Dear Dads

Dear Dads,

Without you, there wouldn't be us - and we don't mean it just biologically. You are strong even in the face of adversity, you are brave and full of courage, and you tirelessly work to put food on our table and build stability into our lives. How did you do that for so many years!

We love you and we knew so closely in our heart who you were even before we could speak...you are the man with the loving eyes whose voice we heard all the time in Mom's belly. You are the man whose eyes lit up when we peeped at the world after a good night's slumber. You were always staring at us with eyes that beamed of love.

And as the years went by, we started an imaginary war on freedom against Mom and you.  We started seeing Mom and you as people who wanted to control us and turn us into your slaves. The house that Mom and you made into a home...we saw it as hell. We despised improvements you both made, because hell is hell. There's no way you could have made it better.

Mom, being more aware of the things that went on in our everyday lives, often let her emotions show. Sometimes in her frustration and heartbreak, she yelled at us. And us (being the stiff-necked pricks that we were) used our budding creativity to try and bring her to breaking point. You were out at work, mostly, and if you were at home, you would stay away from the conflict to avoid making things worse. 

Years passed. You went to our first concert, our first competition, and every graduation party we had. You saw how we changed over the years, and you remember when we really started changing - we apologise, we listen, we talk, we laugh...This is so wonderful! Till the end of our lives, we are going to get closer and closer, just like how we were back then.

As for those of us who haven't really changed though we're now in our 20s or 40s...do you know how much Mom suffers? Her bones dry up from the grief within her. Her heart does not work in regular beat because she has lost so much sleep over the years. The joints in her hands ache from tidying a home that we now despise. Sad things make up most of what she says and she tries very hard to keep things in control.

We know you get undercover updates from Mom though you pretend to appear like you don't know anything. Because we inherited your bionic ears and Mom's. We don't want just Mom to be in the frontline of caring...especially if we have developed ways of thinking that are actually harmful. Don't tell her what you can do too as a parent. Don't leave the difficult conversations with us to just her. Talk to us...show us what it means to grow up into someone with courage, wisdom, and love, because we want to do the same for our children too when things get tricky. Then, change will begin. 

There'll be people who come into your life to support you with this, and you'll be alright. But if you really can't do it right now or not at all, it is okay. It really is. We don't fully understand what you have been going through. Plus, you never stopped loving us even when we were so nasty to you. What more now when you are genuinely facing challenges (and not being nasty to us at all)!

Please don't start criticizing yourself. You are already such a wonderful Dad. We love you, and we know you love us too. 

Love,
Your precious children

---

In response to the subculture of distant dads in parts of Asia and the world, where there is clear division of labour between...

the homemaker (often the Mom), who provides emotional care at home and is responsible for the household's everyday needs, and

the breadwinner (often the Dad), who is mainly responsible for meeting the financial needs of the family now and in the long term.

only confidence

Decades may pass, but God never gives up even on individuals, even if they are Manassehs, the 'cruelest' people to Him in history. When it comes to love, Bieber is right. God "never says never".

There is no hope to speak of here, only confidence.

Lord Almighty, God of our ancestors, God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their righteous children, you made heaven and earth with all their beauty. You set limits for the sea by speaking your command. You closed the bottomless pit, and sealed it by your powerful and glorious name. All things fear you and tremble in your presence, because no one can endure the brightness of your glory. No one can resist the fury of your threat against sinners. 

But your promised mercies are beyond measure and imagination, because you are the highest, Lord, kind, patient, and merciful, and you feel sorry over human troubles. 

You, Lord, according to your gentle grace promised forgiveness to those who are sorry for their sins. In your great mercy, you allow sinners to turn from their sins and find salvation. Therefore, Lord, God of those who do what is right, you didn't offer Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, those who didn't sin against you, a chance to change their hearts and lives. But you offer me, the sinner, the chance to change my heart and life, because my sins outnumbered the grains of sand by the sea. My sins are many, Lord; they are many. I am not worthy to look up, to gaze into heaven because of my many sins. 

Now, Lord, I suffer justly. I deserve the troubles I encounter. Already I'm caught in a trap. I'm held down by iron chains so that I can't lift up my head because of my sins. There’s no relief for me, because I made you angry, doing wrong in front of your face, setting up false gods and committing offenses.

Now I bow down before you from deep within my heart, begging for your kindness. I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned, and I know the laws I've broken. I'm praying you, begging you: Forgive me, Lord, forgive me. 

Don't destroy me along with my sins. Don't keep my bad deeds in your memory forever. Don't sentence me to the earth's depths, for you, Lord, are the God of those who turn from their sins. In me you'll show how kind you are. 

Although I'm not worthy, you'll save me according to your great mercy. 

I will praise you continuously all the days of my life, because all of heaven's forces praise you, and the glory is yours, forever and always. Amen.

Prayer of Manasseh in prose 

12  I

Nothing, really.

Today I lost my wallet and was ruffled. But hey, it's just pieces of paper that I can thankfully earn back in greater proportions every month. It's just pieces of plastic that I can prevent from misuse with just a phone call. And the purple wallet that Mom got me - I know she gave me that as a gift of love, and even though it's gone now, she loves me all the same.

So what do I have to lose? Nothing, really.

And when I got home, I was chided for losing my wallet. I seem to lose something almost every year, usually my phone or a contact lens, to a lesser extent, my wallet, and once, my laptop. I was chided for being careless, and I cried. It's the same conversation, the same tears, and my same retort: "You need to be more careful. You keep losing your things, how will you take care of yourself in the future?" "I didn't lose it on purpose. I usually am careful, but I don't know why I wasn't this time. Why do you say it as if I don't care or I meant to lose it? What makes you think that I am usually not careful? Why do you think that I don't try?"

And then I go to my room to cry. Except this time I go to my room to cry, and write this.

After all the angry crying, now I know. The chiding came from a heart that was upset. How dare people take my daughter's things when they're not supposed to! It came from a father who wants to protect her daughter as long as he lives but has to gradually let go because I have to learn to fend for myself. He needs to know I will grow up fine and will be okay when he can't protect me anymore one day, and so he lets go…more and more, so I can learn to be an adult.

Surely these patterns of losing stuff and retorting need to be broken. Surely I have much more control over my things than I think I do. 

And when Dad chides me, what is there to lose? Nothing, really.

Surely my parents love me more than I know and believe. And Dad doesn't think that I don't care or try.

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 

Jesus

judgmentalism

Our research with Christians confirms that often we miss the point of reflecting Jesus to outsiders because we are too busy catering to the expectations of other believers. One church leader explained how a few vocal members of his church prevented him from partnering with another local congregation because the potential partner was "too seeker sensitive." Another believer explained how her efforts to engage people affected by HIV/AIDS have been routinely vilified by some Christians because of the perception that she is being manipulated by homosexual activists. A young Christian leader who developed an inner-city ministry told me how one of his board members questioned whether there were "too many black kids" attending. One influential Christian leader was roundly criticized for engaging in a respectful dialogue with advocates of a different faith. 

unChristian (2007)

David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons 

I have forgotten many but here are pieces of advice Christians have offered to me that has stuck around in my head.

"Don't go to Little India. There are many foreign workers there."

"Why go to poor countries? You've nowhere better to spend your money?"

"Be careful of the poor people. They have headlice."

"Stop thinking about Muslims. You'll get into trouble."

In my heart, I was rolling my eyes at these comments, and I felt they were not insulting me, but the Jesus whom they profess to follow...the same Jesus who hung out with traitors, thieves, prostitutes, the demonized, the sick and dying - those who were considered the 'sinners' and filthy people of his society.

Reading this, I was like, "Yes, totally! If only these people would read what David Kinnaman is saying."  Especially when one of them continues to be the self-appointed Gestapo of his/her church and rather vocal commentator on Facebook about sensational local news. Interacting with him/her can sometimes be frustrating.

But I know that I have my own share of prejudice and judgmentalism, often in order to shield myself from being vulnerable to people who may (again) exploit my willingness to show my flaws. Or just a plain unwillingness to show people that I don't have it all together - who does anyway? For fear that what I believe to be true may be unduly and unsoundly refuted. This isn't like Jesus, isn't it? I'm not trusting that he vindicates and heals me. It's not supposed to be me acting on my own efforts and suspicion of others. 

You may be saying, "What terrible people you have been talking about!" But you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you do these very same things...Don't you realize how kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Or don't you care? Can't you see how kind he has been in giving you time to turn from your sin?

Romans 2: 1,4

And now it's time for me to make an overdue apology to someone.



not much longer to go

Parents rarely let go of children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003) 
Mitch Albom

A few friends who read my posts said they did not understand what I meant when I first wrote about us willfully severing ourselves from our parents' lives two years ago.

And now Mitch Albom reminds me of the same thing again. My parents are in their late 50s and early 60s. There's not much longer of life now to go, unless they would return to Jesus...and rest.

mothers' day

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! 

The Great YHWH (in Isaiah 49: 15)

Even if mothers lose their memory in trauma or dementia, and even when mothers cease to love us unfailingly and unconditionally, the Lord of the heavens and earth will not forget us.

I know that this will be important when I join many adults as orphans after their parents leave in disease and old age.

real hope - faint not.

When Jesus was hungry en route to Jerusalem, he could not find any fruit on a fig tree he passed by that he could eat to fill his stomach, "because it was not the season for figs". Then he cursed the tree and it shriveled. 


But why did he curse the tree for not having fruit when it was not supposed to do so at that time?


This is what real hope, Christ's idealism looks like to me. 


It says a lot when a person is able to make the fig tree shriveled. He could be a destroyer who brings death upon people, though there is an astounding lack of such evidence in the Bible.  Early Jewish texts, however, apparently taught that Jesus was a sorcerer or someone who practiced magic and went astray. Some people even accused him of working for Satan (Luke 11: 14-23)! 


He could be a madman or someone with spiritual powers, whether for good or bad. But the spiritual nature of his work and Person cannot be ignored or obliterated at all. 


To call Jesus merely a moral teacher is like calling your parents merely your financial supporters - it is one aspect, but does not warrant as much attention as we may have given at the expense of larger undercurrents. 


The Bible on the other hand only has repeated firsthand accounts of him healing those with temporary sicknesses such as fevers as well as those who were terminally ill, such as those with skin diseases - some of which were contagious - and strange bleeding diseases. Or people with permanent conditions such as being born blind and being paralyzed. He cast out demons from people who were greatly compromised and controlled by these fallen angels (Mark 1: 21-27, Matthew 8: 28-24 and others). Where what happened to the person after was described, it was whopping amazing. He even brought some dead people back to life (Lazarus, the widow's son at Nain, Jairus' daughter are the three named in the Bible). 


He was someone who could curse a fig tree to die, and was someone who gave life, both literally and figuratively.


It's not a pretty sight at all I'm sure...looking at people tormented physically or internally, and how people shun them or grieve for them. It is all messy, exasperating, heart-cutting. Jesus "had compassion on the crowds", and those marginalized and shunned by society (Matthew 29: 34). 


But the fact that he has control over death and even the power to give life in bodily ways and spiritual ways...isn't that why the more saddening people and things are, the greater our hope is in Jesus? Because he has control over these things and if he is redeeming all aspects of the lives of those who follow him, surely he can also do the same for people whom we grieve for!


Jesus is sovereign not just over illnesses that can lead to death, but death itself and even the fearsome, destructive power of nature that humans can only avoid, alleviate, evacuate from and mitigate afterwards. And that gives me real hope. He can do what we as humans cannot do, although we like to think much bigger of ourselves than we actually are. 


We have real, rugged strength to work and bring real life, trusting that Jesus persuades and convicts people in their hearts to say yes to the redeeming he wants to do in them. As Jenny & Tyler sings, "not with "simple thoughts like 'come together be good-willed" ". Not with nice little stickers and motivational decals and posters, or a deliberate oblivion to evil in a bid to 'think happy thoughts' and 'think positive'.


No. Real Hope works amidst messed-up people, i.e. all of us. On a daily basis, we miss the standard of perfection God requires for true goodness, instead incurring grief, exasperation and anger from people around us and God due to our innate propensity to do evil (doubt, criticize, gossip, insult...) in the name of self-preservation (see Matthew 5:1-7:14; Romans 7:14-8: 11). All this goes beyond a mere moral teaching of what is good and bad. Morals inform us in detail and in the head what we should do. But we cannot do what we know is good because it is not in our nature to do so.


The Real Hope is Jesus, the one who has changed the nature of all those who let him to be able to be good for the first time in our lives. If he has power over death, surely he has power over the decay that I see happening in the hearts and lives of loved ones. And he is working right now...


My brain is not working, but I needed to write this to stand firm when situations seem bleak.

Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.

Psalm 126

FAINT NOT.
     

family time

The painful truth is that any good time my family has spending with one another has to be prayed for and intentionally created.

Because the default is an apathy that baffles me, complete with its own set of willful defenses, or perhaps a little better, criticisms and pulling out nasty history.

And I realized that it is not uncommon among families.

What's wrong?

a confrontation

The first ostensible conversation after half of my family got home, as according to my fallible memory and as a little tribute to Tennessee Williams.

Side character: (to X) _____ left a pile of clothes in the bathroom.
X: Did you guys do laundry?
Y: _____ does it.
X: And you didn't do the laundry?
Y: (irritated) We agree on a day to wash it together after every two to three days.
X: And you have to get angry?
Y: (still upset) It's not like I don't do it. We wait for a few days before doing it and _____ is in charge.
          (The bystanders who also just got home are caught in the middle. They stand alongside X and stare at Y, puzzled.) 

X: Ha. Our personalities really don't match. We shouldn't even talk to each other.
Y: You say it as if I don't know how to do it. If ______ left a pile of clothes in the bathroom, then maybe he wants to leave it there. You have to ask him, not me.  

Same with the last time - I cooked noodles for _______ and you told her you weren't sure whether it was even cooked properly!
X: I didn't say that. I said "Don't know if the noodles are soft".
          (Y shakes her head.)  

X: Our personalities really don't match. We shouldn't even talk to each other.
          (Y shakes her head again, looking at the computer screen, making effort to look unfazed by the accusation and unpleasant talk.) 

          (Eventually, X heads for the kitchen and the side characters leave the set to go to the bedrooms. Y is the last to leave. She heads for her bedroom and closes the door.) 

Narrator: How unfortunate, that X should come home from a vacation to such an unpleasant conversation. 

And how unfortunate, that Y had to respond to seemingly harmless comments that accused. 

Family is sometimes tiring to be around. Too noisy, too messy, too crowded, too screechy, too negative...complaints and sighs abound. But that is where the boundaries of love are stretched to cover over conflicts and flaws. Humanly impossible - you have to help me, Jesus.

bias

In the minds of many Chinese parents, males are inherently better than females. Especially if the male is the oldest grandson of the oldest son in the family. He's the grandson of the family. Never mind how many older sisters this oldest grandson has, they are not as important as the oldest grandson.

Who gets the drumsticks, gets the most inheritance money, gets the most attention. Who also gets the most pressure to have a family and continue the family line.

We have moved away from that quite significantly, but its vestiges remain. It's about the only way of life the older generation knew growing up. It was normal to them, never mind its arbitrariness.

Tonight the feeling of rejection because I'm a female returns. It's not the drumsticks or money, but the subtle unsaid. The license to reject because they know I won't play punk and rebel against this family. Instead, they know I will continue to pour my heart out to help and encourage them, even if they often don't believe what I say until God vindicates months later.

Jesus, you have to help me out. I am angry and the only thing in my head now is "f- this".

boys over girls

Went for my sister's prize giving ceremony in school today and remembered I went up the same stage when I was in Primary Two for getting 2nd in English for my level that year.

I was in 2nd place together with another classmate. But there was only one prize for 2nd place! There's still one more prize for a 3rd place though. Strangely, the teachers didn't invite the student who scored 3rd position for English. Instead, they told me while we were lined up for the stage that my classmate would be in 2nd place and I'll get 3rd.

Why? Because he's a guy and I'm a girl.

This would have not cut it today. But my mom and I were surprised but didn't say anything. 90s in Singapore was an ambivalent but gradual shift away from the Asian practice of valuing boys over girls. When I was little, I never got to eat a drumstick as my parents would give them to my two brothers. One day, I got upset and said that they were biased. They took my youngest brother's drumstick (poor him) and passed it to me but I refused and sulked in a corner. From then on, I got to eat drumsticks!

Just a little funny story. I don't care now that I had believed the teachers in all my bright-eyed innocence that it was right for me to be 'demoted', since I was doing well and I was recognized for it. I wonder how the person who should have got 3rd place felt...he/she wasn't acknowledged at all!

Oh, how times have changed!

Heinous

I visited my grandpa again few days back for the first time in a few months. We call him Ah Gong and were told that he was getting weak very quickly. As usual, I tried shamelessly to speak to him in my smattering of Teochew, which was possibly mixed with Hokkien especially since I don't really know the difference between both. I know he can understand Mandarin though he can't speak it. But somehow I don't feel comfortable speaking in Mandarin to him. Whether I speak to him in Mandarin or noob Teochew, communication will still be one-way.

Because the problem is with me.

I cannot understand Teochew. I wasn't taught and continue to be refused by my parents when I ask them to teach me. And yes it is a problem because there are so many things I want to say to this dear old kind person, but I can't.

And because of that I broke down in front of him. Just two of us in the stuffy room, him looking straight and me looking at the cold rain and sunshine outside the glass window. Without my Ah Gong, there wouldn't be me. Or even if I was around, I would probably have been born in China in a place poorer than Singapore. And yet I couldn't talk to this man who was quickly fading away with his paper-thin skin covering a network of green veins that vulnerably shielded his skeleton.

I left that afternoon feeling very upset and angry. And even right now, I still am. I, like most other people my generation, are unable and uninterested in non-Mandarin Chinese languages for various reasons including its low instrumental value in Singapore, and them paling out in comparison to other more exotic languages as publicly imagined. And you notice that to call them dialects of Mandarin is a political construction of Chinese languages to justify Singapore's Speak Mandarin campaign in the 1990s to just 'let the kids learn the common Chinese language', i.e. allegedly Mandarin. Apparently, our brain was only competent enough for two languages, and so the campaign's rhetoric was that if parents continue to teach and/or speak to kids in Chinese 'dialects', then that would affect their grades in Mandarin. And surely no good parent would want to sacrifice their kids' academic performance knowing that they are the ones who affected them right? But apparently, this assumption was also wrong, because the enlightened leaders have realized that our brains can actually only take one language, and hence Chinese becoming increasingly optional in school admission up to university level. Isn't this brain thing better explained by socialization patterns than something psychologically inherent?

Looking back, this early aim of the Speak Mandarin campaign to replace 'dialects' with Mandarin in both media and society has been remarkably successful. My parents know how to speak a few dialects, and they choose not to do it at moderate extents with each other, and they choose not to speak any dialect to us at all. And I suspect that somewhere in their worldview, they have naturalized the campaign's rhetoric and expanded on it - not teaching Teochew to your kids seems so natural and it is difficult explain why (as with why pink is for baby girls, and blue for baby boys, or why pretty girls are usually thin with non-frizzy hair).

Isn't it as ironic as slapping yourself in public that by advocating Mandarin at the expense of my learning of Teochew in order to pass down the celebrated values of Confucianism, I have been denied an urgent and genuine expression of the very same values?

What I experienced that Sunday afternoon is the effect of this heinous campaign. I would even say that it borders on immorality, given its already moralized discourse when people are encouraged to speak Mandarin and preserve the Confucian values of propriety, righteousness, humility, trust, loyalty, filial piety, integrity, and love.

Some say "it's the thought that counts, so don't get too worked up that you can't communicate". But if you are the one fading away into nothingness, won't you desire to communicate with others? Dying or alive, we all know how precious it is to be able to talk with someone in your own language, especially your heart language/s, the one that allows you to connect people at a deeper level than other languages you know.

It is futile to wholly blame the social engineers behind this Speak Mandarin Campaign because I know that it is also my choice to have not learned Teochew all this while. But what I do want to underscore is that our leaders lacked foresight, and now we are systematically affected by their successful eradication of non-Mandarin Chinese languages from most Singaporeans' linguistic repertoires. I say that they lacked foresight because I do not wish to give them the benefit of doubt that they saw this coming but decided that it was ultimately not worth protecting anyway.

This is my Ah Gong. He came from Shantou, a formerly bustling coastal city in the Chinese province of Guangdong appointed for Western trade and contact in the 19th century. He was born into a commoner's family in 1901 and later sailed with many other Chinese immigrants across the South China Sea to Singapore to hopefully eke out a living and then later have his wife and his son (who unfortunately passed while he was away) join him.

He carries with him an entire century of history - from the Qing Dynasty, the early days of modern Singapore, Japanese Occupation, Singapore's independence all the way through till today. And not to mention what little I know about his very hard life, a life that would be unthinkable for many of us in our comfortable cushy world.

And this is the grandpa who will pass on, burying with him the real stories that media has sometimes only fantasized about in serial dramas, burying with him the socially marginalized status the government has relegated to him when they owe him credit for building Singapore to what it is today. But before that, I have many things to say to him, many very important things that he needs to know while he still can.

30 days: day twentysix

day twentysix – a picture of something that means a lot to you

The guitar pick Spencer lent to me

It means a lot to me because he offered his pick to me, and he had been carefully keeping it in his wallet, never forgetting where he left it. (Spencer's the younger of my two younger brothers.)

It means a lot to me because it reminds me of the care and support Spencer has for me, and him being an extremely reliable and dependable person whom you can trust as a friend in need.

I don't know if he gave the pick to me or if it's on loan, but I'm definitely wanting to return to him sometime!

30 days: day nine

day nine – a picture of the person who has gotten you through the most

My mom :)

She has an incredibly tender heart full of compassion and is very sensitive and thoughtful of others. She connects with people through emotions; she also has a lot of empathy, which means that she often cares about people whom she's seen only once, but seem to be having a hard time. She has had a rough life, coming to Singapore to work when she was 21 and settled here for good when she met my dad, and entered into a family that beat down extreme prejudice on her for years. She is one tough person inside her heart.

I have been angry and arrogant for most of my life, and I see it happening less and less since Jesus has started to change my life. I hope that I will exercise humility and love in my heart every day though I believe pride will continue to be a daily thought to murder. My mom has been putting through all the nonsense and heartbreak I've given to her through my rebel stage from when I was 10 through 20, and hopefully much less now. I hope I bring comfort to her!

So..guess whom God gave my intuition and compassion from. Not to mention she was THE pretty girl at her workplace and dorm so many guys would want to drive her out and get to know her ;)

30 days: day two

day two – a picture of you and the person you have been closest with the longest

My sister, Esther, and I. We're 11 years apart, and our favorite thing to do is to lie on the couch and make fun of each other or make a fool of ourselves. I make it a point to say sorry to her and ask for her forgiveness when I say or do something that hurt her, and I also make it a point to share with her my worries and fears. I've been learning to be humble in this way.

Esther gets ecstatic over badminton, and like most kids, she doesn't like veggie, so she grew up on a pact with my mom that she would eat whatever veggie's on her plate, but not anymore haha. She is a huge fan of Korean pop and drama, and she's roped my mom and me into watching Korean shows too. So good. I love her because she is my sister. Apparently almost every lady (except one) in a Christian community told my mom to abort Esther (??!!!) for reasons that disregard the sanctity of God-given life and were extremely derogatory to our family. None of us would have been able to see beyond the financial woes of having to raise a fourth child at home to realize that the affection and laughter that she has brought back into our house being a little sis is so invaluable, and I dare say, lifechanging.

I know Esther will grow up to be a beautiful woman, and a mighty laborer in God's Kingdom! I pray that for her regularly.

No harm putting more silly photos of us I'm sure! :D Shame on all the people who were for Esther to be aborted, we're having so much fun in our lives right now...and so much more to come!

I took a mega-zoomed in photo of my sis and she sought revenge hahaha.

how did we ever start hating them?

My eyes are sore and tired from bawling and crying and tearing most of today. It probably burned a lot of calories because I felt so tired the whole day.

How did we ever start hating our parents? Thinking they are nags, earsores, and people who take away free time from us?

Somewhere along the line, we've let selfishness eat away at the absolute adoration and pure love we had for our parents when we were little. And we replace this beautiful, innocent love with ungratefulness, getting picky at them and dismissing what they say...all cunningly in the name of independence, self-respect, and privacy.

What a lie we've believed in.

The last time I felt I so safe and loved by my parents when I was hurt was almost 14 years ago. Why had I rejected my mom's hugs and tears when she ached for me when I was hurt ever since then..until today?

How did this isolation ever happen in my life? God, show me. I feel you are showing me these things now because you know I am ready for it. Not to say it won't hurt, but I'm ready for it.

with my bro and his dawgs

Jamming with my bro Tim and his army friends for the first time. Tim is the guitarist on my right! The sound quality is imbalanced, but it was otherwise awesome and super fun!

This is my first time jamming in a studio, my first time singing with a rapper. Props to Aloy who actually plays guitar, but decided to rap instead since we were covering these songs.


Love the Way You Lie, Rihanna ft. Eminem
(Camel, Tim, me, Aloy, David)


Airplanes, B.O.B. ft. Hayley Williams

P.S.: I was actually singing with a throat very sore from belting very low notes for fun before that (not gonna do it again T.T). Only God can make such a hurt throat function so well!

Spencer

I see the beautiful kid in you, and you are precious in God's sight and mine.

As The Eldest Child

As the eldest child, I often lamented being the experiment of my parents' virgin parenthood. My parents raised me up in a very laissez-faire manner, giving me all the freedom I had. However, there were times or even periods of behaviour inconsistent with this trust they had in me. Especially during my rebellion phase, my mum always clamped down on my life. No doubt she knew commands were the most direct and efficient way to steer her beloved daughter away from danger. I couldn't truly understand why she imposed many restrictions however. I was taught never to ask why. When I did ask, my mum only reasserted her authority by warning me against making her angry and flare up. So I spent many a time in my room from young struggling with tears and self-censorship.

Thank God for the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us when we are in weakness (Rom 8:26), when we are unable to express the pain through language. It was the many prayers and pleas I made in this same room that God drew me closer to Him. Now that I have a much younger sister (11 years younger), I thank God that I can be a comforter to her. She needn't wrestle with things she didn't understand but had to accept. Over some small dispute involving some ice cubes and water, she felt overwhelmingly that she was being treated unfairly. So she went to her room and cried. Initially I rolled my eyes, irking at the touchy feely things I had to say to calm her down. But the more I explained and reconciled the upset in her, the more I was reminded of II Cor 1:3-4.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."

After the showering of sisterly love and an afterward-complained painfully choking prayer (because I made my sis repeat it after me), she was noticeably much calmer. How amazing it is, that talking to our Father in Heaven gives us immediate peace and solace. Some atheists like to think of it as a self-fulfilling prophecy - prayer as just a euphemism for psychological self-talk. I beg to differ. In fact, all Christians beg to differ. We've all felt the work of the Holy Spirit and the love of God but that's not the issue here heh. I am grateful that as an eldest sister, I can help mould my sis to learn and love Christ and she doesn't have to bear her own tears alone - because she has a jiejie who can stand by her in Christ.

In this way, I don't think God is being unfair to me, that being the eldest child in my family meant I had to learn many things in a tougher way. There are still challenges for me as the eldest, such as carrying my parents' baton to bring home the bacon and being exemplary as a Christian daughter and sister. I know that there are many benefits to be gained. What I have overcome with the Lord's help equips me with the ability to comfort others. Praise God!

November 1

"Thanks for prayers that Thou hast answered,
Thanks for what Thou dost deny!
Thanks for storms that I have weathered,
Thanks for all Thou dost supply!
Thanks for pain, and thanks for pleasure,
Thanks for comfort in despair!
Thanks for grace that none can measure,
Thanks for love beyond compare!"

"Thanks to God" st. 2, by August Ludwig Storm for the Swedish Salvation Army, 1891

Thank God for another birthday that passed, for it marks full 19 years of grace, love and mercy God has blessed me with. It is indeed wonderful that I have learnt to thank God for all things sweet and bitter -it's not been an easy 19 years for me and my family- just like how the hymn says we should thank God for pain and pleasure. In light of this I was reading Psalm 139, the psalm from which another of my favourite hymns was inspired.

God is our Father, and I don't think how much more literal can it be than in Psalm 139. Isn't it amazing to know that even before birth, God has been taking care of us? He made sure that every in every nucleus of our cells, we had 23 pairs of chromosomes, and that in every growth of the embryo, we were safe and were developing as normal, able-bodied babies. David says "you knit me in my mother's womb" (v13) and His "eyes saw my unformed body" (v16) He preserved our lives in healthy wombs so that we could last three trimesters before seeing the world. If you think about it, how many babies actually get to come to the world?

Our heavenly Father has watched us grow from young and He is "familiar with all" our ways (v3). He understands our joy, pain and struggles deep down in the smallest crevice in our hearts. Even when when we contemplate to defy Him by sinning, He knows it too. "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?" (v7) Reflecting on the rebellion when I was 15, God knew I was going against Him. I was apathetic and even got defensive against His Word at one point. I skipped church, retaliated verbally against my parents, scolded the F word and partook in dirty jokes and fervent gossiping and maligning, and I even went into a traumatic, much regretted puppy-love relationship with a muslim. God is omnipresent, He was there and witnessed every one of my contemplation about sinning and the actual sins I committed. He could have punished me then and taught me a really painful lesson, like how He punished the 42 kids in Bethel. Yet, His love and respect for my freedom wanted me to return to Him, convinced and un-reluctantly. I sure did, after the constant probing and calling of the Holy Spirit- thank God. Like the injured lamb who depends on his shepherd after it was found, God brought me back, close to Him and forgave my sins. He loves me so much, how can I ever go astray again?

Every birthday is a delightful moment to accord especial glory to God. My 19th birthday has seen God's fulfilling of His never-failing Promise: "The Lord bless you and keep you." (Num 6:24), and going many more epochs back, the fulfilling of His promise to old, faithful Abraham.

19 years of preservation.
19 years of nourishment.
19 years of disciplining.
19 years of mercy.
19 years of grace.
19 years of tears.
19 years of smiles.

19 years of love...

and many more years of God's blessings! O Lord, surely "I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well." (Ps 139: 14) Amen!