..::*+ Small Talk +*::..
Marking the end of lots of stuff.

unstable concussion.
----------------------------------------------------------
戴佩妮 - 不知道她陪伴了我多少次。




多少个秋　多少个冬　
我几乎快要被治愈好
但还是会只因为一个重覆的话题　
就无心自扰

也曾想过　若真遇见　
我们应该如何是好
我想我还是会还站在某一个街角　
不让妳看到

只因为我不想打扰　
只因为怕妳解释不了
只因为现在妳的眼睛里　
他比我还重要

我只好假装我看不到　
看不到妳和他在对街拥抱
妳的快乐　我可以感受得到　
这样的见面方式对谁都好
我只好假装我听不到　
听不到别人口中的他好不好
再不想问　也不想被通知到　
反正妳的世界我管不了

若不想问　若不想被通知到　
就把祝福　留在街角

SummerAir'11 - Desires

..::*+ Small Talk +*::..

I talked to a friend that day. About love, relationship, partner, what we look for in that other half. It is nice to see we have a similar goal. It's just sad that the path that we choose to take is totally different. It opened a new set of question: what my life would be without Jesus?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8 months ago, for the first time in my entire life, new old alike, I drew out a goal for myself. I call it the 3D, or three desires. As I began to walk into the end of the life as a bachelor student, I, like most of people out there began to start working on at least two out of these three desires:
Relationship,
Career, and,
God.

I started to work on these three fields, and things seemed to come smoothly as I wanted it to be. Or I thought too far ahead of myself.

--Work--
I got a internship job in ZF Friedrichshafen AG, which is one of the famous companies typically around Konstanz Lake, or Bodensee. It was a choice to make, and a choice that I made from a pool of limited choices. But what great was that, the tasks during the internship were what I wanted to go further deep into, and it was offered by this company, the only company that I love during our excursion to these companies some months(years?) back then.

But it was sort of a bad call; the company is located at Friedrichshafen, which is over 3 hours plus train ride from Stuttgart, where my church is. I consulted people around me, and for sure that those who has the veto-power in my life had placed their "against" votes. But for once I ignored them. I asked, if Jesus were sent to desert to be tempted 40 days before He started His work, I would like to be tested as well.

That was my initial thought. And God tapped me with a gentle warning of the potential dangers that lie ahead:

will I be able to stand firm? 

He literally broke my leg, upon which we human stand firm on. While I was waiting for my leg to be scanned in Karlsruhe Hospital, my heart cried. I was scared. Not just because of the potential of being inability to play badminton (or just generally do sports), but I scared I will fall ( as in my faith). I prayed to God that if He knows I can out-stand the tests, let them come. And I got my job here. And to be honest, it is all-in-all because of God and mercy, which I let Him to be my goal.

--God--
Knowing that by deciding to come to Friedrichshafen will be a sign that I will be partly detached from my current house church, I really thank God that He gave me the strength to shun away all the evil thoughts and ideas that might stop me from continue to stay within Him. And God is faithful; He didn't let me be tempted beyond what I could bear. And when I were being tempted, He provided me a way out so that I could stand up firmly under it. (1. Corinthians 10:13 NIV my version). And I'm really glad now, because as I come to the end of this testing period, I think I did quite not bad ;) okay partly because God has sent dozens of angels to guide me in this timeframe.

--Relationship--
It's personal actually, which a lot of people misunderstood, because it is personal. I don't look for perfection, for I know that I am not perfect. I look for perfection in God, for the sheep who knows the shepherd's voice (John 10:27) are perfect because our Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48) (to answer one's question whom I refused to answer by then). I look for someone with whom I can serve God with. Someone who loves God more than she loves me. That we are both bind to each other because we love a love that comes from God who is love (1. John 4:8) and first loved us (1. John 4:19) (to answer someone else's question whom I refused to answer by then too). I wanted to work on from there. Towards her.

----

These were the three desires I had six months ago. Two were slowly taken away and one remained - the desire for Him. And it took me that six months long to find out where I did wrong. And God never fails to carve the lessons deep enough for me: Of all places, I learned the following lesson in the city of lusts and desires surround: Amsterdam.

At Gilbeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you."
Solomon answered, "You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day.
"Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?"
The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, "Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernemnt in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for - both wealth and honor - so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.

1. Kings 3: 5-14 NIV Italics mine

I was reading this passage during a night when we were in Amsterdam. Solomon asked for wisdom and later he became the wisest king ever in his time. But I felt convicted by Holy Spirit that time. It is normal for human to have their own desires and wishes. As for me, I consider myself as the abnormal one and it is not common for me to have desire for something, in this case the three things mentioned above. What convicted me were the lines, which I italicized above: It might just look as plain as "Solomon asked for wisdom from God to govern his people". But take a look at God's reaction:

He was pleased that Solomon didn't ask anything for himself. He didn't ask for wealth, nor long life; he asked for wisdom. It might sound as if the wisdom that he asked for was also for his own benefit. But God, who sees through people's heart, was pleased at him because his request was for God's people and not for himself. Making a short comparison between mine and his, it is very obvious that why God had shut the doors for the other two of my desires but left one - the desire for Him. On top of that, the song that was playing in my phone was "One Desire" by Hillsong in album Blessed:

This is my cry, my ONE desire, is to be where You are Lord.

It literally stunned me of how and what I have been doing. My desires are all for myself and my own benefits: I want to do my internship in ZF and later on do my thesis and after that straight away work in the company. I want this lovely girl and we can serve God together. 

Talk about God has prepared someone for me. It sounded to me more like "God, make her mine".What were all of  my desires about? Me and myself. Myself and I. Me, myself and I. One of the famous verses in New Testaments speaks it all:

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Matthew 6:33 NIV

The only desire that comes from ourselves as Christians is to have desire for Him. To seek His kingdom. To seek His righteousness. To build a Father-son relationship with Him. Not just to come to Him only to ask and to make request. Not just come to Him only when we are in trouble. Not just come to Him only when we need him. The truth is, we need him all the time. I listened to a podcast sermon given by a friend of mine. It talked about our purpose as Christians. And Holy Spirit convicted me because it is always in our prayer that we ask, we make request, and we wish for something, as if God is a Fontana Di Trévi. Well, he actually is, in fact, he is better because God will provide us the desire for something which is aligned with his purpose and call for us. And He doesn't require you to throw money into it -and still being unsure if your wishes will come true or not. No! All you need is to remain in Him, by walking in obedience to Him, and to keep His decrees and commands as David did (1. Kings 3:14).

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4 NIV

Is our desire God? Is my desire God? It is a good question to ask ourselves each day. And be blessed.

Jayesslee and their mom

Listen to their testimonies. God is faithful.

*touched*

SummerAir’11 - 感谢主

..::*+ Small Talk +*::..
Everyone has his/her own personalities. If I cannot hate, I will avoid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


It was just another fine Monday. Two among us had to fly back to Stuttgart. After sending them and watched them walked into the Terminal tunnel, we were left undecided. It is not because of we didn’t know what else we wanted to do, but about what we could do – everyone was quite tired. But Still, it would be a waste if she were to go back to Hostel with us to rest. She had never been to Berlin, it was her first daylight day in Berlin, and, after all, she wanted to walk around in Berlin too.


I was undecided. It is not because I wanted to go back to rest, but I was still injected with “I –Kiss-Dating-Goodbye” sorta mood and well, I took the pill “to avoid one-boy-one-girl situation”. The consequence wasn’t just about I didn’t walk the talk, or the taught, but I knew, or I thought, I would be flamed (as always).


Nevertheless, in the end I decided to go along with her and bring her around, to those places that I had been to already, twice. I actually did pray before we started our one-on-one trip – I pray that God would guard me from either doing anything stupid, or pouring out anything unnecessarily. I knew myself to the extend that I knew what I would do or say.


We separated from the rest at the Hauptbahnhof (main train station). We took an S-Bahn that heads to where we would like to go: the Island of museums. I called a Berliner-Malaysian to see if he was free already to bring us around, since he should know Berlin much better than me. He told me that the Ost-Berlin (east-side of Berlin) was raining heavily. I couldn’t believe. Although it wasn’t super sunny, it certainly didn’t look like it would rain any time soon. It rained, however, like cats and dogs. There’s where I learned my first lesson.


We hopped off at “Hackerscher Markt”. It was raining and the wind was blowing. We were stuck in the stop. I complained to myself (like I always do), “great, how are we gonna go out and take photos and walk around?” If you know me well, you’d probably picturing me and my stressed-mood, complaining. She stepped closer to the exit, looked at the sky, and acknowledged that it was indeed a heavy downpour.


But she said, “we can’t stop the weather from raining, but we can pray. And if it is our Father in Heaven’s will to let us out to play, the rain will stop. But maybe He wants to water the plants on the ground. No matter what, however, we should be thankful.” And she prayed.


I was partly affected by the impact of the rain against our plan, and stunned by how she interpreted the situation. But for that few short seconds, I was speechless.


Amen.


We chatted for a while, while looking at people running in and out of the station. But to my surprise, after a few minutes, the rain stopped. It seriously stopped. I got excited, “yay we can go out to play again!” My heart beamed.


She, however, said to me, “we should remember to be thankful”. And we gave thanks to God for answering our prayer and let us out to play.


In the end we took a lot of photos and I learned quite some techniques and we lived happily ever after.
No, that’s not how it ends. It wasn’t a Disney fairytale.


--


It was just a simple story. A simple yet a real story. It sparked a thought in me. It showed the contrast between us. The level of faith and submission and obedience. In tough situations, I complain and have anything to be blamed on. In complicated situation, I try to change the course of how things will happen, in accordance to how I want it to be. In situations where I cannot control, I let it lose. In short, I messed things up.


The lesson that I learned here wasn’t about God answering our prayers. In fact, who are we to demand God to have our wishes and desires fulfilled? Every prayer that we made to Him will no-doubly reach His presence, but as human we tend to forget, that of all things that we can strive to take control of, we can’t stop time for flowing. He is a God of providence – He will provide, only when He sees the situation fits.


It is about one of the fundamentals of following Christ – we acknowledge that He is our Creator and for that we give thanks to Him. We give thanks, because as how He chooses to give, He owns the authority over us to take as well. One of the verse in Casting Crown’s song always resound in my head:

I’ll praise You in the storm.

How many of us can actually praise Him when we are in real bad situations? In crisis? In deep troubles? In a hole? I must confess that I myself for one couldn’t do it. I want to learn to live it out though, while it certainly looks like I’m on the training and test field, considering all the things that are happening around me. Nevertheless, it is so easy to blame – even to blame God Himself – than to give thanks to Him, and pray:


“Lord, what do you want me to learn in this situation?”


It must be a conscious decision to make, at least to myself.

These (trials) have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even through refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
1. Peter 1:7 (Parenthesis mine)

How many of us are to see this coming? I wasn’t. But I do want it now. It isn’t about how many blessings God has given us, nor about how tangled a complication God wants you to see it through, but about giving thanks to Him, who knows us much more than we know ourselves, and loves us, much more than we love anyone else. Jia Jin did tell me to face all the messes, which I created for myself in the first place, with another new attitude, rather than that of how I always unconsciously used to face them. I guess this is what he meant back then.


In fact, there are a lot of things for us to be thankful to God for. The question here remains, is that whether we are humble enough to be grateful for? A simple test we can do is to jot down 10 things of what we can be thankful to God for. Let’s be concrete.


1. I thank You God, that You still woke me up in time to go for work, although I turned off my clock alarm.
2. I thank You God, that You brought me safely to my workplace, before the rain started to pour down.
3. I thank You God, that You provided me enough wisdom I need to solve the programming tasks from my boss.
4. I thank You God, that You provided me enough wealth to live through the days.
5. I thank You God, that You give me a good physical health and speedy recovery after the trip.
6. I thank You God, because You provide me with wonderful amazing people – those who already know you and not alike – who chain sparks of  thoughts in me to live a better life in Christ Jesus.
7. I thank You God, that whenever I face temptations You give me the strength to walk away than to drill into it.
8. I thank You God, for all the lessons that You taught me, despite the fact that they really came in a heavy price to pay.
9. I thank You God, that in times when I desire to do something unfavorable in Your eyes, You reminded me of Your great love for me.
10. I thank You God, that despite I feel different being in this society, Your faithfulness remains.


And I thank You Lord, for this wonderful piece of beautiful memory and lesson to learn.


I won’t dare you to do this, but feel free to give comments of 10 things you feel thankful to God for.


Be blessed. And remember, 感谢主。

Recovery Mode

..::*+ Small Talk +*::..
I just came back from a super tired trip. Super tired, but fun. And mom, if you are reading this, I'm alive and kicking and back working so do not worry about me okay ? ♥
 ------------
Lately things are in recovery mode:
physical health: recovery mode
personal life: recovery mode
HTC Ace: recovery mode
blogspot: recovery mode
thoughts: recovery mode
finance: recovery mode

I am still working on reconstructing the thoughts that I gained during this SummerAir'11 trip. A lot of things I have learned, and most of them are through the hard ways. A lot of new experiences, a lot of new findouts and of course, I know more about myself.

Despite all these, I couldn't help but to really be amazed by God and His love for me throughout this walk alongside with Him. When it seems like God is somewhere far far away from me, especially when I was in the hole (or holes), it really took me quite a long time to understand the thumb rule of digging: When you are in a hole, stop digging.

Below are some highlights of the thoughts I had during this trip. I will cover them in details when I done in linking the thoughts and ideas together.

1. 感谢主 (Berlin)
2. Desires (Amsterdam)
3. Blame
4. His Timing (Prague)
5. Heart (Paris)
*ignore the parenthesis because it is only for my references.

Until then I sincerely wish that my beloved friends to stop asking me questions regarding this trip. I am still fragile from, as I've said, the hard ways and still and will only deal the issues with God and God only.

ye enough of the introduction and the sad faces. I am actually quite excited to read these future posts as well.

Another thing though: my faithful readers would've known by now that the blog was under construction yesterday. The thing is, I decided to give up on enhancing the blog, mainly because it is time consuming and I don't have good experience nor knowledge regarding xml-editing and thus far all I've been doing was wolf-fencing and trial and error methods and it is really really tiring. Oh maybe I will add another post to explain the meaning of "wolf-fencing". It's a term used mainly in programming world. It is a way to do debugging in code clean up.

Until then, the world still spins, the mind still working, and my work in my company still on-going, although I'm actually kinda sad that I couldn't do my thesis there. And I haven't talk to my boss regarding this change in academic plan yet.

To leak out some darkened thoughts, I would use the parable:
"Humpty dumpty is already sitting pretty on the wall and shouldn't look over those spoiled eggs too seriously that can't even reach above the wall. The moment the humpty hump down and check if the eggs are in fact rotten is the moment humpty becomes a dumpty and loses the touch of faith and fall".

Enough of an advice, eh? But maybe that's why humpty dumpty had a great fall in the story after all. LoL.
and all the king's men, and all the king's horses, couldn't put humpty dumpty together again.

oh and p/s: I will honor my promise.
p/p/s: Pat, I in fact really love to use parables.
p/p/p/s: no no, those weren't misses and tears =P

okay, I'm not emo. Seriously speaking here. =)

Skyscraper - Demi Lovato (Megan Nicole Cover)

[Verse1]
Skies are crying, I am watching
Catching teardrops in my hands
Only silence, as it's ending, like we never had a chance.
Do you have to make me feel like there's nothing left of me?

[Chorus]
You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I'm made of glass
Like I'm made of paper
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper, like a skyscraper

[Verse2]
As the smoke clears I awaken and untangle you from me
Would it make you feel better to watch me while I bleed
All my windows still are broken but I'm standing on my feet

[Bridge]

Go run run run I'm gonna stay right here
Watch you disappear yeah
Go run run run yeah it's a long way down
But I'm closer to the clouds up here

感谢主

感谢主，因为你把我们平安地送回到目的地。
感谢主，因为你在我很需要你的时候及时伸出你那舒服的双手，维护着我。
感谢主，因为你带给我们一个晴朗的天气。
感谢主，因为你让我在困扰、埋怨中学习如何相信你。
感谢主，因为你让我学习如何感恩。
感谢主，因为你我不缺少。
感谢主，因为你让我学习到要以不自私的态度去面对生活。
感谢主，因为你我要更加地相信你。
感谢主，因为你撑着那些会落下的眼泪。
感谢主，因为你教导我去学习放下。
感谢主，因为你教导我去学习依靠你。

感谢主，唯有为你我会勇敢地活下去。

马太福音第6章33节：你们要先求祂的国、和祂的义这些东西都要加给你们了。

阿门。