Because of what the Lord has done

Hello! 

Belated Christmas and Happy Birthday to Jianhui boy! =p Even though u pangseh me on 40th i still will wish u. haha.. 

There have been a lot of people who have been asking me to blog religiously neutral things and about my daily life instead. Hmm, well to that, because God is in my life, well, I am blogging about my daily life then. 

well, here's another nice song by casting crowns, who am i. 

Who am I? 
That the Lord of all the earth, 
Would care to know my name, 
Would care to feel my hurt. 
Who am I? 
That the bright and morning star, 
Would choose to light the way, 
For my ever wondering heart. 

Not because of who I am. 
But because of what you've done. 
Not because of what I've done. 
But because of who you are. 

Chorus: 
I am a flower quickly fading, 
Here today and gone tomorrow. 
A wave tossed in the ocean, 
A vapor in the wind. 
Still you hear me when I'm calling, 
Lord you catch me when I'm falling, 
And you told me who I am. 
I am yours. 
I am yours. 

Who am I? 
That the eyes that see my sin 
Would look on me with love 
And watch me rise again 
Who am I? 
That the voice that calm the sea, 
Would call out through the rain, 
And calm the storm in me. 

Not because of who I am. 
But because what of youve done. 
Not because of what I've done. 
But because of who you are. 

Whom shall I fear? 
Whom shall I fear? 
'Cuz I am yours. 
I am yours. 

I've been asked this quite a couple of times, why do christians always quote from the bible to comfort each other? 

because its God that brings us together. because God is the source of life, that gives us strength and courage to continue with everyday, to do his plans. the bible is God's words, and therefore simply put it, he is the only one who can let us rise above storms, above what human nature calls as suffering. 

I remember my pastor saying, God is the only God on earth that allows us to call him father, the relationship so close that he gives to us. Like a father to a child, he can feel our hurt, our joy, our pain. 

and above all, he is the greatest gift of our lives. 

amen! 

Do you hear what I hear?

I've been so caught up with a trip to kl and the performance for christmas that I forgot to blog. blah. Anyhow, there's one last performance at hamilton road, opposite jalan besar stadium on 22nd Dec! Its from 7-9pm, do come drop by if you can spare some time to watch the performances! (= I'm performing together with bengs and a whole lot of church peeps too! Nevertheless, if you don't have the time to come down, I'll still try to put up a video of it here so you can catch it! 

Anyhow, christmas is coming and I'm happy and would like to post this very nice song here. 

The title is "Do you hear what I hear?" Its a song about the birth of 

Jesus Christ, the true meaning of christmas.

I drink, so what?

Short post here. After looking through all the facebook photos of drinks, drunkards, and what have you.. 

Red wine is one of my most liked things in the world. 

I drink, but its not wrong. After all God turned water into wine. 

But excessive drinking is well, not so right. 

it makes you lose yourself, lose control of yourself, do wrong things at times, and well, no one looks very glam being drunk. plus it makes you fat, cos its sugar. 

its sometimes more than tempting to drink more than what you can take cos you want to feel the high, you want to feel accepted by your friends. Drinking is only but temporary relief. What's more substantial and real is God and your relationship with him. Let nothing but God control your life, not even yourself. (that includes other things like drugs, ciggs, alcohol and what not. ) But let the holy spirit fill your life each day that you may be pleasing to him. (=

Ephesians 5:18 - "Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, let the Holy Spirit fill and control you."

I love, because God first loved me.

Before I head off to school for this week's last lesson, I shall do a quick post here.. (and I am still stuck with my assignment, do not ask why I am still stuck at it after 2 weeks. =/) 

To be honest, I never understood the true meaning of I love because God first loved me. I am a very self assured person although I occassionally whine about some things here and there and sometimes I don't really know what to say when people feel lousy about themselves. The thing is, we're supposed to be self-loving, selfish creatures of the earth. But what happens when you don't love yourself, feel constantly depressed about everything and just can't seem to carry on with life this way. 

Self-love, may I clarify before i move on, is not narcissism, which is also known as excessive self love.  (btw if u love yourself too much, tts bad too, another day on that though). I am still a strong believer in loving yourself before you love anything else on this earth. Loving yourself in the way of having self-respect, of valuing yourself as an individual and not being selfish. 

I found this article on the net which was penned by a lady on her blog about self love and she writes on it with her own experiences. excerpts here and there. 

http://karenpattersondevotionals.blogspot.com (just in case you want to read her other very interesting articles)

The one thing I've reflected on recently is how God has brought me through so much during the last 10 years. I look back at my life and the things that I use to do and I wonder why I acted in such a way that was detrimental to my physical and emotional well being. The one answer I come up with is that I didn't love myself. I didn't care about me... I didn't think that I was worthy of true love. You see, I bought into Satan's lies. I believed him when he told me I couldn't be saved. I believed him when he told me that I'd never be loved again after divorce. I believed him when he told me that no one would want to have any kind of relationship with a single mother of two boys. I believed him when he told me that I couldn't work and go to school to complete my master's degree. I believed him when he told me that things would be too difficult for me to accomplish. 

I do need to say however, that I know who holds the future and it is not Satan! I now believe my Heavenly Father who tells me that nothing is impossible through Him. I know that I am beautiful because I was created in the image of God. I know that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! I know that I am a child of the King! I know that my God has carried me through the last 31 years... I can't even breathe without giving praise and honor to my Creator! 

I pray that others who are struggling with negative self images will know that God is their only hope. I pray that those who have low self esteem will know that they are beautiful because they were created uniquely by the Father. I pray that those who need strength or comforting will understand that the battle they are facing has already been won on Calvary. We can't always understand why we go through the trials we are facing, but we can always count on God to comfort and protect us while we are in the valley.

and so that concludes, I love because God first loved me. and once you have learnt to love yourself, you will be ready to love others in the same way that God loved you. Don't let evil draw you away from the knowledge of love. (= 

Ephesians 4: 21-23

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 

 

The thing about betrayal and revenge

Safely back from batam. Lots of adventures we encountered, but secrecy shall remain due to privacy issues. Haha. thank the good Lord for the good trip no matter how boring it may have been. 

So its back to old grandmother stories from me. yea. and I was just thinking of how sometimes, how pek chek it feels when you've agreed to do something with say person A, and the person backs out at the last minute. Angry? yea.. but at least the person told you. What if we recreate another scenario with the same idea of agreeing and backing out. But this time round, let's say person A told you the reason for not wanting to do the thing with you was because he/she was busy and has a lot of things on hand...  And so you accept the reason. You thought everything was over, until a few days later you find out that person A did the thing he/she agreed to do with you with another person instead. Oh what nonsense about being busy! 

What do you do in such cases.. 

This has happened to me before and I am sure it has happened to you before somewhere some part of your life. My first reaction was to go to MSN, find the person I trusted the most, start typing all my frustrations and there I am appeased. If I am still possibly angry, find the next person to talk to, chat until I start blemishing the person about his/her figure, face and everything else unrelated till I feel I am satisfied. (retaliation?)

But upon reflection, if insulting a person and stepping (not literally) on him/her till you think it makes you feel satisfied actually gives you momentary joy, then think how has doing so saved the situation?Probably nothing. 

Matthew 5:38-39. 

You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But I tell you not to resist an evil person. 

That simply means that, in life, we face injustices, from people we thought we could trust, from people we thought were true, but let us have the faith and courage to turn the other cheek. Remember God as he died on the cross for us, how he in the same way after the last supper was betrayed. And probably as Clarkson said, he sent us to taste calvary. 

May we have the strength to refuse to retaliate, because God knows all that we are going through.  

 

I am going to Batam!

Will be leaving on a short trip to batam tomorrow till monday. I am a rupiah millionaire. haha. Need all the blessings from God to protect me for a safe trip. All I want to do is return safely to Singapore and not get held up as a hostage. 

Today as I was looking at the daily bread, it mentioned something about being a sunday christian. Food for thought. =) What is being a christian to you? Are you living God's will or your will? Is going to church and saying a short prayer a day all it means to be a christian? 

A personal relationship with him. and maybe that's the answer.

love, 

grace 

In his time, he made all things beautiful

This morning when I woke up to go toilet weewee, my mother handed me a planner for 2009.

I took it, said my thanks and went back to bed, thinking I could continue my sleep. After tossing around for 10minutes or so, I got up, took the planner, sat down at the table and filled in everything I knew was going to happen in 2009. And the only things I know are my lesson dates and assignment due dates. I filled it in and finally I reached November 2009. My lessons end there and so the degree comes. Its daunting actually to know that, within the next year or so, my blood pressure may go up just to rush out assignments that I don't seem to do very well in. 

I have this bugging, nagging and whatever you call it feeling that 2009 is going to be a huge challenge, even greater than this year when I rushed my diploma finals and started on the degree all at the same time. Sometimes I don't ever want 2008 to end. There is approximately 1 month left to the end of the year and I wonder whether I have done my best. 

But hey, you know what, everything was in God's plan.. My human standards on the good and the bad things, were all in his plan, his plan to make me a stronger person, to draw closer to him. Someone once told me that, being a christian doesn't make your life go all smooth sailing, but in fact, makes your life a tougher journey. Then you may ask, so if God is so almighty why do you go through all these? He could have just easily carried you out of the situation. I remember once when my smc shared with the std4s the parable of the pencil. I thought probably I shared it with you too. You might have heard it somewhere sometime in your life, but let it be a reminder to always trust in him no matter what happens, that in his time, and in his eyes, all these are perfect. 

and yes final words from the video, you were made to do great things if you keep trusting in him and walking with him.

Zechariah 4:6 

"Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit" says the Lord God Almighty

in his blessings, 

grace

He holds my Hand

Probably it wasn't a coincidence that I am here today. 

I am just an average kid, i'm 18. I have never opened my blog to public for the past few years as I am a very private person. But in faith, I set this up, i don't know what will turn out of it, but I hope it sustains.

I was once someone who slipped, who left, who was only seeking God whenever I needed help. I am still learning, still growing in God. 

I go to church but I got irritated by blogs that talked about God and everything like that. I hated it, because I knew I wasn't close to him. I kept questioning myself about this bugging feeling, how could I feel like this, I wasn't supposed to. I could never bring myself to draw close to him, cos there was always something that hindered me. Something that always told me, hey i can do it myself, I don't need God. I will go to him later if i can't do it myself, probably in the later part of the day, probably tomorrow, probably when I have 15mins of time to spare before I go to bed or something. 

I spend a whole lot of time on the internet and yes I choose not to do my devotion to spend more time on the internet, chatting on msn, surfing blogs, reading articles. But still, it was through the internet that God called me back. He knows how much songs can reach into the depths of my heart and thus he send me a song, a song named still on youtube.

I've been through a lot of things, a lot of things I can't pen down. But God stood by me through the times when i needed him and when i thought I didn't need him. He has led me through a path of difficulties, but there were always people who loved him who were in my life. 

This journey is tough, but I know God will hold my hand, Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand (Psalm 73:23)

in his blessings, 

grace