11 Months

Just read again that email from nearly 11 month ago.

Still make me --sigh--

And I am afraid…afraid I can not put everything back to the right place.

                Still do not know if God still have another plan for this story.

I can not see the next couple step.

All I can see just a very next step. As His grace also only enough for me to walk just the very next step. Not more.

Always wish He gives me peaceful heart. Just a peaceful heart, what I need now. Right now, at this very moment.

"Lord, You know all about it..."

ps : I do care...

That has been a hard question…

“Why?”

If you have been waiting for so long and really want to have it, why then you always go?

Why then you always be the one who runs away?

You said you are tired.

You have been thinking about where you are going in this life.

You said you are tired to live out of a suitcase.

But, why then you keep running away?

What are you searching for?

What are you afraid of?

How long you are going to carry your past baggage?

How long you can take to keep beating your self up?

Why you can not forgive your self?

I can only wish, one day I would know the answer…from you when you also found the answer.

ps:

i do care for you

blessings

Deeply moved with this song.

Since the first time I heard this song, I just can not stop to listen to it over and over again.

what if Your blessings come through raindrops?
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near?
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?

Not easy and never be easy to think this way. It takes so many ups and downs, lots of tears in prayers to understand those profound questions. And even then, I am still learning to keep in mind that what happened in my life is just a process of promoting from the Lord, to shape and mold me to be a better me and perfect shape for the thing He has in store for me. For His glory.

Not easy…but, I can walk in the power of His daily sufficient grace… 

His great blessing. 

Blessings

Laura Story

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering

All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops?
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?
What if trials of this life Are Your mercies in disguise?

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough

And all the while You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us, when darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst
This world can’t satisfy?

And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise?

January 31, 2009

After another rough day yesterday, the “cry-my-self-to-sleep” kind of day, this morning I accidentally went to my old blog page. Trying to see how I was in those days in the past. This particular blog stroked me out. Seems like yesterday… sigh.

Two and a half year…many ups and downs, many prayers, many tears, many laughs and joys. There are teary days and of course there are joyful days. All are treasure! Nowadays, maybe are the near-tear-kind-of-days. Painful period, as this story most likely have came to an end. I know God is still at work, but to where He leads, I do not know. Will there a miracle? I do not have the answer. However, even in these times, I know God's plan is being orchestrated behind the scenes. He is accomplishing His purposes. I just need a fresh perspective on this situation. And whatever it will be, God knows, always knows the best…

So, this is where the story began….

January 31, 2009…

Distraction

So, this is the last day in the first month in 2009. Time does fly. However, somehow I just feel that this month time flew slower, for some reasons maybe, I don’t know.

This month, this very early on this year, started with the “don’t work out plan” of mine. Just a leftover from last year actually. Something that I wished I could get the “last word” but in fact how hard I tried to make it, still it did not work out.

So, now, at the end of this month…for few days I feel very much better. Which is I did not dare to expect before…not after a small ‘incident’ in the morning that shocked & paralyze me for a while, still the leftover from last year. Did I just bandage up the surface without healing it from within, the very source? Healing my heart? I don’t know (again)… So, yeah, when the small thing about it comes up, I stumble down.  Ruined my whole day on January 22 and few days after. 

Then… Monday came…

Nothing, absolutely nothing special about this guy… nothing but he’s single and meet all (I guess) the “godly requirement.” Never met him before, just some business emails & phone calls. Then the first impression…he seemed ignore me, even when I just tried to being nice as the “host” at that program. That whole program on that day, I did not exist for him. Then at the end of that program, somehow, he became so nice. Waiting for me, helped me with the stuff, just simple things “do you have your dinner?” – “do you have your water?” – “let me help you with that”… very simple. Everybody could do it too. Then I felt so special…hahaha… another surprise, he has the same –almost- “wedding date” with me, also without the bride (groom for me) … Isn’t it so funny?

When two single people meet, have some things in common, have the same planned wedding date, without bride for the man and groom for the woman, what on earth God has in store for them?

I don’t know…and I do not want to assume, think, guess or whatsoever…

Then for the next 3 days I just felt excited…without any flattery. No special conversation. No personal discussion. All about business. Nothing special at all yet I felt so special.

Funny.

Few days floating.

Then I need to bang my head on the wall (again), to wake me up.

Hey girl nothing has happened between you and him…but ya, something is definitely happening in your heart. God is so good…He knows (surely) that I need some distractions from my “leftover from last year” feeling. So, He sent him. Just to make me smile. Yeah, I do smile… every time I remember him I smile…

I do not know, where the story will go…or will there be a story… I do not know. Maybe it is just a temporary feeling (as usual). Maybe it is merely a distraction only. Something that make me smile again, that make me feel much better and the most important is help me to get back my self confidence and thought that the leftover is as not as big, hard, difficult as I imagine. It was painful, but it is over. I have been there before and if once again I should be there, that’s ok. Then go out from there, cross the line and move on.

So, he came…gave me some distractions. Three days only. Without knowing when, where and how we will meet again, or will we meet again? But he did help me, get over my “bad feeling”. I do feel better now.

So, thank you…

I do not know how to say thank you to you.

For the distraction.

For making me smile with the “wedding date”…

small things… small funny trick of life, I guess…

Better Instrumental Sometimes

-this is not a story about music-

I love that melody. Since the first time I heard that sweet piano instrument, I have been listening to it over and over again. When I searched on youtube, I found some versions of that melody and it is actually a soundtrack of an old movie. And it was actually just today when I tried to find out more about that song. So, it was real romantic movie, kind of movie with that kind of soundtrack, and the taglines are about drama, romance and fantasy...yes, fantasy, something that is not real.

On the youtube I noticed there is a version with the lyric. So it is not really instrumental music as there is another version with lyric. But, I decided not to try that one, the one with the lyric. I do not know how the lyric sounds like or what story is told in the lyric. The main reason why I do not want to listen to the lyric because I do not want it changes the feeling I have on this melody, if the lyric does not “go” with the melody. The lyric then could make damage in that sweet music. So I think I really enjoy the melody and the melody only, without the lyric and I think there is no good enough words to describe the sweetness I feel from listening to this melody.

Sometimes I think the melody does not always go with the lyric. The melody of a song can totally change the feeling of a song. In fact the melody determine whether the song nice or sweet or “hard” or “noisy”. I don’t really know it is the melody that makes a good song or it is the lyric or both. I don’t want to discuss it either. However, this instrumental music is just so sweet. Period.

Maybe someday, I will have my courage or my “ignorance” to listen to the other version, the one with the lyric. When it does not really matter whether the lyric goes with the melody or not.

Sometimes, things that are not good for us feel good in the moment. Sometimes people don't see the damage they're doing… 

Ooppsss....!

Ooppsss… what did I write there?

That email responded to the newsletter I sent out few hours before. That email that made my heart beat, my throat tightened and my smile fell, when the first time I read it.

With all my limitations as a beginner in writing and with my passion to be able to be a good writer, I wish what I wrote in that newsletter could help people to keep up dated with us here, the women in the other side of their world, and be blessing to them and at the ultimate point, to glorify Him, Who gives this ministry to us.

I was sitting with a friend who needed me to be with her in her discouraged time. A desperate called to me that night brought me there with her. That was the time when I tried to encourage her then that “ooppss email” arrived on my ‘smart-phone-device’ (that is not so smart sometimes, to deliver that kind of message at that kind of time). So, there I was, tried to encourage this sweet friend and suddenly need an encouragement too.

“How come she sent those harsh comments on that ‘supposed-to-be-thank-you-and-please-pray-for-us-newsletter’”?

“Why didn’t she just ask some questions to make it clear than writing her ‘judgments’”?

“What did make her think she knows better than us while she has no idea about what have been going on with us?”

Those were my “by default” self defense mechanism. But wait… I could not respond that email right away as my sweet friend needed me much and was more important for me that night. So trying to forget that email and put my mind and my heart back for this friend was the choice. And was the best choice!

When I got back home, I had more time to think and pray, until that unhealthy emotion can be processed with more than my feelings. It is always processed through the emotional part of my brain before the logical part. Why didn’t I try to find the positive thing on this case? Could I be thankful for that email? How?

Pray!

As I started to think and ask God to show me the good thing out of this, I saw the nice things. That email was the first response I got from that newsletter. The comments on that email were very detail, it only showed me that she read the news not just saw it, and she read it carefully to found “those bad things”. She cared enough with the news to make her emailed me those “concerns”. I do not think that all the people who get that newsletter read it. So I think I would rather be criticized than ignored. Great!

Now, what next?

I remember an article from one of my favorite writers, Lysa TerKeurst, about responding this kind of issue. There are three things to think before responding: is a reply necessary? A reaction and a reply are vastly different, humility is a beautiful diffuser.

I do not know this lady personally but she must be someone who knows our ministry. The newsletter was sent out to the people who involve in our ministry in many ways or the ones who are recommended by the leaders. I tried to find information about her, and two people I asked about her told me two “not-so-nice” stories about her in regard her involvement in our ministry. Hey, I am not that “special” the only one who gets her “amazing” action then. In fact, she is special!

I really thank God for this. I always want to be a writer, that is one of my biggest dreams. I write not because I can write but because I love writing. I believe, when God makes that dream comes true someday (amen!), there will be many similar responses to whatever I write. This was the first time and that’s special!

That “ooppss” email now turned to be an “encouragement” email. It is!

“Dear sister, I do appreciate your comments and concern for our ministry. I was encouraged by how you responded our newsletter very detail. That’s incredible.

So………….…”

I replied her email with grateful heart. Giving her more information she needed to know and thanking her for her wonderful email. I wish the additional information could help her about how she is to pray for the women and those with the women more detail, as her email have encouraged me in a special way.

Praise the Lord!