The simple life

My goal for the rest of the year- simplicity and to conciously trim out the frills I've grown some accustomed to misinterpret as necessities.

First step-shoes.
I don't know what's next but I suspect this list will be very long as I go about examining what constitutes "excess".

Simplicity will give me the margins and flexibility so that we will never feel trapped in jobs or if God calls us anywhere.

Beyond that, my shoes could have paid for a child's education for a year somewhere.

I cannot imagine how much more I can afford to give when I truly cut back. That said I think I'm transferring a huge part of my budget to cabs. Mrt disruptions are getting more frequent and I like to know I'm directly contributing to someone's income and just the privacy and comfort of traveling without being squeezed in a tube. For some reason I'm going to keep buses in my life while minimizing commuting by train becauses bus rides are so therapeutic (when you have a seat) and trains are just less friendly and have a close to zero seat probability.

But I digress.

The point is simplicity.

Almost at the end

Two weeks of rest.

And I'm off to begin a new chapter in my life with both apprehension and excitement and armed with the only certainty that God will go before me and will never leave me nor forsake me.

Despite my initial reservations, He has clearly indicated that He wants me back even when I thought it made no earthly sense.

I've had a wonderful time connecting with friends, ex business associates over too many afternoons. Most importantly I had a time of wonderful rest and refreshing while connecting with my favorite friend, Jesus Christ.

Thank you. Heart swells with gratitude and a deeper measure of peace. So even though work travel will go from 15 minutes to 40, my attitude will be to enjoy the journey and make the most out of it. I don't know how long the next chapter will last. Maybe project basis, maybe 5 years, maybe till retirement. In any case, I commit it to you and may you have your way and glorify your name through me Jesus. Help me to love my new colleagues and I look forward to wonderful tomes reconnecting with old ones.

Help me to remember it's all about you and be slow to anger but quick to forgive when offenses come. Give me your wisdom daily so I steward my portion well and bless my employer.

At your disposal. I love you.

Remounting

I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly

love much

I hate string instruments and prefer the ivory keys of a piano but somehow this song-the voice, the guitar everything hits the right notes. (Pun intended)

What I'm reading now.

Heart-wrenching.

Remembering

After a back-breaking day of housework because my spanking new shoe cabinet came, a certain memory found its way back to me and made me smile and sigh all at once.

I was conned by my friend to drive ''round the corner'' in a foreign country to pick up someone else. I didn't have a driving license back then. She knew I was terrified of hitting the roads for two main reasons- I wasn't confident as a driver, familiar with the roads and I was a good girl who went by the book (most of the time). Ok, three reasons and solid ones too.

So after a few directions from her to ''turn left, head straight etc etc'', I found myself on the expressway with cars whizzing by at 120km/hr. I screamed all the way back home as she continued to direct me back but this time, with two passengers in the car whom I didn't know very well. At all.

I held steady despite having my palms sweat profusely (it was autumn) and the huge fear that I'm going to end up on the headlines that I got us all killed AND because I was driving without a license.

By the grace of God, I didn't and am still alive. 

The travails of growing up. Getting conned by friends you trust. 

But gone are the days of youthful naivete. 

Chris Tomlin - All To Us - Lyrics

Sigh

I feel like a petulant rebellious kid.

I think God is telling me to take a someone out for a meal. Problem is- I thought it might be weird. I was ok with status-quo( ie.curt). I don't really have anything to say. I'm afraid I'll roll my eyes and the temperature of the place will drop to sub-zero temperatures.

Help me obey You if this is You.

Post-easter post of gratitude

Lately, I've been noticing the following:
-In spite of trying situations, I've been more aware of the grace of God to see me through.
-I am so thankful that God hears every single one of my prayers.

For some reason, perhaps due to the fact that I generally have way more time than before and not overwhelmed by deadlines and evil people, I feel stronger. It's like after easter, the conjunctivitis cleared up and with that, the mind cleared up too. I am so thankful for His gift of life and even more so, His immense love that compelled Him to the cross and endure grotesque pain for my propitiation of sins.

There is also a joy and a lightness in my steps as I continue about the slow and daily routines. Bad news that would usually send me spiralling down a bottomless pit of gloom sends me straight to prayer instead. And I know it's almost ridiculous to say this but even after the simplest of prayers, I just feel assured of the help that I am going to get through it or that I will have the strength and wisdom from God to navigate through tricky situations.

Peace that surpasses knowledge and understanding.

I think I am finally getting a taste of it and I'm addicted.

Miserable

I'm a really bad patient so now instead of getting better I've been rewwreded with a splitting headache.

So so bad.

Conversations with thyself.

Confession

While my official rhetoric goes that I am affronted and even enraged by the injustices and partiality against those who are born below the rungs of a certain social standard, I have not conciously done anything to reach out to them whether professionally or in personal spheres. At the back of my mind, whether I admit it or not , they have been relegated to the blind spots of my heart and mind which will require way too much effort to reach. It takes deliberate effort to check out those blind spots to realize that they are there. I seek no balance in the partiality they face in society and do not push for fairness. Instead, I contribute to it because I believed the following fallacies:

1) We have nothing at all in common. No use hanging out.
2)There is no use training them. They are all the same.

As such, I do not count myself to have a single friend in my personal sphere (and some might say, even facebook) who isn't at least middle-class in Singapore. Although I proclaim to be championing the causes of underdogs in society, in reality, I am very much stuck in my own ivory tower aghast at the the thought of being associated with them. It is a hypocritical mindset that has been deposited and left untreated in my soul. Until now. I have never learnt to serve in the example of Jesus outside the church circuit because that was just ''beyond (and beneath) me''. I wasn't born in the top elite class but life has been kind to hand me a good deck of cards to start out with. In time, I started to mistake these tokens of grace to be an entitlement instead and forget that ceteris paribus, if other these superficial factors are removed, I can be just like them. Actually, what makes us so different from one another that I disparage diversity and seek homogeneity only?

I would have been content to them staying at the bottom rung and dismiss the disparities in social statuses as ''part of life'', something I am too weak to contend with. Unconsciously or otherwise, I would have contributed to them never rising against all that weighs them down to the bottom because I refused to train them at work or have been way too impatient and preferred to give my attention to a more 'promising' young trainee from a more polished pedigree.

This week, the thought that it could all happen the other way round confronted me. That I could be the one living from paycheck to paycheck, having a thousand mouths to feed, lowly educated and no promise of a better future because every 'tomorrow' brought its own uncertainties and life is harsh and unkind. That I was born with this deck of cards for a reason. To help, to share and not to hoard. That sharing doesn't mean a one-off donation or a fancy cheque but helping them rise above their limitations. As the old adage goes that it is better to help a man to fish than to give him a fish, why have I been so quick to dismiss and disregard and only choose ready-made instant pedigrees? The answer to that question unsettles me.

So I must put things right.

HORRIFIED

Day 1 of freedom didn't go that well.

I woke up heavy headed with red eyes, a terrible cold and a die-hard cough. On top of that, there was construction going on right outside our house so that meant that noise levels were through the roof. There was no way I could rest in peace.

I was bummed out that my plans for the first day were already ruined. At some point, I thought I was going to faint and die.

Riding on this mood of feeling sick, I am tempted to feel sorry about a thousand and one other things. I am so bored already I feel like starting work now. I had a reading list, work research and some shopping planned together with meet-ups with my friends. Although these excited me in the beginning during the planning process, I'm now BORED TO TEARS and cannot imagine not having work for the next 4 weeks.

HORRIFIED.

Chasm