boring updates.

I'm starting a new phase of my life on 25 May. work life, here I come!
all i can say for this whole experience of getting a job is that God has been leading me along a straight and narrow path, with all the appropriate road signs as well-maintained and well-placed as those along Singapore roads.
[no way that I could get lost, only impatient though, since the signs tended to be farther from one another than i thought initially. ]

due to some complications, I'll be having a shorter break than i thought.
which i am glad, in some ways.
that i no longer have to agonize over "to rest or not to rest".
now it's the question of how I can maximize my one month of rest.
glad to have a play, a karoke session and a guitar gathering lined up in the pipes already :)
i'm well-pleased whenever entertainment is scheduled. heh.

with a shorter break than expected, I'm embarking on my rest and recreation now, even though it's in the midst of study break.
come on, i only have TWO papers to mug for. how awesome.
more self -maintenance, exercise and rest.
I started on the Jillian Michaels workout today.

honestly, it's pretty good, even if the pike was too incredibly hard. a very good combination of strength and cardio. I was breathing pretty hard at the end of the session.
i had to push myself a fair bit since it has been a super long time since i did strength training properly, but it wasn't impossible to go through it.

at last, i also solved my longstanding insomnia problem by pulling myself out of bed at 7am for the past couple of days.
good job girl! *pat on the back*
it was like being abandoned by the rest of the world in absolute stillness when for weeks I couldn't fall asleep even at 4am.
at last, i'll be living a positive, healthy life :D

This is what dreams are made of.

Susan Boyle Singer Britains Got Talent 2009 With Lyrics @ Yahoo! Video

I remain very moved. dreams that look like castles in the air, dreams that are made of the fluff of escapism, dreams glamorous but fragile like stained glass, are nothing like the dreams substantiated by the courage to pursue them, at the infinitely huge risk of being public humiliated and scorned at. It's only with courage, that dreams can have any real meaning or substance.

May we never lose the courage to dream.

amazing grace

"The places, the High Places of victory and union with Christ can be reached by learning to accept, day by day, the actual conditions and tests permitted by God, by laying down of our own will and accepting His."

I feel like crying whenever i re-read what S.K wrote in his card for me. Isn't it true, that dying to self daily is the way to live out the will of God and to be at that place that is much much much better than the place i'm trying to get to by my strength. I struggle so. I am persistently trying to wiggle my way out and open up new possibilities, because the feeling of walking along this one deterministic path is scary for me. I sometimes wonder if I enjoy the feeling of being in the middle of an African pasture with acres of grass between me and another living organism, of being alone in a sampan in the middle of the Indian Ocean, rather than being like Little Red Riding Hood taking that one clear path towards Granny's house. because being in the pasture and ocean means endless possibilities isn't it. the PATH leads to a place i'm not absolutely is THE PLACE.

I really should just shut up and walk this path. my wanderings and wonderings reveal such an unbridled creature inside of me. I still so stubbornly think that God's way is not the best for me.

I think it's because I have not grasped what it means 'the grace of God'. I've been reading Philip Yancey's What's So Amazing About Grace (it's an awesome awesome read) and I realise that I am frequently trapped into thinking that God should and will withhold the very best for me because I'm not good, pious, virtuous, sinless enough. What a huge lie. My Lord has been so gracious in dying for me that i might live, so gracious in answering my prayers, so gracious in never leaving and forsaking me, so gracious in giving me a new confidence and hope in Him.

I didn't have to prove myself worthy when I decided to follow Christ. He walked with the tax collectors, murderers, prostitutes. He didn't ask them to prove themselves worthy of the kingdom of God either. Why am i now trying to make myself worthy instead of believing that as His child, i am already worthy of His blessings? I don't deserve it and I never did, but He still extends His divine arms to me.

the man of inner and outer strength

The Sanguine has in many ways lived being allergic to shopping lists, to-do lists, check-lists, instruction manuals of any kind. She breaks out in mumps and itches all over, whilst rolling around the floor whining and whimpering. Atlas, it really all boils down to an almost childish fear that whatever is written in words are carved in stone in the heavens, open to ridicule by less well meaning people who stumble upon it, sabotaged by even lesser well meaning people, or inviting perhaps a stroke of bad luck to spoil it all. She used to believe, in her inner being, that there was this cosmic clown going around just to make sure the innocent wishes of children would not be fulfilled so he could jeer and chuckle in their faces. And believing in the lie that what she want she would never get, she resorted to not thinking about what she wanted, whilst placing her best bet in the elusive gift of all called serendipity, where she can effortlessly stumble upon her heart's desire when she's not looking.

Atlas! the journey saw her stumbling into potholes and ditches when she refuses to look in the corners of her heart. detours and merry-go-rounds set her thinking once again, that perhaps in trying to blind the imaginary cosmic clown, she was perhaps only blinding herself. but of course, bad habits take a long time to completely release their grip on her Sanguine life. and she continues to be led by a deliberate purposelessness disguised in the cloak of openness.

but then she remembered that she is after all a princess. A princess of the Most High, that is. Why choose to believe in the curse of the cosmic clown rather than all the power and authority she wields on account of her birthright? With a renewed courage of conviction, she decides to petition the Father with regards to her man of inner and outer strength.

He must exist somewhere, not just in the imaginary landscape where only unicorns live, ya?