Post Christmas thoughts

Jingles, lights, parties, gatherings, food and presents.. nothing truly can compare with presence. 

Christmas is a celebration of the AND. It is the celebration of the birth of Christ, that we, a long time back, were chosen to be saved because God loves us. He was born on this day with God's providence to save us. It reminds me that despite all the temptations, hardships and trials that he had to go through, Jesus stood steadfast and obeyed the Lord. 

Christmas is a reminder that the prophecy has been fulfilled, that the messiah has come, but it is also a reminder, that the second part of the prophecy has yet to be fulfilled. That Jesus will return again to judge. As much as I love presents, all I wish this christmas is for my family to know Christ, to know the Lord. 

Coming home is always bittersweet because I love my family, I love my friends and I love the fellowship that I have with everyone. Yet sometimes, the pain of seeing unfulfilled lives, seeing lives that aren't content and happy, seeing lives led by meaningless pursuits.. It pains my heart so much to know that people I care about, people I love, are leading lives pursuing goals that are transient. It pains me to see them searching for happiness yet not realising that happiness is not far from them, true joy comes with the peace from God. 

I cannot say this enough, that there is true joy, true purpose and true love when you've found that missing God shaped void in your heart. Or should I say, when He gave me His grace. 

At this moment in my life, I can only say, I am truly content, truly happy. I know this Christmas is one that made me realize many things in my life are so perfect only because He has provided for me. He has given me a wonderful family, amazing friends, beautiful friendships, a burning desire and passion for what I do and not only that, blessed my life with a man I can share it with, a man who has become by best friend. I have never missed a person so much. Perhaps, just perhaps, I'm realizing what it really means to fall in love. 

This has truly been a wonderful Christmas and I'm so so blessed and so thankful. 

ARGH!

An exam that covers TEN lectures may seem quite harmless.. But it DEPTH that it covers might as well be the WHOLE BLOODY TEXTBOOK! 

Yes.. I'm stressed. Removal Partial Dentures will probably bring me to my tipping point and perhaps thursday's LA might just push me over. I love dental school.. can't wait to be a dentist, but that's if I GRADUATE and get out of it ALIVE AND SANE. 

The content. The CONTENT is enough to drown me that I can't even have the luxury to drown in my sorrows. 

ShoutOut!

I CANNOT WAIT FOR MY GRADUATION TRIP. That is all. After so long, we're finally going for our grad trip! As much as it's not really going overseas for me, it's still going over east and THAT COUNTS! =)

Just wanted to shoutout! =)

Halfway

You know why they call halfway houses halfway houses? Cause when they step into the halfway house, it signifies that they are halfway onto the road of full recovery, apart from the fact that it sounds much better than fullway house or firststep house. 

So I'm halfway.. Halfway through my exams, (three down, three to go), halfway through the theory years of dentistry (if by God's grace I pass this year) and hence.. Halfway to reaching my dreams. =) Then I realise.. When I've reached that end, that would be another halfway for me to reaching another goal.. so technically.. I'll always be halfway somewhere. Which isn't too bad a thing if you ask me. If gives me something to look forward to. That's why I like halfway milestones. =) Yes. that optimism aside.. I am absolutely stressed. Never been more stressed in my life, not even for A's. -_-" I really wonder how I made it to NUS with the non-existent amount of studying I did for my A's.. and not to mention, how i made it OUT of NUS. This is indeed.. GOD's GRACE!

Well.. another halfway, not so much "way", but it's been six months since I've been with Sherms. So.. halfway to a year! :) I feel tremendously blessed to have met him and to have him as a part of my life. If this is what it truly means to love someone, then all I can say is that I probably never have fallen in love before. I'm not the sort that would meet a guy halfway and I'm glad that he's a guy that's willing to go the distance to find me at the end. 

Stress through my veins

It's the time of the year where I'm just feeling stressed. I feel it running through my veins and every ounce of my body is crying out. I don't think many would understand, maybe apart from my course mates, the kind of stress that we're under. or rather, the fear of needing to do a supp or to repeat the year. It's a scary thought.

I wish there was just someone who would understand and be able to care for me the way I need to be cared for during this period. But even then, I don't even know what I need to make me feel better, what more someone else. That would be unreasonable to ask. Then again.. I'm a girl, do I need a reason for everything? It's conflicting how I try to be as rational as I can, but at times, I just wish I was not. It's just a tough time to get through and I know all that I am, is leaning on God and His strength.

1 Corinthians 13

 I love today's sermon! We're currently on a series called, Church gone pear shaped, and it's through the book of 1 Corinthians, where Paul writes to the Corinth to address several issues that they had. We're going through the gifts that we're given and in 1Corinthians 13: 13"And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love"


We should be rather familiar with 1Corinthians 13:4-8, many use it during their wedding,


"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails".

It doesn't only describe the love that should be between man and wife, it describes how it should be in the church, how we should be as the body of Christ. It tells us just exactly how we should be and behave, because LOVE is a word of action. It tells us to LOVE like Jesus! That's what I pray to be everyday, to be able to grow so as to Love like Jesus. 

In this time and period of my life, I want to love everyone like Jesus, especially my family and of course, a certain special someone. It's often with the people that we care and love the most that we do not have the best patience and love. That SHOULD change and MUST CHANGE. Because love doesn't come with the wind, it is practiced, it improves with faithful reminder and the strive to become more and more Christ like. 

And on the topic of relationships.. I stumbled upon some really cute cartoons, I know at times it may still be premature to talk about these things, but I do think of them and about them, and when I do.. I think of you (you know who you are). 

That probably is what Jesus's love is in a relationship, and if we strive to love like Jesus does, I'm sure at the end of the day, when we're both old and grey, I'd still be able to hold your hand and tell you, "I Love You, like how I did when I first fell in love with you, but only more". I'd like to recount our life together and you filling in the pieces that I've missed out, I'd like to be able to say at the end of the day that "I'm glad you're my penguin". 

     

Heartbeats

We had our end of the year Valedictory dinner tonight. It was filled with tears and emotions I just can't seem to express. Joy that I've been a part of this college, sadness cause I'm going to say goodbye and bittersweet cause I know this is the place that first made me feel at home yet at this point in time, I have to go, I have to move on.

Fiona Crowe, our head of college told us that she placed her ears on her father's chest to hear his last heartbeat as he died, it is a sound that she meditates upon, using it as a way of setting the day right if it is wrong. I feel like part of every heart beat of mine beats for her, it beats for my gran.. cause she's etched her love on the walls of my heart. I will remember to do what I love with fierce passion, to do it because I love it and to excel in it because that's the result of passion. It was a good timely reminder. A very good one.