YExhausted Days
I'm not sure if this is what everyone means by being burnt out but I'm tired. Not just tired; exhausted from the holidays, the weekend, church.
It's fun being around people; I don't deny that. Even though I'm really quiet and I don't contribute much to the conversation, Michelle was right: just because I'm an introvert doesn't mean I don't like being around people. In fact, it might be that because I'm an introvert I like having people around. Or something.
But sometimes it gets too distracting and sometimes when I think I need to pull back I don't and I end up getting tired and disillusioned...
Gets to the point where I'm looking forward to the weekend but when it's actually the weekend everything zooms by so quickly and by the time it's over it's almost Monday and I'm exhausted and nothing turned out the way it was supposed to be.
I guess...I guess I'm tired of carrying the burdens I'm carrying. I guess I'm sick of not being able to surrender to Him. Not totally, you know? Disappointed with myself for getting distracted, not doing what I was supposed to do. Tired of...tired of...not being able to let Him take everything away.
Which is stupid, you know? I'm so stubborn. I know He'll take these bags I'm carrying away from me if I just tell Him. But I can't bring myself to let go. Not yet. Like that story of the monkey sticking his hand into the jar to grab some sweets and not being able to get his hand out because he wouldn't let go of the sweets. When everything could just be poured out for him.
But hello, new week. Hello school. Hello people. Hello.
(p.s. if you really can't understand what I'm saying because of my convoluted sentence structure, please ask me. okay? believe it or not, if you catch me in the right mood, I like to talk. :) )
jac was here with you
1/25/2004 04:56:00 pm
YPostscript
Oh, goodness. My mum found my blog.
jac was here with you
1/23/2004 04:21:00 pm
YThoughts on Love
Had an interesting thought about God's love.
I painted my toenails black over the holidays. Partly to cover up my black toenail so everyone would stop looking at it, partly to match my pretty black C&K heels and partly because I was bored and vain.
My mum got me to take them off. (That, and the fact that I saw in the school diary that we're actually not even allowed to wear nail polish on our toenails.)
She didn't get me take them off by yelling at me or nagging at me about them. She just asked me one day, "When are you taking those off?"
I stared at them. "Soon. Why?"
She looked at me. "Do you have to wear them?"
I always assumed that my mum was all right with me painting my nails, but as we talked I realised she didn't. Even though I've been painting my nails since, what, sec 2, and painting them any colour, at any time, at my whim and fancy, she doesn't like painted nails. I dunno. Maybe she doesn't like them all yellow after I take them off, but the point is she didn't like them. And she still let me paint my nails because I wanted to. She didn't nag or anything. I guess the most she did was look disapprovingly at me, even though I never noticed.
I guess black nails were the last straw. I guess she doesn't like her daughter walking around making everyone think she's on the throes of becoming a goth. (Hee.) So she told me she didn't like it, but it wasn't like I had no choice except to remove it. She just told me and I saw how bothered she was about it and I took them off.
It's a really simple, in fact somewhat silly, illustration of God's love. How He lets us have the free will to do whatever we want and still loves us even though we're disobeying Him. Still does things when we ask.
jac was here with you
1/22/2004 05:50:00 pm
YDecisions
Charles & Keith end of season sale at Novena Square. Shoes staring from $5!!! Oh. My. Gosh. But tomorrow's the last day and they don't have my size. :P
Yes. Being a girly girl today ^^
Eve of the eve of Chinese New Year and I am just so glad for the break. Good time to a. study, b. rest, and c. think. Ooh, yeah. Think.
So I finally got Internet back, but it's a bit weird. Now Word is being temperamental and isn't allowing me to paste anything on it, which is really infuriating. Currently reading a book Daniel lent me called Having A Mary Heart in A Martha World. It's really good and I find I can relate to it really easily. About worry and having a servant's heart and basically making God the centre of your life, no matter how busy it is.
Learnt a few things about being a servant over the course of these few days. About not complaining and doing everything for God. About turning the other cheek when you feel as if you've been wronged.
I thought having a servant's heart would be easy but it really isn't. It's fine when you want to do the task, of course, but it's extremely hard to keep from complaining when you harbour inside you a deep-rooted feeling of injustice. God has revealed to me that I haven't truly let go of the matter and He's slowly teaching me to loosen my grip of the pride that seems to swallow me sometimes.
I learnt something new about seeking God's will while I was dealing with this servant's heart thing. (Everything's all interconnected, and guess what? It all cumulates in a decision I have yet to make.) It's funny. It's such a simple act that it tends to get overlooked in the course of seeking. Like the hidden number in the equation, the tiny mistake that produces the wrong answer.
When we seek God's will about making a decision, first of all we have to surrender the decision to Him. Which means that we have to tell God, "Okay, I have these options. I'm fine with any of them. You just tell me what to choose." Which sounds simple but actually isn't.
I know whenever I'm faced with a choice where the two options seem equally right I will always be partial to the one that benefits me more. Like hotcakes and sausage mcmuffin. Okay, actually I'll take both. But anyway, I've realised that I'll always have in mind the option that I want to choose, and that makes it harder to listen to what God wants me to do and harder to confirm that it is indeed what He wants because I'll always doubt.
I didn't really do anything to consciously surrender this decision to God. But I think back and I think it's just amazing, how one hour before I'd been ranting about never choosing one option, not going to give her the satisfaction, her problem, blah blah blah, and then later, after talking to my mum about it, whoa, I realised I wouldn't mind doing anything and all God had to do was to tell me.
Which I suppose should make making the decision easier, but that's another story.
jac was here with you
1/20/2004 08:04:00 pm
YTrial & Error
I was wrong. The computer guy came, checked the computer and left with it. No more Internet for at least another week.
Was playing Path on my mum's Ericsson while waiting at TTSH yesterday and thought about it and how it relates to life. Path is a game with a grid. There are a few pairs of numbers scattered around the grid, and you're supposed to find a way to join each pair together without crossing the paths of the other pairs.
When you get to the advanced level of Path, sometimes it's really hard to solve the puzzle and oftentimes you have to try a few times, experimenting with the different paths and such. But one thing I've learnt is that you have to try.
And maybe...I don't know...that's what I should do. Just try. But it's so scary; what if I'm doing wrong in God's eyes? Somehow I feel so distant from God...I don't feel His prompting at all. He would tell me if something were wrong but right now I'm really unsure.
So hard; so weird; so scary.
jac was here with you
1/13/2004 10:59:00 am
YX Computer
Mum was doing something on the computer last week, accidentally deleted something and so now we can't go online at all. The computer guy's coming to fix it today but I really think it's a blessing of sorts that the Internet broke down, because it helped me get into school gear again. I had tons of e math homework carried over from the holidays to finish up and not having to computer to distract me helped.
So I'm in the computer lab doing this and I wish I could talk more but the bell has just rung. Aaargh.
jac was here with you
1/12/2004 11:06:00 am
YBlessed Be Your Name
You give and take away, You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, "Lord, blessed be Your name."
I wonder when I will be able to do that.
Leaders' retreat was...well, I got less sleep that I usually do at home, and I kept poor Dan and Justin up (I'm sorry!), talking about things. Read Hannah's blog about the retreat and realised what I felt about and during it was pretty similar to what she said. It had been a nice escape from reality, the starting of school and the O'Level year (why is it O'Level and not O Level? Ooh, Level can be spelt backwards. Just like Hannah!) and I remember a huge feeling of dread as I bade everyone goodbye on Sunday.
Now it's Monday. Kick into full gear, Jac. Set phasers on 'study'. Which means also, "Stop spending so much time online and go and do your e math!"
And the calling thing...I'm still unsure. I feel like Hannah, too. Wanting to serve in music/worship but not knowing if that is my calling. Not knowing that if God wanted me to go to cell ministry instead, I would go.
School's all right, I guess. Not exactly the ideal place to be but then again, we don't live in an ideal world. Having trouble with the booking thing. I don't like booking people but I know I should. Rrrr...
What is my purpose in this school? Not just being this person who goes around booking people like crazy, or the one who's always super busy because she volunteers to do stuff in class because her good friend is the class chair (but not anymore). There's a reason I'm here, and it may be a little late, and it is pretty daunting, but I'm going to find it.
jac was here with you
1/05/2004 05:32:00 pm