You Raise Me Up

Today...i found the verse again where Josh Groban made famous with his song,"You Raise Me Up." I had written this verse in my cute notebook which i always carry along in my bag..:P

"Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, You will restore my life again; from the depth of the earth You will again BRING ME UP." Psalm 71:20

I wrote this verse one fine day on the 21st April this year...Remember that time it was a time of great struggle for me.. I was back in school for another semester cos of two subjects!
I had expected myself to grad in Dec last year and start looking for a job... I was so confident...When I got the results.. I was super depressed and for a good one month plus..i was in shame when i started school again...cos some of frens grad liao and they had found jobs. The situation is made worst when a lot of teachers and frens started asking about me when they see me in school..

This was a very bad start of the semester..coupled with my bad spirits,comes with me choosing to move on in my ministry...what happened to my zeal? I dunno...i got very sick of school life and desperately wanted to move on...i was tired of seeing the same old people, doing the same old things..even my favourite coffee at Canteen A seemed so bland! This came another struggle cos I was technically a student in a "working adult" ministry...the first few weeks was a real struggle for me...I also have to keep going back to Youth service due to my past commitments unsettled...

I kept praying and crying out to God these "dark" few months of my life when i was very down...then deciding to start my job as a relief teacher..handling kids was not easy..but it made me with a positive outlook towards life and my studies. I wanted to be a good example...literally "to practice what I teach!!" I took pride in my studies (although i know have only 3 half days of school) hahah to really sit down and revise and do past year papers..It was one of those dark days that God spoke very clearly to me through this verse! I was feeling so loved! Thank you Lord!

Exams and test came and went..i really felt the peace that I can have from God...I will definitely make it this time! I was surprised at the wisdom and peace that He gave and how He enabled me to finish my revision and do my exam papers!!...really!
its really Him who pulled me out of this wreck...my life in Uni has not been smooth sailing...i experienced a lot of heartaches which i will pen down one fine day...but God He Raised Me Up!!
Now, as I look back..I thank God for this extra semester in school..cos He used me infact more..to meet new people, to take care of people and even to be more mature in handling my emotions ..
We really do not know God's plan for me but looking back..i am appreciative of His works that He chose to do in me...if not I would not have appreciated the grace of God to this extent...:)

Our days are always under the shelter of His wings! :)

Worthy is the Lamb!! :)

This has to be one of my latest new favourite song!
We are playing it this Sunday, take a listen! I have been jamming it in my mp3 player for a few days liao..really feel ministered by the song and the lyrics..:)
Its from Hillsong Album-“God So Loved the World” released 2000

Worthy is the Lamb

Thank you for the cross, Lord

Thank you for the price You paid

Bearing all my sin and shameIn love You came

And gave amazing grace

Thank you for this love, Lord

Thank you for the nail pierced hands

Washed me in Your cleansing flow

Now all I knowYour forgiveness and embrace

Worthy is the Lamb

Seated on the throne

Crown You now with many crowns

You reign victorious

High and lifted up Jesus Son of God

The Darling of Heaven crucified

Worthy is the Lamb

Worthy is the Lamb

Meet up with an old friend...

Today met my old banquet manager when i was working at Raffles Hotel during lunch time…Wingo..he hasn’t changed much lah though he’s isn’t working in the F & B line anymore..Was rather apprehensive at first cos I highly suspect that he wants me to buy stuff for him…

He told me meet him at Macs at Bugis Junction…so farnie..feel like wanna scoot off immediately! Hahah thank God, he was rather kind..could sense that I was uncomfy told me that he not selling anything… just asking me to try products on my hand.. so he told me to have my lunch first

After my meal, met him at Macs again..very farnie…he tried all kinds of cleanser and cream on my hands, asked me to lather it and wash with water and compare two hands together.. and tick against a box on whether I like the products..

I tried like 5 or 6 products??? Kept putting them on my hand and cleaning it off…he showed me pictures of ppl successfully losing weight after using the products from his company…hahah sounds like a sales talk to me…me being in sales line before immediately put up my sales tactic of “dao-ness”..he’s in MLM you see…quite disappointed at the path he choose when he went into MLM…he was such an impactful banquet manager…

After the whole survey which took about 30 mintues…he asked me if my hand felt smoother or the lines less visible..i was thinking “of course lah…if you keep washing your hands with water and soap sure smooth one mah!” hahaha..told him that my hand did feel smoother..felt rather silly cos the cleaner at Macs kept staring what we were doing,..thank God I was sitting near the toilet…:P hehe

He tried to encourage me to join MLM also…sigh….was so glad that the thing is finally over…exercise is still the best :)

So true..:)

Strolling on the Broadwalk..:)

Tuesday 26th July 2005

I love the view from my office window! Really wanna thank God for this job! Full length windows all the time! I realize that I have been in a rather complaining spirit. Cos I seem to be able to complete the tasks quite okie and most of the time for those who are well versed in IT all the “cheem cheem” lingo is like a breeze to them…programming is rather boring for me who as I know very little about programming….but miraculously …I seem to hit the right buttons whenever my bosses ask me to write a program string..…Think really God is sooooo SMART! I can’t do this myself…really it must be God putting all this wisdom in me! Sometimes I dun even know how come I can come up with the program string…Praise God for His guiding hand in my work!

Dealing with numbers every day…I have been staring at the comp screen with thousands of fields to check….my lull period now I think…heheh I have not much tasks to do heheh..
From where I am sitting…I have a great view of the sea and the port …and I tell you the seas is lovely….although it is the “Gateway” ie the two “kueh lapis” layered building in blocking in front of me…:P Everytime when the sunlight streaks through the clouds…it really lovely…hope I could take a pic with my camera…will raise too many eyebrows heehhe

Love to stroll to City Hall MRT (even though Bugis MRT is just in front of my office building after work all the time)…firstly, it helps me to keep my day in check…been sitting down too long the whole day…like to take this short 10-15 walk to the City Hall MRT to think over my day…talk to God over what happened…really enjoyed this walk along the pedestrian walkway be it rain or shine…I would pass by many buildings..Bugis Junction of course, the newly opened National Library its beautiful I tell you..My favourite walkthrough is still Raffles Hotel..

Would remember my two year stint as a banquet/bar waitress at Raffles Hotel..could see some familiar faces though of all the captains who took over us last time… Some still recognize me…Love the jazz music they play almost every night at the Raffles Courtyard, which is a very romantic outdoor bar with “Al Fresco” setting.. if its good weather, there would be a mini band playing and there would couples dancing ballroom dancing or simply latin…:P Lifestyle of the rich and famous..:)

These are the sights that I enjoy everyday along Bugis to Raffles City..would you like to take a walk with me sometime? J Bless!

more pics of fireworks fest 2004

more pictures of my Bdae celebrations 2004

Ah.....I see

Was reading Sandy's blog just now and really laughed at how we talked about what kinda guys make us a heart a fluttering? Is it an age thingy or a biological thingy? hahah so farnie:)...the month draws near....argghghghgh told Caizhu that i dun wanna do anything that will remind me of my age..hahah guess what my group did to me poor me at this food court at Orchard cineleisure with another ger last year...
enjoy the series of photos that follows...:)

Sunday 24th July 2005

Woke up today with a super bad headache..thought is my caffeine addiction at work again..since I started working full time, in order to keep awake, I have downing at least 4 cups of coffee per day! Super bad..
“Uncle” Poy told me that my cholesterol levels will increase..really dunno what to do…need a change in my lifestyle soon! I am still adjusting to sleeping early and waking up early too…being a night owl for a good 12 years of my life! Hahah it all started with me staying up late to finish an art work in Sec 2. Now, I am unstoppable!

Had ushering duty today at church and found out that our roof is leaking! Apparently the air-con vents were dripping water. I was shocked! It was halfway through praise and worship when water started leaking from the roof! Rushed to the Ladies to grab a bucket….

You know, it’s sometimes heart wrenching being an usher in church for so long… you will see many faces come and go and some never coming back…This is one such occasion when I do a mental count of all the faces that passes me through the church doors today, “Will they be touched by God? Will they come back again?” I realize that some friends are not really around for a mighty long time… whatever happened to them? My head will look expectantly towards the glass doors to look out for them and for any new faces that will come through…Please God, let it be them! I will pray…and today, I saw someone turning back to God! As the person walk through the doors, we shared a glance and I hope that the person will really feel welcome once again… Really glad! Hope that today will be a turning point for that person..:)

Many pass me by and some recognizes me for other things…..this is really a very serving kinda job… one that requires someone to go behind the scenes and care for the welfare of the people, the church and for the service to run smoothly…You hardly can any recognition, but the true heart of servant always comes with humility in putting others first then yourself…

Responded to the prayer for healing today, I prayed to God to take away my illness, being down with a thyroid problem, I get tired easily and will have lots of headaches… My hands had started to tremble more in recent years and its affecting me whenever I play instruments…

There, God its all Yours! I raised my hands, and immediately after the prayer, my headache is gone! What’s amazing is that I am normally very easily lethargic at certain times of the day but here I am suddenly feeling refreshed and well!

It can only be God! What else? Praise God for this uplifting of spirit every time and once again I see the power of prayer being demonstrated…J

Looking forward to an exciting new week with you Lord!

Saturday 23rd July 2005
That day my legs ache like crazy..:P

Woke up like with a start…think that I am too used to wake up early in the morning…burst all my dreams of sleeping in late..Dad was up reading his favourite newspapers in the morning. Its been a long time since I spent time together early in the morning liao…Urged my parents and sis all to change to get ready…J We drove to Changi Village, one of our favourite hangouts when all of us were younger..can recall the countless of times when we would spend the many weekends there fishing and staying in the chalet..boy we really had a fun childhood.

We went to the very nice HK tim sum stall at the coffee shop just beside the newly renovated hotel there J had a craving for “Peh-dan Chuk” (Century-Egg Porridge) ever since the Hong Kong trip in June. Sad though, they din have “Chuk” on Saturdays…The Tim sum is superb! Very fresh and cheap! You all should try it there too…J Was very mel as I thought of this being the really first meal that I treated my parents properly from my first pay..:) Really wanna honour them also for standing by me all these years of study..it was really tough and its finally over…J we then took a walk around the market place..heheh we are so familiar with all the shops!

The Salvation Army store, the bike shop where we got all our bikes… the fishing equipment shops..all the shops sort of grew up with us….hahah picked up a handmade “sequins” bag for my lunch bag ( some of you can recall what my sis would say right “SEEEE QUINSSS”) yesh I love them!! what we really love the place is for the quietness and the beautiful cats! There were so many of them and yeah they were beautiful and all over the place!!

Then my dad dropped me off at Hougang Primary School where I was helping out Tian Long in his school’s fund raising event as being one of the buskers…heheh well…the kids simply loved him! He is a Chinese Teacher there..and there we were, busking in a very small place..helped him sing a few songs and played on the violin…the all time favourite song among the kids is definitely “Lao2 Shu3 Ai4 Da4 Mi3” by Guo Mei Mei! You will be surprised..even some very young kids like 4 our 5 year old..grabbed the mikes and sang as TianLong strummed on the guitar…

The adults loved them! They were so good, they know the lyrics and some even know how to sing the way the singer did in the track! WOW! I am impressed!! Then the kids could not stop crowding around us to buy their goods and handicrafts..another sweet girl suddenly reached out to me when I was singing and passed me a handmade wire flower which I proudly tied to my Violin case now heeh..

Was really touched to be in the school environment again…really loved kids…hahah did a country piece together with a little boy about Primary 3 on the Keyboard…Wilson if you are reading this…-GET YOUR KEYBOARD NOW!!! Hahah …won the heart of this cute Indian boy who came up to me and kept praising me and he donated the one dollar he had into our donation tin! I was really touched!!
That was not the end…scooted off just after one plus..had to meet Mingzhu…decided to stash my violin at home cos already agreed to meet up for youth service to take pictures..little did I know, my violin teacher messaged me to ask me to have lessons on Sat! wah…

There I go again like a Christmas tree with lots of things hanging from my shoulders ie. My bag, “Anthony”, my graduation gown, camera…

Trudged to church with Mingzhu and had a really impactful time! Alan Tea preached about “What real faith is?”
We learnt about Saving faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) and Living faith (James 2:17). We draw the differences between the two verses although, they seemingly contradict one another but it really highlights how we are saved and how we need to live out our faith. Faith without deeds is dead but that does not mean that we need to work out our salvation by good deeds, Salvation is by Grace alone. How can we measure how much literally we want to be saved?
We used to make a joke when we were in student ministry…”Do you want one foot, or two hands to be saved? Or make that “the whole head!” as determined by the amount of things that we do for God.

No, remembering again the verse is that our good deeds are like “filthy rags” in Isaiah, there’s no way we can meet God’s standard of goodness because He being our Lord Almighty is Holy, but because He loves us and His grace is unabounding, we are where we are now. J

Alan Tea shared with such conviction and was really clear and concise, my heart was moved! It feels great to be in the youth service cos the music is really uplifting J Christian ROCK MUSIC!

I responded to the call for taking charge of my thoughts and trusting in God and also increasing in my faith by acting it out. J Felt a total refreshing of heart!

Soo Mi came! Yippee! She is a really impactful lady who has a big heart for missions. What really moved me is that her friends have already settled down in the church nearby to their hostel but yet she has been coming faithfully every week to Sat service. She cites that Alan Tea preaches very clear and concise and also she was impacted by it.

She even told me that she wants to settle down in the Saturday service! J Praise God!
Her engineer hubby is coming next week to see her…wah and she might have a chance to settle in Singapore for good should her husband be posted in the Singapore arm of his Korean company. Pretty excited now. J Another testimony of how God opens doors if you honour Him and wants to do His work! J ( See testimony of job finding).

Rushed off to violin lesson, reached home at 11 plus…tired + hungry + aching all over…Am I getting old? :P

Hey starting to realise more things about myself also....from these past weeks of things going on...I have been struggling with forgiveness....something happened...two persons whom I had known for some time was struggling away from the church...I was not very happy with them for some time...and all along I could not forgive them for what they were doing,,,how could they hurt people like that?

Although I am not the one that is being hurt...I felt very strong sense of self righteousness whenever I see them. It was then I told God that no matter how hard that it would take...I will pray for them and I will really pray sincerely with all my heart that my thoughts of them...how nasty will be reconciled with God..then Sunday came...it was a big revelation....I struggle with forgiving them..I
When I saw them slowing coming back to the community..my heart really soften for them!!

God put in me this"thick-skiness" suddenly to go up and talk to them and to ask them how they are...immediately all sense of judgemental spirit melted away...its amazing how prayer can work in your heart and to change your heart attitude toward certain people. I decided to forgive them...God made me realise how every single life mattered to Him...how every soul is so precious to Him "more than gold or silver" like the song says...

Immediately, i felt ashamed for thinking of them in that way and decided in my heart to forgive them and to set aside certain time a day to really pray for their hearts to be re-established with God, and for me to really love them. I had the excuse of going up to take pictures with a really cute kid called "Nick Nick" and its amazing...how the laughter of a kid, no holds barred towards a person can really melt my heart then!

A child, as innocent as he is, making no grudges, holding no hurtful impressions of people, just simply reaching out and wanting to hug you and smile at you.,,,Indeed...it is a hard life lesson for me back there at the corner of the very packed room..

God loves us unconditionally like a child reaching out to us without any fear or suspicion..the same love that He wants to experience between brothers and sisters. Makes me wonder at times...do I love with a coloured heart/vision? Do I always love without biasedness?

Its gonna be an amazing week....

The DAY I have been waiting for a very long time...:)

aiyah...silly How Joo!
When he saw my nick on MSN he thought I was getting married! grrrr...
Indeed this is a special day-15th July 2005
How long I have waited for this day! From the time I got the envelop that told me that I would be admitted into NTU Common Engineering till now..its a good 6 years!
Oh God, how You have pulled me thru this long six years...there were so many times i fell...so many times i wanted to give up but You remained faithful...You pulled me up, carried me on Your shoulders spoke to me..As I look back..I used to be a person who really take my blessings for granted until You came into my life. You made me realise how important life is and most important-TIME.
I have wasted many years and Lord, You continue to use me and guide me..Let me not waste all these years again and let me start anew with You!
My years in NTU Civil and Environmental Engineering were really tough...countless of times when we would all laugh and said the word"dabao" loh after each terrifying examination...slowly all my frens around me begin to grad and i stayed behind..every Convocation..the pain is terrible and mounting...it is not my turn yet...not me no not me yet...:(

If not for the extra sem in the school...I would not have realised how great Your power can be, how you really soften the hearts of my parents and gave me such a loving family...wow ..one blog entry can't end it all man...i shall continue another day...*yawn* hahah

luv,
rac

Very new and fresh!

Dear all,

This would be the first time I blog hahah so weird!
i am totally new and dunno how to play with all the buttons!
Looking forward to chat more with you all!

luv,
rac