It can be dangerous for me to look back too often. Some memories are fuelled by nostalgia, and I distinctly remember that at the time, I did not enjoy myself as much as I somehow think I did (??!) Doesn’t even make sense to me, but oh well.
Well, because there’s been a lot of triggers that made my brain go haywire last week, I found myself thinking back to certain milestones in my life. Among the triggers were a sudden realisation I have to move out, various work-related things all coming together around the same time, having to review financial plans, looking for a new place and having problems with red eyes when I wake up in the mornings (dust mites perhaps?!). Especially because they are all hitting me at the same time, I just felt very helpless and defeatist. ‘I don’t know if I can do this, Lord…..AGAINNN…..’ Mostly I don’t trust myself to handle these challenges, because my track record has shown that I didn’t handle them well before.
But again, God reminded me of a couple of incidents of when oh man, I came face to face with how worthless I was, and also when the struggle was so great, and somehow, SOMEHOW we pulled through. By we, I mean God really holding His hand out to me while I crawled my demotivated, emaciated body over.
The first incident was when I had a vision during this song in worship:
Come to the Father, though your gift is small
Broken hearts, broken lives, He will take them all
And you know what, I brought in my hands the most beautiful cake ever with a candle, that represented the best of me that I could give. But the moment I stepped before the throne, the cake immediately rotted away and had worms coming out. I swear that I have not had such an encounter since then of the fear and shame of coming before a holy God. I was nothing. But God, in His mercy, reached over and pulled me up and instantly the cake was restored.
[Despite that revelation, it still took me years to really understand the gospel and that I cannot earn my salvation in any way, shape of form.]
The second incident was the Taiping years, or rather, the TFM years. Yesterday, I looked back at my instagram pictures, and it seemed like it was such a blast!! Yeah, we did so much crazy stuff and fun things and dreamed the impossible and did accomplish some majorly awesome results. I learnt so much, grew so much, and it’s true what they said during recruitment: once you have gone through those two years, nothing else will seem as daunting. I still hold that to be true in my experience. Those two years where I survived on 1.5 meals on an average school day, fluctuating between 4-8 hours of sleep and generally burnt myself out, were tough on me emotionally, mentally, financially and physically.
Now I have the benefit of hindsight, I really thank God that despite my being a terrible steward of resources at the time, He is enabling me to bounce back physically – slowly but surely. And while I was very bitter for a while after the break up, I can see now the Lord’s hand in bringing someone into my life then – someone whom I could lean on and reminded me to take breaks and could actually like take me away from my work.
So, amidst the inner furor and subsequent sleeplessness, I’m learning to rest. Hustle, yes, but simultaneously, trust and rest. Psalm 25:3-4 says:
3 The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over many waters.
4 The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
It jumped out at me today. Do I hear His voice over the waters? No matter the circumstances, if I do hear, what reason have I to be panicked or worried or stressed? This is not the first time we’ve walked through troubles.
Always, He is with me.
Always and forever.
learn and live 