Let it all out

Today is Tuesday December 30th, 2008.. not any special or particular day.. just another passing day, an ordinary day where I find myself following the same circle of thoughts.
It's like it never leaves me... or I just can't leave it.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I were to give it a chance?
Nevermind that 'sometimes'.. all the time.. I wonder. I've got these reoccuring dreams that pretty much admit my curiousness, regret, and.. desperateness? to just talk to you. But as selfish and odd as this is to say.. I know that part of this desire is flamed by the chase. It's the game that keeps me wanting and I feel sorry for myself that my pride will never let me lose. I'm afraid that I'll fall deep once I'm in.. but I know better now to stay away (at least I try to seem like I do).

Everyone has the right to ruin their lives, but to ruin the lives of others?

"Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable."
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Great admission, however Lewis then went on to add, "...but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods where they get off, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith."

Postures of the Mind, Affections of the Heart

Excerpt from Ravi Zacharias!

The following 3 interesting quotes are from 3 atheists:

"I want this world not to have meaning. Because a meaningless world frees me to my own erotic and political pursuits." - Aldus Huxley, Atheist

"If we can get only one intelligent message from outer space, then we know there is intelligent life out there." - Carl Sagon, Athesit
(response: Did he not pause for a moment to realize that just one strand of human DNA has 600,000 pages of information? I don't know how much more 'intelligent' you can get.)

"Will somebody somewhere please love me?" - Madeline Mully O'hair, Atheist


THUS...

The mind is to the soul, what the brain is to the body.
When a person begins to get incoherent, we say that they are losing their minds not their brains. Because the mind is the center ground that holds your truths, beliefs, and morals.


3 simple challenges to strengthen your soul:
- 1) Learning how to forget:

- shutting the gate on those issues that bring you down
- letting go, pressing on.
2) Be determined to what you are going to remember:
- Solomon struggling with "life's meaning" - Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth!
- is this world here by accident or is this world here created by a divine will?
3) Be committed to His love

Piano Inspirees

Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata 3rd movement
Chopin - Fantasie Impromptu
Mozart - Requiem
Rachmaninoff - Elegie in E-flat Minor op.3 no. 1

These guys are so inspiring..!

It's crazy to know that even though they composed these songs centuries ago .. they still live on.

Crazy Dream

Two nights ago I experienced this really wacked out dream.. here it goes:

I was with a friend walking down this long narrow corridor (it resembled a dorm) and was knocking on each door to see if I could get let in. After each failed response, finally an acquaintance popped out from a room to my left and invited us in. At this point I was sort of confused as to what was going on and why everyone was hiding in their rooms.. but it clicked in soon enough. I realized that there were these regime/cult people with masked faces and guns walking up and down the hallway trying to find anyone in their rooms with lights on. But we had our lights shut off and we were crouching on the floor trying not to breathe so that they wouldn't catch us. We could hear them coming closer and closer to our room and finally they stopped at the outside of our door and we quickly went into this knelt down prayer position and began reciting this prayer. For some reason, I had an inclination that we were practising the Muslim faith and these people we were terrified of were checking up on us. Anyway, being the rebel I am, I finally stood up because I knew this wasn't right.

Suddenly one of the guards (who took off her scarf covering her face) came after me with a pair of scissors in one hand and a pocket knife in the other. She ended up stabbing the knife in my left hand and making slits in my right arm with the scissors as we chased each other around the room. But somehow my friend found a small handgun near her and passed it to me.. and I threatened the woman guard and ended up grabbing the scissors and knife out of her hand and stabbing her repeatedly and shot her in the stomach.

After this, me and my friend hid in the closet because we could hear the other people coming to see what had just happened. They looked and saw their guard dead on the floor and as quietly as i tried to be in the closet, the terrorist man turned around to look into the closet and we met eyes through the opened crack. Then I burst out of the closet and shot each person in front of me who were about to attack me one by one (there were 5 guys).. and even though I was able to shoot the fifth guy, he ended up aiming for a bullet at my forehead.

So there I was standing in shock, shot in the forehead and in slow motion I fell to the ground..

and woke up.

If you only had one night to live... who would you spend it with?

Excerpt from Talent is Never Enough:

One of the paradoxes of life is that the things which initially make you successful, are not necessarily the things that keep you successful. You have to remain open to new ideas and be willing to learn new skills.

Dr J Konrad Hole says:
'If you cannot be teachable, having talent won't help you.
If you cannot be flexible, having a goal won't help you.
If you cannot be grateful, having abundance won't help you.
If you cannot be mentor-able, having a future won't help you.
If you cannot be durable, having a plan won't help you.'

Confined to a dungeon and facing the certainty of an executioner's chopping block, Paul writes to Timothy and asks him to bring:
a) Writing paper. 'I still have something to say.'
b) books. 'I still have more to learn' (2 Timothy 4:13)

Learning should be our lifelong pursuit.

They say that running is a mental sport. You would be surprised at how much you can do and how far you can go just by convincing yourself. It's the power of persuasion, determination and, I would say, the power of denial. Yes you're eager to cross the finish-line but you can't get there if you keep thinking about the pain in your legs. The thought of pain hinders your mentality and ultimately slows your pace. So as runners we dismiss it and that proves to take us a long way ahead..

So I was thinking about what I've been up to lately and how I feel like I've got this adrenaline pumping through me that won't stop. It feels like I've been running this race forever and the aches in my body aren't catching up to me. Maybe I'm just incredibly prepared for marathons but I know deep inside I'm not healthy. I need rest. What once started out as an ambitious goal to run to that finish-line has now turned into an obsession to run away. And far far away I have ran, too stubborn and afraid to stop and tend to my aches.

Denial. I picked up a bad habit and haven't you, too? So many of us can't face our demons. So many of us can't hold our heads on our shoulders because we're so battered up inside. Running is suppose to be a sport of good intentions but we somehow bruise the idea.

Nullis Secundus -- second to none.


I've been waking up with cold sweats. My dreams are acting up again.. drawing me into these whirlwind dramas.

1) I was stranded at York with no way home but my two feet. I started up and down these hills which were along the highway and suddenly a friend of mine who appeared from no where warned me of the man who was walking behind me. I quickened my pace and very soon I was running as he followed my tail. He eventually caught up and kidnapped me and the next thing I knew I was in the middle of a forest standing at the front of an old-fashioned mansion that had an "abandonment" feel to it.. Then I found myself lying close to the edge of a bed next to that creepy man and this other woman who were still sleeping (my clothes were still on, thank God?) .. So I quietly pulled myself up and walked to the next room which had a very authentic portrait mirror and I walked up close to look at myself. My throat was swollen so I opened my mouth to see my tonsils (don't ask) and when I looked to the back of my throat I saw my eyeballs looking back at me. Freaked out, I closed my mouth and moved on.
Finally I saw other younger kids at the house too with cute prairie dresses on playing in the backyard and running around the long dining table. But something was wrong. Something was off. It felt like everyone was naive or oblivious to the fact that this creepy old man just kidnapped me and brought me here. I had no idea who these people were but somehow I was snatched into their world, restricted under their rules.. and forced to obey. Then it clicked into my head that the "mom and dad" were abusers and I was just another victim stuck here in the middle of no where with no one searching for me because no one knew I was gone. And the kids were unaware of anything going on because they were young and so use to this..

Anyway, what ended up happening was that out of my senses, I had to rebel and save myself. I locked everyone in the house and lit the house on fire from a single match that I found. Everyone started screaming and trying to escape as I closed the doors but I decided to let one girl free because I really liked her and she was so innocent.
Then I woke up.

2) This dream was with random Joyful peeps. At first there was a mission to be accomplished. I was in this rich-looking building.. that had escalators, high ceilings, many floors, statues, lots of pillars and stairs, etc.. it almost resembled the interior of a grand cruise ship. I was with two other people and we were running, trying to hide and get away from the black mob who were after us. Kind of like the ps2 Halo Gun game, I was able to jump from floor to floor and hop over and squeeze underneath railings and balconies. Our mission was to just get through the maze of the building and to the underground parking lot and meet the rest of our team. Finally after running around and going in and out of elevators and jumping over escalators to the next floor and locking doors behind us.. we made it to the parking lot.. and we were looking for the yellow race-car convertible with sliding doors. Finally, it came roaring around the corner. But we also saw some mob gang members looking for us.. but we quickly fit 8 people in the car, sealed the doors shut, and drove off at an unbelievable speed. The mob just missed us..they were looking around in confusion wondering how we could have escaped. Smoothhh..

Anyway, then my dream turned into something else and I was driving a golf cart with a couple of friends in the back seat. Then we drove off up onto this hill and got off at this big cabin centre. Inside, counselors and kids were seated eating their lunch... fries and wings to be precise.. and some man dressed in this funny animal costume started talking about a different religion/cult I had no idea was about. He was trying to encourage us, or more like brainwash us, into believing his doctrines and ideologies.. I knew there was something off about it.. there was no Jesus and the cross involved.. just some animal religion. I don't know..
Then I woke up.

How do I...
take on change?
trust-fall backwards?

say goodbye?

I'm going to start blogging my dreams down more often. Hopefully I can get a clearer sense of what they mean. As per last night:

In my dream I broke into this tight-spaced backroom that had shelves and shelves of fragile glass, porcelin, china plates, etc. My mission was to steal them and I managed to pick up some but accidently dropped a glass plate. My heart was pounding and it shattered making this slow motion crashing sound. It felt like a lot of adrenaline.. but I continued to be as steady as I could so that we wouldn't get caught. Then I waited for my partners to grab their stuff and we slowly snuck out.


Anyway, I heard this quote:
"In denial.. friend or foe?"
I would say at this point in time.. it has become my very best friend.

"I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier..."

- The Life of Pi

To Pray or Not to Pray?

About a few months ago, someone challenged me to pray for my future husband. She advised me that it's a genuine prayer and that with God, it's never too much to ask for.

But to be honest, it seemed like a silly prayer and at times, it still does. I'd say because it's too much of an open book. I was clustered with questions before I could even start to pray. And let me tell you now that there is no "How To:" manual on this one because it's simply.. very simply, faith.

So as I began praying for this man of mine with no expectation or knowledge of what should and will happen next, I felt dumb. The more questions I had, the more apprehensive I started to become and the more doubtful, the more complacent .. it started from "I'm only 19" to "I'm not even dating" to "I don't want to grow this fast because the more you learn, the more that's expected of you". Purpose started to lose itself in my doubt like quicksand.
But surely enough, God never fails to get his message through to me.

I realized that my habit and attitude towards this wasn't just about my future husband.. it was about everything I attended for in my life.. everything I prayed about. He showed me through my lack of faith and my precarious prayers that I come to our God underestimating His will. I mean, I know eventually I'll get to the whole marriage ordeal.. but if I can't solidly pray for what I know is already going to happen, how can I ever believe that God will do something for me that is unseen or uncertain?

When comes those mountains hidden by clouds, I'll need bigger faith to let God take me to the other side.

Faith is perseverance and perseverance is faith.

This Is Life

I come in empty, I leave filled
Bring my sickness, I leave healed
Broken-hearted, You mend every piece
I come in captive, I leave free

You are all over
You are around
You are inside
This is life, this is life




Note to self:
Never settle for second best. Complacency claims too much of what we could have.. it is the "success disease".

The Jolly Beggar

Is there such a person to be so desperate as to beg yet jolly in their state?
The meaning of this oxymoron has been in my question for some time.. only to realize that it's much simpler than I had thought. The world births beggars but it's the ones who meet God that make them different from the rest. You see, although mortal life proves to be viciously disappointing, there is admist darkness a reason to be grateful and joyous. That is, God's gift of grace is the reason to happily beg at the feet of the king and not of some meaningless idol. We're happy because we know we're saved... that even though we lay out homeless on the streets we know that it's only temporary and that on destiny's day we will beg no more for eternity.

Chapter One - Backwards

Are signs and convictions really real or is it self-imposing?
Is it that we doubt too much or we're just afraid to admit one truth?
And what makes us miss every wave of the sea?

Time is a forward continuum but I've been stuck in its most torturesome dimension... the past.
And finally now I am determined to break free. I've got no energy left to doubt anymore. What I've come to understand is that the moment you recognize the past is the unchangeable and the future is a possibility, the present becomes your best friend and your defining moment. So why can't we stay in the moment? Why do we worry about tomorrow and the past when today has its problems of its own?
What you choose to act on now, the things you hold on closer to, and the things you let go will take you as far forward or backwards according to your efforts. In all sense, it's the danger of expending our own free will and the fact that our choices could take us somewhere horrid. But if we can choose to admit God's truth I think that's when the present will be most meaningful and we'll be able to face it in stillness and.. without fear. Hence, it's not the fact that we can't swim out, it's the fact that we've been fooled into thinking we weren't capable of doing so.