I Shouldn't Have Stopped @ 2

Suddenly it is the end of Feb and it's time for R to leave. Makes me sad. 

It's a pity that just when I can enjoy their company as friends and adults, and don't have to yell or threaten to spank, my girls actually have one, if not both, feet out of the door :) J & R think I'm not ready to let go of them and let them be adults. I think I can't let go of the Mother in me. I think I was made to be one of those women who would have enjoyed a large family. At one level, I understand Angelina Jolie and Octomum, yes I do. 

Frustrating and tiring though it was when the children are young, there comes a time when our own adult lives slow down; and that's when we have time to really look at our children. Fortunately, I don't think I have made many mistakes - though my daughters take great delight in claiming to be psychologically scarred by my erratic parenting. 

In my ideal life, I would have had 4 children (err... and 2 live-in nannies).  My girls amuse themselves with trying out different names their 'siblings' might have been given to rhyme with theirs. [Thankfully, I never did have a boy - whom I would have blithely named Bharani, in the days before Google - because the girls and I discovered the other night that (a) contrary to what I believed, this is a girl's name, not a boy's and (b) this is actually the name of the astrological star of the Hindu god Yama, the god of death! J & R couldn't stop laughing :)] So, if I had had 4 children, I still would have 2 of them underfoot. That would help ease the transition, I think, for when the last of the 4 is ready to leave as well, I might have grandchildren ready to walk in! 

See - in the grand scheme of the universe it would have all worked out! Darn.

My Salvation Story

I had a blessed time at the Christian Educators' Prayer Meeting last Sat. I had been invited to share my story by Lucy and I am glad I finally had the opportunity to thank the many people who had prayed for me over the years. As usual, I had a knot in my tummy before I started speaking, and I was glad to have WY in the audience praying for me. I know you have heard it before, my daughters, but I love to tell the story :)

"I was brought up as a Hindu in a conservative Brahmin household. When in Gal 1:4, Paul describes his past zealousness in advancing in Judaism he could have been describing me. I was fervent in prayer, fasted regularly and fiercely protective of my faith. Then to my own amazement, in Oct 1991, I accepted Christ.  

I stand here to share my story with you, this morning, because I am grateful for Christian educators who cared enough to share the gospel that first saved me, then my children. In 1 Cor 3:6, Paul said “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.” The seeds were planted and watered and grown in me all within different schools. 

I heard my first gospel stories as a child in the Methodist Girls School in Klang, then in Assunta Convent in Petaling Jaya in Malaysia. My first bible was given to me by my classmate Andrew Chua in Sec 4 in Thomson Secondary School. He gave it to me for my birthday and highlighted the verse “Verily, verily I say unto thee, ye must be born again.” It didn’t make sense to me and coming from a Hindu background, I mistakenly thought he was referring to re-birth and wanted to be my friend in my next birth too! 

I didn’t read anything else in that bible other than that verse. But since Christmas 1991, I have been reading another bible given to me by my dear friend Wai Yin whom I met when we were both posted to teach in ACJC in 1984. We sat near each other and taught the same subjects. 

Wai Yin was easy to talk to and I enjoyed her friendship but I used to wonder how anyone could be so nice and not want anything from me. I don’t remember when Wai Yin offered to pray for me. But I began to share more of my life with her. I began using her God as a back-up when things went wrong. I would pray and also tell her to pray because there was something attractive about the way she talked to her God. And I noticed her prayers seemed to be answered. 

In the first birthday card Wai Yin gave me she wrote “I could wish you many things, but above all I wish you Jesus.” It made no sense to me but I began to be suspicious of her friendship. I began to think that this then was what she wanted from me. That the friendship was just a bait. Because I was convinced that Christians just wanted to add to their numbers.

But even when I blew hot and cold, she remained a friend. In 1985, we had to stay over as teachers in charge to look after the student participants at a Pre-U Seminar. During a late night conversation, she said she would be a bad friend if she did not tell me about her Friend Jesus. There was no warning of going to hell, there was no talk of Jesus being the only way. All I heard was the concern of a friend who had a map and knew the way and could not bear to keep quiet when she saw a friend lost and wandering. I told her rather rudely that my God was enough, but some disquiet stayed with me. 

You see, I had been feeling a stirring because of another reason as well. God was speaking to me through the subject I was teaching – English Literature. Many of the texts had Christian themes and in preparing to teach these texts I needed to do research and that is how I learnt the gospel message.

I taught Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlowe and I was haunted by the despair of Faustus who had turned away from God. I taught Metaphysical poetry – poems like ‘The Pulley’ and ‘The Collar’ by George Herbert and the Holy Sonnets of John Donne; I still love “Batter My Heart Three Personed God”. I taught the poetry of Gerald Manley Hopkins and after we did ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’ one of my students Tee Loon came up to me and said “Madam, how can you explain that poem so beautifully and not know my Christ?”  He says that day he decided to pray for me.  25 years later he is still a faithful prayer warrior for me and a mentor to my daughters.

In 1991, I was on no pay leave to do my Masters and I was offered a tutor’s post at NUS. As God would have it, I was asked to tutor Comparative Lit and the text on the list was the Bible. I tutored 2 groups teaching the Bible as literature, comparing Genesis, Psalms, Job and John and I think it was Galatians. We traced the themes of sin and grace, symbolism of sacrifice and blood, the poetic cadence of psalms. 

Then one evening, my daughter asked me for a story. And I began to tell her the story my mother had told me – of how Ganesh the elephant god got his head. J looked at me at the end of the story and asked me “But why mummy? Why can’t god get a nice head? I don’t like this story.” 

Something changed in me that evening. I looked inside of me and I realized I didn’t believe what I had just told my daughter. I was very frightened because I felt hollow. It felt as if a core part of me had changed. I wished I could read something, talk to someone, get some reassurance. 

In that terrifying silence inside me, I heard a voice deep inside me that said “These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” John 5:39! I don’t know how to explain it but it was as if pieces of jigsaw fell together. And I started crying. I knew then there was one friend I could call. Wai Yin drove over straightaway and we sat in her car in the carpark and we prayed. 

Today, as we gather in prayer, I want to encourage you - will you reach out to your fellow educators in friendship like my friend did. The work is not yours or mine. It is God who works in His time and in His way. But I’m thankful that one person cared enough and was courageous enough to share her Friend with me.

 I thank God for the Lit syllabus we had then and I wonder - are there opportunities for us just where we are to make decisions that honour God?

I thank God for my students who prayed for me and I wonder - can we look up at those placed in authority over us and remember their names when we pray?

I thank the teachers in Fairfield Methodist Primary School because both my daughters heard about Christ during Religious Emphasis Weeks in school. Will you be the ones who tells the story of Jesus to our children?

God in His wisdom according to His plan, has placed us wherever we are. Wherever, that is, can we in faith plant seeds or water the seeds others have planted?  In His love mercy and grace God will call His own in His time. He just wants loving and courageous hearts. 

In ending today, I want to share with you the same blessing, my friend shared with me many years ago: my friends, I could pray for you many things; but I pray for you, more of Jesus. “

Valentine's Day

Today I was remined of the many Valentine's Days I had put up with as a teacher and I must say the memories make me smile :)

When I was teaching in ACJC, V Days were a frenzy of activity. The Students' Council had its major fund raising drive then and used to collect orders for roses which the Councillors would buy from wholesale suppliers and then re-sell to the students at a hiked up price. January and the weeks preceding the 14th of Feb were marked by a frenzy to meet someone - preferably during Orientation - so that come V Day, there would be a Someone to court and be courted by!

School was a bedlam on 14 Feb and only the most morose and fiercest of teachers could claim to have conducted a lesson successfully. I coped by having the same lesson I conducted every 14 Feb if I had a Lit class - a critique of what were the best love poems of English. Some years it worked; some years the kids groaned and begged me to let them off.

Then there would be the shy knocks on the door with the plea "Madam, may I see..." and the class would erupt with wolf whistles and oohs and ahhhs. Stalks and bouquets (depending on the finances of the suitor) would lie casually on desks and balloons with hearts would float lazily. My best times were when suitors came bearing chocolate boxes because I would then let them in only if the object of desire agreed to share the chocolates with me :)

Jurong Institute was a complete contrast. I was taken by surprise my first year there because I had readied myself for the insanity of puppy love only to discover that I seemed to have landed on a planet where the 14th of Feb was just the day that came between the 13th and the 15th. Well, this V-Day ennui didn't last very long and by the time I left JI, the madness had descended there too, but in 1992, it was a different story. Yes, there were couples, but unlike ACJC where most kids who came in the first 3 months stayed long enough to start dating, most of those who came to JI in Jan couldn't wait to leave after they received their 'O' level results, so Orientation held no promise for them and V Day was meant to be spent outside school as fast as their legs could sprint. I must say I missed the madness of Valentine's in JI.

And now, the day matters even less. Restaurants have expensive menus, movie tickets are sold out, florists claim to make 60% of their annual takings on this day alone and the mass media are doing their part to make everyone wish they were in love :) I am amused. I remember I used to scold my students for hanging around my classroom waiting for their special person, for the extravagance of their gifts and (when I'm feeling really mean) the grammatical errors in their love notes :) Yes I was a meanie :) Looking back, I think, maybe I should have been nicer, more indulgent, for after all, it was just for one day ... Happy Valentine's Day and may you feel loved today and every day of your life :)

My Rock in Clay

I have been asked by a dear friend of mine to speak at a gathering of Christian educators on Saturday. I said yes, because I couldn't refuse to share the story of God's grace in my life. But as the day draws nearer, I'm filled with doubt and ask myself what could I possibly say without sounding like a zealot or an indulgent navel-gazer or a pompous modern-day Pharisee...

There is a song we sing in church which starts "My Saviour, Redeemer, Lifted me from the miry clay..." and that is exactly how I would describe my experience with God. I imagine the stickiness, the wetness of a swamp of clay and the hand of God reaching in and firmly pulling me out of a way of life that seems so distant now. 

If I were honest, I would admit that the clay is never far off. It is quite easy to fall into the muck again. There is a saying in Proverbs 6:10-11 that I think of every time I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock in the morning - "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest - and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man." It's true - I tell myself, "just ten minutes more, just a short five minutes" and the next thing I know I have overslept and I rush to work without my morning prayer or Bible reading. I know it's like that with major issues as well - I say to myself, "just this one time" and soon one thing leads to another and I am either daydreaming or involved in gossip or reading another chapter of a story book instead of my devotional ... It can go on. The clay is always wet at my feet.

So I wonder what I will say on Saturday. The real work of Christ in my life is too private for  public sharing. His faithfulness, protection and provision to me will remain known only to a few. My life in Christ is not public - I have no ministry in church, no gifts of healing or worship or exhortation or intercession or prophecy. My Christ just holds me together and gives me daily bread and enough hope, love and trust for one day at a time. My Christ gives me one spot of solid rock to stand on in the midst of the miry clay.