Privileged

When we live among people of luxury, we forget how much we have. I was just reading the National Geographic magazine (Feb. 2008, vol 213, No. 2). The two stories on the pull to the North on immigrants from Mexico and the plight of Afganistan's Hazaras remind me of the tenacity man has when he has nothing. I sit reading, padded in by the plush black armchair in PBC's empty library and I am gripped with the realisation that I cannot just sit here and do nothing about this world. There is so much going on in the world that I can make a difference. I am complacent by nature, but I cannot be anymore. Lord, help me get out and up, running in Your plan. I don't have the kind of determination to see a project through, what more to live among the dust of the earth and make a real difference. I must step out of my fears and consider strategically what the Lord would have me do so that people around the world can be touched. I cannot just sit here and enjoy the wealth of knowledge, skill and comfort when so many have next to nothing. They don't even have the means to dream. Lord, I have a dream. I don't see it clearly at all. But Lord, I feel Your tugs and nudges. Help me not to ignore them, or be irresponsible of the awareness YOu have given me. Help me plan and manage my life now in a way that You can use.

Help me Lord. I don't want to waste my life living for myself only. Help me be useful for You and Your people, especially those whom You are going to call to Yourself. I don't want to go to heaven and see how much more I could have done for you and did not do them out of laziness or fear. Lord, here I am. Send me, please. Get me going now.

Oh My Gosh!! He’s So Cute!

that is a phrase i hear all the time in the dorms. and i smile. sometimes i get really irritated. i just got back from an interestin trip to seattle. interesting doesn't really describe it. thought-provoking more like it. i saw families holdin on to each other knowin that time is short. i saw life sparkle back on a face of one who realised she's been loved all this while. i saw how people who knew each other well loved one another despite their shortcomings.
on the way to tacoma in sarah's car we talked about relationships with her cousin, kent. he asked me one very bold question, what do you expect in a relationship? i thought that would be a difficult question for me considering that i have never really been in a romantic relationship before. but the answer shot out of my mouth before i knew it. "To be known and still loved." coming to america and living in the dorms has been very interesting. i see how people get together all the time. it can be quite different from the way relationships build at home. i see how people flirt with one another, telling the object of our passion how attractive he or she is and i wonder, do they even know each other? so what if we think the other person is cute when we haven't asked enough questions about who they are really and what they like and dont. or if we haven't taken the time to understand the joys and pain of the other. i think that if someone tells you that they like you after they have really gotten to know you a bit, then that kind of likin could put you on cloud nine. i think i am really gettin old inside. my heart sees things i never realised all my life. or maybe my heart is just honest with my many shortcomings and i guess the best present someone can have is to be known and still loved for them.

Wake up from our slumber

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Today, I'm all spacey and my emotions are scrambled. I'm wobbly inside. Last night I had dinner with an old friend and we talked about the Lord. I had so much to share about my trip to Kansas and about the things God has been speaking to me about since September 2007. He shared some of the insights God has been blessing him with. One thing struck me deep. An interviewer asked the Chinese underground church and Latin American churches, "What is the one thing about the American church that amazes you?" They said ''Ït's amazing how much the American church can do without the Spirit of God." Oh, Lord! This statement struck fear in me. We talked about how we need to run the race hard for the Lord in view of His soon coming. We need to be aware of the season we are living now and wake up from our slumber. Hamilton and I talked and prayed till about 3 in the morning in the most holy place in PBC - the Library! (hehe). We were so struck by a holy fear and passion for the Lord that we needed to pray after we both shared the things God has been warning us about. This morning I woke up praying, Oh Lord, don't ever let me do ministry without the person of the Holy Spirit. It is so easy for us in the modern world with our human ingenuity, creative ideas and wealth to build the church without the move of the Holy Spirit. It is time for the houses of the Lord to be the Houses of Prayer where we stay on our knees until the Lord feels that we are ready to be the place where He wants to rest. In that atmosphere, miracles and healing can't help but take place. There is an urgent fire in my heart and soul, burning through my bones. I have kept in the message the Lord gave me. But maybe it is time for me and those around to blow the trumpet and sound the alarm. Walking out the faith daily in small ways through the mundane is the test of our hearts. It is easier for me to speak about running the race. But would I serve when no one's looking? When I am in the midst of doing something?Would I pray and hide in my closet when I don't feel like it? Lord, help me finish the race You have set before me that I might win the prize. And on that trophy is this name - Jesus! He alone OUR my reward! For those of you reading this I would be so blessed if you would write a comment back so we can build each other up and pray.

My One Distraction

Thursday, January 03, 2008

It's been amazin. So much has happened in my heart i can barely utter how this visit to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City has affected me. Received so many words from the Lord thru the messages, worship and prophecies. Been really busy but am now going to the night watch in the house of prayer n sit at His feet. Can't believe how long and short this trip feels. Going back to portland tmrw. Ready to meet the year of new beginnings, open doors and new opportunities. I want to live in this place of constant yearning for His presence. Lord, keep my heart tender ya... Rivet my eyes on you Lord. Be my one distraction.

Angel in a Song

Sunday, December 23, 2007
I was just cooking shrimp in butter and herbs in Dorm 1's kitchen when Erin walked in and told me about a phenomenal phenomena. Uh-huh! I hate using same words in one sentence but I tell you this is just telling it as it should be told! (Shwucks! I did it again!). Anyway, Erin told me bout a song that Jason Upton recorded with his band during a conference. After the recording was made and the concert ended, a little boy came up to him and told him that he saw an angel standing next to Jason and the drummer. Jason smiled and thanked him politely and (like a typical macho man) thought nothing of it. I bet you if it was a woman worship leader she would have gone into a time of prayer and praise believing that a miracle has taken place! Well, later as the band was listening to the recording they heard a man's voice coming through Jason's mic, harmonising with the song and music. It was an other-worldly voice, of a quality that would cause shivers to travel down your spine and you wil experience a kind of fear that comes because you know you are hearing something supernatural.
I listened with some sceptism but I was so interested to hear it. Erin played it for me on our VCD downstairs and my heart stopped when I heard not just the angel's voice but the context of the song. The song is entitled "Fly" where God was exhorting HIs people to move out of the places we have been caught in fear and into new atmospheres. God has been speaking to me about new seasons in my life and has been gently breaking my spirit to receive and walk into His new gift of altered seasons. The song was apt not only for my life, but for yours too. When in fear, walk out. Walk in faith in the Lord's character and integrity. Walk in honest evaluation of your heart and then run as He runs with you in your pursuit of holy things and The Holy One.
1:14 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

living your dream

So what's it like to live your dream!? For me, I'd say, doing the two things I like most - studying music and theology/philosophy. Just before my recital last tuesday, the Lord prompted my music teachers to plant a seed in my heart. I played my last mock performance for Lisa from PSU and at the end of it, she sat silent for a few minutes. And then, she said, "How did you do that?". Ok.. by this time I feel like I'm the best concert pianist in the world! hehe. She then went on to speak of how we could prepare me to be enrolled into a Masters Music program in PSU. At the end of it, she said, "Ching, all we are seeing right now is just the tip of the iceberg. Where have you been hiding all this while? We've got to get you working up to the level you need to be at soon." Just two hours prior to that conversation, my choral conducting teacher sat me down to tell me that I need to push myself further in music. Gosh, she was hard on me but I sensed a deep concern and conviction in her voice. Just before she dropped me off to catch my bus for my music class, she told me, "I wouldn't push you that hard if I didn't think God's given you so much talent."All day, as I walked downtown, and as my bus swirled around the SW hills amidst the autumn leaves, I hugged this little secret over and over again. "I'm living my dream" and hopefully one day, I will get to use what talent I have to touch hearts and turn them to the Lord. When I looked back and saw how all my life I always thought I was never talented enough to go far in music, I realise that God saw my little heart's desire even when I doubted myself. I still remember the day I tore up all my music certificates, not in anger, but in silent resignation, thinking I'd let my childhood dream die. But you know, the Lord who was crucified is the same Lord who rose again. And if you think you've let a dream die, remember that He who created your heart is able to breathe life back into your deepest unspoken desires.

"Love Poem" by Elizabeth Jennings

This is one of my most-loved poem by a poet who describes universal truth with such honesty, simplicity and depth.


There is a shyness that we have
Only with those whom we most love.
Something it has to do also
With how we cannot bring to mind
A face whose every line we know.
O, love is kind, O, love is kind.

That there should still remain the first
Sweetness, also the later thirst -
This is why pain must play some part
In all true feelings that we find
And every shaking of the heart.
O, love is kind, O, love is kind.

And it is right that we should want
Discretion, secrecy,, no hint
Of what we share. Love which cries out,
And wants the world to understand,
Is love that holds itself in doubt.
For love is quiet, and love is kind.

Diraiton - "So They Say"

This is a beautiful piece of music, by a French composer Rainer Maria Rilke about roses.
Abandon entoure d'abandon, tendresse touchant aux tendresses.
C'est ton interieur qui sans cesse se caresse,
dirait, diraiton.
Se caresse en soimeme,
par son propre reflet eclaire.
Ainsi tu inventes le theme du Narcisse exauce.

The translation of the song describes the beauty of a rose,
Abandon surrounding abandon
Tenderness touching tenderness
Your oneness endlessly carreses itself so they say
Self carresing through its own clear reflection
and thus you invent the theme of Narcisse fulfilled

Agitations

This is one of my first poems when I was struggling to express what I felt but had no words for them. So it is a little bit intense. Uh-huh.. just a little!


Agitations of this spirit
Agitations to create
Agitations of wht insufficiency
The soul of art that would not awake

Aptly said young Keats who mourned
Pleading and puzzled at You who poem
Bards of passion and of mirth,
Reveal to me your secrets birth

Agitations of this spirit
Agitations to create
Agitated for what's out of reach
Yet empty so empty is my talent's crate.

Music escapes and leaves a stale
Mediocrity, the common scale
Philosophy mocks this ignorance
Depths of words begs abeyance
Rather than to be used
In moments of an amateur's peruse.

The waters of music
Reaches deep to overwhelming
But taste what's mine - like tumeric
Saffron balm yet not soul's suffering

Why do I not hold
the Ladle to scoop
Waves of emotions, hot or cold
Skill to blow the salty waters and bolt
Lightning to scourge
Till souls implore
"Halt"- the strength of music hurts
For beauty so deep stirs tears and blood!

This World and I

This world and I,
We don't fit somehow...
I am made for the world of fairies,
Of mushrooms and elven-high
little pixies, talking owls
Gee, this stomache ain't made for realities.

I am made of
The north and west poles
Not total dichotomy of order and chaos
Worse, I fear
Just haphazard genealogy.
Too truthful for any worldly ethos.

Wishful Thinking

Do you think if I jump
Jumo, JUMP high enough
I'd reach the heavens
Pop my head through
The golden streets
And say "Hello -
How do you do?"

Can you imagine
What Daddy would do
When He sees my head
Popping though
"You little girl,
Scared all My citizens!
Nonetheless, I'm awfully glad,
You popped by heaven!"

And then He'll wink
His great big eye
Sparkling with love, magic and twink
Then, ordering His angels to fly
Whizz me down
To earthly grounds
He wishes me, not goodbye
But soon to meet
On golden streets
'xcept I'll be on my feet!

When on this familiar earth
My heart sings and whistles
I saw my Jesus blink!
My toes smile saying
"We've touched ground, grassy green"
When all of a sudden, the singing stops
With one heavy realisation -
I forgot, to hug my Daddy God!

Old Poems

The next few entries (going upward) will be a collection of my old poems. They were written at an experimental phase of my literary endeavours. I laugh at them now when I read of how passionate I felt at the time I struggled to get the ideas out of my mind. Or rather - wrenching my heart for the emotions I felt but couldn't express. So here goes!

His Dreams

This is an essay I had to write for a class in PBC. Thought I should just post it. Enjoy!

God’s Purpose and My Response to the
Gift of Singleness

Dreams withheld stir up a whirl of emotions and reactions especially when we feel we have been promised them previously. Especially when we think we really, really need that dream to come true. Or that we deserve them. Otherwise, the world will be forced to witness grumpy acts of manipulation. Little kids scream and flail their arms till they get the Transformer Cyber Stompin Bumblebee they must have or they’ll morph into miniature stompers themselves. Little eaglets hold screeching matches, determined that Mrs. Eagle feed them fat, juicy, slurpy worms. NOW. And even children of God are never quite saintly enough to hold back from straining for the objects of our desire (Kaplan, 25 August 2007) and trust that our Father is never late and always mindful of our needs.
When marriage is held up as one of the top three must-haves, singlehood is rarely seen as a gift, (Baldwin, 2002) especially after the socially-determined expiry date of the roaring 30’s. And in a commune like PBC, girls start to worry if they are not kissed by 21, engaged by 24, married 6 months later, and be beautifully fat with babies by 27. So what do you do when you are 32 and still trying to stealthily glance at couples kissing, hoping to get some close and upfront lessons on Kissing 101? You smile, pray, hope, laugh at yourself and the young beautiful girls. You try to encourage them, come alongside them with prayerful understanding and live life to the fullest. You hope your life becomes an encouragement that it is possible to be bursting with life and cheerful hope even when others look at you suspiciously. But when the corners of your mouth start turning downwards, you go to Glenda and get a pow-wow prayer session to keep you going. It always works! (thank you!)
Being single is great if there wasn’t anyone around. Or if everyone got married at 45. Or if there wasn’t a particular hunk who somehow just makes you want to dress up , splash some make up on and drench yourself with French parfum enough to fill the English “Channel”. Life is freeing and fun with good friends around. Laughter abounds and time with God is uninrrupted and just heavenly. But we live among people, CURIOUS people who have good intentions and they just can’t leave you alone! And it doesn’t help when you are acutely aware of the expiring eggs, going to waste every month!
On good days, these thoughts are really ticklish. On days where we closet ourselves in prayer and wandering thoughts, we get real and honest with the storm of emotions within. Worry, self-doubt, and worst of all, anger. Sometimes you feel it welling up inside like the deadly undercurrent waves, rapidly displaced with the potential to generate a horrible outburst of discontentment. And in all that rage, you feel it directed towards yourself, your past and God.
Dealing with such raw emotions would put one through stages of growth. You go through rebellion, self-doubt, God-doubt, acceptance, self-doubt, faith in God, self-doubt, Great faith in God, self-doubt. You get the drift… But through it all, the lessons learnt are so precious. Each lesson adds an inch to the rod in your back. You learn that it is ok to be imperfect and it is God’s hand not your human imperfections that you find yourself in this season of life. God brings to mind your past and forces you to deal with the issues that keep you in fear. The kind of fear that makes you run whenever someone shows strong interest, and slam down barriers to mask the fondness inside. He gently teaches you that romantic relationships require a particular vulnerability that is dangerously different from the deep, healthy relationships with brothers and sisters of like minds which you currently have. And all this while, He does lessons as you use Him as your punching bag. He just takes the blows and when you crumple up, He holds you in great big arms saying, “Ï know, I know.”
This is also a season where God challenges your 20-something idealisms. You used to think that there is one, Miss or Mr. Perfect-For-You. Write down your 10 requirements and pray over it and then, poof, the church bells toll in your ears. Oh, you ardently preach “the right one for you does not have to be perfect, just perfect for you.” But previous encounters with flirtatious, unhappy married men, memories of unhappy mothers who mother their husbands, and the fateful day when dad walked out of the door with a woman 4 years older than yourself, keep you waiting for a hurt-proof partner. Then you think that when you keep yourself pure and running hard after God since you were a youth, He will surely give you the right person by 29 at the very least. The day when I witnessed a girl whose life was not the epitome of Christian chastity being blessed with a strong man of God who graciously loved her like Christ loves the Church, like Hosea’s God loved Israel through her harlotry, was the day when this idea crumbled into dust. Through God’s grace and the love of this godly man, she has transformed into a godly woman, beautiful and precious, impacting other women’s lives.
I have come to realize there are no formulas, no perfect personality to adorn yourself with to secure yourself the cream of the Christian crop. God does not work with Reward Mentalities. He works graciously, giving you blessings you can never deserve. I don’t think I could give the Sunday School answer that the one best thing I did in my single years was to serve God with utmost enthusiasm. My years of singlehood have been precious mainly because God was able to disclose attitudes and mindsets that I would have ignorantly stood up for had I gotten married earlier. I won’t be able to preach the message I used to believe in my idealistic years, that if we obey Him and keep our purity, we will guarantee ourselves the church-perfect man or woman by 28. Instead, my sharing will take this form: God is good and we obey Him just because we trust He knows that living for Him is what’s best for us and because we love Him, whether or not He gives us our particular desires, my style. Purity, is therefore our blessing from God, not so much our currency to buy ourselves a happy family. I would say, be honest with God and acknowledge the raging pain and self-doubt we feel because it is so absolutely normal. I would emphasise the caution of having faith for something but instead have faith in Someone. And then, serving comes out of a spirit of gratitude and responsibility, wanting to bless Him, instead of the hope to be rewarded with Ken Christian or Barbie Goodwill. For me, the best thing that’s come out of the many years of waiting is the process of intimate knowing and learning of the Divine Lover, coated with the precious substance called ‘contentment.’. Loving people becomes an intense endeavour when you have to make the effort to rise above the struggles so deeply felt, deny your own concerns and concentrate on the needs of others, while trusting One greater than yourself to care for your own needs of protection, being needed and wanted.
I am still learning that precious lesson that I lack no good thing in the Lord because I walk with His hands over mine. My one desperate prayer is that God will help me live my life productively so that I would waste my life so significantly for Him and His glory. My second prayer is that I will never lose hope. Not the hope that I will get married, but the hope in Him, His character and that He will never withhold what’s best for me. I remember the prayer I once said, “God, I want to live a really happy and fulfilled, joyful life before jumping into marriage”. So He always reminds me to have fun and enjoy my days. I have had to also learn that it honors Him when I have faith and speak positively that God will bless me with a man in His time, instead of being bashful about the whole topic. (I am shy though it seems hard for one to believe it!!) It all seems like a myriad of contradictions but ah, they say God has an Eastern mindset where yin exists with yang, black with white.
Dreams do come true after all. It may be different from what or how we expect it to all pan out. One thing is sure though, that in God’s stardust economy, dreams turn out to be better and greater than we can imagine. His one main purpose for the church and us as individuals is that we truly know His love for us and therefore, be transformed into the image of Christ (which means learning life lessons from the Master Teacher). The fulfillment of our dreams may or may not include marriage and the molding of lives to be more Christlike as we share a room and a bed with a beloved. Most times, these dreams turn out better simply because − they are His dreams for the yielded ones instead of their own.

Works Cited
1. Kaplan, Leah. “The Gift of Singlehood.” Aish.com 25 Aug. 2007.
http://www.aish.com/dating/wisdom/The_Gift_of_Singlehood.asp
2. Baldwin, Amelia A. “What Are You Doing with Your Singlehood.” Singlehood.org 2002.
http://www.webprofessor.org/website/singlehood/thegiftofsinglehood.html

New York! New Yorrrrrrrrrrk!

Day 1 (16 July 2007) 10:27pm

So I am finally here! On my way to my sis' wedding in Amsterdam. Just got here in Newark Int Airport and now staying a night in a Travelodge run by an Indian family. It's got the same jasmine fragrance like the lowers the Indian ladies back home would adorn their pigtails with. And I am excited. The last two weeks have been crrrrrazy! The year has been quite an eventful one too with the deaths of so many of my precious loved ones. Seems like I need to refresh my heart not just with new scenes but a new experience with the Lord. And so........... we decided to take a trip round Europe together! :)

Yup... My prayer for this trip (other than God help! or "Protect me!!!," as walk down the streets on my own) is that I will fall in love with Jesus more and more again. I so need His renewed strength and touch. Paulus took me to the airport today and prayed that God will refresh my heart so that I can continue to be a blessing to others. Very apt reminder! I spent a whole day yesterday thinking about matching my outfits when trying to pack. You know me! "Vainpot!", as Malaysians would call me! God definitely brought my mind and priority back to the matter of the heart and not just the appearance. Back to my Redeemer and Friend, not just the God I try to keep rituals with.

So my first real stop will be in Bognor Regis.. Good old Bognor! I will be visiting the pebbly beach I use to walk on every other day and reminisce the days when I first really met Him. 21 and young, vulnerable and verrrrry gullible. Innocent and totally guiless. I remember turning 21 and celebrating my birthday on that beach with the Lord. Now I will walk and talk with Him on the very same beach, 11 years later. It's almost like a second honeymoon!

ANd I actually own a camera now. So hopefully I will get to post as many pic as possible and come close to being a normal, updated 21st Cent person with all the Friendster and all going on in the world (especially in PBC!)

Off with her hair!

This is me - 10 inches shorter. Not sure if I like it after all. But it took a lot of courage, mind you!

Nicolaephoria

I found my friend's blog today. Nicole.. I used to call her double-Yeng. Reading her blog makes me long for our old friendship again. But I am so far away and I feel that we have somewhat drifted apart. Just living very different lives, too much has happened in the meantime. I am on this little hill, studying music and the Word of God. I don't work amidst the secular and I feel very secluded from real life sometimes. I miss her loads. She seems to be doing great. Love the way she loves books. Love the way she's eccentric with her clothes pegs. Most of all, love the way she loves God and people. Well, this is to you Yeng.. Maybe if you visit my blog, I will write more instead of hiding in the blogsphere, huh!

flotsam jetsam hopesome

i am spewing mad inside Lord. maybe, maybe, maybe.. not so, not so, not so... someday, someday..

i am so unsettled inside that I slam doors, stub my toes and am short with sweet people. I could kill if i am not careful. I am impatient, irritable. PMS in the highest order. Interestingly enough, if I am able to steer this explosive energy inside, I might just hit on a creative, spiritual truth for myself.

send them all away. bloody people. send them away!

save me.


So maybe our lives' aches are not necessarily the cause of the refiner's fire. Maybe like Hosea's life, our lives are like an allegory. The Bridegroom's relationship with His bethrothed needs a human picture. And those of us who have laid our lives down for him, or said we would, may have been picked to represent another facet of this intricate dance of the Eternal Lovers.

Maybe we wait and trudge on, not uphill but downhill. Not because of sin. But because of His leading. His voice pointed downwards, saying "to the valley dear one.." and not the triumphant upward climb we think victorious Christians are supposed to head towards. Victory is not always found on the sunny, hilltops of our life's journey.

So I wait, and renew my strength in His presence. (big sigh.....)

Why God allows times of little

Do not struggle in the lands parched of human acknowledgment your roots are forced to dig deep for the source of significance in Him. When many despise you and do not love you, or when you feel overwhelmed by the snarl that you are disliked by many, say to yourself, "This is good. A blessing in disguise. This is the time when I dig deeper. He is my confidence. This lack has happened so that I will not depend on the abundance of man, but in the abundance of the Son of God. He loves, even unto death." God allows times of little as defined by man, so we may have times of largeness as defined by the Eternal.

Spurgeon's Devotional
November 10 PM
"It is enough for the disciple that he be as His Master."Matthew 10:25
No one will dispute this statement, for it would be unseemly for the servant to be exalted above his Master. When our Lord was on earth, what was the treatment He received? Were His claims acknowledged, His instructions followed, His perfections worshipped, by those whom He came to bless? No; "He was despised and rejected of men." Outside the camp was His place: cross-bearing was His occupation. Did the world yield Him solace and rest? "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head." This inhospitable country afforded Him no shelter: it cast Him out and crucified Him. Such--if you are a follower of Jesus, and maintain a consistent, Christ-like walk and conversation--you must expect to be the lot of that part of your spiritual life which, in its outward development, comes under the observation of men. They will treat it as they treated the Saviour--they will despise it. Dream not that worldlings will admire you, or that the more holy and the more Christ-like you are, the more peaceably people will act towards you. They prized not the polished gem, how should they value the jewel in the rough? "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of His household?" If we were more like Christ, we should be more hated by His enemies. It were a sad dishonour to a child of God to be the world's favourite. It is a very ill omen to hear a wicked world clap its hands and shout "Well done" to the Christian man. He may begin to look to his character, and wonder whether he has not been doing wrong, when the unrighteous give him their approbation. Let us be true to our Master, and have no friendship with a blind and base world which scorns and rejects Him. Far be it from us to seek a crown of honour where our Lord found a coronet of thorn.
November 11 PM
"He shall choose our inheritance for us."Psalm 47:4
Believer, if your inheritance be a lowly one you should be satisfied with your earthly portion; for you may rest assured that it is the fittest for you. Unerring wisdom ordained your lot, and selected for you the safest and best condition. A ship of large tonnage is to be brought up the river; now, in one part of the stream there is a sandbank; should some one ask, "Why does the captain steer through the deep part of the channel and deviate so much from a straight line?" His answer would be, "Because I should not get my vessel into harbour at all if I did not keep to the deep channel." So, it may be, you would run aground and suffer shipwreck, if your divine Captain did not steer you into the depths of affliction where waves of trouble follow each other in quick succession. Some plants die if they have too much sunshine. It may be that you are planted where you get but little, you are put there by the loving Husbandman, because only in that situation will you bring forth fruit unto perfection. Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there. You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances, and if you had the choosing of your lot, you would soon cry, "Lord, choose my inheritance for me, for by my self-will I am pierced through with many sorrows." Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good. Take up your own daily cross; it is the burden best suited for your shoulder, and will prove most effective to make you perfect in every good word and work to the glory of God. Down busy self, and proud impatience, it is not for you to choose, but for the Lord of Love!
"Trials must and will befall-
But with humble faith to see
Love inscribed upon them all;
This is happiness to me."

A Dream Birthed

I wanted to put my feet up and was about to watch an epic movie when Kristen, a photographer dormmate in PBC, suggested we watched a multi-award winning documentary movie entitled, "Born into Brothels." It was an amazing story, an antidote for griping spirits and ungrateful poor-me's. The protagonist of this inspiring real-life story, Zana, visited India in 1998 hoping to shoot photos on women's issues for a book compilation. She begun her journey by visiting the brothels in Calcutta's Red Light District to get a deeper understanding of the lives of the prostitutes there but found herself drawn into the lives of the children there. Upon their innocent, inquisitive requests to let them take pictures of her, Zana began to teach them the basics of photography. She bought them each a cheap camera and encouraged them to explore capturing life on films. Their pictures revealed the painful life in the brothels through the eyes of these 9 children, their untapped genius and their persistent cry to be let out of the cage of their present fate. The story goes on to tell of Zana's tenacious effort to put the children into school and advertise the children's photographs in as many galeries as possible. Their stunning, excellent photographs became world famous and was even made into Amnesty International calendar for the year 2005. What is most touching is witnessing the obvious positive change in the children's lives and character, where they could not see hope in their future but now have escaped the agony of living in such destitution.

My heart was moved in a deep way I hope will be life changing. I want to live in such a way that lives will be impacted. If possible I want to be the rope God uses to draw children out of their misery and impact their lives so that they are not trapped in their present confusion. I want to see lives changed. An idea that's been stewing for some time now suddenly makes sense again. I could by God's grace and help, teach a group of needy children music - the basics of piano, guitar, bass, drums (somewhat similar to Rhythm Techniques). Then I want to encourage them to write songs. Hopefully we get to present them in places around the world and even teach them dance. Lord, help me, guide me and help me not to be a coward. But to reach out and keep trying. Give me a strong passion that does not come from a brilliant idea. But one that comes when I meet these children you have prepared and convict me with the love You have for them. I want to bless them Lord. NOt just do some good in this world, but to make use of my talents, mediocre or average, who cares!? If I don't know enough, I can always ask someone else for help to teach the kids. I need You to build my character Lord. Make me secure in myself and help me understand the workings of the real world. Completely drench me with a huge whollop of common sense and an understanding of respecting every living thing. Make me like you Lord. The sinners were comfortable with you and went away, their lives changed. Duplicate that in me Lord, please.

Thank you for helping me see the pain and the trap prostitutes are in as shown in the movie. I have always resented the fact that you showed so much favour to the prostitutes, Rahab and Mary Magdelene. But You love them and they loved you so completely. A self-righteous prude is like garbage stench to Your nostrils. Burn this in me Lord, Burn a love for the people and for You in me Lord. Help me HOly Spirit, so that my life will not go to waste. I love you Lord. Help me in my weaknesses and strengths. Thank You for Your grace and mercy. Without You I am nothing. Lord, may it be that YOu increase and I decrease as the friend of the Bridegroom.

My kin-friend old

For none have I as yet
But I've the pleasure of rejoicing
In a newborn joy
Of my kin-friend old.

A tale of one life
A life of one Love
A Love who held her
A hold, just now, let go
Of my kin-friend old.

Straight into the arms
Of the beloved, of kingly descent
Only to find a waiting chair
Treasured for a day God-sent
For my young kin-friend.

A tale of two lives
Th' joining of two hearts
A walk of two endings
Stumbling into two beginnings
Now held together
In cords of Love
Love Divine, all loves excelling
The Beloved and
My kin-friend old.