There was a good run through of the second stage presentation this morning. I just hope that I don’t forget about what to say when the real thing comes… Chatted with Graeme afterwards, and then I headed off to CIF for a full hour of skating. Yeah, it was tiring as usual, and I wasn’t going full speed all the time, but at least I kept moving for the full hour. I was one of the first ones on the ice, and the very last one off it. Office hour, the usual, and then I was home. I guess tomorrow’s the big day. I’m really surprised at how calm I am about it, taking it easy and stuff. The Lord takes care of me, so that I may have peace in the midst of turmoil.

“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.”

Wow…people actually call me…

Ah…I don’t like to be under the sun…heh.

Heard from Clarence that people are talking about how I’ve opened up recently. I guess I would agree. It’s all thanks to mom, I think. Looking back at this year, it’s only been three months, but I’ve changed so much…not just on this, but also the way I look at spiritual things, and many other aspects of my life. It’s been a rollercoaster ride, and I thank God for everything, all the joy and the pain. I truly pray that I don’t go back to the way I was before the year started…

I keep reading about total surrender and obedience to God, and I truly want to do that…or do I? That’s one of the things that’s bothering me. I know how God works…supposedly…He would always ask me to do the things that I don’t want to do the most. I’ve heard so many testimonies about it. Surely I can say and think these grand things and believe them, but do I truly believe? What does it mean to believe? I’m having a headache…

It has been ridiculously warm these couple of days, with 11 degrees… Meanwhile, I had very slow progress in preparing for the comps, and I had a haircut today. Ok……….

I’m reading this book Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray. I’ve only read 4 chapters so far (31 in total), and it’s just been mind-blowing to me. I wanted to read and re-read these first chapters, because there is so much that I need to think about and to act on. I’m having a hard time realizing its full meaning in real life. I’m almost afraid to keep going with the reading, fearing that I would forget about what I read already… This is definitely a book that I need right now. Interesting how I picked up this book at some kind of book-surplus table at church about 3 years ago and never even considered reading it…until recently.

You know, I consider myself to be mostly a patient person with regards to waiting for people (not super patient, of course, just a little bit). I think I’ve developed that over years of picking people up and driving them to church. I’m generally slow and methodical and stuff. So why is it that I have no patience for waiting on God?

Second stage comprehensives–I did a dry run this morning. I felt terrible, primarily because a lot of times I didn’t know what to say. But I’m glad to have this practice done, so changes can be made. For some reason I’m not really worried about it, which is a good thing.

Bible games–I’m struggling with this. I guess with the comps going on, I don’t have the will to prepare for it until the exam’s over. But the more major problem for me is, am I doing this to please God or to please men (and women)? A lot of things have happened that raised this question in my mind.

Yesterday during Sunday service, I suddenly had this pressing idea that while I’m on campus, I would just call and meet up with somebody (presumably another brother), find a quiet isolated spot, then just share and pray. Pray for each other, just the two of us. I’m not sure how many of these brothers would be comfortable about it, but this is something I’m seriously considering.

Yes, I’ve been emotionally highly unstable. I was still in a foul mood this morning, not knowing what’s going on. After a short sleep, still the same. But after reading Abide in Christ, I felt a sense of calm amidst the continuing turmoil. So on one hand, I need to surrender my life to Christ, realize that Christ is in my heart and not somewhere out there in the distant. On the other hand, I can only patiently wait for God to slowly progress this relationship with Jesus, and not panic once again. It’s still a hard lesson, and I pray that I’m slowly learning it.

Funny how God works… So I knew there is going to be a prayer meeting for mccf today. I briefly contemplated going but decided against it unless Samuel invites me. That was just a thought in passing, partially as a joke. Long and behold, a few hours later, Samuel did invite me to the prayer meeting. Well, there you go, so I went. I felt ashamed that I think I was unknowningly testing God, and astonished at the work of this awesome God.

Supervisor meeting tomorrow, and I still haven’t made up the slides…yikes.

I went skating this morning. Alone. For two hours. I even walked to CIF and back. Met Ed and Ingrid there. Mostly eventless.

I just had an incredibly horrible afternoon and evening. The thing is, I couldn’t figure out exactly why. Well, my legs were sore, so that’s one factor playing throughout the evening. However, there was something else that was bothering me, and I couldn’t pinpoint what it is. I was in the sound control room, and suddenly I just felt like all that laughter in the sanctuary was so annoying and meaningless, and I just wanted to isolate myself from the crowd just like before. Maybe I was really tired, but there’s something mental or spiritual in addition to the physical pain. I just want to cry. Even after the dinner at Swiss Chalet (which I didn’t quite enjoy), even after I got home just now, I still felt the same bothersome thing, unable to figure out what’s going on in my mind. It is indeed very frustrating.

So to conclude, no, I’m not ok, thank you very much.

It took a while, but finally I got my plane ticket for Taiwan booked. So I’m leaving April 14, returning May 7. It was funny how I got a agent that is an “intern” and I was her first customer… Anyway, it got sorted out somehow, I don’t know how.

What else happened today? Well, I went out for lunch with Li Zhen and Penny by accident…attended the Tutte seminar, which I haven’t done in a long time…got fooled by Li Zhen into this Mozart concert (hehehe), and considering that I fooled Li Zhen into the mccf praise and worship night last Friday, this is fair game…went out for dinner with Li Zhen, Penny and Chen Jie, also by accident. Boy, two restaurant meals for one day, and a lack of exercise, and a ton of sleep…this isn’t going to be good for my weight, eh? Anyway, it was a good day…for most of the day.

I keep thinking about song lyrics like “Jesus is my best friend” or “Jesus, be the centre” or “Be the fire in my heart, be the wind in these sails, be the reason that I live, Jesus, Jesus.” And it’s very jarring. I mean, these are some of these songwriters’ wonderful experience with Jesus, but I just couldn’t sing these with honesty in my heart. I feel I’m so far off from the experiences that they have, and I feel heartbroken. I really don’t know what it’s like to have this close personal relationship with Jesus. I pray and pray, but I still don’t get it. Maybe the Lord is calling me “O foolish man”…I don’t know. I just don’t know.

I felt sick the whole day. Probably because of the morning breakfast, plus the stress from everything. The body felt weak, and there was some minor in the lower left hand side of the body, plus a headache… Soon after I arrived in the office, I just couldn’t take it and had to come back home to rest before returning for supervisor meeting. It’s just odd…

So I went to mccf today…yes, that would be the second time I went there, the first being more than three years ago. I don’t really know why I went, something about the priase and worship night last Friday sort of clicked… Anyway, it was an interesting experience, I’m not quite sure how I feel about it, but it was definitely worth the time. Talked to some new people (imagine that…me talking to new people…), and went out for Vietnamese dinner with them. There is a sense of lost because for a lot of these people, I won’t see them again next term (or ever).

Walking with God is something that I need to consciously decide to do everyday, every moment. That would be my epiphany for the day, I guess…

I hoped that was the right decision…I know that is the right decision, it’s just that there is a loss here, and even though it’s a good loss, it’s still a loss. I just hope and pray that I don’t dwell on the past…

Really fun J! tonight. Lots of interesting clues, lots of funny remarks, and an old lady who appeared on J! 35 years ago actually won a lot of money. That’s really heart-warming. My favourite clue would be in the category of “Also a car,” the answer is “Uranium or titanium, for example.” The correct response: “What is an Element?” And then, Deal or No Deal…heh. There’s this contestant that pretty much wiped out the right side of the board right ouf of the gate, so half way through, her top prize was $750. Then they have this segment where they had a lot of fun with it, she would open a case, immediately receive bank offer, immediately asked deal or no deal, immediately no deal, immediately open another case, and this repeats 5 or 6 times within that segment. It was the most hilarious thing I’ve seen on that show. They have a lot of creative people over there. Oh yeah, she ended up winning $750 in her case…

Yes, I’m supposed to make slides right now, but I simply couldn’t do it. I’m going into a lot of deep thoughts again…

It is finished…yet it is just the beginning of a long road to recovery.

I need an alternate sport…

Painfully finished writing the notes for the second stage comps…I simply didn’t want to do it, but forced myself to anyway. Now, a long night of writing slides…

Wild day today. First, a painful decision was made and now partially executed this morning, after much prayer for courage. And now, I’m really making a firm commitment to leaving my previous life in the past, taking the conscious step to crucify the fleshly desires on the cross, performing concrete actions that affirms this, and hopefully grow out of it.

Got the planned dry run delayed for a day again, thankfully. It has been a pretty tough week. I did something today, but really need to work on things tomorrow.

Is trusting me such a hard thing to do? Have I been so untrustworthy?

Never have I been cut so deep into my heart with an email…and considering that I could have said the same thing 3 days ago and 7 days ago, I must be experiencing quite a painful ride in my life…

Yes, the one day that I’ve decided not to go to the office is the one day that at least 2 people attempted to find me. What are the odds…

There is a painful decision that needs to be made…and while that’s going on, there’s work to do on the comps… Both are pulling for my time, and both are paralyzing me greatly.

There was skating, and there was a visit to Yen’s place, and I’ve wasted the entire day. Meanwhile, I haven’t done a thing on the second stage comps…don’t think I’ll be able to get it ready for a dry run on Wednesday morning…

I suddenly have this sense of uneasyness about what I’ve tentatively planned for next semester. I’m just not sure if I’m ready to wander around like that. I’m also not sure about bothering so many people…which is an attitude I really need to change, actually, because that’s really an unfounded fear. I need to be courageous, free to fail… There’s also a question of whether or not I’ve made the right decision in taking a “sabbatical” from myf ministries…but this I’m pretty sure is a step that I’ll need to take, which is a step back to truly experience and rediscover being with God before serving Him from my heart. Let go of trying to be in control, and obey. In any case, I’m still praying about these things.

I’m getting these really weird sleeping schedules where I would get so tired that I needed to sleep early, then wake up in the middle of the night to do nothing, and then had trouble falling asleep again, but eventually do fall asleep. I don’t know…something went wrong with my biological clock?

I had an epiphany early this morning about something that’s perhaps too obvious, but I just never realized it. There were times when I started to think, are my prayers really talking to God, or am I simply talking to myself when I pray? But what I’ve forgotten is that God knows everything, every thought that I have, every action that I perform, so certainly He hears my prayers. In fact, everything I do and think and say in my life becomes a prayer to God, once I realize that He knows everything that I do and think and say. So now I’m starting to get a bit of understanding to 1 Thessalonians 5:17…”pray continually.”

It was really snowy this morning, and the road was slippery. But I didn’t know it was THAT slippery in the church parking lot, where I almost hit a car…yikes… I think there was just an inch to spare before hitting the bumper of the other car. I’m thankful to God for preventing this accident from happening.

I had a stomach problem this morning…I was hungry, but I had no appetite…eventually forced myself to eat the dumplings, but that still didn’t feel good. I think it’s the “mental translating to physical” thingie again…

I have so many contradicting emotions coming to me all at once that I might go crazy soon. There’s the joy of rediscovering a worship CD that I did a long time ago, but there’s also despair that I couldn’t sing these songs with honesty from my heart. There’s the joy of having new friends, but there’s also fear of losing old friends. There’s the joy in thinking about all the travels and meeting new friends from April and beyond, but there’s also the great burden of this second stage comps. There’s the joy of temporarily conquering a sin recently through the power of the Holy Spirit, but there’s also the fear of the inevitable fall again.

Surprisingly, I come to a point where I’m actually afraid to go out to eat again…hopefully this is just temporary, because I’m just too lazy too cook at home…

During fellowship today, I’m once again reminded of a thought… I should be thankful that God is keeping me alive, for I have not bear fruit, and the ax is seemingly ready to cut me off… The Lord is having mercy on me, giving me second chances maybe too many times…