God and me

Last night, was a night of horrible conviction, and repentance. I have to say.
Someone asked me, that everytime I turned back to God, and came back to church, I was usually in 'deep shit'. So, would that mean, that when everything gets better, I would turn back again? Honestly, at first, I felt insulted. The whole Wednesday church going, peace enjoying, fun having mood totally vanished into thin air. I actually came home tearing up. How could someone 'accuse' me of something like that? I have been happy, my life was on the right path again, and I was completely 'drama free'... right? So... why would that person say that to me??
Came home, cried and called my boyfriend. I was expecting him to say that's not true, and I've been great and so on. Nope.. He did not. He actually asked me to think about what the girl said, and ask myself if it was true ot not and not to lie to myself. He also said a lot of things that was quite saddening, but true. It was actually true. I did turn away from God when life was great. And when it all became one big mess, and I had nowhere to turn to, no one to run to... I ran to God. Boyfie said something... " You love me right? and you know I love you a lot. But, how would it feel... if I only came to you when I needed something, wanted something... but the rest of the time, I completely ignored  you? Wouldnt that hurt you a lot??" ...Yes.. it would... "Multiply that feeling by 70 times 7..."

:(

I didnt think of it that way. I actually caused pain to God by doing what I was doing. I never thought about Him in my happy times. Of course, I praised Him and thanked Him when I was having a good day, but I always kept Him 'up there'... inaccessible. And me down here. He became not so personal to me. He only did when I was rock bottom.

Ashamed. Ashamed of myself. Also, wondering, is that why, I havent been able to connect to Him the way others do? Is that why, I am always stuck in a circle? I asked boyfie that. You see, boyfie has this amazing relationship with God. He is totally connected. He knows his faith. He trusts Him and he knows Him. Something I dont quite understand yet. I didnt have that. So, I assumed because I came back to the wrong reason, God didnt wanna connect to me like He did with the others. But the thought was ludicrous. That wasnt God's nature... right? Boyfie told me to turn my sadness to a mood of submission prayer, and that God will answer. That I should stop judging myself because I never know if i came back for the right or wrong reasons. Only Father knows which. And that I should ask for forgiveness and hand over everything to him in prayer. He also asked me to read Psalm 51 everyday. Boyfie also said, God enjoys it when we talk to Him. Not just when we ask him things and pray for stuff. But just talking. He enjoys it. Something I dont do with Him. Something I feel ashamed of. And even more humbled and convicted because, I have been a Christian for 6 years, and while everyone I know have been progressing in their walk with God, I have been running around in circles, and still a 'handicapped child' when it comes to my walk in my faith.

Convicted. Ashamed. Undeserving. But with a renewed heart. I dont want what the person in church told me to be true. I dont want to still be running in circles when I'm 50. I dont want to be still laying my foundations when I am 75. I want to have this relationship with God. I want to have the same thing I see in my church friends. I want that joy. That different joy. Something I have been able to feel in my past walk with God, but have lost it.

Old me would have felt absolutely hurt and I would have decided to leave church after this. But I'm not that person anymore. I'm not giving up on myself. He didnt. Everytime I hurt Him and left Him, He didnt give up on me. Everytime I came back, He still gave me 'presents' and a 'feast' eventhough I hurt Him countless times. So no, I'm not giving up on me. 

Back to Church

Hello... Its a quiet Saturday. Well Saturday is gone. Its Sunday now. I, am still procrastinating on my work because my ovaries are throwing their monthly tantrums at me and I couldnt be bothered to get out of bed muahahaha. However, the week has been wonderful to me, and I gained a lot of insight on a lot of things. For starters, I went back to church. This thought has been bugging me for ages and I finally got the guts to go back to church. Needless to say, it was like I never left. I am definitely going back next week. And the next, and the next... always.

I also added my cousin on Facebook. Well, I blocked her out of seeing my posts and pictures but she's there. Reading her statuses and posts made me realise something. Something about myself actually. I try too hard to go against the norm. It's not a bad thing, but it's just that, I realised I do that. I dont want to be associated with a certain stereotype, a certain trend. I want to be seen as different. I want to be accepted by everyone. I actually sorta disliked the fact that my cousin keeps posting scriptures and telling people 'dont do this' and 'dont do that'. I felt like, well... if you were a nonbeliever, and someone just came and threw bible words at you without even knowing or acknowledging who you are, would you accept or even try to understand what that Christian is trying to tell you?

I read this on tumblr today
“The modern church does not worship idols of gold or stone, she worships the gods of human effort and will power. Morality has become our Molech and and behavior our Ba’al, while the person and work of Christ is strangely missing from our messages, meetings and media.”

— Jeff Turner, Revival or Riots

I have to agree with Jeff. In my family, faith is determined by human effort and will power. And well, as we all know, I am not accepted by my family because my morales differ from theirs and my behavior is not seen as acceptable. But in my few years with Christ, I still dont understand why I have to act, talk and behave a certain way to be seen as a Christian. When I do something, or talk a certain way, people (family) assume I have lost my faith. I do not believe in going around and telling people the 'laws' of God. I do not believe in telling people they are wrong and they have to turn back before they are condemned to hell. If it was me, I want someone to accept me for who I was, sinner and blasphemer, and love that person. I would want to know what kind of God would love someone like me. I would want that knowledge to lead me towards turning back. That's what happened to me. I wasnt moved at all by this lady who always came to my house and told me I was a sinner. What moved me into knowing God was the love my church and my youth group showed towards me. Picking me up from my house, sending me home, inviting me to their house for sleepovers and taking me out shopping and doing fun things with me when in truth, they didnt have to, because I was of no gain. Them, doing that changed my view about God. If their love of God could move them to love someone like me, then this God must be different. And so I learnt about Him. And I wanted Him in my life.

But still, even with my principles, I still havent figured out how to move from that first step of accepting people and not judging them. I dont know how to tell them, my God is amazing and you should come find out for yourself. That is also part of the reason why, I went back to church. I guessed, as much as I loved God, my knowledge of him was still sparse. And maybe if I knew God more, I would know how to reach out to people. And if I knew the Holy Spirit more, I would learn how to listen to His directions when reaching out.

It's not wrong to be flawed. It's not wrong to have weaknesses. It's not wrong to be wrong. What is wrong is hiding it from God and behaving like everything is ok. Coz if everything is ok, you would not need Him. I am flawed. I am not perfect. I am weak and useless without Him. But with Him in my life, I see myself doing great things. 

I Belong to You

I think I'm out of tears. Run dry. 


I had an argument with someone I love, and although we've both pushed it aside(we fought for such a stupid reason) and back to normal again, it made me realize how easy it is to lose a person. 


I feel very alone at the moment. But I seriously dont know how I came across the Barlow Girls(again), but I found them, and the songs are keeping me company for the night. 


This song is on repeat at the moment. 



When love is gone there's no arms to run to anymore 
I'm all alone, theres no one for me to live for 
Letting go of the things I always come to 
Thats when I need to feel That I belong to You

:'(

I belong to You

Having a Broken Heart

I love reading Lauren's blog. Over the past few months, she has been a huge strength to me, through her blog and her emails to me. 


I will never forget this sentence, in one of her posts. 


Let me tell you something. Every time your heart breaks, you will lose little bits of it, like porcelain chips that are too small to glue back to the pieces of the plate. But if you let him, God will step in and be your glue - and the more your heart breaks, the more of it becomes God's heart.


 I will never forget what it meant to me, how it made me feel when I read that. 


Few months ago, I had a major fallout with a group of people. And that fallout caused me to mope around Kampar for a long time, by myself. I had no friends. Nobody to talk to, have dinner with, hang out etc. Mostly, as much as I was relieved for losing the baggage(s) that were holding me down, I also lost a true friend, something I will forever regret. 


But I didnt let myself break down. All day in uni I was like this. 

But only I knew how hurt I was because of everything that happened. But I decided I was not affected by it all. I didn't let God see my brokenness. All day everyday I pretended everything was great. But it was all going downhill actually. It came to a point where I didn't even have the strength to get out of bed. Or do anything. 


I don't really know what happened. I think it was the emails Lauren sent to me. Maybe God was speaking to me through her. Maybe He was speaking to me through Pam. But I started reading the bible. I started reading Psalms. And I realized how, in many different occasions, David was just as broken as I am. He cried out the words I wanted to say. Maybe it was the fact I started to reach out to God again. 


I started to accept my brokenness. This is coming from someone, who told everyone, how awesome she is. I like to give everyone the impression that I'm so full of myself, oozing of confidence. Maybe that was my biggest flaw. I was wearing bigger shoes than I could fit into. That turned out to be not fun at all. So brokenness it was. I accepted that I was flawed. That I played some part in what happened. That I needed to change. I also accepted the fact that I wasnt ok, and my heart was breaking and I stopped pretending everything was ok. 


My heart felt like it had been put into a blender and made into mush, but I started to see it as a blessing. That meant,  God can work in me a bit more, and I can lose a lot of me, and put a lot of God to replace me. 


I guess that is a good thing. You should see how calm my soul is at the moment. I still go through the same issues everyday. There is still pain. But I wish I could show you how calm I feel at the moment. Sometimes it feels like I am sitting on a big rock, right in the middle of nowhere, the ocean crashing all around me. But I feel calm. I do not fear. 


I choose to let God see my brokenness. I also choose to let Him fix me up. 

Trusting God

It is not like me to have scriptures ringing in my head, but a couple has been doing so for the few months. And the past couple weeks, I have been slowly realising something, or to be put more eloquently, my heart is turning to the right direction.


For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. – Jeremiah 29:11


Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. -Psalm 37:4


These are very common scriptures that we hear a lot, and one of the earliest Promises of God that we learn about when we accept Christ into our lives. In fact, I heard so much of these two promises that they became mundane to me, and everytime I heard it, I scoffed and ignored it. "Yea yea, I have heard it. Same old, same old". I really got sick and tired of hearing people say that to me. 


You see, all my life, I have lived in uncertainty. We never knew what was going to happen next. My parents didnt know about planning and budgeting and very often I would hear my mum and dad fight because there was no money left for next week. When I graduated high school, running away with my then boyfriend was the only option because my parents couldnt send me to uni and I really wanted the big crazy wonderful life I often dreamt about. Every plan I made did not work out. I always felt like I was stumbling through life and there was nothing much that could be done to stop it. Everytime when I make something good happen, there will be obstructions, downfalls, failure. 


So I didnt really believe that God would promise me such a thing. I felt like all He wanted to do was swat my hopes and dreams and make me into His 'Christian puppet' and turn me into a robot. 
Well, that's what listening to a hundred people about God will do to you without learning about Him yourself. 


So I decided to erase every idea I had of Him and start new. And for the past few months, God gave me the opportunity to learn the real meaning of these two promises He had given me. Well, I didnt see it that way first. The first few weeks were spend in dismay and total devastation. I had to give up the things that were most precious to me, so I thought them to be. And after a while I learnt about something, something that further made me feel hopeless about my life and future because I had it all perfectly planned out, and now its getting distorted. 


I was very angry with God, I yelled at Him, I cried a lot. I started reading Psalms after Lauren advised me to, and I still remember sobbing out the words every night until my very feather like paged bible started to blotch with tears. And then, these two scriptures came into mind. They always did. I didnt know the exact words, or which part of the bible they were from( i had forgotten my scriptures), but they always nudged me in my heart. Whether when I'm on the bus to uni or walking home, when I'm studying or just mindlessly lying on my bed. And I started to question Him, what do you want me to understand out of this? I need to know. 


And slowly I begin to get it. 
Every time I start out on something, I run around in circles. Whether its with friends, or relationships or just plain attitude. I run around in circles, get hurt and end up at the same spot as before, because I never looked to God for the right way home. I looked to the world. To be in a popular group, to be badass, to be this, to be that. I looked to the world. And it would have worked alright for me if I was not directly connected to God through Christ. I would just run around everywhere until I found my footing. But I am the lame little one, whom God said, you are Mine. When I said yes to Him 4 years ago, I immediately became one of His. I have a direct line to His plans for me. 


God has made an amazing plan for me. He didnt create me just because He had too much time on His hands, He chose me, He made me, and He gave me my name and He made a whole wonderful plan for my life. And it would be the life I desired. He put those desires in me. I mean, He planned everything so perfectly so that I get to live an amazing life here. I know so, because I see a lot of people who are enjoying life to the fullest because they listen to Him and I also have seen many people struggle all their life even they dont look like they deserve it because they dont listen to Him. 


So, for the first time, in years, I'm not scared of His plans for me. If I have to let go of things/people who are so precious to me, so be it. I am not scared of His desires for me, because I know those thoughts He thinks towards me are perfect in everyway. Even if it doesnt seem that way first, even when my heart breaks, even if I have to spend a few rough years, its ok with me. And I accept. Because I choose to take delight in Him. I choose His companionship over anything else in this world because it is so much easier for me to accept unfailing love. I am the broken one, the unwanted baby, the dejected daughter, the rejected friend, the one people like to push away. I am God's limp little lamb so its so much easier for me to accept my brokenness and my failure and take comfort in His love. I still question God about a lot of things. I still run away from His presence at times. I am not miraculously changed and holy now. I'm still a very broken human being but my desire is to please God, and if that is my desire and He will mold my desires to match his. And I am pretty sure I wont be missing out on life. 


I suppose this is my first step forward. I trust God completely. I trust Him and I trust His Promises. I completely trust Him. There's not doubt in that. 

My hope

Sometimes, we look at the world, and we look at life. And we see how big our problems are, and we worry, we fret. We get depressed. And we get this gnawing feeling in our hearts that things will never be ok. And sometimes that gnawing feeling will never go away. There's always something to worry about.

I worry about a lot of things. I worry about my parents. I worry that they will never make up. Never be happy. I worry that they will always blame me for their lives and I wont be able to do anything. I worry that my mum will never love me, and my dad will always see me as a burden. I worry about my uni, I worry about how I am going to push my CGPA up, if I will ever finish my soft skills, if UTAR is good enough for me to get a decent job. I worry about getting a decent job, if I will ever get one. I worry about my boyfriend. I worry about him all the time. And I worry about our relationship, because sometimes love is not enough and as much as we love each other, we are still studying, and he will graduate soon and leave Malaysia. I worry about how we are going to last after that.

I worry.

But today, I had a mini revelation. That the only person I can be completely honest with is Jesus. I can be as blatant and as confused as I can be, and He will not judge my lack of understanding. He will listen, and He will answer. So I told Him what I was worried about. I told Him about my lack of understanding. My sadness. My ever constant feeling of lack. And I didnt get an answer. Nothing. No Bible Scriptures popping  in my head, no sudden revelation about things, no vision, nothing. So, I gave up and decided to watch a bad copy of Real Steel(which I didnt finish), but the beginning song caught my attention. It was All my Days by Alexi Murdoch. And that's how He spoke to me. He told me that this is what I should look forward to. That everything might be blurry now, and sometimes it feels like there is no hope. But its ok. Some day I will see clearly, and I will see His plans clearly. Until then its ok to just breathe somedays, survive everyday, and put my hopes in God.

It's easy to say those things. But it's not easy to do. But it's sorta easy for me. Because my whole life I spent wandering and looking for a good life, but I never got it. And then He comes along and tells me He's got amazing plans for my life. Its like taking a filthy,useless,hopeless beggar and telling her He'll make her a princess. Who wouldnt want that. So, I'm not so worried about my life anymore. I'm not worried about living in another country, or moving, or getting a job, or marrying A, I just know everything that happens is good. Even if it looks like a shithole at that very moment. Even if it seems like its the end of everything I wanted, it might be the beginning of what I really truly needed all along.

Like I said, it's not easy to do those things. But it's the base of my hopes. And I just need to keep building it.

I just know everything will be fine.