Through It All

I was so encouraged by this song in church today. I love it. My God is faithful and He never lets me go! Just want to share it with you and hope you are encouraged by it! Whatever the season of your life, wherever you are now, His hand is over you.

Quote

"....which brings us to the good thing about getting older: you get to see how things play out — what happens to people, what doesn't. It's like finally getting to the best part of a novel. Sure, you can always read ahead. But it doesn't mean as much if you weren't there for the first part!"

- Ann Cannon

Quote

"It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes.... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I agree. Often we make wrong choices not because we did not know, but because that choice was an easier one to make and it made us feel better, not because it put us in a difficult place.

A Note to My Friend

My friend - you know who you are. You tell me you wish you had my life. You think I have it altogether and you have lost your grip on yours. I wish I had told you what was on my mind when you said that. But I felt then that you were hurting too much to hear it. So I am telling you here because I think you will read this.

My life is not perfect. I am not always happy. Many days I wish I had a different life. But I have come to accept this life I have been given and that I think makes the difference.

I stop myself when my mind wants to play the 'If only...' game or the 'I'll be happy when....' game. At any one moment in time, I have come to realise, I have the capacity and ability to choose - choose my reaction, my feeling, my perspective. You do too. If you keep asking "Why me?", you will continue to think you are a victim of other people's actions and circumstances. And it will not get you out of the place you are in. Life can be unfair.

There is no divine decree that says life for any one person on this world will be a fairy tale. Each one of us hopes ours will be the enchanted life, but that is a false hope that will only make the crash harder when it comes. Yes, you have been dealt a poor hand now. But please don't think I have not had hard places in my life. If you think I am at peace all the time, I assure you it is not so. But the hard places have built me up and made me stronger and when bad things happen I think back to other bad times and know I survived those and I feel peace knowing that these times too shall pass. That's why you think I am always at peace.

I will be doing you a disfavour my friend if I let you go away thinking I am just a strong woman. I am not. I belong to a strong God. I hope the next time we meet you will let me share my experience with my God with you. Then you will understand what I meant when I told you "The joy of the Lord is my strength".

If Christians were somehow miraculously protected from the evils and sorrows of the world, I am sure the whole world would have accepted Christ by now! No, we are not protected - we have, in fact, more than our share of heartache, straying spouses, divorce, deaths, rebellious children, lost jobs, financial ruin.... But we DO have a strong unchanging Rock that holds us together in the middle of our crisis.

So when you think I seem to have wisdom to make decisions, it is not me - I have a God who gives me peace in my heart when I am acting in line with His will and troubles me no end when I am doing things to please myself. That's how He guides me. When you say I am kind because I talk to people who have hurt me without anger or bitterness, it is because that is the example He set for me when He forgave those who tortured and killed Him. When you say I am always happy, my dear, you are wrong. I am not. But I do have joy, which is a very different thing, because it is not a feeling that is here with me now and then gone but an assurance that nothing will happen that is not in God's plan for my life. And if He allows it, He will take me through it.

I am saying these things here and not in an email because I thought you might be offended if I said these things to you straight. I am in a difficult place. I value you as a friend and want to just listen to you and share your sorrow, but I also know in my heart that there are things you are not ready to hear that I must say to you, precisely because you are my friend. So here it is on my blog. We can talk about it. Or we need not. You are still my friend.

Vidhya's Wedding Photos

I have finally managed to figure out how to import the photos from my new-fangled camera to my laptop :) So here are some pictures from my recent trip to London for my niece's wedding!

My darling daughters and my niece Charllyn all dolled up. Charllyn was a bridesmaid. Vidhya had dresses done up for all her bridesmaids in the same material but in different designs. They all looked very pretty!

From L to R: That's my niece Renu who lives in Florida, my daughter R, the bride Vidhya, my niece Charllyn, my daughter J, and my nephew Arvind looking dapper in his bestman's suit.

Me, my tummy and my daughters :)

With my favourite niece Maya who bugs J by insisting that she is actually my first daughter :)

With my sisters! I have 7 sisters but not all of us could make the trip to London.

The happy couple and my sister, the mother of the bride :)

And my family NEVER has a celebration which does not include dancing :)

8:22pm on 9 August 2009

It was Singapore's 44th National Day on the 9th of August. I am an unashamed flag-waving patriot, causing much eye-rolling among my children and I'm sure one or both of you are going to groan that I am actually blogging about National Day :). Undeterred by my children, I am proud to say that I love Singapore, warts and all!!!

That there are many things I can find fault with I do not deny. But I don't think any country in the world is perfect. Each nation has its strengths and drawbacks. But sometimes I feel among all the countries I have visited (not many, I know), Singaporeans have a penchant for bashing their own nation more than people I have met elsewhere. The Americans and Australians, I think, are the proudest of their countries. A close second are Indians. But many of my fellow countrymen seem to shy away from taking pride in Singapore. Not only do we not speak well, we also respond with disparaging remarks when others comment positively about Singapore!

Recently, a Canadian wrote in to The Straits Times Forum page to say how much he appreciated Singapore and to chide Singaporeans for not having more pride in their country. The very next day a Singaporean wrote in with a long litany of woes, detailing all that he felt was great in Canada - social welfare and low housing cost being chief on his list - and opined that the Canadian didn't know how good he had it and by implication, how bad the Singaporeans had it. I was really glad that the Canadian writer did not take it lying down but replied with a feisty letter standing by all he had said about Singapore and pointing out some of the problems that he saw in Canada. Like I said, every country has its strengths and its weaknesses.

While I do admit that there are other places that I find attractive - like Melbourne - I do not feel a need to criticise Singapore or its government for what I perceive to be the lack of attractions like those that Melbourne offers. Singapore has been good to me. And I think it is this awareness, that if not for me coming to Singapore at 14, I would not have the life I have now, that keeps me grateful to this nation.

By coming to Singapore, instead of staying in Malaysia where I was born, I had access to an English education. This is something all our students take for granted, without ever wondering why so many children cross the Causeway daily from Malaysia and pay exorbitant fees to study in Singapore schools! If I had stayed in Malaysia I would have been taught in Malay and received an education that would not have been recognised anywhere else in the world. I would have had to fight against race quotas in universities and workplaces, I would have had to look for 'connections' or bribe to get ahead and I would have become fiercely protective of my race identity as so many of the Indians in Malaysia are. I would not be free to worship as I am now and I would have to send my children away at an early age or migrate to ensure that my children had a chance to get ahead in life. These are the realities in the country of my birth.

In Singapore, I succeeded purely on merit. The colour of my skin has not mattered. I can honestly say that in the past 38 years that I have lived here, I have not experienced racial discrimination. I have benefited from financial aid offered by the government both during my secondary school days as well as through my university days based solely on my academic performance. I have had opportunities to grow professionally in the civil service; I have raised a family in a government-subsidised house. I do not worry when I return home late after a night out with my friends; I do not worry when my girls are out with theirs. I am not worried about my old age as I have a government pension and medical benefits to see me through till the day I die.

Yes, the government does not give handouts to the poor. But the government does offer heavily subsidised skills training for those who are out of jobs, the government pays the fees of children from poor families, there are few homeless people sleeping on our streets, there are few beggars and if any they are foreigners out to make a quick buck. Education is the great social leveller and the government sends its social workers to ensure that every child of school-going age is in school.

Yes, it is true that this country has been run by the same political party since the day of its independence. Yes, it is true that the current Prime Minister is the son of our first Prime Minister. And yes, it is true we ban chewing gum, cane vandals and hang drug traffickers. Yes, it is true that homosexuals feel discriminated against because we have not repealed the law that says anal sex is a crime :) BUT it is also true that 85% of our people own their homes, have compulsory government savings they can use in their old age and are sure that if they fall ill, they will be seen by a doctor and admitted in hospital if necessary, on the same day.

When all is said and done, I think Singapore is a great place to live in and to bring up a family. And that is why when the call went out this year to collectively say the National Pledge at 08:22pm I decided I was going to join in, no matter how ridiculous it felt! So there we were at 08:22pm on the 9th of August 2009, taking the National Pledge with many other Singaporeans who felt strongly enough about this country we call home.

My personal favourite memory was when Chad, who was visiting from the US, decided he would stand with the rest of us too to honour the moment :) Yay!

We, the citizens of Singapore

Pledge ourselves as one united people

Regradless of race, language or religion

To build a democratic society

Based on justice and equality

So as to achieve

Happiness, Prosperity and Progress

For our nation!!!!

Our Children's Journey

I think I am not alone in this - parents want their children to have better lives than they themselves did. We want them to enjoy the happy moments we ourselves did and spare them from the sadness we experienced. It is as if we try to make their lives magically perfect with all of the good things and none of the bad.

I remember a conversation with one of my sisters in London. She was anxious about her son's decision to leave his current job in London to move back to KL because she was not sure that his job prospects would be good, given the state of the economy. Struggling through her university and working to pay her fees has left an indelible impression on my sister and now much of the way she views life is affected by the spectre of financial security. This is a big concern for her and at every life stage she focuses first on ensuring her children are provided for. For me, it is the spectre of emotional security. Having struggled with a low self esteem and a difficult marriage, I want to protect my children from the pain of rejection or betrayal. The experience is a similar one for my sister and me - having walked the path of experience, we want to tell our children what to watch out for.... Beware that rock, don't stumble over it; beware that slippery patch; don't take that turn because you will get lost; come this way because I walked this way and my journey was a pleasant one; and do climb that hill I didn't get a chance to, because I hear the view is fabulous and I missed it .......

We all do this I think. We want our children to replicate our school experiences or university experiences; we want our children to travel to places we have seen or not had a chance to see; we have in our minds the kind of spouse he or she needs; we imagine their careers. The urge to advise is there and I admit I do this every opportunity I get. Sometimes we try to manipulate the situation by getting someone else to tell them as we think they would be more receptive if it came from a non-parental source.

Yet, when it comes to the crux, I realise these choices are my children's to make, not mine. The decisions are theirs. The triumphs are theirs. So too the mistakes. But failures teach valuable lessons and protecting my children too much by orchestrating every stage of their life journey is not going to guarantee a happy life. So I have learnt - to speak my mind, explain my reasons and then to drop it; to warn only when the danger seems great; to keep quiet until my advice is asked; and to cover my precious daughters in prayer, the mightiest weapon of all.

Our children must walk their own journeys, but I believe it is our God-given duty to give them sign-posts and to point them in the right way. First they will walk with their hands in ours, then they will let go and run a little, frequently turning back to see if we are still there. Then they will stride off on their own occasionally turning back, to see if we are keeping up. Much as we would like to, my sister and I cannot and must not hold their hands for too long or insist on the paths they should take. Because God has a road map for each one of them and He will guide them, pulling them out of ditches they fall into, keeping their feet on His chosen path, gently turning them back when they wander down wrong ones, and guiding them to mountain tops - for views not intended for our eyes but theirs.

Knowing Myself

I have started a pastoral counselling course. The first session was last Saturday and the second session will be the day after tomorrow. At the first session, the trainer talked about the importance of self-knowledge and self-acceptance as the first step in beginning to counsel others. She asked us how many of us would rate ourselves as 6 or higher out of 10 in terms of self-knowledge. Unsurprisingly, there were a number of us who felt we had journeyed in terms of self-knowledge. Unsurprising because everyone there had been nominated by their churches to be pastoral counsellors so I suppose a level of maturity was to be expected. Of course there was no one who could claim a 10 out of 10 - for who has perfect knowledge of us but God? Most of us were at 6 or 7.

The trainer then asked us how we had learnt things about ourselves. It was interesting to think about this. For me I would say, God revealed aspects of myself to me in 4 ways - through personality tests (like Myers-Briggs), through books like an interesting book on temperaments, through scripture and most important of all, through honest friends. I think it was the honest friends He gave me who were the most instrumental in showing me my weaknesses and in prodding me to look to God to change.

It is because of my personal experience, I think, that I find it difficult to accept when people say _ "this is me; I cannot change; This is just the way I am". I have seen and experienced the change God has wrought in me and I know that I have changed. God has taken hard bits of me and broken and moulded me in sometimes painful ways to make me a "new creation" in Him. And I thank God for that. As I look back and remember who I used to be, I am often ashamed. And I thank God for WY and MF who did not mince their words and did not spare my feelings but showed me when I was arrogant, when I was wallowing in self-pity, when I was being judgemental, when I was bad-tempered and when I was allowing myself to be an insufferable martyr. I was so so angry then but I am so thankful now because I realise it took a lot of courage and a lot of love for them to be able to speak such hard truths to me.

And yesterday at CYAN cell group, I realised there was a 5th way - God also used the really painful periods of my life to change me and draw me closer to Him as well. It seems paradoxical and weird, but when I think about it I realise that it is the hard times that God uses to change me because it is only during hard times that I am listening to Him! When things go well, more often than not, I am busy chasing my toys. But when I get to a point when I don't know what to do, and who to turn to, that is when I seek His face and when I am most receptive to His voice.

My most recent experience is a case in point. My illness has finally brought me to a point when I can trust God in hard circumstances. This was an aspect of my spiritual life that I struggled with because I tend to do things on my own steam and I love to have things my own way. Sometimes, I think I treated God like a rubber stamp of authority asking Him to endorse decisions I had already made instead of really listening to His will. But the experience of being ill taught me my own real helplessness. On my own will I could not even close my eye; I could not drink from a cup. I could do nothing about the situation except to wait for healing in God's time. And I learnt in those 5 days to let go. It was hard but there was nothing else I could do but pray and wait. Yes I felt ashamed and self conscious; yes I was frustrated and spent hours searching on the internet for cures, vitamins, facial exercises.... anything that I could do to improve my situation. But there was nothing to do but wait. And that period has changed a lot of my perspective about life. I find it easier to wait, easier to live with ambiguity, easier to trust that things will turn out ok and even if they didn't, to believe that I will be ok.

In London

Yay! Praise God that I made it to London! Right till I went for my review on Tues I wasn't sure if this was going to happen. I was anxious but prepared in a corner of my heart to give up the London trip if the neurologist had not cleared me for travel. But the review went very well! And the doc said that I had recovered around 70 - 75% strength of the facial muscles. And right now the little lop-sidedness is not even noticeable! God is my Healer.

So my daughters and I are in London now, having a really blessed time so far. We arrived on Friday 10 Jul and last night we celebrated my sister Su's 60th birthday. She had hired a small hall and had a DJ to play music. Her friends did all the cooking and even baked the cake for her. The music was different from my 50th, of course. Where mine was predominantly Indian in 'feel', my sister's do had a West Indian 'feel' to it, largely due to her friends being mainly from Trinidad / Jamaica / Barbados etc. So it was reggae night with a congo line instead of the mad Indian dances I had :) It was nice to get back with my sisters again, though this time there were just 5 out of the 8 of us.

Been hanging out at my niece M's most of the time. We had a nice day out today to recover from the tiredness of last night. We went to church, and as the weather was lovely, we went to Parliament Hill Park where we played 'It' and 'Duck, Duck, Goose' and 'What is the time Mr Wolf' to keep my grand-nephew entertained and to give oursleves permission to eat a lot under the guise of having exercised a lot :) We then drove down to the Thames and had a very nice lunch at Giraffe's.

It's begining to feel a lot more like a holiday, now. Tomorrow we are going to take a day trip to Bath now that J has a greater appreciation for all things Austen. Tues we are going to spend the day in the city and probably get some shopping done before we meet for my niece Charllyn's graduation dinner party. Then Thurs, most excitingly, M has booked us for a 3D2N trip to Paris! This is something I am really looking forward to as I have wanted to go to Europe for soooo long - since my undergrad days actually - and I am excited. We come back from Paris on Sat and then it is my niece Vidya's wedding next Mon and then all the excitement winds down and we leave for Singapore (and work) next Tues. Right now, I don't want to think about that. Right now I am just going to focus on my trip to Stonehenge and Bath tomorrow.

In the Valley

It has been a hard 2 weeks for me. On 22 Jun I started having sores on my tongue which I thought at first was an allergic reaction to the new toothpaste I had bought. So I just put up with it, changed back to my usual toothpaste brand and thought the sores would go away. They didn't. Instead I started to get more and more of them till by Fri 26 Jun my tongue was swollen and I could hardly talk or eat. The following evening I developed a fever and that was when I decided I should go see a doctor.

So on Sunday, almost a week after I started getting the sores on my tongue I finally see the GP and he says it was not an allergy but an infection and sent me home with antibiotics and a day's medical leave. The next morning I woke up to find the left side of my face swollen and the right side of the face drooping! My first thought was - I have had a stroke! So back to the GP I went and this time another doctor was on duty. She told me I had Bell's Palsy and gave me a strong dose of steroids and said I had to see a neurologist within 48 hrs.

So on Tues 30 Jun I saw a neurologist who has finally diagnosed my illness as Ramsay Hunt Syndrome which is a herpes viral infection caused probably by the dormant chicken pox virus in me. Some people get shingles. I have been on medical leave since then and going for my review with the neurologist tomorrow afternoon.

How has it been, these 2 weeks? I have alternated between despair and strength. And I think, there has been more strength. God has been truly gracious to me. R was back by the time the drame started and she was a huge help during the weekend when I was at my worst. The facial paralysis was very hard to take and I felt self-conscious and scared that it was going to be permanent. It was difficult to speak clearly for 2 days when my words were slurred and my imagination went wild thinking things like - how will I teach again? :)

But I also felt really supported by the prayer of my friends and family. Often, feelings of despair would be followed almost immediately by a sense of assurance and peace. I am thankful God directed me to an alert GP, that the neurologist I saw was experienced and unfazed and did not order unnecessary scans and tests as even just that one consultation already cost me $400 in consultation fees and medication. I am thankful that the facial paralysis is lessening and the droop doesn't seem as obvious now as it did last week. I am thankful my boss and office colleagues have been really supportive in covering work for me. I am thankful for my sisters-in-Christ who have prayed for me and encouraged me.

So what now? I don't know. I am still easily tired. And my hearing is affected. I have a ringing in one ear and all sounds are amplified and this is making me feel imbalanced so I feel fragile, as if I can't trust myself to carry even a mug of tea and walk from the kitchen to the living room. We are supposed to be flying on Friday to London to attend my sister's 60th birthday dinner and my niece's wedding. I am not sure if I can make the trip. If I don't go, my sister and my daughetrs are not likely to want to go either and that could potentially cost me $6000. Maybe I could get a doctor's letter and claim from my travel insurance, I don't know..... I feel bad that I have not been at work for a week and that I would be flying off to London too....

So right now, I don't know what tomorrow will bring. Like I was telling J and R this evening, it is a bit freaky that my travel plans this year are all being de-railed or 'spoilt' in some way or another. But I am in a good place inside of myself. Maybe this is my desert experience, maybe it is my valley time, maybe it is enforced rest. But this too I will accept from the hand of my Lord and my God because I know He is good. His ways are perfect and though I may not understand all the things He has planned for me, in Him I trust.

Though the fig tree does not bud

and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls

yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

(Hab 3: 17 - 18)

May God bring me to this place.