sunkissed

back from my holiday, and quite burnt, but gladly so because the sun has been so good these few days!!

some things i’d want to remember. the windy up and down coastal way we took that was a real life roller coaster ride, and the land we passed along the way. looking at malaysia’s richness in land, and remembering how much daddy feels for land. how he’d think of what to put on empty land, and how he thinks a plantation of budding oil palm is beautiful. how he’d explain in detail the things we see along the way, and whatever i ask him. (how does he know all that??)

all the restaurants that we went to, i remember. but i remembered only when we got there, when we saw the place and sat down to eat. then i remembered being there before. the fishball place along the way at a corner with the toilet at the back, berserah seafood place that is by the sea with outdoor seating, chicken with taugeh, the stuffed crab place at kemaman, duyong seafood restaurant where we eat splendid thai-malay seafood on the sea with caucasian backpackers and look across the boundless waters. and this time there was the treat of staying at legend, a really nice seaside resort where mummy and i busked by the pool which was by the sea all of yesterday (while daddy worked). it was really really nice.

little moments. my twin beach babes on my slippers finally got to go to the beach! daddy’s talking to me and telling me about what was across the sea while we looked after breakfast this morning, and then he suddenly turned around to look for mummy and noticing she’d gone on further alone, he walked up next to her, stood there a few seconds, and starting telling her what he was telling me. that he actually was sensitive enough to go and spend time with her too! and of course, daddy quietly turning a corner into the shop before dropping us off at the bus station, and actually getting us the digital camera he had been talking about. his quietly doing it, not talking more about it, and just bringing us there and buying it like it was something so usual. but actually, daddy isn’t the sort to buy us presents every day. and i’m sure it had nothing to do with my results.

but really, so much to thank God for! that we come back and yong is at home safe and we had a nice time together. that the Lord kept my grandparents safe at home, and gave us some time together just now too. and then looking forward to retreat tomorrow! unanswered prayer…how can prayer be unanswered? maybe it’s just prayer as yet unanswered? i don’t know…till tomorrow then.

there are those i missed, yet it was still bearable. but i hope they are well…and it’s the same thing again — commiting them to the Lord, and not hanging on to it anymore.

:|

“indefinitely” is an awfully long time, but eternity, is forever.

abide

if we never tried praying, we’d never know the things we want to know about it…we’d never know how to do it better, how to know God better, how to think for people better. how to bring people to the Lord, how to see the Lord clearer through things that happen, how to know for ourselves again and again that God is here, and He loves.

this morning i woke up with super poofy eyes on account of over-activity of my ducts last night, but i woke up strangely peacefully. last night i ached and ached, but this morning when i awoke, my thoughts were turned to God and i was so glad He showed me how He comforts the heart indeed! that even after the pain, there is healing, and the strength to go on again. faith, hope, and love.

trusting is not abstract or intangible at all. it’s really an exercise of the will and mind and heart to know that something that doesn’t seem to be possible IS actually possible, and sometimes even probable. hope is when your heart breaks because there seems no way out, and then you turn and find that there is a beacon of light in the distance in fact. love is when it doesn’t make sense at all, and you may not even know why, but because the Lord has given, you share a teeny portion of what He feels, and gives.

sometimes i’m scared when i think about it….and i wonder if it’s time to let go. but the thought of letting go is always even more scary, and i never will want to do that, whatever it takes. so it’s just hanging in there and looking to the Lord to see if it’s right, and good. and now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.

we’ve only just begun!

eve of exam

recently i’d had a spate of feeling like i may never make it as a teacher. but then it’s remembering Moses as well, and how despite his sense of never being able to make it, the Lord helped him to become such a mighty servant! so if it really is something the Lord has given me to do, then i shall.

and a little of what Rilke says, before i have to return the book to the library:

“And if sometime you have to teach –
because you have a child, one who sits waiting,
or because in the evening a guest,
one dark with grime,
walks up to the edge of your lamp,
or because your stride
falters once
and you have to stay until daybreak
among strangers,
or because a friend from times past, one who feels
the long-ago friendship tottering,
implores you
to write him sometime soon –
that’s when you’d better whisper to yourself
what “teaching” means:
with words that are at your call
to say: I am.
And then furthermore
what teaching doesn’t mean: to lecture
every man on the tumble of times,
on the how and wherefore of their succession;
teaching means: to ask of each person
what he feels closest to in silence…”