Aleph

Very rarely I could complete a Paulo Coelho's book (no offense, Mr. Coelho. It's just me), this book, Aleph, too. From Lincoln, the book tagged along to Manchester, flew to Dublin, did a round trip of Dublin-Connemara-Galway-Killarney-Cork-Kilkenny-Rosslare Harbour, sailed back with me to Pembroke Dock, headed south via train to Southampton, to Basingstoke, got onto the flight back to Malaysia. I read only one-eighth of the book and decided to give it a break. The "not my cup of tea" motion indeed.

God usually prompts me in His own mysterious methods. After a good cuppa macchiato, knowing I wouldn't be sleeping till the break of dawn, I went through my night owling routines: watched a YouTube video of a Korean entertainment show, wrote an entry on my private blog and cried buckets due to the grieving process of certain issue, and felt the need to read a book. I dived into the box of my novels and dug out a book I read some years ago.

Apparently that's not the book I ended up reading. Out of no where I recalled I brought this book back and it's still in the paper bag in the big luggage bag, so off I went to pick up the book and started from where I left. Surprisingly, tonight the genre suited me and I chewed on the gist of the book rather easily.

This part of the book is what God has in mind for me, perhaps to aid in my grieving and healing processes. A prayer...

'I forgive the tears I was made to shed,
I forgive the pain and the disappointments,
I forgive the betrayal and the lies,
I forgive the slanders and intrigues,
I forgive the hatred and the persecution,
I forgive the blows that hurt me,
I forgive the wrecked dreams,
I forgive the still-born hopes,
I forgive the hostility and jealousy,
I forgive the indifference and ill will,
I forgive the injustice carried out in the name of justice,
I forgive the anger and the cruelty,
I forgive the neglect and the contempt,
I forgive the world and all its evils,
I also forgive myself.

May the misfortunes of the past no longer weigh on my heart.
Instead of pain and resentment, I choose understanding and compassion.
Instead of rebellion, I choose music from my violin.

Instead of grief, I choose forgetting.
Instead of vengeance, I choose victory.
I will be capable of loving regardless of whether I am loved in return,
Of giving even when I have nothing,
Of working happily even in the midst of difficulties,
Of holding out my hand even when utterly alone and abandoned,
Of drying my tears even while I weep,
Of believing even when no one believes in me.

So it is. So it will be.'

(Quoted from Aleph, Paulo Coelho, pgs. 169-170)

Reflection for Blessed Good Friday

Lent Day 38: The Book of James

God says, by faith you are already saved from an eternity without Me. You are justified before Me by faith in My Son, not by living well.

As My child, you will inherit a place in the kingdom, a seat at My table, a dance card for the party. That's My gift to you. It's guaranteed.

When you were justified before Me by faith and guaranteed heaven as My gift, My Spirit made you alive to Me with the life of My Son. He regenerated you. He gave you a new heart, a new and potentially consuming desire to love Me and others at any cost to yourself.

Justification makes you My child.

Regeneration provides the power to live like My child.

And because justification is always accompanied by regeneration, every justified person's way of relating will evidence the presence of divine life though that evidence may be visible only to Me.

When your faith leads to a consuming desire to love Me and others at any cost, when your faith is accompanied by a consistent pattern of good works, your life in this world will not be wasted, and your life in the next world will be uniquely blessed.


(from 66 Love Letters: A Conversation with God that Invites You into His Story by Dr. Larry Crabb, ©2009.)

Always on My Mind

No man is an island, and nobody is called to live life without people around. Being a non-dating, single young adult working in another city and staying alone in a rented room nearby the workplace, there is often the challenge of "loneliness". I sincerely like the way I am now, being single is the greatest thing that's happening now... As I go through restoration and healing of my life, my faith, my very inner being. If I'm to be presented to my future husband one day, I hope to be the best for him, able to support and encourage him by being who I truly am. Even if singlehood is the call God has for me, I shall accept it willingly, though I'd love to have my own family when the time is right.

As I had dinner in Recipe House just now, I read a chapter from a book I recently purchased in Doulos. It answers exactly to how I was feeling at that moment. This is excerpted from "I'm Not Wonder Woman But God Made Me Wonderful!" by Sheila Walsh:

It's quite something when you sit with that truth for a while. The God of the universe, who holds everything together, who is sovereign over every ruler on the earth is thinking about you. Our president has the people of the United States of America on his mind on a daily basis. Occasionally, some are granted the priviledge of a personal meeting and a few exchanged words; then, it is time to move on. It is unlikely that as the president goes to sleep each night he is thinking of everyone he met that day, never mind the millions that he has never met.

But God our Father is thinking about us every day. When God thinks about us, His thoughts are 100 percent accurate. He doesn't think we are smarter than we are or less able than we are. He doesn't think we are as godly as the image we try to present at times when we are feeling spiritual or dismiss us as hopeless wretches when that is how we feel. God knows all that is true and loves us totally. So we don't struggle with what God thinks; we struggle with what we think.

God's Word never changes. He always sees us as beautiful and amazing; it is we who change as the world around us changes. Our challenge is to keep the image of the woman God sees more prominent than the image of the woman we see with our human eyes. The new hat that God offers for our wardrobe represents putting on His truth every time we look in our human mirror.

If Eve had never sinned, do you think that every woman born would have been beautiful by our standards? We can never know that. All I can be sure of it that no matter how we looked on the outside, we would have seen each other with our hearts, and a heart in perfect fellowship with God is beautiful. If we are to live as wonderful woman in this world, our call is to change how we think about our lives.

Perhaps the greatest challenge of all is to guard our hearts, for it is out of the heart that all the issues of life flow. We are most in danger when our hearts are not fully engaged in relationship with God. When we are not passionate in our life with Him, we look for something else to give ourselves to.

A Closet Prayer:
Father God,
Thank You that You are always thinking about me. Thank You that Your thoughts toward me are always good and loving and merciful. Help me to line my thoughts up with Your Word.

In Jesus' name,
Amen.