closure. oh and my self-control was lacking (as i have already said) and there was a great need to do the great escape artist trick again of living in one's own little world, oblivious to the harsh reality of life. the following week was one of expiration. after what seemed like a whole lifetime of initiating things between two-way communications, i decided not to initiate because not only was it tiring, but it also left me wondering if i was the only party interested in communicating. i had been initiating so often that there was barely room to assess what the situation was like. thankfully, it was a fruitful week that yielded good results. people actually initiated for once, which i did not expect. still, i did not truly feel at peace with myself. i knew something was wrong, i just didn't know what. and then suddenly, the right word at the right time became the tipping point where my life was sort of changed forever. i was on the phone with an old friend who had just come back from overseas, divulging details of life's latest events and unexpectedly tearing up when i expressed my gratitude to said friend, tc, for still being around after braving through my whirlwind of a life. it was at this point where tc, in typical i'm-humble-yet-i'm-about-to-provide-vital-information fashion said, "though i am the least qualified to tell you anything, since my own level of quiet time's recently crappy, from what i've observed, through what you've said and what i know you to be, it seems like you've been placing your significance, [personal worth] and acceptance in friends instead of in god." i have to stop here and explain because usually at this juncture of where i am relating my story, people give me a sort of quizzical look and say "really?". the thing is, while i had always been consciously aware that i was insecure and always needing someone to push me in the right direction before i actually felt qualified or worthy to undertake whatever tasks ahead since my childhood days, i couldn't exactly figure out the remedy or what exactly it was that was making me so insecure or reliant on people to sort of validate me before i could move ahead. needing acceptance didn't really seem to cut it because, while i did sort of want to belong to a group of people where i could just be myself and not get ridiculed for it, i wasn't willing to go so far as to mimic or clone myself into "one of the rest". for instance, i definitely would not speak in a falsetto voice, poke my finger into my cheek and strike kawaii poses in photo booths just so i could "belong", although i would obligingly provide leeway for enduring shopping trips, chick flicks (just not too many) and laughter that is out of context. another thing is that i usually tune out when people tell me i have acceptance issues because the topic is viewed so negatively. there is an invisible derogative label that comes with being tagged as such, and words like "desperate", "no life", "loser" and "i'm being nice to you only because i pity you" come to mind. but this time, it's like the gears in my head finally clicked when tc said that. suddenly things that seemed so important didn't seem so anymore. i think the words significance and personal worth held greater relevance for me. as i chewed on this new information the following night in my quiet time with god, He pointed out to me the times when this was most evident: the times that i have felt truly useless, not needed and like a spare tyre in my life were either the times when a significant friendship in my life had just crashed and burned or when i was in a position of being forced to be in regular company of people who acted as if i was invisible. i had always been struggling with the issue of significance. what on earth was i here for? because god wanted me here, yes, why? to help people? i finally came to the saving conclusion that even if, theoretically, nobody seemed to need me anymore here on earth, or it seemed that way because i was around people who couldn't appreciate me, i would still matter (i.e. i was not useless) because i was alive, so evidently god would still want me here. i would no longer need a reference point in the form of at least one person, be it friend or family member, to "activate" my significance here on earth, nor would i ever need any one person to determine how much i was personally worth here on earth. it was then that i truly understood what it meant to be significant in christ; i was significant because it was christ in me that made me significant, made me "that xtra something", as my alma mater likes to publicise themselves as. the direction after that was not so clear initially, though. i knew i was at the crossroads, that this thinking had the potential to change not only how i relate to friends and family but also how i treat them, but i wasn't sure how to ingrain this information into my mind, wasn't sure what the "concrete plans and actions to take" were, as tc said. the only thing i could come up with was to constantly remind myself. i found out a week later from another friend that that was the answer; it (the answer, not the task) was that simple. to constantly correct myself every time my line of thinking started to revert to the old one until a natural progression into the new one sufficed. to make a non-habit a habit, which it would become in due time. i can honestly say that when i next looked through my old journals detailing personal accounts of certain events, i saw things in a different light. now, it's like a great and long-carried weight has been lifted off my shoulders and i am able to laugh again and just be who i really am in public, no longer getting frustrated at being misquoted or misunderstood, nor being held back by these limitations. but this restored sight of mine is just beginning to impact my life. current stuff i'm working on is learning to reject the sin in people instead of the people themselves. i've also noticed i've had a greater threshold for controlling anger, an ability to be more patient with people...thank god. i think there is less rage in my heart now because the fire that triggers it has been quenched. i hope and look forward to greater things to come as god continues to change and mould my heart into the one He wants it to be. |
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