super jetlagged!!!!!!!

oh man...!!! remmeber i told u i was in the right time zone when i was in the US? well, well, well...! welcome me back to my insomniac life once again!!! totally cant sleep at night...! it's been yet another wide-awake night! sigh... n now... another day!

Nocturnal no more

i had always suspected that i was born in the wrong time zone. since young i had so much trouble trying to sleep. it s a 'normal' thing to hear the first of the alarm clocks go off n not having slept a wink!

yet, here i suffer no jetlag, i feel sleepy by midnight n wake up at daybreak! wat a wonderful feeling! instead of saying "Good night God" n then go to bed at the break of dawn, i finally say "Good morning, God!" it's more than a week since we've been here... n for the first time in my life i have to say i m a morning person!

man, i should consider moving to the US to stay huh? =)

Campus Ministry Days

People of Mission
Captivated by God | Called to the World

the above is the theme of the campus conference which just ended today.
the campus ministry days had been nothing short of inspiring.

we were reminded by John Piper the need to be captivated by God, to teach the whole counsel of God, to understand the lostness of Man and the role and importance of teaching.

tomorrow we will see the commencement of the main conference. i m looking forward to the county fair after the opening ceremony. well, we sure know how to mix work with pleasure!

leaving everything

Peter said to him (Jesus), "We have left everything to follow you!" Mark 10:28

it's not a one-time act leaving of 'everything'. we may think "we have left everything", i dun have anymore stuff to surrender or leave...

it's more of a continual leaving and surrendering of our "things". often we start the christian life or service leaving everything to follow Christ. yet, along the way we tend to pick up things and form attachments that we find hard to give up (and thus hinder us) when Jesus calls us to a deeper level of commitment; a deeper walk with Him. and it becomes hard to give up 'everything' (whatever little or seemingly insignificant; whatever important or dear).

for me, it's giving up of material comforts i will not b able to afford for myself or my family. it's not a choice i made and forget the moment i started on my first step. it's a continued choice that has a continued price.

what are some "things" that are hard to give up or leave in order to grow in your walk with God? time? money? possessions? someone?

yet listen to what Jesus says to Peter -
"I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me ad the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields - and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life." Mark 10:29, 30

celebrated 4 years on staff...!

met up with our International President twice today. once when he came over to our fraternity house to speak to us and another later the afternoon.

it was such a gr8 time of hearing fr him how God revealed the vision for the organisation and allowing my own vision for the ministry be refreshed and sharpened. and he is someone really humble and Spirit-filled. i m so surprised that in a conversation with someone who was seeking God re whether to come on full time ministry, he did not challenge her the way most eager leaders would to join us. rather he said he does not know God's plans for her but he will be praying for her and asked her to update him. he took the time to talk and find out about her. couold c the genuine concern for her... n it could have been that se was asking him about exploring another organisation and that wouldn't have made any difference.

besides that, meeting other global leaders up close and personal was inspiring.

what a "wow!" way to celebrate my 4th anniversary!!! haha...

i thank God for His wonderful way of allowing me to b a part of this huge conference;

2 remind me of the call of God in my life, the vision and work specifically in this organisation. such needed fuel for the journey ahead.

pls hear what i m NOT saying

PLEASE HEAR WHAT I'M NOT SAYING
[by by Charles C. Finn September, 1966]

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the mask I wear!
For I wear a mask.
I wear a thousand masks.
Masks that I'm afraid to take off
and none of them are me.

Pretending is second nature with me,
but I beg you, don't be fooled.
I give the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny, unruffled,
that confidence is my name
and coolness is my game
and I need no one.

But don't believe, please don't!
My surface is my mask.
Beneath is the real me,
in my confusion,
in my fear,
in loneliness.
But I hide this,
I don't want anybody to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness
and of being rejected.
That's why I frantically create
a mask to hide behind.
To help me pretend,
to shield from the glance that knows!
If that glance is followed by acceptance,
if it is followed by love, it will save me.

It's the only thing that will assure me
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this, I don't dare, I'm afraid to!
I'm afraid your glance will not
be followed by love and acceptance.

I'm afraid you will think less of me
that you will laugh at me
and your laugh will kill me.
I'm afraid deep down inside I'm nothing,
I'm just no good,
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play games.
My desperate pretending games,
with assurances on the outside
and a trembling child within.
And so begins the parade of masks
and my life becomes a front.

I idly chatter with you
and tell you nothing of what hurts me inside.
Please listen carefully
and try to hear what I'm not saying.
Those things I need to say but cannot.
I dislike the hiding, honestly I do.
I dislike the superficial, phony games I'm playing.

I'd really like to be genuine, spontaneous and me
but I need your help.
You can help me by holding out your hand,
even when that's the last thing I seem to want or need.
For each time you are kind or gentle and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care about me,
my heart begins to grow wings!
Very feeble wings but wings!

With your sensitivity,
empathy and understanding I can make it.
You breathe life into me.
I want you to know how important you are to me.
Only you can wipe away from the eyes
the blank stares of the breathing dead.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I hide.

You alone can remove the mask.
You alone can release me
from my lonely prison of panic and uncertainty.

Please do not pass me by.
Please try to beat down my wall with firm hands,
but be gentle -- for inside
I am a very sensitive and frightened child.
Who am I... you may wonder?
I'm someone you know very well
For I am ...................
Every Man! Every Woman! Every Child!


wow...! wat a poem! it reminds me that we are not alone in our insecurities... and more so, that Jesus reaches out to us... n loves us as we are...

Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,"
says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
Isaiah 54:10

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:38, 39

gone to US

yo yo...!
not in Spore! gone to Colorado! till 29 july!
beauiful place, they say... will check out the sights!
m rather excited hearing all the hype re the conference i ll b attending and the place itself!

pray for me... that i'll be given a fresh vision, renewed strength and resolved conviction of the things God has placed on my heart - calling, ministry, personal questions...

thanks!

John Maxwell free seminar

John Maxwell will be speaking on "Raising & Equipping Leaders".

Date : this coming Sunday, 10th July 2005
Place: 4th floor, Worship hall at Faith Methodist Church
Time: 7.30 pm - 9.30 pm

Free Admission

Prayer II

Anne Morrow Lindbergh - "the Gift from the Sea"

I want 1st of all... to be of peace with myself. i want a singleness of eye, the purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities so well as i can, i want, in fact - to borrow from the language of the saints - to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible. i am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. by grace i mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. i am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in prayer from the Phaedons when he said, "may the outward and inward man be one." i would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which i would function and give as i was meant to in the eyes of God.

Prayer

Dear Father in heaven,
only You know what's best for me. Only You are powerful enough, wise enough, to guide me in what is right and good. i can't see my own way, and i can't walk in the path of goodness unless You lead me.

Give me only what i need to do Your will. Give me as much or as little as You will. Supply my need whenever You choose, and not according to my demands... Because i know that You will lead me on the path that brings best profit to my soul - whether i am given the desires of my heart or that they are withheld.

I ask you to teach me and help me to push away the voices that call and distract me... demanding from me until i am empty and burned out... left without strength or passion.
Cause me to still my soul before You right now... to fix my inner being on the vision of You... passionate, holy, afire with love.

Father, i need you to help me face the truth about the hungers that lie in my heart. i've become so good at letting other people see i'm a "good person" that i no longer truly know what is in my heart.

For every want that's in me, show me Your way to fill it. Feed my soul, Father so i will not allow the evil one to tempt me with his sweet offerings that leave a terrible gnawing and bitter after-taste.

I know that the purpose of my life is to have Your light and peace of Your presence in me... giving me the strength to overcome satan, the world and my flesh... I want to live by the Spirit. Teach me, allow Your living waters to flow. Help me to live for Your glory and Your glory alone.

think abt it

if God created Man then there is someone outside of Man to whom he becomes responsible. He is not in and of himself the master of his own fate.; he is neither the final authority nor the only one to whom he must finally answer. - Charles C. Ryrie

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Chronicles of Narnia

wat can i say? The artful C.S. Lewis has done it! What a wonderful piece of work! i enjoyed it because reading this children's series brought me closer in understanding who my Creator- Saviour is. every book holds such deep insights to who God is, the Christian walk, the evil one, our propensity to sin and disobey and how we should respond to Him who calls us.

i had to pause and take a "crying break" in every book cos i was overwhelmed by the revelation of truth in it. it hits me at the core of my bones just reading about how Aslan died in place of the traitor, Edmund in 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' when the White Witch demanded that the Ancient Law be fulfilled.

and how can i forget the time when Jill, in 'The Silver Chair' fell unwitingly into the temptation trap of the Green Witch. She got so preoccupied with the possibility of the reaching a place of comfort that she forgot Aslan's commands. how similar it is with me to relish in forbidden comforts, hence forgetting the mission at hand.

What joy it is to read about 'The Last Battle'! when the end of the world comes and Aslan ushers those who love Him into the REAL Narnia. man! you gotten read it for yourself! i shan spoil it for u!

one lesson learnt from the Dwarfs was that there's a prison worse than the real one - the prison of the mind. the Dwarfs refused to be taken in, yet, hence they missed that which could set them free.

i tell ya frens, Chornicles of Narnia set afresh in me a renewed hope for the glory of God and for the reality of heaven; a regenerated strength for the journey and the adventure of the Christian life.

how would you live

wow! it's been so long since i last blogged!
i'm sorry man!
have been rather preoccupied. there's juz so much going on!
shall share another time....
yet again, that's what i have been saying that resulted in silence on this blog!
hmmm... nevertheless, it's late and i need to get to bed for a long day tmr...


well, before i go, i shall leave 2 quotes:

"A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.
A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all."
Martin Luther in The Freedom of the Christian

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
Bernard Shaw in the introduction to his play Man and Superman

how would you live your life, Christian?

Jesus, Shakespeare and Love

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
(Shakepeare Sonnet 116)


Love sought is good, but given unsought better.(Shakepeare, Twelfth Night, 3.1.156)

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (i Jn 4:10)

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (I John 3:1)

while Man talk eloquently about love, make extravagrant declarations of love, write about the compelling emotion...

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8)

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. (1 Jn 3:16)

God is love. (1 Jn 4:16)

musings on life partner

haha...!
sent a filippino doc friend off at the airport today and she told me to get married by today next year!
she's a friend i love dearly. (or WAS a friend i loveD dearly!?!?!) we meet about once yearly when either she comes over or i go over to the Philippines on work trips.
at terminal 2 this early morning, she ganged up with her other friend to 'pressure' me...

wat a pity... i dun feel the heat that easily... especially since today was such a wet and cold morning and the airport was such a freezer. =p

well, i guess i'm amused by the legions of pp anxious to see me tie the knot!! the number of pp pledging to pray for my life partner has hit a record high this 2nd quarter of 2005.

*nb: to join this ever-growing interest group (hahahahahaha!!!), mail me and i'll give you my specs and requests and juicy updates! (hahahahahaha!!!)*

here are some FAQs:
Have you been praying for a life partner?
yes. ( u have any idea how many pp will scold me if i say no?! haha)

What kind of person are you looking for?
well, in a nutshell,
1. a guy (hey, the world is a messy place!! u cant take this for granted)
2. love God more than me (can be read as 1.loves God more than he loves me, 2. love God more than i love God - so that i'll be inspired to grow in loving God more. though this is rather hard to qualify)
3. directed (has a clear vision and goals, and knows what he wants and is working towards it) and in the same direction (cant be heading different ways can we?)
4. ...
5. ...
6. ...
(hey, if i keep typing, it wont be "in a nutshell" right?)
basically someone whom i can live out God's call in my life with ( i can go to where God wants me to go to and serve with).

Do you want to have kids?
Do you mind guys of different nationality and race?
Does age matter?
Can i introduce guys to you?
Y r u so closed up? ( u gotta b more open... y say no? blah blah... n the chiding goes on... *mind u these r not "old pp". young folks have exhibited a high tendency to nag n be nosey as well! hahaha!)

well, wanna know the answers to these and other questions, refer to nb above.

but i'll juz answer one more qn: Y non-Christians cannot?
2 Corinthians 6:14 - Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
and ref to no.3

enough said. i dunno... i'm not as eager to find Mr Right as i m in making sure i'm Ms Right.

The Right guy at the wrong time is the wrong guy.
n, m i the right gal for the right guy at this time?

so... in ending, i'll quote the famous ad's tagline - what time is it?

time to get back to work!

meeting the president

will be attending the President's high tea receiption...



work...ministry...
there's so much to do... so little time...!!!

"To know the will of God is the greatest knowledge.
To do the will of God is the greatest labour.
To know what you do pleases God is the greatest pleasure."
(auothr unknown)



Dr Lyman Steil, an authority on listening, said that a person’s ability to listen ranges from 400 to 600 words a minute, while the average speaking rate is about 100 to 110 words per minute. (The Straits Times, The Recruit May 7 2005)
That means there’s a lot of space for mental activity, as you are using only a fraction of your capacity to listen.
hence you have 2 options:
Use your surplus capacity to deepen your comprehension of the message being conveyed, or you can think about what you are going to do next, where you'll prefer to be, how you are going to settle other problems...

“Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.” – Jim Elliot (taken fr Passion and Purity by Elizabeth Eilliot)

that's a gr8 challenge... being ADD!!! =p need to discipline my mind.

Especially dedicated to my wonderful SIS!

Happy Birthday, sis!!

you are the best sister one could have!
despite our different 'functioning hours', different sleeping and eating habits, different perspectives, different temperaments, different communicating and leadership styles, different quirks and eccentricities, idiosyncrasies.... despite the times we tear at each other's throats, scream and fight...
I LOVE YOU!!

you are talented and gifted. You have a gr8 personality. solid FAITH, real hunger and love for our Lord. faithful and meek. you are PRETTY! God really put you in my life to sharpen and mold me, to point out the areas i refuse to see, to hold up the mirror to me.

I M PROUD...
to be your sis (haha... it's ok if the feeling's not mutual... too bad!!! *evil, shrill laugh*)
to so totally lose out to you in our fights
to be so totally proven wrong and erroneous in some (i'm insisting - SOME!) of my ways
to be corrected by you (you do it so "face savingly")
to have sent you on your first ever flight through the air (one of my gr8est triumph... though i really freaked out when u flew!)
to have journeyed with you all these years (and will do so for the rest of my life)

i can go on... but this is NOT an open letter... so sis, you shall read the rest in my hand written letter to you (haha... torturous task trying to decipher my handwriting!), and the rest of you, just KNOW that my sis is best!

Hazardous work

Any work done faithfully and well is difficult. it is no harder for me to do my job well than for any other person. There are no easy tasks in the Christian way; there are only tasks that can be done faithfully or erratically, with joy or with resentment. And there is no room for any of us, ... to speak in tones of self-pity of the terrible burdens of our work.

what is hazardous in my life is my work as a Christian. Everyday i put faith on the line. i have never seen God. In a world where nearly everything can be weighed, explained, quantified, subjected to psychological analysis and scientific control, i persist in making the center of my life a God whom no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, whose will no one can probe. That's a risk.

Everyday i put hope on the line. i don't know one thing about the future. i don't know what the next hour wil hold. There may be sickness, accident, personal or world catastrophe... Despite my ignorance.... i say that God will accomplish His will, and i cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ's love.

Everyday i put love on the line. There is nothing i am less good at than love. i am far better in competition than in love. i am far better at responding to my instincts and ambitions to get ahead and make my mark than i am at figuring out how to love another. i am schooled and trained in acquisitive skills, in getting my own way. and yet i decide, every day, to set aside what i can do best and attempt what i do very clumsily - open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.

- p 76 A long obedience in the same direction (Eugene Peterson)