Losing the battle...

He asked me how I was coping and if I was winning the battle.

I told him, I just want to win in godliness. I don't care if I lose that particular battle - or even other battles....

Sadly, I think I lost today... More than once...

Memories...

Going through some of my old stuff - part of packing up and all - and found quite a few things which show how set I was towards China...

Maps of China...

Notes from my uni courses on Chinese culture and civilisation... Not all, just some I thought were good to understand the people and culture...

Pictures and dolls of Chinese minority people groups...

Books / biographies of missionaries to China...

Books and notes on Chinese national language...

Lots and lots of prayer points and news on China and the Chinese...

A very thick prayer book on China...

So many things on and about China and its people!

It wasn't until 2003 that I started to have a "divided heart" - which was shown more clearly later on through the two prayer groups that I was actively involved in... One for China and one for my home country...

Something in my visit back to my "second world" early last year made me decide that I probably wanted to focus on my second world...

Something that happened "back there" during that year "helped" me set my direction...

Mid last year - I asked to be taken off the China group's mailing list...

I don't know what I - or someone else - will find among my stuff - should we go through them a few years from now... =)

Wonder where I will be at that time...

Home - and by that I mean heaven - would be a nice place to be in, I guess... =)

But if not... even if it is not "my second world" or this "third world"... I pray that my desire would still see Christ glorified wherever He has placed me.... =)

Time for rest...

Have you ever wondered how our body is able to take in SO much, and even carry on a very heavy load when it needs to, and yet it also knows when it finally can "break down" and get some time for rest?

Feel that a heavy burden has just been lifted off me... It's not really solved, but I've passed it on... and so the responsibility is no longer mine...

And so feeling VERY tired at the moment...

I guess, finally, my body is catching up with its need for rest - after being forced to carry so much, for so long...

Thankful to God for a chance to have an early rest! =)

Other responsibilities, would just have to wait until I recover... =)

Dot to Dot

Bought two Dot to Dot books two days ago, and finished all the pictures on the thinner book that same night.

Spent a few minutes doing some alphabet tracing yesterday, too. Wanted to do it for a bit longer, but didn't have the time.

You might be wondering what's the big deal about doing those things, right? =)

Well, I'm learning to write using my left hand now.

I can write using my left hand already. But it's VERY slow and the writing is a bit messy and you can see that I don't have a firm/stable hold of my pencil/pen when writing...

Anyway... why am I doing this?

Well, partly for fun. =) (It's been fun re-learning the process of writing and drawing etc - and then come to appreciate better the learning process that kids have to go through =)); partly, to give my right brain a bit of work-out =P; and I guess, partly in anticipation of the future that I might not be able to use my right hand as freely as I can at the moment... =)

Just Around the Riverbend...

What I love most about rivers is:
You can't step in the same river twice
The water's always changing, always flowing
But people, I guess, can't live like that
We all must pay a price
To be safe, we lose our chance of ever knowing...

What's around the riverbend
Waiting just around the riverbend
I look once more
Just around the riverbend
Beyond the shore
Where the gulls fly free
Don't know what for
What I dream the day might send
Just around the riverbend
For me... Coming for me...

Just around the riverbend...

(from Pocahontas by Disney, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz)

=(

It's hard when you feel that you can't really relate to people around you.

Hard when people don't understand the concerns that you have.

Hard when you think they are only concerned about trivial matters or that they don't understand real world problems...

But then, maybe, those trivial things are real world problems to them! - in their real world anyway!

Annoying though, when they seem to be so occupied with things that are just... to me... I don't know...

I guess I'm just tired of people whining or people feeling sorry for themselves - instead of being thankful - without realising that they have SO much to thank God for! I mean, quit winging! Enough! Don't you know how much you have compared to many others?!

Anyway, I know, I know... not everyone has an idea of how real life can be for some people... so it's OK...

Besides, God has had to put up with me... Surely I can put up with them!

As Oft, with Worn and Weary Feet

Words: James Edmeston, Fifty Original Hymns (Northampton, England: 1833), number 4.

Music: Bremen, Georg Neumark, 1641

As oft, with worn and weary feet,
We tread earth’s rugged valley o’er,
The thought, how comforting and sweet:
Christ trod this very path before!
Our wants and weaknesses He knows,
From life’s first dawning to its close.

Does sickness, feebleness or pain
Or sorrow in our path appear?
The recollection will remain,
More deeply did He suffer here:
His life, how truly sad and brief,
Filled up with suffering and with grief.

If Satan tempt our hearts to stray
And whisper evil things within,
So did he, in the desert way,
Assail our Lord with thoughts of sin,
When worn and in a feeble hour
The tempter came with all his power.

Just such as I, this earth He trod,
With every human ill but sin;
And though indeed the very God,
As I am now so He has been.
My God, my Savior, look on me,
With pity, love and sympathy.

He Knows It All...

A friend once told me that whenever she wanted to cry but couldn't, she would watch a very sad movie / drama, to make herself cry...

That is what I want at the moment... a really sad movie to watch... so that I'll be able to cry with the main characters in the movie...

My only comfort at the moment... is only the fact... that my Father knows it all(!) . . .


He Knows It All

Words: Ophelia Adams, 1905.
Music: C. M. Davis (MI DI, score).

I love to think my Father knows
Why I have missed the path I chose,
And that I soon shall clearly see
The way He led was best for me.

Refrain
He knows it all, He knows it all,
My Father knows, He knows it all;
Thy bitter tears how fast they fall!
He knows, my Father knows it all.

I love to think my Father knows
The thorns I pluck with every rose
The daily griefs I seek to hide
From the dear souls I walk beside.
Refrain

I love to think my Father knows
The strength or weakness of my foes,
And that I need but stand and see
Each conflict end in victory.
Refrain

from: http://cyberhymnal.org/htm/h/e/k/heknowsi.htm