|
|
|
read between the lines
i woke with this fear life's sometimes uncanny in the sense that i can walk past a shop, hear a song that best expresses me for the day and find comfort in that song. some staff guy in the mph cd section today kept playing the song below, so either he was feeling the same or he was really into emo music.had another dream today from my past. it got me thinking why some things are such a wreck whenever i look back. unfinished endings that unsettle me. sure, i don't think about it as much as i used to, but i'm only human and when i do, i can't just not feel anything about what has happened and be as laconic as the other party. on top of it, i have the future to think about. people are so tricky. you can never be too sure about the people you invest in. a new set of friends have arrived lately, so many of them...but i don't know if i can handle it -- allow myself to be vulnerable again, start a friendship (of substance) with some of them and put my life on the line again, knowing what statistics say. but if i don't, i'll never allow them a chance to cultivate a real friendship with me (and vice versa), and obviously i don't want that -- to be a 'stepford friend' (blame the TV for showing stepford wives again haha). do i still believe that god can "reconcile the irreconcilable", as beth moore said in the devotional i read yesterday? that's the only thing that's kept me going, that he will, someday, and not when i'm 80 or after we're all dead and gone to heaven. but do i still believe it enough to not let it mar my future friendships? Leave Out All The Rest by LINKIN PARK I dreamed I was missing You were so scared But no one would listen Cause no one else cared After my dreaming I woke with this fear What am I leaving When I'm done here So if you're asking me I want you to know When my time comes Forget the wrong that I've done Help me leave behind some Reasons to be missed And don't resent me And when you're feeling empty Keep me in your memory Leave out all the rest Leave out all the rest Don't be afraid I've taken my beating I've shared what I made I'm strong on the surface Not all the way through I've never been perfect But neither have you So if you're asking me I want you to know When my time comes Forget the wrong that I've done Help me leave behind some Reasons to be missed Don't resent me And when you're feeling empty Keep me in your memory Leave out all the rest Leave out all the rest Forgetting All the hurt inside You've learned to hide so well Pretending Someone else can come and save me from myself I can't be who you are When my time comes Forget the wrong that I've done Help me leave behind some Reasons to be missed Don't resent me And when you're feeling empty Keep me in your memory Leave out all the rest Leave out all the rest Forgetting All the hurt inside You've learned to hide so well Pretending Someone else can come and save me from myself I can't be who you are I can't be who you are godspeak i love some of the random quotes my friend's posted on his god quote generator site...he took them from the love singapore movement. it just sounds so much like what god would be telling me on a normal daily conversation with him: assurances of truth with a pinch of humour too. haha.here are some of my favourites: i'm here.and these thought-provoking ones: how can you call yourself a free thinker when you can't even accept the possibility of my existence?and the funniest double entrendre: nietzsche is dead.ho yeah! haha. nothing more Ordinary Lifeby KRISTEN BARRY And I shed my soul, feel it kneeling down I'm clutching my faith, pull it tightly round You're moving your mouth but you don't make a sound But I feel the walls slowly tearing down Heel to toe takes you from my side In and out, every breath divides My eyes to your head, I can't go the distance But when you go, you take me in an instant But in this life I'll give it time Cause its always spinning up from behind It'll be alright, it will be fine 'Cause its nothing more than ordinary life So I show you my sins, show me all your scars As we settle in, it's written in the stars Your watery eyes got me, send me floating And my weak heart is swimming with devotion But in this life I'll give it time Cause its always spinning up from behind It'll be alright, it will be fine 'Cause its nothing more than ordinary life But in this life I'll give it time Cause its always spinning up from behind It'll be alright, it will be fine 'Cause its nothing more than ordinary life -- someday i'll look back and be proud (not in an egotistical sense) of how far i've come. for now, there's an 'ordinary life' left to be lived. thank god i am never alone. grace i got to know a young christian today who revealed her (obviously deep-rooted) fear that her existence (actually she said 'birth', but i don't think she was trying to say she was conceived accidentally) might have been a mistake and that she might have messed up god's wonderful plan for her a long time ago. finally, someone who thinks like me, i thought. haha. well at least i used to think that way. but i get what she means.in days past when murphy's law seemed to be working more often than not, i used to think: how could i f*** things up this badly? it's all my fault, so i'm left to bear the consequences and suffer the losses, right? can god really salvage anything from this trail of wreckage i've left behind? how can i ever recover? and if i was in a particularly self-deprecating mood, i would even wish i never existed. that it would have been better for me to have never been born, so it would have saved both the people i've wounded and myself the pain. kind of like how jeremiah and job felt. over time, one lifesaver of an answer rang clearly: grace. grace washing over me and cleansing me from guilt, grace assuring me that it was wide and encompassing enough to overcome even the biggest mistake that i could ever make in my lifetime, grace giving me the hope and the strength to not only live another day, but to trust that the next day would be a chance for myself to change for the better, a chance to distance myself from the past. basically, grace of the kind only god can provide. with it came the realisation that what i had been believing in was a lie all along, something which i hope she too comes to experience and internalise as she journeys on towards christ. i would have liked to talk to her more, since people who talk with substance come by rarely (either that or we just haven't got to that point yet) these days, but time did not permit us to. but then again, i have a feeling i will be seeing her again very soon. edit: i'd also like to add that, along with realising my beliefs were lies, came the substitution of the truth -- obviously a truth has to replace a lie in order for it to be proved as such -- that by me saying i had crossed the line (aka. messed up so much that i was beyond repair), i was implying that god was too small, not powerful and not sovereign (or encompassing) enough to "fix me" (think coldplay's song). i was also implying that there was somehow a loophole in the whole concept of grace that i had fallen through, as if grace was something that had to be earned, to some extent. which of course, now that i had put it that way, obviously woke me up to the truth. immediately. last-minute jitters "I will run into Your open arms,thank god for earworm. this song came into my head as i was feeling afraid, which i am, very, right now. i'm so afraid 'cause it's so near yet so uncertain. it's practically in my grasp and i can almost clutch it but i don't know if it'll evade me in the end or not. kind of hard to tell, considering a lot of my life has seen me losing more than keeping. i hate being in this position right now. it's just so stressful thinking about it. i should know better, right, having gone through thunder and hail and whatnot, that His faithfulness prevails and He knows the future is good for me, even if i don't. and the times i did lose, i gained something else each time in return, although totally different from what i'd expected. but at the end of the day, jesus, thy will be done. i will close my eyes, take a deep breath and just trust that whatever happens, You want the best for me and will choose it to be so. All I'm Living For by PLANETSHAKERS Here I am waiting for You, Here I am reaching out to You, I will run into Your arms again, And I’m longing for Your touch once again, Take my life, everything, All I am, An offering for you, Cause you’re all I’m living for Here I am waiting on You, Here I am reaching out for You, I will run into Your arms again, And I’m longing for Your touch once again, Take my life, everything All I am An offering for you Cause you’re all I’m living for Take my heart, all of me I’m laying it down To worship You my God Cause You’re all I’m living for I will run into Your open arms, To your love that washes away my fears I am found, deep in this mystery, Cause You’re all I’m living for Take my life, everything All I am An offering for you Cause you’re all I’m living for Take my heart, all of me I’m laying it down To worship You my God Cause You’re all I’m living for Cause You’re all, You’re All I’m living for, Jesus You’re all, All I’m living for Jesus You’re all, All I’m living for Jesus You’re all, All I’m living for Jesus You’re all, All I’m living for also this week other events of note this week include the following:1) i had my hair cut yesterday, for professional reasons. it's been the first time in a long while since i haven't cut my hair for a psychological reason. which speaks for something, at least to me. i don't know about the rest of mankind, but previously when i have gone under the hairdresser's scissors (as opposed to 'under the knife') for such a reason, it is my personal statement of wanting to start afresh, as if the snipping of locks symbolises a liberation from whatever psychological baggage i previously carried into the salon. 2) i got a new passport done, my fourth, on monday. yes, frequent travelling and the lack of a pass of any kind has resulted in me exhausting all my 32 pages' worth of stamping areas. fortunately, i got it done in two hours because this was the puasa season and most people were probably at home resting. and customer service was good. unfortunately, the new eight numbers i have to memorise are ugly and difficult to recall. furthermore, they added a hologram over my face (i meant in the photo) this time (to make duplication harder) and the guy who cropped my photo saved it in too low a resolution, resulting in a pixelated photo -- all of which culminated in a mug that makes me look ten years older. somehow i think i will never get a passport as good as my restricted one.
first time baking with the instruction of my aunt, i tried my hand at baking a simple butter cake on monday, for the first time. my aunt being a serial cake baker, had finally taken up my suggestion to invite me the next time she was baking, so i could learn. and i must say, based on family comments (and my own taste buds), i did a fairly good job. if my mom, ever a critic by nature, said "not bad for a first try", then it must've been good. haha.ingredients were fairly simple: -butter (250 gms) -sugar (250 gms) -flour (250 gms) -eggs (4 or 5) what was not simple, however, was the creaming, more commonly known as 'beating'. i had no idea beating involved stirring the ingredients together (mixed one at a time) in one circular direction with a heavy wooden spoon at a fast pace. apparently the air needed for the cake to rise (in the oven later) will dissipate, or the ingredients being mixed will not emulsify if one stirred slowly or in interchanging directions. so it was definitely hard arm work...which leaves me to guess that frequent cake bakers probably have lots of strength and stamina in that area! i worked up a sweat in no time. but it still didn't put me off baking, especially when i viewed the wonderful end result, haha. so after everything was mixed as best as we could (my aunt helped, especially when it looked like the ingredients being blended at the time started lumping up and having trouble dissolving), we poured everything into this giant container that looked like a pot, that had previously been greased with butter and lined with tracing paper at the bottom (to prevent the cake from sticking as it hardened) and popped it into the oven. oven temperature was supposed to be around 350 to 400 degrees farenheit, which is i-don't-know-how-much degrees celsius (this is why i will never be a science student), so we had to frequently keep it at the heat indicated by knob no. 4 or 5 for around an hour. my aunt did this part for me. around the 40th minute, we did the poke-the-cake's-centre-with-a-skewer test to see if the centre had been baked, which it very nearly was. (if anything stuck to the skewer, it meant the cake had not yet hardened -- common sense.) my aunt took it out around the 45th minute and kept repeating apologetically that the top got a bit burnt because the knob didn't click the last time she turned it from 5 to 4 (meaning it was still at no. 5's heat), but in my opinion it didn't look that burnt.  we had to let the cake cool off before keeping it, or else it would get moldy due to the heat's moisture getting trapped in whatever container it was kept in (in my case, it was an old cake tin). but while waiting for it to cool off, we cut off a slice to try it. and it tasted fan-tas-tic, at least to me, haha. it tasted like a butter cake should taste like, and the crust didn't taste burnt or anything.all in all, it was a good experience which i wouldn't mind repeating. besides finally getting to know how to bake a cake, i knew it would be a good excuse for bonding, which it was, and it was also a good preoccupation for the night. from yesterday thank you, friend, for giving me a reality check today.okay. so i'm still retaining remnants of yesterday. even if i feel so much better and perfectly fine today. thank you for reminding me that sometimes we sweep things under the carpet and assume we have forgiven the other party...until the next crossing of swords occurs. to be honest, i think i became more unforgiving as the years passed. i used to forgive and forget easily...and like a naive puppy i just let people step all over me and inflict wounds on me that still remain until today. after that i felt i had to protect myself. wanted to minimise the risk of getting hurt again. but in the end? i still got hurt anyway. guess it's like c.s. lewis says (below), it's either you become a hermit and live in antartica or you become (or strive to be) people-centric and get stabbed, poked and played out more often than not. “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”so why be people-centric? why care about the rest of mankind if sometimes it feels like the rest of mankind doesn't care about you? or why bother to involve yourself so deeply in people's lives that you're bound to get hurt or angered at one point or another (and depending on the person, either forgive and forget or forego and forsake) whether intentionally or not? simple reason: because you want to follow jesus, who cared about people enough to see something in them worth loving beyond all their faults. now that kinda love is something i've never had the capacity for (if i did, it was all from god) and will constantly be asking god for a continual flow of. p.s. today's entry title is stolen from 30 seconds to mars' song. and yes, yesterday's title was from daniel pewter's. We Are One Tonight by SWITCHFOOT I'll rise I'll fall I'll fail You all We built these cities To stand so tall We've lost our walls I don't want to lose it coming down With the whole world upside down I don't have a soul to trust in now With the whole world upsidedown We are one tonight And we're singing it out We are one tonight And we're dreaming out loud And the world is flawed But these scars will heal We are one tonight, tonight, tonight Two eyes One tongue I've come Undone I'm no victim I paid these dues I came to lose I don't want to fight about it now With the whole world upside down I don't have a soul to trust in now With the whole world upside down We are one tonight And we're singing it out We are one tonight And we're dreaming out loud And the world is flawed But these scars will heal We are one tonight, tonight, tonight I don't want to lose a common ground With the whole world upside down I don't want to fight about it now In a world that's burning out Let's slow the evening down Slow it down, slow down Please slow down, down, down The stars are comin' out We are one We are one We are one We are one tonight We are one tonight And we're singing it out We are one tonight And we're dreaming out loud And the world is flawed But these scars will heal We are one tonight, tonight, tonight So fight it out, so fight it out So fight it out, right now So fight it out We're still fighting out We'll still fight it out 'Till we're one tonight 'Till we're one tonight |
|
|
.jpg){kind=link}