This season in summary

Okay, this is a massive information overload, esp since I've already posted 5 entries before this, but I might as well fill this blog up with whatever I can, while I remember to do so.

I will do it quick, in brief points.

1. I will be leaving in 4 days for a mission trip to Hanoi, where we will be holding workshops for up to 150 youths and some 40-50 youth leaders. Please keep the team in prayer. Most of us have never taught anything before, much less spoken in front of that many people. We aren't leaders in church, with the exception of one Pastor Henry who's leading the team up, so the butterflies in our tummies are going kinda crazy.
2. Mission trip to Hanoi - God has shown His provision time and time again. We prayed for the right team to come together, and He brought forth the most eclectic team mix. It could only be God... yet it works in a strange and wonderful way. He's provided for us in terms of funds as well. We're covering our own air tickets, meals and accommodation of course, but we prayed for funding for the rental of the conference rooms in Hanoi, sponsorship for some of the youth, love gifts, etc and He sent someone to bless us with $3,000. Another team member's dad is sponsoring the printing of our team notebooks, and a friend stepped up to sponsor travel insurance for the team. How good is our Lord!!
3. I started seeing someone, M, then stopped it because of promptings from the Holy Spirit. Yes, the feelings are still there, and yes he checks off many of the things I want in a partner, but I trust in the Holy Spirit and I just want to be obedient to His leading. Only if we both walk closer to God will we ever be able to get closer to each other. I think M, needs to get closer to God first. I don't want to be a distraction, nor the reason for him to seek God. I know I can only be with someone who loves God more than anything else, me included. As much as it hurts us both at the moment, we both know that it isn't right by God right now. It seems to be a matter of time, however, God's timing works on a different clock, so we will see. I know He holds tomorrow, and I know He holds my hand.
4. I've started mentoring someone in church as well. Its a lot more difficult than I thought it would ever be. So if you get a chance, pray for me please?
5. I'm praying for what God wants me to do with my life. I think its about time I found out about my life's calling, not just my seasonal duties. Surely it can't be to teach?

Day 1 in Laos

Really sorry, I know they are way overdue and I haven't really blogged coherently in quite a while.

NOTE: These are excerpts from my daily email updates to home while I was away on a nine-day mission trip last year to Laos and Ubon(Thailand). Many a time we go away on mission trips thinking that we are going to bless the less fortunate, but return as the ones who have been blessed.


We're sitting at the back of a truck now, en route to the border Thailand shares with Vietnam, with the warm sunshine on our backs and the chilly wind blowing enthusiastically past us. Its not the most luxurious ride, nor the most comfortable, but with the sense of team spirit and God's presence with us, its an extraordinary blessing to be here.

I learnt today that we aren't just here to encourage and minister to others, but also to receive. The ones who were are reaching out too will also be used by Him to minister to us. It is a time of spiritual growth for us individually, and also as a team.

Yet the devil lurks on the outskirts waiting to trip us.

Without a doubt, this will be a life-changing experience for each and everyone of us. I personally don't know what to expect in Laos. We're been warned that there will most likely be no toilets, no electricity. It is the most un-me type trip ever and yet I find myself excited in a positive way. (Though I will probably be squemish about doing no. 2 behind a bush).

Isaiah 40:29-31 has really stuck with me for this trip and everytime I feel like its starting to become overwhelming I hold onto that piece of His Word and recite it in my head.

Cardboard Testimonies

I've watched this several times and every single time, I have tears in my eyes.

Alone but not

Finally catching a long break from work. With a week left before I have to be back in the office, I tried to get out of the country for a short trip alone. Unable to get either airplane tickets or accommodation to the places I wanted to go to, and that were safe enough for me to travel alone to, I gave up and simply checked myself into a resort on Sentosa island. For the first time, I actually wanted to travel alone. To get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and have quiet time. I figured that away from all those distractions and on my own, I'll have to lean on God for company. Spending more time with God, talking to God and reading His Word, would only bring us closer. James 4:8 (NIV) 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. I haven't spent every minute alone, many friends have been over to hang out. Time spent with them has also been a blessing. To simply chill out, talk and laugh with the fellas from church is somewhat of a luxury simply due to a lack of time in "real life". I thank God for the chance to build on bonds with family. Those brothers and sisters are indeed family. On the first day, friends had left, I sat in bed to pray and I heard myself praying the most honest, sincere prayer that I've ever said to God.

This morning I got up and dragged myself to the terrace for breakfast just five minutes before it closed. As I sat down to eat, I cracked open a new book to read - The Call by Os Guinness. Its about finding and fulfilling the central purpose of your life. I discovered why I've been so unhappy about my job and that unhappiness has been slowing eating into other bits of my life as well. This new job places me, a square peg, into a round hole. Not good. I will have to spend more time praying for God to direct that area of my life. I've also yet to find out what the central purpose of my life is. If this job was it, I would have a sense of fulfillment and purpose. As Os Guinness put it, "As modern people we are all on a search for significance. We desire to make a difference. We long to leave a legacy. We yearn, as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, "to leave the world a bit better." Our passion is to know that we are fulfilling the purpose for which we are here on earth."

Why did God put me here? Finding and fulfilling the purpose of our lives comes up in myriad wards and in all the seasons of our lives.

For many years, I've been ambitious in my career. At the moment I am the youngest senior account manager, wait, youngest suit in the agency. I've put in a ridiculous amount of time at work to get to where I am today and I still have far to go. I've always enjoyed what I do very much and this industry still remains fascinating to me. Yet, there's recently been a restlessness in me that I haven't been able to fully explain. Its not simply just due to the lack of job satisfaction or the silly political stuff at work. I feel restless within the industry itself! I wonder if there is a point in what I do. There's so much that is missing. Only God needs nothing outside Himself, because He Himself is the highest and the only lasting good. So everything that we desire falls short and are as finite and incomplete as we ourselves are. And if we make these objects our ultimate desire, boy are we going to be disappointed. I've been lifting my career up to God and committing my life to Him to use as He will. I believe that He's planted that seed of restlessness and despair in my heart so that I would see beyond a career in advertising. I've always said that this is what I would like to do for the rest of my life. Now, I'm prepared to give it up. How awesome is God!

You won't believe this. As I was typing this entry, a brother of mine from church, lets call him.... G. So G and I have been exchanging text messages about mostly nothing. I was just saying something about how great would it be if I got a job that pays as much as my current package, and all I do is bum around on the beach all day. (I am great as a beach bum.) G texts me back in the following exact words: Start your own ad agency. Since you know e business. We start small. I be your production branch. If can make it, money can channel to missions and all. Tat will be living e dream.

I haven't felt this kind of excited about anything in a long time. Not even when I started a boutique agency years ago. My goodness! Even G is terribly excited now. We will both be committing this to prayer and waiting to see if He leads us that way. If you read this and have some free time on your hands, please do pray for us both. Living for a cause, serving while working, that will be living the dream indeed.

Father, thank You for Your grace, for loving and blessing even a sinner like me. My life is Yours to do as You will. Guide us and let us know if this is of Your leading. Speak in to us in such an obvious and undeniable way so that even though G and I are so blur sometimes, we will know that it is of You. O Lord, if this is Your will, open the doors for us, in terms of time, relationships and financing so that we will not be in need or want for anything. Thank You Father. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

The beginning of the end of it all

Warning: Long post ahead.

Break my heart for what breaks Yours,
Everything I am for Your kingdom's cause.

Recently I've been praying for God to break my heart. Why? I do not know. But here's what my past 2 weeks have been like:

I've realised that I am not very happy with the new job. That while I love what I do (advertising - digital) very much, this new agency has started making me hate what I do. And I've only been there for a month. I can't pinpoint it to one specific incident or one exact problem, but what I do know is that this is not the right place for me.

In my prayers, I've been constantly committing my life, of which my career plays a large part, to Him. I've taken to praying that He takes my life, my career, me and do what He will with it all. As much as it scares me, this is not what He intends for me. What exactly God intends for me to do, I do not know, but what I will do is resign first thing after I return to the office on the 18th. I have never ever left a job without another job lined up. My goodness. As much of a strong front I have put on about this to friends and family, I'm worried, yes I am, but I trust Him to open the doors for me. He holds me in the palm of His hand and I know that He will not let me fall.

With that decision made, my heart was calmer but still rather uneasy and unhappy as ironically, my period of notice will be twice as long as my duration of service so far. Heh.

Nathan and I have broken up. The weekend that followed, I was an absolute wreck. I cried for probably 30 hours straight. I cried in my sleep, the moment I woke, while I was on the loo, while I was watching the telly. Everywhere. Yet I wasn't just crying over the end of yet another relationship. I felt so lost, so small. I was completely overwhelmed with sadness and unbeliveable helplessness. I had never felt so... broken in my life. For the first time ever, I couldn't even see a tomorrow.

So I prayed. I prayed for myself, for Nathan, for my father, for my sisters, for just so so many people. I asked for forgiveness, guidance, wisdom and strength, I prayed that He would take away the pain and hurt, that He would heal me. I wanted simply to be whole again. I asked for protection, for peace in my heart and mind. There had been so many things that I had yet to forgive myself for.

I prayed so so so much, holed up in the dark alone, not eating or seeing. Then God led me to realise that He was answering my prayers. The Lord was breaking my heart. This breakup was merely the straw that broke this camel's back.

Then came Sunday. I awoke with a peace in my heart, a calm that I myself could not believe I was capable of feeling. Brick by brick, God was putting me back together. Building me back whole again.

As a young Christian, I had prayed for unshakeable, child-like faith. During those two dark nights, God grew my faith. He watered my tree so that its roots would dig deeper into the soil. God knew exactly what was needed to demolish my world, to kill off what illusions I had of independence, what plans I had for me, myself and I. He was, is, the only one who could heal my heart and make it clean. Those two days, I learnt about God-dependence, not self reliance.

Father, I am Your faithful servant. Use me as You will.

This Quarter

This past quarter has been one of the most shocking quarters I've lived through so far. I apologise for not having written much these two months. Part of it has been the circumstances and me taking the time to deal with everything in my head and in real life. Other part has been largely just laziness and just not wanting to think/write.

The two major events this quarter have been:
1. Jordan going home to be with the Lord
2. the closure of the advertising agency that I'm working in

I've blogged about the first item quite significantly so I'll skip straight to 2.

I work in the only independent global advertising agency left in the world. And we are closing the Singapore office. When the CEO flew in the break the news on the 4th of June, I was stunned but surprisingly not worried. "I trust that God will take care of me," was what I said to Nathan. The next day, the press release went out to the media and I was flooded with calls and text messages from concerned friends and church-mates. I was so touched and pleasantly surprised that some people that I barely knew even went through some effort to get a hold of my cell number to let me know that they were praying for me. God knew that I needed support and placed some very awesome people around me to strengthen and guide me.

I would like to say that I wasn't worried at all, but that would be lying. I knew instinctively that I had nothing to worry about because a Shepperd always cares for His flock, but I definitely still had a grain of doubt as to what that job would be. But God is faithful and He took brilliant care of me. Why did I I even doubt it?!

Not even three weeks after the news had broken, I found myself signing on letter of offer from a global digital agency under the massive Omnicom umbrella. Not only is it a position of equal standing to the one I hold now, it pays more and I get to work with some brilliant colleagues on some amazing accounts.

Like, wow.

Jehovah Jirah, my provider
His grace is sufficient for me, for me
My God will supply all my needs
According to His richness in glory
He will give His angels charge over me
Jehovah, Jirah cares for me, for me, for me.

Some November Days

Late November last year, my mother checked into hospital for major surgery, to remove a tumor that was covering 75% of her rectum. We had no idea whether the tumor was benign or malignant, but as it was so large, her doctor was not very optimistic about it.

I sat on my bed and prayed with my heart thumping in my chest. I was terrified, and I felt so helpless. So I took it out of my hands and placed it into Yours. I prayed and prayed and read Your Word. Before anxiety came, You gave me John 11:4.

When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."

and my heart was at rest.

So they removed the tumor without any complications and as I was waiting by her bedside for her to come to, her oncologist came to speak to me. The biopsy was positive for colorectal cancer. My knees shook but good friends from church were there to hold me up. I trusted in God to see this through and I knew He would. The keyhole surgery was considered to be fairly major and was performed on a Wednesday morning. By Friday morning, my mum was walking and mid-day Saturday, she was discharged. The nurses were surprised she had healed so fast. We just had to wait for another week for further test results, before they would be able to tell us what stage cancer it was.

So many people were praying for my mother. The awesome power of prayer.

The week after, I was back at work and I got a text from my mother: "The doc called w good news. No traces of cancer cells in the lymph nodes n only stage II so no chemo needed :)"

2 months after, I had to accompany my mother to hospital for a blood test to identify the cancer count remaining in her body. The night before, just like every other night, I prayed for healing for her before bed. After my prayer, He said, "open your bible."
So I reached for my bible.
He said, "Read John 5:4"
I wondered, "John or 1 John?" (I always have to complicate things.)
There was no reply. so I thought, okay okay..
and I flipped to that chapter.

John 5:4
For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and *stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.

I thought, okay that sounds like His healing.. but what water? What was I supposed to do with that?

And then I saw that asterix, that little star before the word stirred, and the Spirit poked me. There was the mental "oooh" moment.

and I read:
The last phase of v 3 and all of v 4 are omitted in some Greek manuscripts of John. The statements may reflect a popular tradition associated with the pool that the bubbling of the waters (v7), which some scholars feel was caused by an intermittent spring, was supernaturally caused by an angel. Irrespective of the source of the waters being stirred, the testimony of God's healing grace was nonetheless present.

and then I went, "Woah."

24 January, mum got her test results back from the doctor. She was cancer free.

Thanks be to God. My God is an awesome God.

the Lord sends emails

Oh dear. Last I posted was Monday and its already Friday. Time really flew by this week. In the midst of campaign launch flurry, I think God has slipped my mind quite a number of times this week. Thankfully, my God is a patient God. If I had to deal with myself, I'll probably have sent bolts of lightning down on myself. Anyway, last night my sleep was full of mini-dreams, and they were all about money. I had a conversation about salary and expenditure with a colleague, talked to a friend from church about earning more vs earning less, trying to find lost money, and lot lot of other hazy dreams, but all revolved around the same money theme. Then the moment I woke up, flicked my blackberry on and here's the first thing I read this morning: The Word for Today Financial Amnesia Remember...the Lord...gives you power to become rich. - Deuteronomy 8:18 TLB

Can God trust you with money? Do you have the courage to thank Him publicly for what He's given you? Ever noticed how some of us who praised Him when we had very little, suddenly become 'image conscious' when we start to prosper? We call on God when we're in trouble, but when we get back on our feet we stop counting our blessings and start counting our money. What's happened? We've become so self-sufficient that we're reluctant to mention the name of Jesus when we talk about our blessings! Israel's financial amnesia was nothing new; it happens once you start believing "it was [my] own power and might that made [me] wealthy" (Dt 8:17 TLB).

Never get so dazzled by success that you forget the source of everything you have, or become so caught up in your blessings that you fail to acknowledge the One who blessed you. God told the Israelites, "When you have become...prosperous...built fine homes...and your silver and gold have multiplied...don't become proud and forget the Lord...who brought you out of...slavery" (Dt 8:11-14 TLB). God doesn't condemn success, He condemns arrogance! When you've had very little and suddenly enter the 'Promised Land,' it's easy to forget where you came from. A few gourmet meals, a designer suit and a house in 'the right neighbourhood' can make you forget about yesterday's hand-me-downs! God constantly had to remind His people not to overlook His goodness to them. And the same applies to us. "Remember...the Lord...gives you power to become rich, and...just as [He]...caused other nations in the past to perish...That will be your fate...if you don't obey...God" (Dt 8:18-20 TLB).

Bottom line - you don't have anything God didn't give you!

SoulFood Bible Readings: 1 Co 14-16, Mk 8:14-26, Ps 94:1-11, Pr 10:24-26

Btw, these daily emails are sent to me by The Word For Today e-mail service. If you've been encouraged by The Word for Today, then your friends will be too.Click here to subscribe.

So how does this tie back to real life? I've been praying for financial blessing, for a particular salary increment that I will get a reply from senior management on next week. And I know, with greater financial rewards, I should be a better steward with my money, no, God's money.

Extraordinarily, God being all-knowing, knows that I spend a good 40% of my day online, so God sends emails too.

Awesomeness!

gracie was stupid

I didn't blog yesterday partly because I completely forgot and partly cos I was still so angry that I figured it was better not to bring my angst online.

Quite a number of things happened yesterday. Terribly "Days of Our Lives".

1. Lost my phone on Monday evening, which mean I pretty much spent Tuesday morning running about with like a chicken with its head chopped off. Because of the way it happened (long story which I'm quite tired of repeating so I won't), I'm fairly certain the taxi driver took my phone. So come Tuesday morning, I made a police report, got a new blackberry and had my SIM card replaced. Only with my mother's help was I able to do all that and get into the office before 1pm. Monday night while I was online trying to retrieve my lost phone's IMEI and PIN numbers, suspend my line and all that stuff. The entire time though, I was pissed. Seriously pissed off. You see the taxi driver happened to be a friend of a friend from way back. First off, wherever possible, strangers should return lost property... and if its someone you know... even more so. A friend reminded me then (through the wonder that is MSN) that even during difficult/testing times, we should always praise God. So I did. I thanked Him for teaching me, and I prayed for whoever found my phone and kept it. Maybe he really needed the money.
   
2. I had my appraisal at work today. This was also a discussion about the salary increment I would be getting. There's a minimum amount that they are contractually obligated to meet, but I had asked for significantly higher than that. I've prayed about it and will continue to do so. Either way though, I'm quite happy with the agency that I'm in and feel very blessed that God placed me in such an environment, with such awesome people.
3. I had a job interview last evening. A casual sort of chat with the M.D and the Head of Digital of another global ad agency. To be honest, I have no intention of leaving my agency right now, and I do see myself here for quite some time, but I was curious about what the other agency was offering and wanted to check it out. Even though the interview went well, that agency isn't for me, not right now and probably not for a long time. This interview just reaffirmed what a great agency I'm in and I thank God.
   

Why are do 2 and 3 make me thank God so much? For the past month or so, because I've been rather bored with un-challenging work, I've been wondering to God if this agency is really where He wants me to be in. Questioning if this was really where I'm supposed to be.

And so it is! Praise God. I love You.

My God is big

... so strong, so mighty!

Since I started this blog, I realised that certain things in my life have been becoming more difficult/annoying. Some days make me just want to curl up and cry, much less blog.

But God is my hero. There's nothing my God cannot do. With Lord Jesus taking control, what are these difficult days? All I have to do is to reach out to Him with my heart and He will be my refuge.

Two weeks ago I was on my way home from work and it was drizzling while I was walking to the train station. While waiting to cross the road, I said a quick prayer, "God please don't let me get drenched." Just then, a complete stranger came up to me to share his umbrella. Smiling, I accepted and split seconds later, it started to pour down. Buckets and buckets.

Praise God. You are my hero.