today

today is the day when i saw power and wonderful grace fall upon us, and a great promise from God that humbled me totally.

today is also the day when i see hypocrisy, ignorance, and how being too prideful in your own abilities can lead to your ultimate downfall.

why don't you take the plank out of your own eye before commenting on the speck in mine?

personal choice

i got a response from kenny, a nice long post.

some last comments and i'll just stop yabbering away because it also took me a lot of effort not to "fisk" the two blogs; and frankly, it is pointless to argue. he has his beliefs and i respect that. however, i don't like the fact that my personal views were not respected. correct me if i'm wrong.

if living as a christian means "abandoning the Pearl of Great Price in exchange for straw", so be it. if choosing to be a christian means being perceived as a fool by this world, so be it. can someone please read this post and understand what i wrote there?

if i have, in any way, insulted the catholic faith, i must say it was purely unintentional and i do apologise.

you can mock me if i made some gross factual error. but the fact is i was flamed for being honest about what i think - that was not appreciated. i was mocked for having fears that was extremely real and terrifying to me at that time - that was downright insensitive.

that said, case closed.


anyway, here's a little revelation for me:

jc: i always see going to church as an obligation. something you must do...
me: not so for me. i go to church because i want to be there.

maybe i'll try a commentary on legalism soon... =D

of nitpicking

i initially wanted to comment on this post but i realised it's not worth the effort.

my initial reaction was "this is ridiculous. you guys are nitpicking. and by the way, the correct term to use is independent church." oh wait, i think Jesus said something about the speck and the plank in the eye. so let's not go there. =)

on a deeper level, the blog got me thinking about my past in the catholic faith and the reasons why i chose to leave the church. scanning that blog also made me realise how i really want to know more about my faith to prove to myself that my faith is anything but irrational.

when people ask me how did i come to Christ, i usually find myself hard pressed for words. my instinctive answer is "oh, chris invited me to church, i came and believed. like that lor" because i have nothing else to say.

when people asked me how long did i know Jesus, technically it would be my whole life. i was brought to church since i was a baby, attended sunday school when i was 10, yadda yadda yadda. the correct answer for me, however, is 2 years. before 2005, i only knew Jesus as the distant God who would answer my prayers if i were a very very good girl.

my mother attended a catholic church during my teenage years. saturdays meant mom yelling at us to get dressed and dragging us out for a long bus ride to novena church. i sang the hymns and recited prayers mechanically and (proudly) from memory; i fell asleep during the sermon bit because i didn't understand what the priest was saying; i had a terrible superstition that i was only safe in church grounds and i was convinced that demons were going to attack me the moment i stepped out. i prayed the rosary every night for two years, sometimes scaring myself with visions that came during prayer. without the holy water, the rosary, and the crucifix, i lived a life of fear.

it was then i decided that the catholic faith never did much to boost my wavering belief in a God who can give me the peace of mind that i desperately sought.

my very limited perception of the catholic faith then was that our focus was on half a dozen people and saints whom i was taught were ladders to God. that the Virgin Mary is an intercessor on our behalf, and if you say enough hail Marys, you are forgiven of all sins.

i did not believe in that. it was a faith i couldn't understand.

"what about Jesus? why do we need His mother to talk to Him when we want something?"
"if God is the Father, why is Mary the mother since she was not married to God?"

little doubts and questions fuelled the final decision to leave. it did help that my mom got a little lazy and decided to stop attending church altogether.

that was about 5 years ago.

i would just like to qualify that i have nothing against the catholic faith, especially since i was a catholic and i do have a certain reverence for its leaders. the above are just a record of the things that went through my head as i searched for God.

while others may say otherwise and shoot us down for having a faith that goes against all human logic, i do find my relationship with God (there you go) a comparatively logical one that kept me in church, in ministry and made me even more thirsty for God. i wanted to respond to people who shoot down the protestant faith (sadly, some of them are in the body of Christ.) but, as i stated earlier, it is pointless to do so.

the main reason that drew me to my faith lies in its simplicity. the christian/pentecostal faith is a simpler faith that believes in the redeeming and loving sacrifice of the Son, Jesus Christ. there are no elaborate rites, no strict sets of rules to follow. just simple faith in the love of God.

with that, comes the firm belief in the Word of God, that is the bible - Scripture that is God-breathed and inspired by the Holy Spirit. we do not need to explain the authority of the bible to anyone who scoffs, especially those who are in the faith and yet present reason after reason against our "blind" belief in the authority of the Word.

i guess i can say it's just like trying to rationalise the existence of God to an atheist - people do get rather stubborn when it comes to matters of religion. i do not exclude myself from that statement.


i have a lot more to say on this topic but i will have to get some research done before actually penning things down. i don't need to risk sullying the name of the protestants by shooting myself in the foot. maybe i will continue this post some other time.


hello if you're a random reader who has something to say about my views. on my part, i'll just stress that this post is purely based on my very limited understanding of the catholic and protestant faiths. it's not meant to be a comparison of the two denominations. more importantly, it is not meant to be a "my religion is better than yours, so there" thing. i'd like to think i'm more mature than that. =)

testify to love

she knew that the time drew near: she had to share to a roomful of people about what God did for her in the past two to three weeks. the all-too-familiar butterfiles were starting to flutter in her stomach.

"oh God... i don't know how to do this! what have i gotten myself into?! what if my words came out incoherent? what should i share? oh God oh God oh God..."

words nearly failed her. it didn't help that she had a huge ulcer which made it difficult for her to speak.

it was time.

she was amazed that her voice came out steady. the thoughts rolled out pretty coherently and the audience laughed with her.

"not bad..."

as she sat down, she looked back and was simply amazed at the extent to which her Father came through for her even till that very last second of her sharing. the day had been a long and tiring one, yet talking about her Father's goodness miraculously refreshed her soul in a way beyond her comprehension.

---

"during these two weeks God gave me a vision, a direction to keep on praying. for most of us, engage and cdp might be over - for me, it's only the beginning."

i nearly cried as i quietly pondered on how undeserving i was of His love, and yet i know in my spirit that it is fact. this was really a case of "count your blessings, one by one, and be surprised at what the Lord has done."

of fasts and prayer...

we wrapped up campus day of prayer last night. there's that bittersweet feeling - the relief that the event finally ended, and the sadness that the fun seems to be over.

either way, the past two weeks have been long and hard for me, but i'm thankful that God brought me through these two weeks and showed me what it really meant to fast:

“Fasting is pretty much like a Spiritual Detox! Fasting can be pretty confusing at times, because of the very nature of the cleansing process. Fasting has a way of bringing every nasty habit and irritation you’ve got just bubbling to the surface. You will notice that if you have a bad temper hidden down there where no one else (but God and yourself) can see, then it will come right to the surface and you’ll start roaring at people. Be patient and be encouraged, and don’t give up. The Lord will clean you out.”

- Adapted from “The hidden Power of Prayer and Fasting” by Mahesh Chavda.

a friend reminded me of this when i shared how upset i was about fasting - i've been anything but godly the past two weeks. there is the common perception that fasting is supposed to be a time of purity and godliness and holy living and what not. well, guess what? it's not. one lesson i've learnt from the two weeks of fasting is that God doesn't want us to be holier-than-thou, because we can never be holy and perfect. what God needs is for us to break down, and go to Him for our spiritual fixing, that we may be strengthened in Him to continue doing His work.

one "rule" i stick to when i fast is that a fast is not a fast unless you sacrifice something that mattered to you. daniel (vegetarian) fasts are therefore out of the question because everyone who ate with me enough times know that i can survive very well without meat. the real challenge for me is when i give up eating altogether.

i don't work well when i'm hungry. it didn't really help that i was rushing for CDP preparation AND half a dozen tutorials. i was very upset at one of the tutors in school because he consistently and unreasonably barred me from using the school computers to edit a video i was rushing for the event (actually i thank God that i didn't manage to use my school's computers. it would have been another problem.). i was bitchy, moody and emotional the past two weeks, tutorials and readings were piling in and crushing me with their weight. the video i stayed up to do somehow screwed up. for the first time in my life, i found myself tossing and turning in the middle of the night because of a project that was not even academically related.

in the midst of my storms, God still made a way for me and everything worked out fine. the whole experience of fasting and being part of the organising committee for campus day of prayer was enriching, albeit frustrating.

as thanksgiving,

firstly, we experienced the blessings of answered prayers. to cut a long story short, we were unable to secure the venue until very late. eventually the administration offered us the nanyang auditorium free of charge. the auditorium was huge and is probably the best place in school that we could ever hope to hold an event in.

secondly, i realised how God could use me to work creatively for event publicity and the video as long as i let Him take creative control. i owe this mostly to the prayers of the pcomm as well as faye, they all knew how stressed i was over these things. =)

thirdly, the entire video-making ordeal/experience from the production to the post-prod process further affirmed in my spirit that God placed me in mass communications for a reason. in 2005, i was all set to head to NUS to major in literature, yet i applied for NTU's communication studies. for some reason, i accepted NTU's offer despite having said before that i never wanted to come to this school.

last but not least, the event itself brought me a new sister-in-Christ. she was a girl who used to make my life hell in secondary school, you could say she was the class bitch. last night she made right with God and asked for forgiveness for what she did during our secondary school days. i saw a life that was wholly transformed by Christ, a girl who possibly is on fire for Him and i was really glad for her.


it was quite a stressful and tiring fortnight. nevertheless, i'm glad for the spiritual refreshing that the Lord gave. i've tasted how good my Heavenly Father has been to me and i'll continue to pray for amazing things like this to come my way. it may mean difficult times, but if i come out of it knowing that God made me stronger, it's all worth it.

tough times are temporal and inevitable, but my God is eternal. hallelujah!