Just, thinking. (edited)

Besides God, little else brings you to your knees but self-confession. And this has been, to say the least, most frustrating for me to accept.

Of late, more than usual, many people have been asking me about my relationship status. The number of people who have been presenting the question to me have been so numerous that I am wondering if they have been conspiring. I usually smile, tell them it's a long story, but that I'm not in a relationship and leave it at that. If I think they understand and won't think I'm crazy, I tell them a little more-like that I feel God has told me to commit myself to be single till I graduate, to take time to know Him, know myself and to give myself space to grow in maturity. I have the peace He has everything planned out for me, so I've stopped being too anxious, really. Being relatively independent in some ways, I'm also happy being free to do what I want at the moment and taking time to rediscover myself. I'm only twenty-two- isn't it a little early? I often think to myself.

But there's another reason, too. And almost as if God were trying to bring my attention to it, a slew of people over the past month have been coming my way to question my attitude and outlook on relationships. As I stood, thinking through my answers, I realised that it made me more and more uncomfortable to think about it. This truth has been most difficult for me to accept, face and confront. I realise, just how I have been in denial all this while, using God as a semi-blanket disguise. Because the truth is, the little girl inside of me is just, so afraid.



Afraid of what, you ask?

Afraid of this feeling which is new and happy and startling all at the same time and which makes me feel I have absolutely no control over it. Afraid of how vulnerable and naked and young it makes me feel. Afraid of the possibilities, or the impossibilities of the situation.

The slightest flutter from deep within Petrifies me. That butterfly feeling which makes me happy then surprised then frightened then stressed then extremely willing to run out to the nearest exit. The artist in me is relieved that one has the freedom to imagine, hope and construe the future since it is not here. And yet, when there is a glimmer of that future coming to the present, she gets a cardiac arrest and goes into rewind lest the future does not materialise into a reality she had hoped for.


I once had someone tell me that I had built this invisible fence around me and that I ought to do something about it. I guess to some extent, he was right. It's a lot easier to be friends, isn't it?

The automatic defense system within me loses no time to build a fortress once I feel threatened- and threatened means feeling that all-too-familiar and terrifying heartsway like a lallang in the wind. I wish it would not.

Perhaps it is like that uncertainty and vulnerability one experiences when one mounts a two-wheeled bicycle for the first time, that moment where one has a fifty-fifty chance to riding the vehicle into momentum or losing balance and falling onto the tarmac. It is like I cannot bear the uncertainty and vulnerability, and so I take the safest option to will the feelings away. Willing it away- I'm very good at that and pretending I don't care. Or distracting myself by picking up a new hobby-I'm good at that too. Is that why I am always learning something new- swimming freestyle, photography and acrylic painting are next on my list.

It scares me so bad that my instinctive reaction to any Good Person has become running away so I can slink and disappear into the ground. Because it's almost as if while a part of me would like a white horse (brown is also okay and my preference actually) and a dragon and a pumpkin carriage all in the same story, I think I am afraid to know that none of this will ever be real and that idealist in me might be destined to be disappointed and robbed and deceived and that I cannot sue disney because I don't know how to. And when some of it actually does happen, an almost pathological fear takes over and I want to run ten miles away immediately or I say or do something like wearing a gigantic lion's mask which puts that distance right out there between myself and anybody so I am back in the Safe zone immediately, leaving a little brick wall in between so I feel Safe.

Stupid, isn't it.

I don't understand it. It's like some freudian force compelling Rapunzel to get a bob hair-cut when she finally sees a shadow in the distance coming to help her out of the tower. And the realisation and admitting of how serious this fear really is and has been, has been most frustrating.

Was it bad past experiences? Perhaps. And though I've never really been in a serious relationship before, I've seen and heard more than I would have liked to have grown a general distrust of and become mostly disillusioned with most of the male gender when it comes to this. It is one of the down sides of having too many male friends and listening to their conversations of women in general. Of course there are Good People around, but the fear remains.

Perhaps it is like myself learning to cycle. Since the age of ten, I had this phobia of getting on a 2-wheeled bike. After a few bad accidents without really ever mastering it, I gave up and was too frightened to get on it again. It took me more than a decade to finally decide that enough was enough and it was time to face my fear. I know it may take me a long time to learn how to trust again, I just hope I don't take that long to work this similar phobia through. What makes it worse perhaps, is my ingrained view that it is the man who must make the first gesture and if he does not, the lady cannot respond. So the fear is further compounded by my unknowing what to do with such Terribly Scary Feelings, except to tell them to God and leave them there with Him or simply take the easy route to will them away.

The heart is the most precious organ of the body. Yet, isn't it funny how we build so many walls.

After the race that day, I sat by myself at midnight, feeling completely overwhelmed by utter joy and sadness. Tears flowed like rivers. I didn't know why but at that point, a tangibly cold emptiness and warm, milky love enveloped me all at once. It had been such an emotional day for me- I had completed my first bike race and in it, represented the harrowing journey God had brought me through in the past years into the light of joy, peace and liberty. But there was an aching within me- for who could I share this wonderfully special experience with at that point? For who knows, sees and understands the prim, Type-A me at the hospital, the one who gets turned on by the operating theatre and yet, the artist in me who can dawdle at a gallery by herself for hours, the silly-dance-like-no-one's-looking me at sunday school when I'm with children, the me who loves to lie on grass and eat yummy muffins and drink hot milk, the me at church who raises her hands and tears, and the little girl me who then morphs into a sporty roadbiker-wannabe on my saturday morning rides with my lean-mean roadbiking friends, haha. Who understands my past and what I've been through that makes me so sensitive to certain things, comments because they trigger certain memories and places I don't want to return to. Who understands my fears about the future and why I live my life as such.

And the chilly ache was there because some part of me just couldn't imagine being known and understood in so many distinct dimensions. I wondered if anyone would want to, and I wondered if I could ever get to know anyone on so many levels, too. Yet a tangible warmth overtook me like a blast of hot air from a furnace in winter because I knew... that God did. He understands us, knows us through and through and through. He knows the efficient, girly, sporty, cranky, child-like me and He has given up so much for us and given so much to me that no matter how much I give up for Him, I will never be out of the Safe zone, no matter how vulnerable I make myself to Him. There is no distrust with God. Where He is, is where I can be Safe.

Almost every month now, I get wind of another friend getting attached or engaged-it's that time in life I suppose, and I don't know how these people do it. I'm working it through and I'm taking my time. You know I wouldn't be too affected about swatting a cockroach, travelling by myself to some developing nation or paragliding or scrubbing up for surgery and doing stitches for a patient with multiple gaping trauma wounds... ... but when it comes to this, I'm scared out of my wits.

But in spite of all this, I guess what comforts me most is that God always has a way when it comes to what we deem impossible. He makes time, things and people work in such a way we would never expect. Like how I never expected or even dreamt I would ride a bike someday, my own roadbike at that.

And perhaps the only consolation I have is that no matter how much fear, uncertainty or paranoia we may have about the future, His plan is best-that even if it means being single, then that would have to be best, too.

And perhaps the other consolation would be that in spite of bruising, and falling, and taking so incredibly long to overcome my fears and get down to it, I did learn how to ride a bike properly...

... eventually.

"And in perfect love, there is no fear."

- 1 John 4:18

Yellow fellows.

The past few days have been a furious flurry of activity.

Final exams. A 22nd birthday. News that nothing can be done about the tumor. Relatives flying in and out. Brain-burning bible study from that intensive missions course I signed up for. Gatherings. Errands. And packing for Nepal.

This year's birthday felt different from all the rest- This year, because it fell on the last day of our final exams, a mind-boggling number of people remembered it. This year, because of the stressful exam period, there were few gifts, but more well-wishes, and a very enjoyable and thoughtful picnic surprise at a beautiful park after the paper finally ended. This year, grandma came to stay to celebrate. Last year, my friends surprised me by singing a self-composed song to the tune of Yellow, by my favourite band coldplay- but this year, what a surprise I got...

... Closing my eyes and then discovering a mountain of 22 golden-yellow eggtarts stacked together like an inverted chandelier of wedding champagne glasses, each with a candle on top, and a crowd of friends laughing together with me. A yellow envelope. Yellow daisies. Then reaching home to find another bouquet of yellow flowers, roses this time. And corn soup, ha. A phonecall late at night, then a sneaky surprise visit at home by friends from church with a banner, terribly smoky sparklers, party poppers and cream-yellow cake smashed into my face.

So many yellow things. It tickled me.

Till late last year, I never liked the colour yellow. And I couldn't help but find it a little funny how so many things I received this year were yellow, without people knowing.

Yellow flowers signify friendship.

This year's birthday felt different. It taught me a lot about gratitude, contentment and security, the importance of friendship, and family. Most of all, it taught me about God's grace. That while mercy is God not giving you what you deserve, Grace is Him giving us what we don't deserve.

It was a time of reflection and thanksgiving. A year ago, I wouldn't even have imagined I would make it this far. But I have. I've grown, experimented, tried, succeeded, loved and matured- and only because of my friends and family. A year ago on that day I was a wreck and today I stand to testify that God never forsakes us, merely brings us through what He needs to to teach, discipline, encourage and love us.

Yellow roses signify friendship. Friendship blessed by God, without which life would be meaningless.

I leave early tomorrow morning, to see my friends in Nepal, the thirty children and the many missionaries, whom I think of every day. The day I left Nepal the last time, the children at the orphanage put a yellow flower in my hair. Come back okay, didi (big sister) Wai Jia? It's about time.

Thank you all for making my 22nd birthday special and memorable. Thank you for remembering, for reminding me of thanksgiving and gratitude, and for all the yellow things.

And it was all yellow.

-Coldplay

Eyes on You (edited)

"Wai Jia, just wanted to tell you:

last Sunday as I was praying for you, felt God wants to remind you

not to just look at His hands but at His face...

as He wants you to learn to follow Him by watching His eyes,

rather than Him holding you by the hand...

Simply the process of maturing in God. Blessings."

It was as if God sent an angel with a message in a bottle for me. How did she know- that for the past 2 months, I felt God speaking to me about growing up, that for the past month since that day, I kept seeing, over and over, the image of God's hands moulding a clay vessel, myself, into shape, but never quite seeing His face.

When I closed my eyes, I kept seeing His hands moulding me, shaping me, like a Potter with his clay, so much so that when the doors opened for me to visit Nepal and the children at the orphanage again next week after my end-of-year exams, I decided to learn some ethnic pottery during my time there, from a friend's friend. Tis a marvellous thing, to attempt to understand why God is called the master potter.

This year, my final exams end on the day I turn 22- in two days. It set me thinking.

In so many ways, this year has been so different. Just about the same time last year, plodding through the lowest trough of my life, I had lost so much hope, wondered if the darkness would ever end. Growing up seemed so hard to do, so distant.

And while I've still a long way to walk on this pilgrim's progress- a year on, I've never been healthier, more aware of who I am-my weaknesses and strengths, and more certain of who I am in God, who God is to me. A year on since the darkest, most painful experience of my life, I can finally- the first time in three years- concentrate on the present, remember things clearly, run and cycle with freedom, experience the joy of humility, love, holiness and thanksgiving in the fullest measures of life, in the way only being closer to God can bring.

It's true. All this while, God's been holding me by the hand, leading me, picking me up, somtimes squeezing it so I have the courage to walk on. In the times I was too tired, too short of faith, too much in despair, he carried me; In the times I was too troubled to sleep, he lay by me and held me to sleep; In the times I wanted to shut my eyes and rage at him, he took the blow of my wilfulness. Always, there were angels around to guide, encourage, love me, take me by the hand to steady my feet, treat my wounds.

But now that I'm turning 22, it's time to grow up. Time to let go of a father's hand and start to walk on my own, explore new places, discover new frontiers, without fearing the independence. The past few months have been the most exciting months of re-discovering who I am.

Things are different, now. Since all that has happened, I've learnt to be more secure, content, and confident, more accepting, humble and willing to listen. I discover I like to eat as much as exercise, that good music and dance excites me just as much as painting and poetry; I discover I enjoy company as much as solitude; I'm as anxious as I am excited about becoming a doctor, an elder sister to others, a woman. I find myself much more certain of my place in God, and am no longer afraid to let my hair down, change out of kiddie clothes and wear a grown-up dress.

It's time to let go of that familiar dependence, so I can let go of old, childish ways, let go of a wooden horse that no longer fits to master real creatures...

... let go of the adolescent fear of cycling to really ride on the real thing...

No longer one of the potshards on the ground always questioning God, I find myself trusting in the Potter's hand. And now the next step, is to look into the eyes of the Potter himself.

And though it's never easy to let go of what one is familiar with, the truth is we can never grow up unless we learn to take the leap. For so long I'd been looking at God's hands, at the Potter's hand of guidance, of comfort and sometimes discipline- to the point I had forgotten that he's a friend with a face, too.

So it's time to let go, grow up and experience God in a different way, no longer merely as a father or teacher, but also as a brother and friend. To lay next to him, awakening not just to see his hand, but to gaze into his face.

And perhaps the best thing is, no matter how far we run, He's always near. Even though our hands never touch, and in times of wilfulness when we shut our eyes to hide from his gaze, he's always near, always waiting, always just... by us. And so I know, that even though it's time to let go of that familiar hand, all I need to do, in times of confusion, darkness or despair, is just to turn and be surprised to find that all this time, He's still right there.

His eyes on me, waiting, still.

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see

face to face.

Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

- 1 Cor 13:11, 12

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go:

I will guide you with My eye."

-Psalm 32:8

Saying goodbye.

They tell you all sorts of things when you're a medical student at the hospital. They tell you, that no matter how routine or demanding things become, to see every patient as a whole person, somebody's mother, grandmother, breadwinner, brother, soulmate, lover, child... They tell you that disease is a common part of life. That doctors aren't deities who perform miracles. They tell you, matter-of-factly, that death is a part of life. That no one lives forever, and though every day people die, life still goes on. They tell you that everyone has to say goodbye.

They tell you over and over, and you accept these golden truths with unwavering faith, nodding in wholehearted agreement...


... until it happens to you.


Then, overturned are these immutable laws of the universe, your world turns inside out, and everything sounds like a lie.

When I saw the fear in her eyes and the frown on her usually pertually-smiling face, gaunt and washed ghostly white, I knew something was wrong. All this while, I think I always saw it coming, always knew these facts of life. As a medical student, seeing more of death and disease than the average person should put me in greater stead of handling these things. But when it happens to you, nothing really matters. Everything sounds like a lie.

How can this happen. Why is she hurting so bad. Why can't they take the cancer out. Doctor, you're not being fair- you're supposed to save her life. God, where is she going to go when she leaves. What am I supposed to do. What would happen if God and cancer met and had a conversation. No, she shouldn't have to die this way. It's just not fair.

For all your effort spent studying medicine- the myriad of drugs and treatment options available- you just can't understand why it can't save the life of someone you love. You see limitations, not healing; travesty, not hope. All that logical reasoning just goes out the window. It goes out the window when it happens to you, to someone you love, someone you know who is someone's mother, grandmother, child, wife, sister and child.

Lately, many friends dear to me have been losing people. We're at the age where our parents are old enough to be diagnosed with vindictive diseases, grandparents old enough to die. I kind of knew it would happen, sooner or later, but something in my mind just blocked it out. Yet, somehow, those memories, few but rich, and that strong blood tie stitched into my being made the impact far, far greater than I expected.

This strong, strong woman, who never complained, never begrudged, who'd been through world wars and fights, struggles and betreyal, who'd singlehandedly raised ten children, one of whom brought me up... lived a life so rich and full of feist that it was maddening to see it end this way, with an anticlimatic thud, a sickening tug in the gut.

Seeing so many other previous patients in hospitals with the same diagnosis doesn't make the truth easier to handle. It makes it harder, still, because you don't believe someone you love so dearly should die the same way as the many others you saw wither away in such agony. No, not in that way please. You can't take it lying down that the name of someone you love is reduced to a mere disease, a treatment plan, a do-to item on a doctor's list. You want the doctor to perform a miracle, to reverse the cause. You believe people should live forever. She cannot go. I don't want her to go. It's just not fair.

All that logic goes out the window. It's different when it happens to you. To someone you love. Nothing really makes sense.

Today, as I cringed at the sight of the many teenage couples holding predictably cliched bouquets bought at jacked-up prices, I began to realise how often we forget, that love is not an expression during an occassion but about the little things in everyday life- the way my parents try so hard to be quiet when in the morning so I have another extra half-hour of sleep, the way a cup of tonic is left on the table before they leave for work, the way they always come home on time for dinner.

And perhaps what truly made the news harder to bear, unbearable for a moment, were the anguished thoughts of irritation, shameful resentment and utter selfishness I bore toward someone who ought to have had more place, more love, more respect from me in my life. Why didn't I show more hospitality, more warmth, more compassion? Why had I guarded my boundaries of comfort so jealously instead of putting someone else's needs first before my own? Why couldn't I love the way my parents have taught me to love? Why did I practise a love of convenience?

We think we're being noble to put in our hearts to study medicine, especially at this time where we put everything aside to study for our exams, but what hypocrisy is exposed when we do so at the expense of spending quality time with our friends and family, those whose time with us is short and numbered. How can we claim to give people life when we don't cherish them enough ourselves?

I am guilty.

The tears were unexpected. The volatile feelings of sudden grief, confusion and anger, punctuating the time after the news were unexpected.


It's always hard to say goodbye.


And maybe this is part of growing up, part of turning twenty-two. Finally understanding, not merely intellectually but truly understanding our temporality and vulnerability, the meaning of our visit through this passing world. Finally understanding and seeing my hypocrisy for what it truly is, feeling the grief of its weight and repenting. Finally understanding how selfless true love is, how immature, silly and petty selfishness and resentment can be, and the importance of cherishing those around me, because they could be gone from me twenty years from now, two months from today or... tomorrow.


So don't hold back if you love someone, even though you think it should be obvious. Don't nit-pick or set rules or guard your terrain because if you love someone, you'd be willing to swallow your pride, willing to back down, willing to suffer for their joy. Don't, because they won't be here forever.


1 in 3 people die from cancer. No one lives forever. Everyone has to say goodbye.


I have to remind myself, that these are the facts of life. And through it all, the thicket of confusion, of questioning and of grief, reminding myself that God's grace will abound in this time of challenge, that His love will be a covering for us all, a wing of comfort we can dwell under together. That life is transient, but we look forward to an eternal place where we can find hope and everlasting joy in.

It's never easy to say goodbye. But we put our hope in God, and His grace will be more than enough.

" Each man's life is but a mere breath...

But now Lord, who do I look for?

My hope is in you."

- Psalm 39: 5b, 7

Lost in Translation.

I've been looking forward to this Saturday for weeks. Yes, it's Valentine's Day, and one filled with a special programme at that. I begin a new phase of an excellent and intensive missions training programme, and I can't wait.

Saturday, with its mix of lovey-doveyness and missions-mindedness, got me thinking about the kind of people we're called to love- the poor, needy, broken-hearted. It got me thinking about the way we're called to give and receive love.

Because in some ways, we are all poor, needy, broken-hearted-just, in different ways, in different places. And so many of our conflicts, among friends or family, arise not merely out of simple disagreement, but rather, a deficit in the communication of love.

Can you remember the last time you felt hurt, disappointed, slighted? Hurt because of a harsh word, disappointed because of a forgotten act, slighted because of another useless present? But the person never meant to convey what you received. He thought he was merely "being frank", the act of going two extra miles instead of one didn't cross his mind, or he's just not really a gift person. Fissures appear, hurt hearts withdraw into the safety of their hardened fortresses. And all, not because of a deficit of love, but a deficit in what was conveyed.

Just, lost in translation.

Just as how looking someone in the eye may convey honour and love in our culture, doing so in Africa may convey disrespect. In different contexts, our actions are received differently, even though all we meant to do was love, simply because we're all made differently, speak different love languages. Going to Nepal and giving a freezing child my old jacket would make me his hero, but doing so to a friend here may be plain offensive.

I begin to realise, so acutely, how love can only truly be conveyed in all its fullness and glorious potential when we take the effort to find out what love language the other person speaks.

Gary Chapman wrote the international best-selling book about the 5 love languages- namely, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, physical touch and gifts. People have different primary ones and hence love and receive love differently. While one may feel most loved when offered to be given a lift home(acts of service), another may see it as a mere customary gesture; While one may feel profoundly adored and cherished by a hug (physical touch), another may find it too close for comfort, feeling most loved instead by a chat over coffee on a lazy afternoon (quality time). And then there're silly people like me, whose hearts are won not by the lifts home, or the expensive presents, but the cards, and the words in them. Or the simple random text message saying, "Hellooooo. I love you" -which would be completely absurd and worthless to someone else. We are poets won by words, and wring them dry of love to fill our cups.

But therein lies the conundrum, the double-edged sword.

Over the past few months, I've been observing the love languages of my family and close friends, only to find how vastly different our love languages are. Most of them love me through acts of service- while that sits last on my list. And while I love writing notes and cards to people, long text messages and emails because that is how I'd love to be loved, I realise many others would have preferred a practical gift, or my remembering to photocopy that examination ten-year series for them. People who have physical touch as their primary love language may feel insecure in a conservative culture such as ours, while people like myself find ourselves deeply pierced by a prickly word, far more than someone with a different love language. Some never understand how one could be hurt by a mere careless comment, when the other had gone the extra mile to run a difficult errand for him ("Oh, but I didn't mean to say it so harshly, just a joke! But I did this for you, didn't I?") ; some never understand how one could write the most eloquent love poetry and then fail to even show up (" Sorry I was late- I always am, right? But I hope you like the poetry").

And so we walk around, trying our best to love and be loved, but failing in so many places, and getting hurt even in the slightest ways, and bring our hurts around, too.

Some brattish part of me wished my family would be more expressive in their words of encouragement, more flowery, more intimate. But as time passes, and I understand their upbringing, their world, I see how profoundly loving they are, not in the way I want- but deeply, deeply loving nonetheless. There are always, always apples in the fridge because I love them, and they very often go the extra mile to get these particularly lovely ones from a particular store; they don't text me much but they call to ask if I need a lift because it's pouring; they don't write me much or spend much time with me because of work, but they never fail to provide. Provision and acts of service are their primary love language, because of the difficult backgrounds they came from, and realising this has been extremely eye-opening for me.

Is there someone you love whom you feel disappointed with, and when you look deep enough, is it really because he doesn't love you, or that he doesn't love you in the way you want to be loved.

So I am learning. To give love in the way others long to be loved, and to receive love likewise. I begin to see how profoundly challenging this is, because we're all wired differently- but I'd like to try nonetheless. Our primary love languages will never change- words will always have such an intimate way with me- but I can try to learn how others want to be loved, and try to understand how others are loving me, too. I can be more aware of their love languages, and learn to be less needy, less demanding, lower my unnecessary expectations. I can see how they want to be served, and serve their need there, too.

Fortunately, I also realise- that words are cheap (the person who wrote me poetry never came through), and I can learn to value wholesome, practical actions which others give me because these always, always come through. And in the areas where my fleshly limits simply fail to fill the gaps of love, I must remember, that God's love is big enough. Big enough to plug all those gaps, holes in our souls, and because of his sufficient love, I can be healed, restored, overflowing with more than enough to give love to others, too.

Perhaps it helps to remember, that it is not that we are not loved, but just, not in the way we want to be.


We love and are loved imperfectly, but God's perfect love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)



So while I'll always have my drawer filled with a stack of random notes, cards and letters, folders of saved text messages and emails, and a truckload of memory space for all the words said to me, hand the gifts over anyway, and nobody gets hurt.

"This is the message you heard from the beginning:

We should love one another."

- 1 John 3:11

Cycling Lessons.

Perhaps one reason why I've grown to love biking so much, more than the heady thrill of it, more than how it reminds me of my overcoming fear (never rode a two-wheeled bicycle properly in ten years then upgraded to a roadbike within 2 months), is how much truth I find it teaches me. Ever so often when I find myself on the road, an epiphany hits me and I pause in amazement to take in the revelation, fresh like a breath of air.

I've been learning a few cycling lessons of late.


Lesson 1: Stop planning.
Lesson 2: Be distracted.
Lesson 3: Don't rely on yourself.


I see you raising your eyebrows. I can explain.

Lesson 1: Stop planning.

All our lives we've been taught to plan. Plan, and you will succeed. And so we've sold ourselves to this Planning Conspiracy where every single minute of our lives has to be recorded down in a compartmental box on a calendar. Work fills our days. And on the days we don't, how many of us can confess, unsheepishly, that we've never succumbed to that obsessiveness of planning whattodo, whotomeet, wheretogo next. Being busy is normal, fashionable even.

Don't get me wrong. I believe planning is important. My final exams for the year are in 2 weeks, and I've a calendar with my study plan right here.

But for too long, how many of us have set one too many goals, penned down one too many targets to reach, worried and obsessed over one too many Things to Do on our neverending list? We plan weeks, months at a time, (to attend this course, accomplish this project, participate in this race, read these number of books) and the pressure comes not merely from the sheer list drafted, but really, from the worry of our inability to fulfill them.

I was roadbiking the other day, with my new-found training partners on the road. They're triathletes and biking enthusiasts nice enough to give their time to help me. On a straight stretch of road where we decided to each break up to our own levels of speed, I watched as they tore down the road, disapppearing into the distance, as I tried my very best to keep up, albeit failing to. A seasoned cyclist ahead of me had slowed down, and my next aim was to overtake him.

Heavy vehicles were roaring down the road occasionally, and I had to check behind before I swung out of my line to overtake him. Anxious, I kept looking over my right shoulder to check for oncoming traffic, though I was still metres away from who I was trying to overtake.

It was then that I realised how silly that was. First things first, I should've got close enough to him before checking for traffic. Traffic, being dynamic, changes all the time. What was the point of checking behind if by the time I had decided to overtake, a truck had steamed near enough to hit me? What was the point of checking for traffic so early when he could decide to speed up and race off anytime?

And right there and then it struck me- isn't that how we live our lives sometimes too? We make plans way ahead of time, bullheadedly and adamantly, make a tonne of resolutions, even take measured steps to reach them, but forget to leave room for God, fail to leave room for the dynamics of life, which change as God leads. When we're so fixed on fulfilling tasks and meeting targets with such unrelenting definition, ignoring changes in circumstance or ourselves, not leaving space for our plans to change because "I have to do this", life becomes so... stifling.


It's funny. In the past, I used to plan my weeks, months in advance with meticulous precision. I believed those hard-lined goals would mould character, those unyielding deadlines would instil discipline. Yet, for all my punctilious planning, I never was happy. I got very, very sick instead. Tired. Heavy-burdened and weary. But now that I've learnt to trust in God a day at a time, making enough plans only to give me some sense of direction but leaving much, much room for His call for change and His guiding, leaving room to listen to my body (am I doing too much?) and circumstance (has the situation changed?), to His voice, I find I accomplish much, much more than I ever set out to do in the first place, with much more joy, peace and satisfaction, simply because I've more energy and zeal without the self-imposed stresses.

When we choose to give up our obdurate natures, lay down our pride, surrender our futures to God, trusting Him to take us through whatever may come our way, releasing to Him our worries, anxieties and must-dos, trusting Him to take us to the top when we remain faithful to His calling, allowing ourselves to become pliant and flexible, limber and yielding, life becomes a whole lot more enjoyable, easy and fun, too. You never know when God will surprise you, never know when a turn in the road may take you somewhere so new.

Pliance is not weakness. Yieldedness, not leniency. In fact, when we allow ourselves to be flexible and give God permission to s-t-r-e-t-c-h us, we, like elastic bands, surprise ourselves with simply how much we could hold.

Which is why I am learning not to plan rigorously for another book, not to plan to join another race, not to dictate God's will by saying which specialty I intend to pursue, not to make it another item chiseled intransigently onto my to-do list. Planning is important, yes, but focusing on Now instead of boasting in a misty future, hitting goals which are but temporal is even more so. Yes, I shall continue to do my best to be a good steward of the gifts God has given me, shall continue to train, shall continue to dream, but I am learning- that above and beyond this, letting God and giving Him room to work, to change our plans, to be the author of the ending is far, far more exciting. I never planned for Kitesong, and now, when I've decided to throw away my training plan and listen to my body instead, I find I train much better simply because I've learnt to enjoy it so much, because I'm giving God room to say "that's enough for today".

When I was so intent on checking for traffic so I could hit my target ahead, I could hardly enjoy the ride anymore. But as I understood the laws of change and waiting, taking action when the time called for it instead of taking two steps too soon, allowing room for variability and change, and focused on pushing myself instead of looking outside for affirmation, things fell into place and my bike took over quietly, swiftly, steadily.

Hence, lesson one for me: Stop planning. Start living.



Lesson 2: Be distracted.

I love riding at the beach. Being a large part of my childhood, the beach is a place I can unfold in, and I feel the sea speak to me each time I visit it. But ever notice how when you race down a path, with your eyes transfixed ahead, the wind blares in your ears, and all you hear is the wind resisting your inexorable advance? And I can no longer hear the sea. It is far away.

The world tells us never, ever to take our eyes off our targets. Not even for a split second. Is that why so many of us lose ourselves in temporal goals, failing to realise they are but a chasing-after-the-wind, and it is really what we learn in the process that counts? And I realise, it is only when I tilt my head ever so slightly, allowing myself to be distracted from the road ahead (if only for a moment), that I can hear the ebb and flow of the tide, its pulsing song, and careful whisper.

We go to the beach to enjoy the sea, but when we're there, we forget it altogether. Are we like that too, do we become so focused on racing ahead that we forget the point we started our journeys in the first place- that is, to learn lessons, to enjoy the scenery, to listen to what God has to whisper to us?

Sometimes, perhaps it's good to take your eyes off the road ahead for a while, stop for a moment, and hear what God has to speak to you. He might very well ask you to change your path, change lanes, stop for a moment to admire the rising crimson sun in the dawn, and it could very well be worth it.



Hence, lesson 2. Be distracted. In the good sense, of course.



Lesson 3: Don't rely on yourself.

The world tells us to be fiercely independent, that it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, that no one besides yourself is reliable. I used to be entirely self-sufficient, and darn proud of it too. But I am learning, it is only when we allow ourselves to expose our vulnerabilities that we open ourselves to many a good samaritan out there, who've much to teach, much to share.

Ever since I made new cycling friends (those triathlete enthusiasts with time and energy to spare to teach an amateur as myself) I realise how much I enjoy their company, even though we don't have much in common, because they make the journey easier. I hardly go as fast when I ride by myself. One's aching muscles literally make cycling a pain in the butt. But Friendship makes the toughest roads easier to ride through, and the funny thing is, they even stretch us to distances we never thought possible. With friends, one forgets the pain and monotony in the ride. Also, when you ride behind someone more experienced (called 'drafting'), you ride much easier because he's helped you cut out the wind resistance.

Friends are precious. Hence lesson 3- there's no point pretending to rely on oneself all the time. God gave us friends.


And so I've really grown to love my roadbike, for all the lessons it teaches me, like learning how to live a day at a time in God's grace, and all the growing up it's been helping me to do. Just the way I'd like to turn twenty-two.

"Now listen, you who say,

'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money'

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life?

You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Instead, you ought to say,

"If it is God's will, we will live and do this or that..."

-James 4:13-15

Consecration.

It was as if I had a fit. A fit, because I felt so passionate about it I could no longer contain it. A fit, but not really, because it had been stirring inside me over days. Over days, since that special night we went awalking in the back alleys of our city's red-light district.

Something deep and powerful was brewing within, something I could not place my finger on. Polarities stirred wildly within me- hatred and love, filthiness and purity, desecration and santification. I hated what I saw that night- yet, nothing could erase it. A profound hatred for the sights grew within me: the sins of lust, greed, vanity and pride were epitomised along those alleys and yet, it was matched by an equally deep compassion for those souls, so lost. Something of the filthiness echoed familiarly within me like a memory in the shape of Ed, yet a burning desire for purity pleaded from the wells of my heart. Just the remembrance of the sight brought out my own desecration hiding within.

Consecration. Someone had mentioned this to me just a week ago, asking me, God has given you a special calling-so what part of your life do you feel Him asking you to consecrate?

Consecrate: the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service, literally means "setting apart".

Why do I want to be set apart? What does that mean? I didn't know how to answer that question. So I prayed.


I hated what I saw that night, and the hatred grew deeper, deeper still over the days. It bore too much truth to my own filthiness- the prostitutes reminded me that I too, had prostituted myself to the whims of this world, seeking man for approval instead of God, searching for security, identity and praise in the wrong places. Haven't we all?

Most, if not all girls go through a phase where they have absolutely no idea how to love themselves. Walking through those alleys opened my eyes to make me realise, that my micro-skirt phase only began when Ed entered my life, when he convinced me that one's self-worth was based on Man's approval, however base it was. And after the contemptibility of what I saw, what it reminded me of, I told myself I'd never, ever want to be looked at that way by any man ever again in my life. I want to learn to love myself, find my approval in God and God alone.

It was as if I had a fit. A fit, because I felt so passionate after that day I could no longer contain it. A fit, but not really, because I was calm, thoughtful and methodical about it.

Over the past few days, I have cleared out my wardrobe over and over. Over and over. Just when I thinkI'm finally done, I return to the four-walled monster that housed so much of Ed's choices, so much that now remind me of what I saw in those back alleys, so much that screamed of insecurity and attention... and found myself clearing out more trash, over and over, over and over.

This must be the most vicious clear-out I've done, and some part of me thinks I could've been more vicious, still. About half to two-thirds of my clothes are gone now- all that short, semi-luscent trash (many of them gifts and hand-me-downs from top-brand shops I wouldn't have the audacity to step into, some with their pricetags still on) packed into bags; lots of good, wholesome but extra clothing I felt led to give away to the thrift shop at HighPoint and the orphans in Nepal; a towel and a windbreaker for Grandpa Zhou ("Oh it's so so chilly here at night," he told me by the dirty train steps, clad in a paper-thin plastic poncho which should've been incinerated a century ago. "I know I smell a little bad," he says, "It's been so cold and I'm so old that I can't bathe every day, you know!" )

Why do I have two windbreakers. So many towels.

All that Trash sitting in my four-walled monster. Trash, I've decided to call it. Why do I have so many shirts. Even what is good, if in excess and not shared, becomes Trash. Like the way hoarded love, hidden treasures or stashed-away money does.

God is with the poor, the needy and with those who choose to Consecrate themselves. Consecrate, not necessarily in a religious sense, but simply from the heart, laying something down to dedicate yourself to a service or purpose.

Consecration or being set apart, to me, is a cleansing of the heart, coming closer to the heart of God. That's all it is.

So half-or-twothirds-of-a-wardrobe-given-away later, I feel much more at peace, cleaner, lighter and happier too.

I want to go back to the start and find that simple girl again. That girl, who hated shopping and took forever to decide to pierce her ears because she feared it would be a waste of money, who was happy owning only her sister's hand-me-downs and who never cared too much about how she looked, what she owned. That simple girl, happy in her White world, happy to live simply, naturally, wholesomely. That simple girl whom God gave Simple inspiration to write and paint because her heart was simple, too.

Perhaps, it is when we are finally able to live simply, naturally, unpretentiously, without excess nor fanfare, ordinarily and plainly, that we can truly, Live- simply and wholesomely, and truly be set apart.

"But know that God has set apart the godly for Himself him who is godly;

The Lord will hear when I call to Him."

-Psalm 4:3

Faint. (edited)

Perspective is an interesting thing. All this while I had been peering through a window into a dusty room searching for an answer, sometimes torn, being pulled from different sides to peer in from various angles which made my heart go faint, when all of a sudden, I was taken to the opposite side and saw what I had been missing.

I see clearly now. What beautiful spring flowers in lush, green fields. And my heart grows stronger.

Questions as we come of age: What does it mean to be a godly woman. What is a gentle and quiet spirit. What does Growing Up mean. God, why do you ask me to stay single till I graduate? How come I feel You continually confirming it. Why is there this longing within. And most importantly... What does being Secure in You mean?


In exactly a month's time, I turn Twenty-two... and I want to know.


One moment, I think I've found the answers to my questions. Then God surprises me with a disatisfaction, a colic in the belly, a turmoil in the heart, and reveals even deeper truths to me, which tell even more about my heart's intent than I ever knew existed. Why the relentless restlessness.

All this while I was looking into the enclosed, darkened room, searching for answers, getting distracted by a thousand suggestions ("Wai Jia, you should 'go out' more, you know, nothing wrong with dating..." ), feeling like they don't understand- when You took me by the arm and gently led me to Your side, so I could see view of the wide, open fields I had been missing all this while.

What beautiful spring flowers in lush, green fields. Spring flowers which would surely die had I tried to plant them in that dusty, darkened room.

With uninvited suggestions from all around, I neither like feeling torn nor confused. And just when I had been searching, seeking, knocking, an angel was sent to affirm me, affirm what I felt You had been telling me all this while:


That Singleness is a gift. That there is such a deep purpose in this time You have asked me to set aside, so I may get to know You with such profound intimacy. That this period is set aside for me to find perfect joy, wholeness and peace in You first, that it may be reflected in that special relationship when it finally comes. That it is a blessing, such a great blessing, to have my mind undistracted by relationships meant for a different season of my life.

That we first know You as a child, then servant, and friend but ultimately there come a time where we must know You as our lover. That it is only when we fill our insecurities and longings with You alone that we shall ever be fulfilled. That You love and adore us so incredibly that I shall never falsely place my worth in any other. That it is this focused clarity giving me such Oneness with You which will end in perfect consummation with You and any other.

That the deeper I go in You, the deeper I can go into any relationship- because marriage is the closest reflection of Your love for us. That You are so intensely jealous of me now that Your heart burns for me to know You more, that this is the season You desire my focused and most intimate conversations with You.

In the past, when I knew You only as a faraway father or king, I never knew what Your hug felt like. Those years when I was ill and battling insomnia too, Ed would sleep in with me and grope, making nights painfully anxious, dreadful. But now I've entered a season where I fall into sleep with Your eyes still watching me, as You lie next to me, waiting. And when I awake, your eyes never left from the point mine left Yours.


" God has given you certain special callings. How else can you fulfill them fully without knowing Him fully?"


There is some beautiful poetry in the bible called the Song of Songs, which taken literally, writes of the deeply sensual relationship between a woman and man, from courtship to consummation. Allegorically, however, it is a representation of the relationship between God and us as husband and wife.


Such is the passion which God burns with for us, and hopes for us to burn with for Him too. Unless we, as women, learn to bring our questions to Him, we will forever bring our insecurities to Adam, who, too, is fallen. And Eve shall never be content, shall forever be wounded, insecure, demanding for more. That hole will never go away.


Oh how my heart faints in weakness, but faints even more so for You.


The more I love You, the more I find myself whole. The more I love You, the more I can love myself, and others, too. And while my loving You neither quenches nor lessens the human desires within, it changes me to understand the profound depths of love I can now experience, and thus experience later on.


And I will not harden my heart and claim superficial independence from this yearning within which comes up with periodic precision... for I am neither Man nor God. I am woman. Instead, I surrender and admit my human vulnerability and feminine weakness. It is universal, after all. This shall only be for a season. And while my heart faints, God, I shall wait, because I know the time will come. And it will be in perfect Time. I would be properly whole, then.


But I take joy in knowing that even in my time of Waiting, I can rejoice that we are looking through an open window, from the right side. I can rejoice in the certainty that this season has a Purpose. I can rejoice without feeling torn nor confused that I'm not taking advice to go out, because I have heard You speak clearly to me, time and again. (Isn't it such a waste of time to do things at the wrong season? Like making spring blossoms grow in winter. Planting daisies in a darkened room.)


So I look at the lush, green fields, its ready harvest, and watch Your flowers grow in season, and with You by me, I feel my heart grow stronger.

" O daughters of Jeruselem, I charge you-

if you find my Lover,

what will you tell Him?

Tell Him I am faint with love."

- Song of Songs 5:8

One heart.

I didn't realise it's been a whole year since I met Grandpa Zhou. A whole year since I made friends with him who I thought to be a terribly rude and ungrateful old busker sitting by the train station, who used to wave off the notion of God and subscribed more to the religion of Mao Ze Dong more than anything else. A whole year since I brought him to the community health clinic because his deformed feet swelled from malnutrition. It's been a year, he's been much better- and he's stopped drinking, too. Now, instead of only eating white bread and soup daily, he has proper meals three times a week at a church near his home which gives out free lunches to the needy. His complexion is no longer sallow, and he looks much better, too.

"I like that place so much, the people are so nice to me," he says.


Just two days ago, I went to visit him again to give him some things. One by one, he took out each item from the bag and recited all the ingredients to me. His eyes glowed when he saw the pack of instant coffee- "My favourite brand! OWL BRAND!"

The people who are Nice or Mean to him. His meals. My future career. My future marriage. Chinese politics. God. These are the topics over which our friendship was sealed over 12 months.

Just a year ago, he was rude and mean to me when I first met him. And I wanted to scowl at his audacious ingratitude. But God's love was big enough for both myself and him, and so two hearts became one over time, over our chats on the grimy steps of the train station, beneath the stares of passers-by. " You God-believing people are so good to me. You know, I think God is real. I believe you now. I feel so happy when I sing the songs they teach us at that church when we have lunch. I've made so many friends- and none of them look down on me! "

This Saturday, we're attending dinner and Christmas celebrations at my White Place together.



We were just chatting, as usual, in Mandarin by the dirty steps of the train station, and it was he who asked me about my future, again.

"Yeah, it's great that you want to be a missionary doctor in future. But you know, you mightn't ever find anyone who might like to do this kind of work. Ever."

His frankness should've appalled me, but I've gotten used to his candid honesty, which in some ways, match my own.

"That's not true, Grandpa Zhou. I actually do know people like that," I said matter-of-factly. A year ago, the same statement might have shaken, unnerved me a bit, but a year later, I find myself at peace.

"Really? Ha, okay. Say... say you meet someone you really, really like- handsome, smart, from a similar background as yourself- in short you find him irresistable, but he doesn't want to do this kind of work... then what're you going to do?"

I laughed at the hypothetical question, then frowned because I was trying so hard to imagine myself being captivated by someone who didn't have the same heart as I did, trying so hard to imagine why God would put me in such a dilemma. But I took him a little seriously, lest it was a warning, though in my head, it seemed impossible, and I laughed out loud.

"Not possible," I giggled. I was trying with all my strength to imagine such a situation but I simply couldn't. I wondered if it was my charming insouciance which unnerved him a bit.

" Ah, that's what you say now, young one. You never know, you just, never know. What if, eh? What if. You're so young... ... BUT. If you do find someone whose heart beats as ONE with yours, then... you'll be very very blessed! "

I laughed. Then resolved to remember this moment, and find time to write down what God told me about my future White Knight. I'd written it down before- I ought to look for it. When 2 people come together, surely their hearts must beat as one, together with God's- as one big One, no?

Last week I met a missionary doctor from America, introduced to me from the previous missionary I had met at the recent medical outreach event I attended. She's been travelling alone to India, Indonesia, all over the world for years alone, serving the poor and healing the sick.

I knew the answer to my burning question to her but I asked anyway. "Do you get lonely?"


" I still wish I had someone with me, the longing never goes away. And people back home in USA chide me for travelling so much- they say I ought to go home to find someone. Why can't I help the poor in America? But you know before I left, I tried to negotiate with God my reasons for staying behind... and I knew deep inside that none of them were valid. Job security, finding a soulmate, familiar faces... what are these to me when my heart is with the poor?"

She looked at the book in my hands- A Chance to Die by Amy Carmichael. "You know that remarkable single woman left everything she had in Ireland to serve in India. When she died, her heart was buried there."

And I reached the point where tears built up behind my eyes. I was trying hard not to cry- I didn't want her to feel embarrassed by her sacrificial love she thought of as hardly significant in comparison to how God loved her. But when we parted, my hug was probably one bit too tight, my voice one bit too shaky when I thanked her.

One heart. She couldn't find anybody else's which beat in sync with hers, so she left anyway, to do the good work she felt called to do, with her ear pressed to the bosom of her Father's heartbeat. When I spoke to her, she was full of joy, with no regrets. And I knew if she had made a compromise, her One heart would break in two.



It's so Important to find a heart that beats like yours. Important, and not impossible, I still maintain.


Just last night, a friend called me just to tell me, "I'm attached and I wanted you to hear it from me." I could have cried when I heard who she was with. I looked up so much to her. A graduate from dentistry, we often talked about doing medical mission work in the future. She has a heart of gold, and I often wondered if she would end up serving the poor alone. "He's such a good man, " I said. "I'm so happy for you."

When I graduate, things will somehow fall into place. Before she graduated, she couldn't imagine her future either. But at the right time, things just fall into place, I suppose. I don't know why I feel such a strange peace about this- I never did before.


So I'll keep my heart in One piece for now, One with God who has called me, till the day I graduate and wait till another finds mine, where us three can become One. The day that happens, I know I'll remember that moment on those dirty grimy steps, and I hope I'll still be in touch with Grandpa Zhou to tell him with the cheeky giggle and charming insouciance I always talk to him with, " I told you so, ya?"


Ha.

"Delight yourself in the Lord,

and He will give you the desires of your heart."

-Psalm 37:4

Lord of my Ring. (*with edits made)

Heavy with symbolic value, rings often have Stories behind them. I've been asked countless times about the ring I wear, most times to my amusement.

"Are you married?"

" So who's the new person in your life?"

I always laugh politely, and then deftly shift the limelight away from myself. There is a Story, a long one at that, one which I've never explained in full.

A lot of friends have been talking about relationships lately- I suppose it's a new phase of life we are entering. Twenty-one. Tis such a young age, isn't it, to be attached? Most of us aren't quite ready for marriage, are we? I thought aloud, and I should have prepared myself for the various opposing views bombarded at me like a pelting storm. I'm surprised- because most people I've spoken to say they are ready. It made me wonder what it was really in particular that I wasn't ready for, why it was so, when I would be, and the values lurking underneath these thoughts- whether they were skewed, maladjusted or just downright strange. It set me thinking.

Most of the people I spoke to have known God all their lives. They're steady, grounded, matured- full of vision and faith for their futures. Thus, even my closest friends haven't fathomed why I consider myself un-ready, and it set me thinking deep.

I've only known God for about 4 years or so, just before medical school started. Before that, life felt like one dark blanket under which I was suffocating under, and it's only recently that I started to experience the goodness of basking in sunlight. While believing in God has been the best thing that's ever happened to me, its first few years have also thrown me onto my knees, forcing me to overhaul every old belief system I ever held on to, and the excruciating process of purging manifested itself in the most tumultuous storms in my life- depression and anorexia. It's only been lately that God has walked me out of it, and I once again feel like a child, watching the world with new eyes in awe and wonder, discovering and rediscovering things I never knew. It's silly, I know, but I feel all but four years old living life all over again.

Don't they always tell you to live your best for God while you're single, and not to rush into what will come in its own timing? Nonetheless, like a determined detective, I interrogated myself. Was the ring a convenient excuse to distant myself from entering into something I was too uncertain of? Was I hiding? Was I afraid? Friends have asked me over and over, and I find myself tongue-tied, at best.

Having just walked through the darkest moments of my life, I find myself wanting to spend this season of my life finding my feet, and growing to know God more intimately. Like a blind man seeing the world for the first time, I find myself discovering bits of life and parts about myself I never knew before, and I'm amazed, constantly, by this process of rediscovery. Like a child playing with his own fingers, I find myself awed by the mystery and wonder of what God has given me and yet I never took notice of before all my life. So right now my eyes are transfixed on God, on His creativity, sovereignty and wonder, and on the beauty of life.

Being in a relationship is altogether another moulting process to go through, one of dying to oneself, and perhaps most appropriate only after one has securely found one's identity in God's love. I think I've so much to learn before entering that phase of my life- about servitude, humility, submission- qualities which go against the very grain of one's wilful nature.

As fantasial as it sounds, I have come to believe, through a series of consistent and freaky events, that God's message for me is to remain faithful to this cause of growing in Him, learning these lessons till the day I graduate. The time is now- to learn and to prepare my heart.


So the ring will come off then.


The missionary who sat me down to chat with me at a medical outreach carnival last weekend connected with me immediately because we found so much in common. She, too, had a ring Story. Born in Australia, she backpacked alone to Indonesia to help the poor and needy, with a ring on her finger just like mine, believing in God to be her all-sufficiency. The week she lost her ring, her pastor coincidentally called her from overseas to tell her to open up her heart to someone who may enter into her life to serve the underprivileged together with her. That weekend, a Singaporean mission team went to visit Indonesia and her husband-to-be was right there.

While I'm not saying anything as dramatic as that may happen to me, I do believe that God has a plan for me, for someone out there, and no ring is going to stop His plans from unfolding. Love is like that, I think- you've known this person all your life, unromantically, but suddenly in the right season, sparks fly, or you've never seen this person before but how come it seems like deja vu? So I think in the right season, at the right time, things will -just- happen, in a way we least expect, and we will have the assurance that God timed it, planned it. Everything will fall into place- the person would want to do missions too, he'd love God, have a good heart, we'd have the right chemistry and understanding for each other etcetera etcetera.

That said, I was a little disturbed by what my own time of reflection revealed. For deep below these seemingly well-reasoned explanations, I found a bag of fear lying like a sack of old potatoes in the basement of my heart. For I've heard too many stories, listened to too many warnings, met one too many Confused/ Scary/ Fickle/ Overly-anxious/ Bad Men. I've never been in a relationship, for what I discovered before entering one always made me sigh in tremendous relief, the way you would after dodging a speeding race-car on a roadrage.

I'm happy to meet people, make friends, form deep, lasting friendships now. After all, relationships don't happen in a day. But I was surprised, of how much the thought of someone asking for any more from me right now terrified me. I'm still afraid of Bad Men (the terribly charming but flighty kind, the pretending-to-be-godly kind, who's said to a chain of girls-"God's told me you're the one", the smooth-talking kind...), of the terribly slick and poetic things they say and don't stick to, of what they feel and then conveniently don't feel.

One grows wary of one's own heart. For I am an artist, and mine pulsates and gravitates the way an artist's does. Yet in spite of my desires, I seize and attempt to gain mastery over it, again and again, lest it falls into the wrong hands. For the heart is deceitful above all things... who can fathom it? -(Jeremiah 17:9)

Shocked and shaken before, it has become fragile, wary, Vulnerable, and now taken captive behind a fortress for protection. And it makes me wonder who would be brave enough to go all the way to regain its trust, to prove faithful and true, to break through the stony fort to retrieve it from deep inside. I'm afraid, petrified- of things too fast, too soon. Just the thought of it grips me like a vice and turns my insides into chaos. I wonder how long it would take for my trust to be won again.

And then there's that part of me, a by-product of Disneyworld, which believes women should never, ever initiate- that knights are supposed to do all the talking, swordfighting, pursuing, and dragon-slaying... you'd have to kill me first before I let anything out. So I wait, mute, and talk to God. Feelings arise and yet, I vacillate, hiding, bringing it before God and Him only. For while I trust that God'll protect my heart because it is ultimately His first, it'll take some time before my defenses come down again.

Perhaps the most excruciating bit of this whole process is the part poised between friendship and courtship, that nebulous, undeciding, tension-packed period filled with questions, imaginings, fears and longings. It is that which I find my heart most afraid of- the sleepless stress of it all, partially from past experiences, unnerves me completely.

I wish people were honest, forthright and certain. I wish signs were easier to read. But everything is clouded in such uncertainty and second-guessing that I can only have God to count on. I also happen to believe that unless one can see oneself married in the next two or three years or so, one might not be ready for a serious relationship. So shoot me for being terribly old-fashioned. It made me wonder why there're no rules to this whole thing- I think I might need an Idiot's manual.

So while it was not easy, I had to admit to myself, that that's partially why I've got my ring on. When I was five and my best friend proposed to me, I mustered the strength to tell him squarely (though I felt like jelly inside and wanted to pee in my pants), "I can't marry you because you're shorter than me. We can still be best friends, okay?" We both genuinely believed that height was crucial factor to our eternal happiness and left it at that. But something tells me that reason won't quite work for me now- and I don't want to be famous for an episode of urinary incontinence in public.

So more than what I think God has spoken to me, perhaps the ring provides a temporary cushion from my fears, too. A place deep inside, hurt before, has gone into hiding now, deep within the woods. It's got a big scary mask on and a rifle strapped around its shoulder, making pleas to keep a safe distance away from it. Please don't tell me anything now, not now- it would scare the living daylights out of me. I'm not afraid of cockroaches, or the dark, or para-gliding, but please don't give me flowers now.


It would give me a heart attack.


Not now. Later is good. When I've found my feet firmly planted in God, when I've found my sole security in His love, when I've taken the time to moult, and learnt to prepare myself for the next phase of my life-where I'll have to swallow my pride, die to myself and put another human being first- all in the name of this strange thing called love.

Later is good- when I graduate, when I've been given enough time to overcome my fears, when I've been won over by someone's consistency and endurance, his faithfulness, courage and truth. Later with a wild bouquet and a handwritten note and a hug and a new ring and some plans for missions would be good. So for now, I think I'll just trust in God and wait patiently, take this time to grow in Him and allow Him to melt my fears, and pray that whoever it is would be faithful, brave and patient too.

I think when the time comes, God'll tell me so, and the person, too. We'll -both- be ready. I don't know why, but I think the ring wouldn't matter, wouldn't pose a barrier at all. Nothing stops His plans, does it?

Maybe I'll lose it then, maybe something'll happen to make me take it off. Maybe when I graduate and I'm ready, when God's timing arrives...


... we'll both -just- know.


And then I know my new ring will be special, because it'll be from Him, too.

" Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him; do not fret."
- Psalm 37:7