Through my doubts, I celebrate the day

For most of my life, I have had what I guess most people would consider a slightly lukewarm Christian life. Slightly lukewarm because I still attend church, I serve in two different ministries, and I help out in occasional church events, but my faith is not actually all that great, I don't have a passion for telling the people around me about Christ, and I don't even bother to pray or read my Bible all that much these days. And for most of my life, this has been somewhat of a frustration to me. We Christians are always reminded that we are called by God to love other people, to serve Him, to try and bring others to Christ, to maintain a close relationship with God, yadda yadda yadda blablabla, and for some Christians, this seems to be easy. They say it's the love of God that drives them to do it, and for most people I think they have had some sort of spiritual or emotional experience with God and that's why they go all out for him. Very rarely do people believe in God because it intellectually makes sense to them. The weird thing for me is that, at this point in my life, the only thing that is keeping my faith together is that for the most part, the Christian faith intellectually makes sense. I guess at this point, most atheists and perhaps a great deal of Christians would be like "Wat??", but yeah, I've read the logical arguments for it and few months ago, I was in some online debates over my faith with non-believers. And during those debates, even though I was usually debating with more atheists than I could handle and I was the ONLY Christian, my faith came out stronger instead of weaker. Unfortunately, after a while, I got too busy with work and no longer have the time to continue the debates... and since then, I've had many questions and doubts about what I believe in. Intellectually, I have many reasons to believe there is a God (not going into the debate here, that's not the purpose of this post), but the doubts creeping in were on whether or not that God was actually the loving and personal God I've always been taught about. Because many times, I have prayed to Him, to ask for something... something I thought would be good especially for my spiritual growth, or something that I could use as a testimony for Him. Like the time my wallet was lost at Sunway Pyramid (most likely pickpocketed from my handbag), I prayed that I would get it back somehow, and not only me, but even a group of Christian friends prayed the same thing and their prayer was with even more gusto and confidence than mine. I prayed that if I got it back, I would definitely testify about it... but I never got my wallet back. So no testimony. And then there's the long standing prayer that I would find a nice Christian guy to be in a relationship with. I've asked God for that I dunno how many times throughout the past few years, and each time I would tell him that I really want to enjoy being in a relationship, and I want to enjoy the intimacy, but I don't want to get into another relationship with a guy was not Christian and undoubtedly would lead to problems, like in my past two relationships. And I would tell him it would be great to have a guy who could support me (and I could 'hopefully' support him) in our Christian walk together. You'd think God would be most happy to answer that request and send me my Mr. Right who is a Christian. But so far, I have been nothing but disappointed. To the extent where I've even asked him that if He wants me to single, then please take away my desire to want to be a relationship. He hasn't answered that either. Sometimes I wonder if God is purposely not giving me what I want coz' I got into previous relationships that I knew I shouldn't have, and on occasions crossed the line I shouldn't have. And sometimes I wonder if God is even hearing me at all, or whether He even cares. At points, the doubts have made me almost wanna throw my hands up, give up my beliefs, run out to a club and party the night away coz' I don't wanna think about it anymore. I live somewhat of a double life... I kinda pretend that I have a pretty ok relationship with God, and always chirpy and quirky, as most people call me... but in actuality I'm like that because I don't want people to know that I am problems in my faith. And I don't want them to know because I don't want them to get depressed because of my doubts, which may cause THEM to have doubts too. I think if they are having a good walk with God, why should I come along with my little grey cloud and rain on their parade?

I've never done the whole running-out-to-the-club part though... partially coz' all the cool clubs are all the way in KL and I have to pay quite a bit to get in. And partially because I know that giving up my faith isn't going to make me happy. It's probably going to make me just even more miserable. And one of the things I hold on to is the memory of my own spiritual experience I had in 2004, when I went through a similar bout of sadness and doubt, and I actually did make a decision that I didn't want to be a Christian anymore... and immediately after I was overwhelmed with so much sadness, I was crying uncontrollably like I'd never cried before and in my head I was wondering what was happening to me. And another part of my head (God talking, I guess) told me that this was all the pain and hurt I was going to through in my life if I were no longer a Christian. After that, well, I decided giving up my faith maybe not such a great plan after all.

The other things that keep me going is the stories of the Bible itself. Namely some of the Psalms and the book of Ecclesiastes and Job. Ecclesiastes, probably written by King Solomon, could go for the most depressing book of the Bible award and win hands down. The writer rants on about how everything in life is meaningless and depressing and people are full of crap, and stuff like that. And than there's poor Job, who was a pretty well-off dude with a strong faith in God, but one day everything was taken away from him, he lost all of his wealth and all his children dead, and he was left asking God why. And then there were the Psalmists, who also felt at times that God was far off, eg. first line of Psalm 10 says "Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?". All these writers have had their own issues with God and with their faith... but in the end, they all would eventually write about praising God for his goodness anyway. And in Job's case, he was doubly blessed. I guess in some ways, my issue is that the church has always drummed into our heads that we're supposed to be experiencing some great joy from God, and some people get the impression that we're supposed to be happy joyful people all the time, which makes me feel kinda blah coz' I'm not. But these books in the BIBLE, tell me that it's ok to feel the way I do... it's ok to feel that God isn't listening to me... it doesn't mean He isn't. Maybe He's just waiting for a better time.... or procrastinating.. :P And even through all the doubts and sadness I have sometimes, every time I decide to stop overthinking my faith and just give up some praise to God, I do feel an inexplicable sense of peace and joy which I guess for the most part, cannot be intellectually explained. And I guess that is a peace and joy that comes from God.

Thank you, Lord, for your death on the cross this Easter Day (I'm one hour and 45 minutes overdue, but it's ok, it's still Easter in the United States. :))

Coffee's Last Breath

Most of the stuff I post here now is personal stuff these days (since I started my other blog), and it's unfortunate that most of the personal stuff is rather sad stuff... today is no exception, and it's also about a death of one of my gerbils... but unlike Peanut, which I posted about some time ago, the death of Coffee, which happened a couple of days ago, was very much more special. And while I have been mum over the deaths of other gerbils, this one was so special, I have to pay tribute to Coffee on my blog.

Coffee is the daddy of all my other gerbils... except for my original mummy gerbil, Girl Girl, who is now, also dead. Gerbil was Girl Girl's son, who was born along with another female gerbil, Honey (she's still alive). This is Honey and Coffee (the slightly darker one) when they were kids, born around December 2006

After some time, Coffee turned from dark brown to half brown and black, which you can see in his teenager pic, where he's on the left looks pretty weird, like most teens do.

And here he was, completely black, after he mated with his mum (yes, I know it sounds wrong) and became the proud big daddy of a bunch of little gerbs.

These guys are cute to bits when they are young. But they are grew up, of course, and now my gerbils are all over 3 years old now, and that makes them grandmas and grandpas in gerbil age. So they've been dying off one by one. After Peanut, I found my mummy gerbil dead one day (pretty late too coz' her body was quite eaten up by ants already), and a couple of months later, my smallest and slightly off balance female gerbil, Chomper, bit the dust too. In both cases, I could see them both weakening and slowing down a week or two before, and had much reduced appetite, so I figured they were getting ready to go. And when I found them dead, it was not unexpected, and I was sad, but didn't cry. I just wrapped them up in newspapers and threw them out in the trash. A bit impersonal, I know, but with their bodies already stiff and decaying, I didn't want to be holding on to them too long.

So a week ago, when I noticed Coffee starting to really slow down, become very inactive, and , I knew his time was running out. I checked him often to see how he was doing, and a couple of days ago when I noticed him being really sleep and refusing to eat his favourite kuaci, I took him out for a run around my room, thinking that it might be one of his last chances to enjoy a bit of freedom. He did run around a bit, but he looked like a sleepy old grandpa.

So I gave him a few head rubs, and talked to him a bit. I'd always liked Coffee and like to call him my 'good boy' coz' he doesn't bite me when I'm holding him... he just sits in my hands and even seems to like it when I rub his head. So I consider Coffee my favourite gerbil... and told him I didn't want him to die. He looked at me sleepily some more. So I put him back in his cage, and went out for a couple of hours.

When I got back, I went to his cage again, and saw him sitting in one corner, away from his fellow gerbils, and it looked like he was slowly chewing something... but it was unusual behaviour. So I opened the cage and took him out to have a look. He wasn't chewing anything, but slowly gasping for breath. I knew something was wrong. I thought maybe he would like some banana, so I carried him over to the dining table, ready to feed him some. But suddenly his body started going into spasms, jerking so hard, I had to hold him tight so I didn't drop him. Then his body started squeezing inwards like something invisible was pressing hard against him. I had NO idea what was happening, I could only watch helplessly and all this happened in my hands. Then, as his body relaxed again, he let out one last breath and... he was dead.

There I was holding my Coffee's lifeless body in my hands, shocked at what just happened. And my mum certainly wasn't very sympathetic, she saw what went on when he was in spasms, and when I worriedly asked out loud what was happening to him, she nonchalently said he was dying. And when he was dead, she just said, at least he waited for me before he died.

I didn't cry at the death of my other gerbils (except my original Peanut, and I cried only out of anger at my dad)... but seeing all that happened with Coffee, my favourite gerbil, I couldn't help but cry. I do wonder if he actually wanted me to hold it when it died... or was it just a coincidence? Did he feel comfortable when I held it, so much that he decided it was the right time to go? I don't know, but I would like to think so

Unlike the other gerbils, I couldn't bear to throw Coffee out in the dumpster. His body was still warm and hadn't stiffened... and I sat in my room for a while, holding him while crying, hoping that somehow he would wake up, and feeling so strange that I could lift him up, poke him, and there would be no reaction from him. So after a while I took his body downstairs to my condo's garden (this was late at night, btw), dug up a small plot at the corner, and buried him there. I hope something nice grows there... like maybe a sunflower.

Watching him die was truly surreal. I'd never seen something die of natural causes right in front of me. And it made me wonder a lot of things... like did Coffee have a spirit that went somewhere after he died? Is there a gerbil heaven? Or will he and all my other gerbils go to people heaven? And it made me wonder how some people can NOT believe in spirits or souls... there is an essence in all living creatures that makes them ALIVE. The body is just a container... but even though the body is still normal and can function, like in Coffee's case, he was perfectly healthy all this time, and was just old... for some reason, that 'life' inside of him was there one second, and the next... it was gone. For no apparent reason... he wasn't sick, he wasn't injured... but he died. Where did his life essence go?

It's also a grim reminder that one day, that will happen to me too. And I hope, not only will I die of natural causes, but like Coffee, that I will die in the hands...or rather, arms of someone who cares about me. I'm really sad seeing Coffee die... but I would rather all my gerbils die in my hands then any other way. And the fact that he, being my favourite gerbil, and dying in such a way, although sad, but it was very special to me. I guess seeing something you care about die in front of you, but you are powerful to stop it, really gave me something to think about. Ironic that it's so easy to take away a life... but we are completely powerless to give it back.

Rest in piece, Coffee buddy, and do I hope I get to play with you some more in people heaven. :)

Until we meet again, Carol

My friend, Carol Rasiah, was a special person in many ways. One, which is very hard to go unnoticed, is that she was born with a severe form of a disease called osteogenesis imperfecta, which causes brittle bones that fracture and break easily, and in her case, causing growth defects and malformed bones. So she has spent all her life in a wheelchair, and hardly able to move around. What makes her even more special was that even with her condition, she had always been full of joy and gratefulness to God (this is also evident from posts on her blog. And yes, she ripped that music player off my blog, with my permission. Lol. :) ), not to mention she had an incredible will to live life to the fullest. By God's amazing grace, she was able to spend more than 2 years living by herself in an apartment near my condo. Every thing she does which the rest of us able-bodied people take for granted is an incredible task. From getting off her bed into her wheelchair, to using the bathroom, to cooking up a meal... I have no idea how she does it, but somehow she does it all on her own. Of course, when it comes to cleaning up her house, she gets a maid to come in once in a while to help out. I only got to know her in 2008, and during Christmas that year, she asked me to help her put up her Christmas tree, of which I gladly obliged.

Last Christmas, however, I did not hear anything from her, or even received an sms from her during Christmas. Which at one point I thought was quite odd since she would usually sms every now and then, especially on special occasions. But this time she didn't, and I had a nagging feeling that I should give her a call and say hi or something, but I didn't. Now I've learned that nagging feelings should not be ignored. I got news this week that Carol passed away recently. According to her obituary, it stated that she passed away on the 1st of January, however, from reading other online sources, it seems she passed on in early December. And I only knew about it two days ago!
I went to her memorial service today and learned that it was due to a bad accident. Every week, some folks come in a van to pick her up and help her do some chores like shopping and getting a haircut, etc. While in the van, the driver had to emergency brake, and because she wasn't wearing a seatbelt (she's small and it's difficult for her wear a normal seat belt. I think she was also in her wheelchair at the time, which makes it more difficult), she got flung forward. The impact fractured her spine, skull and God knows how many other bones, and she was unconscious in the hospital for days, until she finally gave up her life. The news of how it happened was especially heart breaking to me, because I took her out in my car several times. And every time I would put on the seat belt for her, even though she would laugh and say it wasn't necessary. I would always say "Nonono, you gotta wear your seatbelt!", although I would only strap the bottom part across her, while the part that usually goes across the chest would go behind her back instead, since she was too small and the strap would only go across her face. If only she had followed my advice... she might have survived.

The last time I saw her was on 14 November 09, when she asked me to come to her place and help put up a clock on her wall. It didn't take too long for me to do so, and after that I just chatted with her for a bit, and I remember talking to her about all this online debates about Christianity that I've been getting into, and some of the difficult questions related to our faith. And she just put a big smile on her face and said that even though we don't have all the answers, we should always still put our faith in God. It's just amazing that someone with a debilitating condition like hers can have such faith in God and be so happy, when there are so many able-bodied people out there who do nothing but complain about every piece of crap that happens to them, but not make a peep when good stuff happens. I do feel a bit crappy that I didn't contact her more after that. I feel especially crappy in that I knew she didn't get many visitors, although she wanted people's company, and she even asked me once before if I could be a good friend to her. And not that I didn't enjoy her company, but I know I'm very bad at spending time with people, even good friends, and so I didn't want to disappoint her by making such a promise and then end up not spending as much time with her as she would have liked. I suppose it's normal to feel such regrets when someone is gone, and perhaps it serves as a reminder for us to not take our loved ones for granted and spend time with them while we are still able to.

Nevertheless, although death brings sadness, there is still a cause for joy because I know now she is no longer feeling the pain of her condition and one day I will get to see her again, enjoying an eternal life with a perfect body free of ridiculous birth defects. And when I do see her, first thing I'm gonna say is "I TOLD you so! Why didn't you wear your seatbelt, hur??". Lol. Until we meet again, Carol! :)

My last photo with her, taken when I brought her to my church on October 18, 2009:

Physical and spiritual training

Since I started my new job early this year in February, I signed up at the fitness centre near my place, TrueFitness (and I purposely stick the words together so they have less chance of googling this and find me crapping about them a bit. Hehe.). Which was kinda funny coz' before that when the place was new and somehow they got my number (you know how they get members to give their friends contacts so they can call people up and bug them to join the gym), so of course they were calling me a few times to bug me to join too, to the point where I got sick of getting their calls and saved their number as TrueFatness on my phone, so I would know when they're calling and not pick up. And get a good laugh at the same time. But anyway, since my new office is now super near my house, and I no longer waste precious time sitting around in traffic jams, I decided to join the place after all.

Few months after I joined, I got approached by one of their fitness trainers, his name is Danny, who noticed I was wearing knee support on my right knee. I wear it due to my taekwondo accident some time ago, and I explained that to him, so he was went on to suggest that I needed some personal training (PT) coz' of my knee problem, blablabla, and also since I'm a little on the prosperous side, more blablabla.... :P To cut the boring story short, I ended up signing up for some PT sessions and also some kickboxing sessions (supposedly good for burning off extra prosperity), a bit against my better judgement coz' it's pretty pricey.

Thankfully, I haven't really regretted it coz' Danny really knows what he doing (I've heard stories from a friend who took PT but got a back injury coz' of it. Lousy trainer!). He's really professional but fun at the same time, we've gotten along very well. Signing up for PT has since turned me into a gym freak... now I go almost every day (even when I have no session with him) just coz' I want to make the most of the money I spent. Haha! And though in the initial sessions I was feeling some sore muscles here and there, I've pushed myself so far now that I can pretty much take whatever torture he dishes out to me, and he's had to be more creative with me. And he even recently said I'm his strongest client, and mentioned that he shares stories of my progress with other clients as an example. Woo hoo! I'm so proud of myself! :D I think he pretty much considers me his pet project now, and if he can get me to lose quite a few pounds, he will be very proud of himself too. Unfortunately I'm still not dropping as much weight as I hoped, and I can only presume that my fats are as stubborn as I am. Bleh.

But even more importantly is that Danny, although from a Buddhist family and supposedly being a a Buddhist, he told me he's interested in learning more about Christianity and even asked me to help teach him more about it. And since I've started training under him, he's been visiting his friend's church and also reading a bible borrowed to him by a friend. I also lent him my New Living Translation version of the New Testament, which he said he likes better than the old one his friend lent him (easier to understand). He told me he's actually finished reading the whole book of John and finishing the book of Matthew (probably already finished it by now), and even I'm inspired by his desire to read the Word of God. I don't really get much chance to really sit down and share with him coz' other than our sessions together, where he's too busy torturing me for me to really teach him anything about my faith, he's usually busy with other clients. But I tell him whatever I can and have given him Christian booklets and music CDs to encourage him along. As much as he would like to see me to shed the pounds, I think I would like even more to see him come to know Christ. So he's kinda like my pet project too now. Haha! I'm actually glad now that I signed up for the pricey training, since because of this, I have more chance to share my faith with him. Which I'm really bad at doing most of the time coz' I can be quite antisocial and don't really make the effort to spend time with people anyway. Bad of me, baaaad.

To my fellow Christian buddies, do keep Danny in prayer. And while you're at it, you can pray that I lose more weight and become a hot hoochie mama. ;-)

A good week...2 weeks ago :P

Another overdue post! Yargh! But only by a week or so. Just wanted to thank God for one pretty good week (which started 2 weeks ago) coz' of a few things:

1) 2 Sundays ago, my mum, who all my life calls herself Christian but has never really believed in God (and this is due to some bad experience with Christians and people in general, so can't blame her) actually came back to Christ. She had been attending my church services for a few weeks, and that Sunday, she came up to me after church and said she wanted to talk to my pastor. So I went and stole my pastor away from whoever he was talking to, to see my mum, and she told him she wanted to come back to God. So my pastor did the whole Sinner's Prayer with her, and she was crying and all, and I was there with her pretty happy and kinda like "Whoa!" all at the same time.

So now she's an 'official' believer, which is great!... but of course that's only the first step and she need to be discipled as a new Christian and all. And since I'm pretty much the only Christian in the same house as her, that discipling role probably falls on me, and unfortunately life has still been the same since and I'm not quite sure how to about it. As in, I know the technicalities and what I should be doing... but you know, it's my MUM, and though I appreciate her being my mum and all, honestly I'm not super close to her, soooo taking up the role of a Christian mentor is kinda weird for me. I did get her a nice new devotional Bible for women (it's in pink, what s surprise) and gave her one of my old learning guides... it's the just sitting with her and going through all this stuff part that I feel weird about. Trying to get

Anyhow, the fact that she has taken that first step is a great thing already. Now I just need to work on my part. heh. Pray, people. Praaaaay for me. And my mum too. Yeah.

2) At work, I was pretty happy about two things that week, one is that I got a request from a potential client asking to do a project in Thailand, which is the project I really wanted as it would be a great learning experience for me, and upon completion, it would really help to put my company on the radar for the area I'm specializing in, since now we're pretty new in it and my company isn't getting many requests for the area I'm handling. Though the project is not confirmed yet and I have to come with a proposal to get the project, I'm pretty excited about and reeeeaaallly hope we get it. Chances are pretty good, I think.

Another good thing is that I've passed my probation period and recently been confirmed! Woo hoo!!! And better part is that my pay goes up a bit too! DOUBLE woo hoo!!! I'm tempted to say "Up yours" to my ex-boss for not confirming me for dumb reasons.... buuut I won't.... although technically I just did, but that doesn't count coz' I said I wouldn't. Haha.

3) That same week, I also attended my church's monthly prayer meeting, where there was a guest speaker for that night (whose name I can't remember now, but it's some black dude, I think. :P). Anyway, I actually didn't really feel like going for the prayer meeting coz' that day I was feeling really crappy with myself and thinking that I probably wouldn't be able to honestly pray anything good in that kind of mood. But last minute decided to go, and listen to this guy... and one of the first things he said during his message was that by the time we all would leave church that night, we would be filled with joy. And when I heard that I was kinda like "Yeah, right!". Yeah, I was feeling that crappy. Also didn't really help that the same dude spoke so excitedly that he would be yelling instead of speaking more of his message, in this rather high-pitched and grating voice that was getting to me quite a bit. I mean, it's great to be excited for God and all, but yelling about 80% of the time was... em... a bit much. Honestly, I was considering leaving the church, but wasn't a nice thing to do.

Somehow or another I managed to ignore the yelling after a while and listen to what he was saying underneath all the yelling, and what he said was actually good and encouraging. And in the end, he went around praying for quite a number of people in our church individually, still in the same gung ho spirit. And it was an awesome session, where a lot of people who got prayed for by him were so filled with joy and Holy Spirit that they fell over on the floor and was just enjoying the joyfulness. And I was one of them! Yeesh, if I had to choose between feeling crappy and having God's joy, then the option is kinda 'duh'! And since then, I've been feeling much better, and I think a lot of other people there were blessed too.

So yay, thanks God for a good week... two weeks ago. :P