Saturday, May 27, 2006
This post is going to be from a chapter of the book by Max Lucado as mentioned in my previous post. I am blogging this because I feel that it really echoed what was in my heart. Please do try to read the whole thing…
God, I have a question: Why do you love us? I don’t want to sound irreverent, but only heaven knows how much pain we’re brought you. Why do you tolerate us? You give us every breath we breathe, but do we thank you? You give us bodies beyond duplication, but do we praise you?
Seldom.
We complain about the weather. We bicker about our toys. We argue over who gets which continent and who has the best gender. Not a second passes when someone, somewhere, doesn’t use your name to curse a hammered thumb or a bad call by the umpire. (As if it were your fault.)
You fill the world with food, but we blame you for hunger. You keep the earth from tilting and the arctics from thawing, but we accuse you of unconcern. You give us blue skies, and we demand rain. You give rain, and we demand sun. (As if we knew what was best anyway).
We give more applause to a brawny ball-carrier than we do to the God who made us. We sing more songs to the moon than to the Christ who saved us. We are a gnat on the tail of one elephant in a galaxy of Africas, and yet we demand that you find us a parking place when we ask. And if you don’t give us what we want, we say you don’t exist. (As if our opinion matters.)
We pollute the world you loan us. We mistreat the bodies you gave us. We ignore the Word you send us. And we killed the Son you became. We are spoiled babies who take and kick and pout and blaspheme.
You have every reason to abandon us.
I sure I would! I would wash my hands of the whole mess and start over on Mars. But do you?
I see the answer in the rising of the sun. I hear the answer in the crashing of the waves. I feel the answer in the skin of a child.
Father, your love never ceases. Never. Though we spurn you, ignore you. Disobey you, you will not change. Our evil cannot diminish your love. Our goodness cannot increase it. Our faith foes not earn it anymore than our stupidity jeopardizes it. You don’t love us less if we fail. You don’t love us more if we succeed.
Your love never ceases.
How do we explain it?
Perhaps the answer is found in yet another question.
Moms: Why do you love your newborn?
For months this baby has brought you pain. He/she made you break out in pimples and waddle like a duck. Because of him you craved sardines and crackers and threw up in the morning. He punched you in the tummy. He occupied space that wasn’t his and ate food he didn’t fix.
You kept him warm. You kept him safe. You kept him fed. But did he say thank you?
Are you kidding? He’s no more out of the womb that he starts to cry! The room is too cold, the blanket is too rough, the nurse is too mean. And who does he want? Mom.
Don’t you ever get a break? I mean who has been doing the work the last 9 months? What can’t Dad take over? But no, Dad won’t do. The baby wants Mom.
He didn’t even tell you he was coming. He just came. And what a coming! He rendered you a barbarian. You screamed. You swore. You bit bullets and tore the sheets. And now look at you. Your back aches. Your head pounds. Your body is drenched in sweat. Every muscle strained and stretched.
You should be angry, but are you?
Far from it. On your face is a for-longer-than-forever love. He has done nothing for you; yet you love him. He’s brought pain to your body and nausea to your morning, yet you treasure him. His face is wrinkled and his eyes are dim, yet all you can talk about are his good looks and bright future. He’s going to you up every night for the next 6 weeks, but that doesn’t matter. I can see it on your face. You’re crazy about her.
Why?
Why does a mother love her newborn? Because the baby is hers? Even more. Because the baby us her flesh and blood. Her hope. Her legacy. It bothers her not that the baby gives nothing. She knows a newborn is helpless, weak. She knows babies don’t ask to come into this world.
And God knows we didn’t either.
We are his idea. We are his. His face. His eyes. His hands. His touch. We are him. Look deeply into the face of every human being on earth and you will see his likeness. Though some appear to be distant relatives, they are not. God has no cousins, only children.
We are, incredibly, the body of Christ. And though we may not act like our Father, there is no greater truth than this: we are his. Unalterably. He loves us. Undyingly. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:38-39).
Gad God not said those words, I would be a fool to write them. But since he did, I’m a fool not to believe them. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ… but how difficult it is for some to embrace this truth.
You think you’ve committed an act that places you outside his love. A treason. A betrayal. An aborted promise. You think he would love you more if you hadn’t done it, right? You think he would love you more if you did more, right? You think if you were better his love would be deeper right?
WRONG!
God’s love is not human. His love is not normal. His love sees your sin and loves you still. Does he approve of your error? No. Do you need to repent? Yes. But do you repent for his sake or yours? Yours. His ego needs no apology. His love needs no bolstering.
And he could not love you more than he does right now.
Do I hear an ‘Amen?’
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Just completed 2 assignments and procrastinating… just can’t seem to work up the motivation to start on my other assignments. I need a break, but there is nothing for me to unwind to. I’m watching a pathetic 1hr of tv a week.
Anyway, the weather is turning colder as your can see on my weather clock. Im wearing gloves in my room as I am typing this. Abit kua zhang I know, but I can’t stand my fingers freezing.
Since I can’t do work, I decided to blog about something I have wanted to blog about some time ago but never found the time.
Was reading this book from Max Lucado, its actually a compilation of 3 books – In the eye of the storm, He still moves stones, A gentle thunder. In this book(s), I made a discovery about a pretty well known passage and gained a whole new perspective.
The story is written in all the gospels. Its the story about a day in Jesus’ life, apart from the crucifixion.
In 24 hours, Jesus experienced:
Intense sorrow – His close friend, cousin, John the Baptist was beheaded
Immediate threat – Herod who just killed John, is now after Jesus
Immeasurable joy – His disciples have all come back and reporting all the good works they have done
Immense crowds
Insensitive interruptions – When he wanted solitude, the people followed him
Incredible demands – thousands clamored for His touch
Inept assistance – the one and only time he asked for help, to feed the thousands, his disciples thought he was out of his mind
Ever felt that it never rains, but pours? When bad things come, they do not come alone? In Chinese, we have this saying - 祸不单行. Well that was pretty much happened to Jesus. After receiving news of the death of John and that Herod is after His head as well, Jesus needed some time alone to grieve. But His disciples have just came back and they were all exuberant from all the miracles they have done in the name of the Lord. Ok, that’s fine, Jesus rejoices with them. However, following His disciples, are hordes of people, who wanted to see the man whom his disciples are proclaiming. When I mean hordes, I meant 25 000 people! Not the kind of number of fans that you see at some concert.
When Jesus called for his disciples to go to him and find a place to rest, the crowds followed. He took a boat while they took a hike. Seems like they were determined to follow him. Now Jesus had no obligation to stay with those people, no one would blame him if he wanted to go home. It had been a tumultuous day. But Jesus ‘had compassion on them and healed their sick’. And soon the day was gone and the people were far from a town where they could get food. So the disciples tell Jesus to tell the people to go so they can get food. Reasonable right? Instead Jesus tells the disciples to feed the people. WHAT?! – was the reaction He got. Hey, they’ve just seen Him heal thousands, yet they balk at the thought of feeding them. Only one boy had faith but he only had 2 fishes and 5 loaves of bread. Lol. Where got enough? However, Jesus took it and gave thanks for the food. Well the rest as we all know, not only was there enough for everyone, there were 12 basketfuls of leftovers.
Through it all, Jesus never lost His cool. He never shouted at the crowds to go away when they followed Him. He never scolded his disciples for not trusting in Him. Better still, at the end of it, He still remembered to thank God. Gosh, if I were Him, I’ll be too busy mumbling/sulking/grumbling to thank God.
Why do you think Jesus was able to do what He did? It was because He knew the value of people and his love for people overcame his need for rest. He put us before Himself. So the next time you think you have a bad day, think again! Think Jesus is way up there, He can never possibly understand what you are going through, think again! He understands it all, cuz He’s been through it and more. And if you think that you have nothing significant to offer God, think again! If that boy did not offer his lunch, there would have been no miracle. Remember, never limit what God can do.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
ok i really shouldn't be doing this kind of boliao stuff when i have 4 assignment datelines hovering around me. but this should be better than writing a long post about evolution again, which i'd probably address after the exams, thanks to everyone contributing to the debate on my tagboard, and 'anonymous' why do you want to be anonymous? alrite, here goes...
I AM: lydea GN wei en...no idea why ppl love emphasizing my surname
I WANT: warmer weather!
I WISH: to go home and be with my friends and that all my assignments are done...
I HATE: people who say one thing and do another
I MISS: all my frenz in sg, esp jean and val
I FEAR: failing
I HEAR: china students talking real loudly in the library
I WONDER: why aren't I taller
I REGRET: not able to go to germany with vjchoir, yes im still pretty sore about it
I AM NOT: as clever and capable as i would like to think i am
I CAN: watch tons of anime in one sitting
I CANNOT: not watch Ai Qing Mo Fa Shi every week
I DANCE: to show off my dancing skills... lol... as if i had any
I SING: cuz i like how my voice sounds?
I CRY: when im really frustrated with myself
I LAUGH: at myself sometimes
I AM NOT ALWAYS: perfect although i try to be
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: nothing? im not really good at handicraft
I WRITE: essays as you can see from my looonnnggg posts
I CONFUSE: some people's names and faces.
I NEED: to start working on my assigments and stop doing silly things like this
I SHOULD: exercise
I CRAVE FOR: homecooked food!
I START: on whatever i have to do eventually
I FINISH: watever i start
I LOVE: GOD, family, friends & enemies
I REMEMBER: good times and bad times
I TAG: no one. I'll be nice =)
Monday, May 15, 2006
Was at a friend’s 21st birthday and was talking with a few girls. Somehow the topic came to be about boys or rather the lack of. (Val~ just found out that cute jap guy is attached! =( and I still don’t know his name) Anyway, this girl was complaining that so far all she has experience is unreciprocated love (likes?) and that there aren’t many guys in OCF to choose from.
As I watched the Prince & Me, it hit me that the reason why romance movies and books are so popular is because we ladies continually seek to find our soul mate aka prince charming, whether we admit it or not. Although I too sometimes bemoan the fact that I haven’t found that special someone, but I think I found the perfect GUY!
Wanna know how perfect he is?
He is always there when I need him, be it 3 or 6 am. I can always give him a call and he is never annoyed or sleepy.
There is no request too small or too big for him. He is never impatient and I can ask him to help me choose between 2 clothing or to heal my friends.
He knows what is best for me, guides me into making the right decisions and knows me better than I will ever know myself.
Ever wanted the moon? He would be able to give me that if I ever asked. He would probably create and name a star just for me. And its not just empty words, he really can do it.
Even when I cheat on him, once, twice, thrice or more, whenever I want to return to him, he will always be there waiting with open arms. No admonishes or sarcasm, just sincere acceptance.
If I ask him to die for me, not only is his answer affirmative, he has already done so!
Now where on earth can you find a guy as perfect as him?
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
I have a feeling this is going to be another long post and I can just hear someof you all go… “Lydea is gonna write an essay again, doesn’t she have enoughessays to hand in?” or “What on earth is she writing about?”
Well I can’t help it if I have the inspiration to elaborate, can I?
So what caught my mind this time?
Psychology.
The very subject some of my classmates have no idea why we are studying it. ButI just read about language acquisition and that is a topic that has been circulating in my brain the past few weeks no thanks to my linguistic and phonetic journal.Anyway, someone mentioned that language could have been a product of evolution. Although many animals such as the intelligent dolphins and our closest relativeaka chimpanzee, have been known to possess language skills, it is nothingcompared to what we human beings are capable of. So our ability to communicateis what put us on top of the food chain.
This brings me to my next point of interest – Darwin. No, not the guy (was hecute? No link… abit desperate here) but the theory which many people adamantlybelieve in – evolution. It reminds me of a time a friend of mine got reallyupset because her classmate said that creationism (the existence of a Creator who created the universe) is bullshit and that evolution is the way to go.
I am a logical and reasoning type of person. I have thought about evolution, espwhen I had to study it in JC and the Big Bang. Now everyone who studies scienceknow that explosions do NOT occur in vacuum. Explosions can only occur with matter, be it gas or atoms. But there has to be something in order for one to occur. Ok, so take it that the Big Bang did occur, so where did the matter come from for it to happen? Fine, so the vast universe definitely has some spare rocks and stuff that coincidentally happened to be in the same orbit and BANG,we have the Big Bang. Umm, where did those rocks come from?
Remind you of the annoying kid who kept asking, “why?”? Wait… this gets better…
Let’s digress a little to evolution. Hmm… if we and apes had the same ancestors,why is it that we are way smarter than them? Wanna ask how I know we are smarter than them? Have you seen a chimp invent an automobile? Have you seen a gorilla split an atom? I dun think so. Please let me know if you do. Now if by natural selection only the best survive, shouldn’t those dumber ones be extinct(although many are on that road no thanks to us driving them to the brink of it)? I don’t mean to degrade animals, I sometimes think they are way more humane than us, just see how we treat sharks to get their fins. Why do we have laws that state it immoral to steal or punishable to kill another person oreven ourselves? Can you imagine the number of lions and tigers who would need to go on trial for murder? Change that to manslaughter. Cuz they do not have a conscience. They do not know it is wrong. In fact, it is natural for them tokill. What would happen if they did not? Why, they would starve to death. Pardon? They do not kill their own kind so it does not count? Hmm… but I would really hate to put a hamster on the death sentence for eating up her baby, alive.
Have we established that the difference between us and animals is that of a conscience? I think we did, so how did conscience pop out in evolution? Does ithave a selective advantage for us? Perhaps if we did not have one, we would have killed each other to extinction, cuz he stole his wife, she cheated him ofhis inheritance, he killed her so her family kills him and then his family kills…
Ok… so maybe conscience is a result of evolution, and that we do share the sameancestors as apes. What about the ancestor of that ancestor? If we were to go waaaaaayyyyyy back, I think the ancestor of all living things, is the simplest organism. Amoeba? Nice try. Nope, mitochondria. For those who do not know, mitochondria has its own DNA and is the factory in every single one of our cells, it produces energy. Now, I just learnt that I have approximately a billion neurons in my brain, possibly a fraction less by the time im done with this. So that makes trillions of mitochondria in our whole body? How long doyou think it took for mitochondria to ‘learn’ to group together, create an outer environment – a cell? How did they then differentiate to form the many different types of single cell organisms? Then how did these single cell organisms ‘learn’ to group together and assimilate, taking on different roles,in a multi-cellular organism? That still doesn’t answer the question of why we are so different, forget comparing the differences between us and anothermulti-cellular organism say a shark, what about the distinctive features of the different races? True, people in the tropics are dark skin to suit the hot weather while people in the northern countries are fairer since there is more snow than sun. But how long would all these take?
The earth is old I know, but not as old as we think as scientifically proven bycarbon dating. So is it still possible that evolution being the sole reason forour existence and our ability to think? Perhaps evolution was faster then thanit is now, cuz things weren’t run so efficiently and now that it is working outpretty fine, even with us killing ourselves by drilling a hole in the ozone,attempting to make cancer normal with nuclear bombs, evolution does not go so fast. Kinda like enzyme reactions reaching a plateau with limiting factors.But we still have to account for the presence of the mitochondria! Big Bang? Itis common knowledge that explosions are just plain destructive in nature. Can you name me one that is constructive? Now its is quite a stretch to believethat when those rocks collided or some force caused an explosion, things were not blown to bits but rather formed the thing we call Earth. Like atomic fusion? But earth isn’t just a piece of rock, it has a hot core, it is covered by water with land interspersed, volcanoes dot its surface, and mountains peek out. Gosh, I haven’t even gone on about the different types of soil, sand and gravel. Why some places are arable and some are not. And I totally forgot about our atmosphere, with 70% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. Anyone sees the chance that mitochondria was formed too?
Honestly, I do not know which is more far-fetched. Believing that earth with its delicate balance of nature was borne out of an explosion and that we were once like apes. Or believing that there is a Creator out there, who lovingly put all the details on his masterpiece. I can’t help recalling how many times my anatomy and physiology lecturer comments how fascinating and wonderful nature is. I am not sure if he is a Christian or not, but being taught about how sophisticatedare the systems that run in our body and in other living things, it makes it increasingly difficult to believe all these were formed by chance. I do not intend to preach. I believe the reason why many people choose to believe in evolution and big bang, is because they do not wish to think. Cuz if they truly questioned its principles, they would probably come to the same conclusion as me – its simply impossible! Its sad but true that many people just live their lives from day to day, dwelling in trivialities, never bothering to think about their existence. How does it feel like not knowing where you will go at the end of the day? Is death really a full stop? Or a comma? Ever thought of WHY you are you? WHY you are here? I know my purpose on earth, do you?
Monday, May 01, 2006
As always… I’ve been planning to blog… and initially I wanted to share some stuff I learnt at an evangelism workshop, or maybe about the book I am reading by Max Lucado. But I have decided to write on something that perhaps everyone back home is talking about…
Yes, I am gonna write about the upcoming elections.
Now, you may be thinking, “What is Lydea thinking?” Miles away, experiencing temperatures 10°C lower than the lowest temperature ever recorded in Singapore, she ought to be writing about life in oz land, doing her assignments that seem to just pile up like a tsunami or perhaps about a cute guy she just met (sorry dears… no such luck…)
Well, I was in the library today researching on the endocrinological effects on a guy’s voice at puberty, and felt that maybe its time I take a look at what is happening back home. Over here, I do not get newspapers, nor do I bother to buy any. The only news I get is the occasional time I switch on the tv during breakfast. And in Adelaide, its all oz news, other than the bomb blasts in Egypt, I dun recall any international news. Its amazing how easy it is to just be living in this bubble, without much knowledge of the rest of the world, when you are down here. I digress. Anyway, the point is, as I was reading TODAY (29-30Apr), and I only downloaded the first few pages, I couldn’t help laughing. No, Lydea hasn’t become a drunkard. I’ve barely taken a sip of alcohol since I’ve arrived. Honestly, I think politics at home is starting to become as comical as that of Taiwan’s. Of course, we are more subdued and sophisticated (or so we think) than our Taiwanese counterparts. But the underlying politics are pretty much the same.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not a political science student nor do I intend to enter politics at any stage of my life, even though my brother is just hoping for the day he can vote for me at elections. I am reading the papers as a layman, looking at politics just like majority of the voters, an ordinary person (although I am not old enough to vote, nor am I in Singapore, and I pray hard the Singapore police won’t be taking a cut of the Budget to hunt me down when I’m done with this post).
First is the totally hilarious incident about the opposition candidate who was mistaken about handing up his minority certificate. Look, its pretty obvious that poor guy was really nervous at that point, I mean I would be if I knew that I would be kissing goodbye to $13 500, and tried to hide his nervousness with some misplaced gusto. I am sure we all can relate to a time where we tried to appear confident even when we weren’t and made a total fool of ourselves. I bet it was just an honest mistake, I dun think he is that dumb to try and purposely make life difficult for the Elections Department and the reason why he didn’t want to discuss the issue was because he was embarrassed about it. But the Elections Departments had to clarify the issue, with videotape and stuff (remind me of the nude squatting incident in Msia) and blow up the whole thing. With Mr Yeo (whom I suppose is our foreign affairs minister) insisting that the full story be explained to all Singaporeans. Gosh, are people at home so bored that they need to know all these? If I were to tell this to the people trying to rebuild their lives after hurricane Katrina and Larry or the suicide bombings, I am pretty sure tears would come to their eyes. Tears of laughter at the ridiculousness of it all. They would probably think Singapore is some toy nation, with no idea of real issues.
That leads me to the next point. The term ‘First World Opposition’ keeps coming up. Now, to have a first world opposition, we need to have a first world government. To validate that, we need to first find out what is a first world government. I do have better things to do than to slam my own government, so I haven’t gone to find that out but, “Elections in Singapore are always about jobs, about cost of living, cost of transportation — the daily grind of living — and not freedom of the press or freedom of expression, he said.”(MM Lee as cited in TODAY, 29-30Apr, p.2). Doesn’t that remind you of the industrial revolution? Or the days when the Soviet Union looked set to take over the world?
I do not mean to say that jobs are not important, for my very future lies in the govt’s hands, and the daily grind of living is what will affect us most. Nor do I mean to advocate freedom of expression as I think many of us are still too immature to take full responsibility for our words, myself included. But is that all there is to a first world government? It is unclear whether Singapore is a developing or developed country. We may be economically stable, progressing rapidly, even opening casinos like some developed countries. But what about plans and actions to aid starving countries? Or better awareness and understanding of the less fortunate in our own country? If these are what constitutes a First World Country, which I hope are, then I am sad to say Singapore is sorely lacking in these aspects.
Ever since I’ve arrived in Adelaide, I have seen more disabled people on the streets than I have ever seen in Singapore my whole life. I do not believe that its because Australia has a greater proportion of disabled people, but it is because the society here looks out for these special group of people, such that they are able to take public transport and shop at shopping malls, without being pushed aside or getting stared and mocked at.
I am not implying that I am ready to give up my Singapore citizenship for an oz one, the ozzies have their fare share of nonsense. Nor do I suggest you to vote for the opposition (lest you blame me when your block of flats do not get interim upgrading cuz PAP lost your GRC), whom I think are sorely lacking in experience (hmm…wonder why?) But this elections, take time to ponder at the heart of it all.
Thanks to all the blogs i referred to (countless) for html code help :) (esp. cyn' and sixseven)
Adobe Photoshop Elements for supernatural abilities
