Her life, her story :)

This is kinda like the next episode of my last post. 

Im so sorry for those who are expecting something super awesome, dramatic or glamorous from me and please bear with me if u find this post boring. But believe or not, my life has never been so blissful before. Im richly blessed, indeed! The true happiness and awesomeness of life are never defined by how many parties u attended, how many friends u have, how many hot guys u dated, but it is define by the things u've leant in the process of growing up in life, and through out the process, u found the true purpose and meaning of your life :)

Last Sunday, we sang this song "Jesus be the center" in church during worship. At first I really thought that this is just another worship song because Im actually quite familiar with this song. Right after the worship leader started the first verse of that song, "Jesus at the center of it all", the tears stream started to down on my face and I know it was the time for me to be completely honest to myself and to God as well.

I have been trying to escape myself from overcoming some issues in my life. Frankly speaking, my life is still full of  pain, confusion, frustration and disappointment, and Im still struggling and wrestling, which has no contribution nor benefit to my mental disorder at all but will only make it worse. See, that's how stubborn and foolish I am and that's why I wonder how God could entrust the task of being His representative to imperfect person like me, and the amazing thing is, He even called me to be the salt and light of the world and He is actually making me His vessel. I guess this is how He shows me His glory, His grace and His forgiveness. Every time I think of this, I know that Im gonna just praise Him and worship Him until my last breath. 

Alright, I've gone too far. Let's back to the topic. During the worship on last Sunday, I found out that I don't really mean my every song to God. Ouch! How sad is that and this is actually an insultation to Him! What the heck is that?!

But I really thank Him for the sermon from Elder Daniel. He was talking about Moses in the old testament. Moses was the only person who brave enough to stand in God's presence and he actually asked for God's glorious presence and His grace to help him in his journey of delivering the Israelites from bondage in Egypt to the promised land. How daring and awesome was that?! I mean in Moses' time, no one could stand in God's glory because God is so holy and could never stand sin, ever! But of course now with the blood of Jesus we can always freely go into His glorious presence :)

Elder Daniel was saying if a person really know who God is, as in has a close relationship with God but not only know about God through the word of mouth or media, will not keep blaming or questioning God about the circumstances and obstacles in life but they will just invite God to walk with them in life and ask for His grace to help them overcome all the problem and obstacles. 

Ouch!! Can u believe that me, as a child of God, to one's surprise always question God and blame God for the obstacles in life. Another insultation to God! What the heck is this?!

It reminded me of my conversation on the phone with Tim the other night when I was really frustrated and confused. 

Me: I know God is always with me but I couldn't hear anything from Him now. His love will never change, right?
Tim: Of course! He remains silent doesn't mean that He doesn't love you anymore. He wants you to just trust Him.
Me: I know, but I don't feel Him at all :(
Tim: No, u are going too far. Can I say that you are not my jie jie when you keep quiet? No, right?
Me: I know, but I need to feel His presence
Tim: God's identity is never defined by the circumstances. No matter what, He is still our God, until our last breath, He is still is!
Me: Then why I feel my life is slowly falling apart and turning into pieces? Im confused and life is difficult.
Tim: Yes, life is difficult without God. You need to go back to Jesus. His yoke is always easy and His burden is always light. When you feel stress, that means you are departing from God. Don't ever do that :) 
Me: Raymond told me exactly the same thing.
Tim: That means God is speaking to you through me and Raymond gor gor. You must listen.
Me: How bout depression?
Tim: You can never fight depression alone, but God can. Rest in Him and let God take over. It's gonna be effortless. Always remember that Jesus at the center of our life and He is in control of everything :D

I think u can see that I always use "I know" in the conversation. Yes, I know, I truly know and I know it very well. BUT!!! All of that are just some head knowledge that I suppose every Christian would know and even a kid has learnt it in Sunday school. :( 

Here's the thing. I have the knowledge of "Jesus is the solid foundation of my life" in my head but not in my heart. I can sing a very amazing worship song about His love and His goodness, I can pray a very long prayer that sounds very holy and awesome, and I can even preach about "Jesus, the solid rock" to my friends. In fact I did i, I even shared about this in my corporate law final report. Praise the Lord for such a great opportunity.

But so what? I sounds like and look like a very good and faithful Christian ONLY. Only both God and me myself know that my spirit is dying soon if I continue to act like this. In other words, my life and my walk with God are form over substance. :(  Im so sorry, Lord!

OUCH!!!
 
And I started to ask myself this question. Is Jesus at the center of my life? Is Jesus the foundation of my life?

Sadly, my answer is no :(

My life is actually being captured by academinc performance, fame, wealth, etc :( and the foundation of my life is no longer God's value but the worldly value and some values that created by my own. There is a few times I stand in front of my mirror and think that Im just gonna be another fat, ugly, pathetic, worthless and good-for-nothing ordinary girl until the last beat of my heart.

Im actually using my own strength to overcome the obstacles in my life, and I thought that Im relying on God's strength and God's grace. No wonder I got so tired and frustrated. 

Thank God for the wake up call He given to me through the sermon and thank God that He spoke to me through Tim and Raymond. If not I think I will just continue to sleep for the rest of my life and totally forgotten about "Arise and Shine".

If Im that perfect, smart, awesome, fabulous, superb and outstanding that I can conquer the every obstacle that I have in life, then what for I need the grace of God? In this case, God's grace is no longer relevant to me.

It's because of how imperfect, fragile, pathetic, tiny, insignificant I am make me see how perfect, strong, joyful, awesome, magnificent and glorious He is.

The good news is, I can always trade in all the imperfection of me and my life to the Lord with His strength, His joy, His anointing power, and His glory. This explains why Christian always pray "the less of me and the more of you in my life" :D

And one thing very important and creepy that I've forgotten!

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. --Galatians 2:20

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That means the fragile Jasmine has already died in the baptism tank and buried on 15th March 2011. She has died for more than a year!!! Can u imagine that I have been dragging the dead body walking around for more than a year? This is so darn CREEPY!!!!

I have to remind myself that my life is definitely not a horror movie but a romantic comedy. Im so gonna throw the dead body into a coffin, nail it properly and bury it!

Arghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

I guess my assignment for this week is learn to trust in Him and completely surrender my life into His mighty hands.

Frankly speaking, I have no deisre to do that at all :( but Im gonna ask Him to give me the desire to let Him take over of everything.  

I guess the song, Potter's Hand is going to be my prayer for this week.

Take me, mold me, use me, fill me 
Call me, guide me, lead me, walk beside me

Im ready to give my life to the Potter's hand, for good

.............................

From my heart to the heaven, Jesus be the center. It's all about You. Yes, it's all about you

I want my life to be just all about His love, His grace, His faithfulness, His forgiveness, His tender mercy and His promises. And Im looking forward for the day when my jasmine fragrance spread abroad, abroad and abroad.....to testify the perfect love of God :)

Life is like a playground swing, 
Sometimes high, sometimes low

Enjoy and be thankful to God when you are at high
But don't get discourage when you are at low, 

The happiness is always come right after the sadness passed :)

Wonder why I suddenly talk about the playground swing? Haha! It just some thoughts I had since last Saturday. 

I went to Khoo's at TBR to meet him, and we saw a playground on the way back to dorm. At first, me and Esther went to the swing together happily. All the childhood's sweet memories just suddenly came to our mind. And we started wonder why we both came to KL, this big city. 

I couldn't remember what we actually talked. But I remember both of usasked

"I wonder why I never studied hard enough for my SPM, and so I came to college, and my parent need to pay for my school fees and living cost."

"I wonder why I would trust him and got myself so much of wounds and hurts, I wonder why people around me always throw me crap and make me feel like crap, I wonder why I came to TARC"

Would you ever had the same thought?

We human are actually very interesting. We might have different skin tone, different dialect, different accent, different background, etc
But when something bad happens in our life, most of us will probably have a same reaction. We would have the intention to blame either God, ourselves or others. 

"Why is God make the world so unfair?", "because im stupid/ bad luck/ my fault", "because of my classmate/ friends/ collegue/parent la......."

Believe or not, none of the above is right, or I would say not a good attitude to have in life.

Why?

Come to this point, I need to say sorry to God, my loving Father in heaven. I'm currently going through a tough time in my life or what people would say "depression". But don't worry, Im already working on it, Im holiding on to His promise in Psalm 30:5, and I think Im doing pretty well now :)

There are some answers I got from the Lord last night during quiet time. 

Why God put all those people in my life and they do nothing good for me but just crap. 
Ans: If I never met those kind of people, I would never know how to cope with people with bad attitude. I think I will be just another materialistic, selfish, arrogant but pathetic college girl. At the end of the day, I thank God for putting those people in my life, so that I could learn and be a better person.

Why I can never wear those sexy clothes like most of the girls do. Why I can only be sweet and pretty but not hot and sexy? Guys will only like hot girls
Ans: In 1Timothy 2:10, "For woman who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do." If you ask me do I really like those sexy outfits, my answer is definetly a 'no'. I was just wanted to be like others xD

Why there is still sorrow and sadness in life since Jesus has already died for me and rose again?
Ans: God's intention for life is always good, (Jeremiah 29:11) God's plan and intention for us are always good, He wans to prosper us and give us hope and bright future. Life can be very difficult and messy, but we need not to worry, because God is always there for us and we are standing on the solid rock. Even when the storm comes, all we need to do is just continue to hold on to His promise for our life, believe that hope is just right in front of us :) 

Why I met him, and got myself so much of pain and hurts, why I came to TARC?
Ans: If I never met him, I will never know that Jesus is not just a Savior in life, but a comforter as well. If I never came to TARC, I think I would never know that how huge and awesome God's love is. I dare to say that, TARC is the place where I strengthen my faith in Him, TARC is the place where I learnt how to rely on His grace, and it is the place where I finally found my way back to my first love, my etarnal home :)

Now when I look back to everything happened in my life, I really want to just thank Him and praise Him for His loving-kindness and mercy. Same with that day, if I never went to the playground with Esther, I think I wouldn't know that she is actually has her own story, she has her pain in her life as well. I cannot just labeled her to the "happy go lucky" category. In fact, I shouldn't label or categorize people according to my own judgement. It is because I don't really know much about them, their background, their personalities, only God, the Creator of everything knows the best. After the "playground event", I finally understand the true meaning of "don't judge a book by its cover".

I thank God for Esther, she actually came and prayed for me after she found out that I started to feel depress. I didn't know that she can be so sensebility. Forgive me, because I used to think that those "happy go lucky" people will not be sensitive to other's feeling. Apparently I was very wrong. 

I don't know how long this desert time will be, I also have no idea of how long Im gonna take to fully recover from depression, but one thing Im very sure is, the Lord is gonna walk through this time with me. This is His promise in Psalm 23:4, I know that He is close beside me, even though I cannot really feel Him now; I know that He will pretect and comfort me with His rod and staff, it doesn't mean that I will no longer feel lonely or afraid. But I will let my faith in God oevertake the fear.

Now I realized that being a Christian doesn't mean that everything in my life will go smooth and no difficulty at all, because nothing is perfect except God Himself is perfect. Being a Christian is about how are you gonna overcome all those difficulties in life, when storm comes, will you be still and know that God is in control of everything and continue to sing psalms and hymn to praise Him? 

There is time when life will give you mashmallow or chocolate candy that you like, but there is also time that life will throw you lemon. I know lemon is very sour and it may caused pain, but just believe that God is gonna turn all those lemon into a refreshing lemonade, He might add some honey in it, we wouldn't know :)

I really wanna thank God for His company in my journey of beating depression. Actually what Ms Ng said in this morning was very true, we always learn from mistake, so don't get discourage when you did a mistake, just stand up and shake it off. Jesus is always there to pick you up, yo :D

I used to look down on myself, because jasmine flower is very small and insignificant, and I love daisy more. But I didn't know that though jasmine flower is very small and insignificant but it has a very beautiful scent, a white color is a symbol of purity and virtue. I think that's how God sees me, He sees me as a beautiful young lady, not only the outside but the inside as well, He sees me pure and clean no matter how many mistake I made, because He washed me with the blood of His Son, my blessed Saviour, Jesus :) 

I used to think that I need to do a lot of things to have testimony and to glorify God, but actually, my life is already a living testimony that testify the love of God. I don't need to do anything to have a testimony, because me myself is already a testimony of God. When people see me, they are gonna see the living God who are living in me, and I know that one day, my life story is gonna reflect the love of God for all men. I wouldn't know how God wanna use me for His kingdom. All I need to do is just be myself, all my friends or even my future life partner will love me not because of how I dress, how I act, but because of who I am and the good things I do, just like what God has promised in 1Timothy 2:10!

Alright, I really need to off my laptop and go to college now. Im ushering in CF later, looking forward to what God is gonna speak to us through bro Solomon!

Be blessed :)