fy[i]: faith, hope, love.

twenty-two of eleven: turn of an age

I think some of the most undervalued things in life are friendship and family - they’re so easy to take for granted…

That’s why I want to use my (belated) birthday post to write this for you.

_{Disclaimer: If I write everything my heart means to say here, I will firstly make myself cringe, and secondly make you close the browser (collectively). =P So I’ll try to be succinct.}

No matter what happens in the future, what we’ve been through in life - why I know you, why you’re more than just another face and name to me - those things don’t change anymore.

So that’s why even if:

(a) you can’t be there for me; or
(b) I can’t be there for you; or
(c) you never see/talk to me again,

I’ll still count you as a friend.

Because… remember those times we laughed together, struggled through life together?

I do.

Life never happens in the same way again, and you are/were an essential part of mine. So thank you… <3

Thank God you’re in my life. Stay for awhile? =)

^ My presents!

Michael (ft. Sam & Elisha)’s mushrooms deserve a separate post for the novelty of being Sharpie-coloured REAL mushrooms… anyway here they are!

Red mushroom.

Yellow mushroom.

Green mushroom.

And no, I haven’t forgotten Joel’s present =)

Tiff and Jess - thanks for sleeping over on my birthday weekend… we should catch up/ break more often!! Also, profiteroles are good… thank you~

Everyone at the Covenant Church - thanks for the card… your messages are so sweet. (Thank you, Nam =) Michael, seriously, I nearly looked out the window… but I don’t really need another mark on it!!

Thank you everyone <3

Specially thinking of Shan, Beth, Ruth, Jeni, Candice, Steven, Audrey, Viv, Jenai, Christina, Joey, Ronny, Ad and Vicky… some of whom I haven’t seen for inordinately long time. Michelle, who’s overseas…

If only life happened like one dreamt it would!

But I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

[ 1 Cor 13:11-13]

the sky is purple.

theunknownsfx:

My brother’s photos taken on his phone… aren’t they good??

(Source: dreamoftheeternalsunset)

a love that never fails

And when the rains fell, the water crept around the skirts of houses and buildings and threatened to drown them.

My nose is no longer soft, and those strawberries are memories left in days long gone - in heat and bright daylight, the burning steering wheel as I careened away home.

The hours of light are growing shorter again; and softly, hesitantly, the leaves begin to drift from trees as cars blast past in rude polluted air. Watching a brown/grey skyline from tall apartment balcony, I watch for something - anything - that tells me you are coming closer, that life will continue, that everything will be worth it.

It is only in the following days I feel afresh (while driving at forty kilometres per hour through freeway roadworks, silhouetted in blue; fleeing from ten hour shifts with aching feet and legs; sitting in doorways of peeling paint; escaping in moments of pure music) that everything we are given can be taken away.

And if we are accountable for what we are given, surely we should (a) treasure what we have, (b) be generous with what we have, and (c) be faithful with what we’ve been given, including freedom and air to breathe.

Re-posting this video ‘cause I like it. In the midst of flood, earthquake, tornado and fire - you can never have too much reassurance.

HOPE OF ALL HEARTS » PLANETSHAKERS (via planetshakerstv)

_{what will your legacy be?}

slope

For thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: “ In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” But you would not… (Isa 30:15)

Wait on the LORD;
         Be of good courage,
         And He shall strengthen your heart;
         Wait, I say, on the LORD! (Psa 27:14)

Thus says the LORD:
      “ Cursed is the man who trusts in man
      And makes flesh his strength,
      Whose heart departs from the LORD.

For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
      And shall not see when good comes,
      But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
      In a salt land which is not inhabited.

“ Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
      And whose hope is the LORD.

For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
      Which spreads out its roots by the river,
      And will not fear^[b] when heat comes;
      But its leaf will be green,
      And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
      Nor will cease from yielding fruit. (Jer 17:5-8)

_{Remember: good things are worth waiting for. Always.}

i’ve been staring at the sky tonight, marvelling at passing time

So around this time last year I was in Tasmania, that island nearly everyone forgets is off the coast of the Australian continent and technically is part of it…

Around now, I was:
1) staying up till crazy hours to finish off designing a booklet for orientation for new uni students
2) sending many long emails to several people
3) planning and praying and wondering what to do about the new year
4) discovering that the process of learning exactly what growing up means… is inevitable
5) the feeling of “but i need” is not always so necessary
6) about to run off to Portland for uni
7) worrying about the final year of a uni degree
8) hoping o-week would go fine
9) suffering from a bad relationship
10) learning it was better to be single (but not necessarily easier) after years

When your head is too far up in the clouds, it’s a humiliating and painful experience to hit the ground so hard. You realise as you grow that life is harder than you thought, that people weary of one another and doing good, that music doesn’t always block out the bad thoughts, that rain on dry ground is not always a good thing (when it floods).

At peril of sounding exactly like an inspirational postcard or book that promotes fluffy optimistic words which don’t always help…I think this pretty much sums up my year since then.

Sometimes you can’t change the circumstances that you find yourself in, but you can change your reaction to it. Sometimes you need to face the fact that you can’t change the past, but you can learn and turn from your old mistakes. And that is sometimes easier said than done… but it is definitely possible.

_{“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil 3:12-14}

Wondering what to do with daylight.

change

I have a plate full of food next to me: white rice, some pickled lettuce, and roast lamb.

Now, I have no problems with eating lamb normally. But if you ask me, several days’ worth of lamb for lunch and dinner begins to grate on the gastronomic palate (or rather, overload it with oil).

Sometimes it’s good to have a change.

do you remember that time

_{For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.}

_{For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”}

_{But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!}

_{I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.}

_{For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.}

_{But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.}

_{Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.}

_{But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.}

_{If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.}

_{(Galatians 5:13-26)}

if for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain
then I’ll take up my cross
like a wheat grain in the rain
that greater may be wrought through my loss.

oh yes happy new year 2011

If there was ever a good reason to forget my manners and wish everyone happy new year, it is this. Not mine, mind you (unlike Ps Vic’s declarations throughout the year)…

I would upload a better photo but I suppose my sister would not appreciate that at all! She likes her privacy.

Dave would have made a better MC at the reception. Still, I got away with just stuttering a lot, being flustered by the loud microphone and its popping noises, and telling the guests to please “sit on the tables”.

My sister was beautifully joyous and I couldn’t be happier for her, literally…

Fake shark fin soup.

And I miss the extended family being here! (There was a lot of them.)

Passing, passing, everything is passing…

_{Lord you are always here with me; there is no changing, God, with Thee
You are the same, yesterday, and today, and forevermore…}

cloud shadow passing overhead

And it is in a whisper, a barely-there vibration hanging in the air, that catches my attention for that one still moment.

When I am alone, it is nearly always in quiet that we meet face-to-face, and rarely a raucous blast of energy; soft and gentle is your voice.

Life seems to be like the ocean tide these few days: an ebb and flow of sounds, people and thoughts thrown as words and actions and conversations, in multiple languages.

Yesterday, described in a single sense, was the smell of charcoal-cooked beef, and followed by laughter and loud ‘debates’ until the wee hours of the morning. We fell away, drifted to our sleeping places instead of greeting the sun, with some avowing that breakfast at that time meant there was no need to wake early later in the day.

Today would be the sound of an old man caterwauling Chinese over a large karaoke machine, and ensuing boredom for the various thirty or more others occupying space in the same house. We fled in a black car down the quiet dark streets of Melbourne, the streetlights urging us home.

Last week would be the sun-drenched beach with dramatic wind and happy companionship, coupled with solitary internal confinement of self.

Sometimes it’s a wonder that you speak to me at all, for I certainly don’t deserve it, and I can’t explain it. The blessings so often outweigh the challenges and obstacles; why can’t I see that better when I’m going through it?

Whatever the reason, the savouring of momentary joys and pleasures make the discipline, the self-control, the humiliating reception of your grace and love more beautiful than ever.

Thank you for the reason, thank you for this season; be with me for this coming time, and lead me in your ways everlasting.

It’s your love that comforts me
It’s your love that gives me life
It’s your blood that took my place
In redeeming sacrifice

It washes me whiter than the snow…

why home time is good

I don’t know where tomorrow will lead, but I do know that I have a Saviour.

Sometimes it’s good for a perspective change - to smell the roses, get bitten by mosquitoes and find a different (more productive) repetitive task to do (e.g. knitting)… to do things which long left undone.

Broken internet is good for time away from the ever-calling voices of the world.