bringing forth

Nicked this off an ex-JC classmate's blog. I'm not bored, just inquisitive.

Name: lux
Birthday: sometimes wishing Frank Lloyd Wright shared his design genius with me
Birthplace: Singapore
Current Location: it's really Singapore, but I'd say Melbourne
Eye Colour: Brown
Hair Colour: dyed, and yes this is a colour
Height: 164cm
Right Handed or Left Handed: Right
Your Heritage: Cantonese from Guangdong (who presently cannot hold a conversation in canto)
The Shoes You Wore Today: pointy-toed leather slingbacks, one-inched, oh-so-feminine
Your Weakness: just one? there're many, worldly knowledge being one
Your Fears: being too selfish
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year: drawing closer to Him, learning to love others more, refining my wardrobe, working out my box of colour pencils and paints to full effect
Your Most Overused Phrase on an instant messenger: well... but... yeah...
Thoughts First Waking Up: sleep! even if your body says no more!
Your Best Physical Feature: eyes I'm told
Your Most Missed Memory: me and sis sliding around the bathroom floor on our butts as we bathed
Single or Group Dates: Single. Do group dates work?
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Chai Latte only!
Chocolate or vanilla: choc
Cappuccino or Coffee: isn't cappuccino a kind of coffee?
Do you Smoke: nope
Do you Swear: is darn a swear word?
Do you Sing: a resounding yes
Do you Shower Daily: Yes, it's therapy for the city girl
Have you Been in Love: with God, yes; with others, no.
Do you want to go to College: I am in college.
Do you want to get Married: That's long haul but yes, why not?
Do you believe in yourself: He believes in me and that is enough.
Do you get Motion Sickness: Too often
Do you think you are Attractive: As attractive as I aim not to consciously be
Are you a Health Freak: I respect health, not freak out over it
Do you get along with your Parents: gradually more and more
Do you like Thunderstorms: when I'm inside looking out
Do you play an Instrument: no
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol: two glasses
In the past month have you been on Drugs: no
In the past month have you gone on a Date: what truly constitutes a date?
In the past month have you gone to a Mall: yes
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos: I've however eaten many near-expired brownies from the organic store I work in
In the past month have you eaten Sushi: yes!
In the past month have you been on Stage: I crave to be but have not
In the past month have you been Dumped: no
In the past month have you Stolen Anything: no
Ever been Drunk: Anyone who'll generously provide the alcohol and dare to push the limits?
Ever been called a Tease: no
Ever been Beaten up: no need to beat. Just tickle.
How do you want to Die: does this question insinuate a certain fear of dying?
What do you want to be when you Grow Up: Curator in a museum. Set up cafe promoting quirky local art. Serving in missions in farflung places
What country would you most like to Visit: dare I say Europe as a continent?

In a Boy...Favourite Eye Colour: the colour doesn't matter
Favourite Hair Colour: no preference
Short or Long Hair: How long's long? Not shaggy for sure
Height: At least three inches taller, so I can still wear my heels
Weight: Lean and proportionately muscular please
Best Clothing Style: Smart and preppy. I dig V-necked sweaters, collared shirts, pressed khakis and comfortable sneakers/opentoed sandals/laceups

Number of Drugs I have taken: wasn't there a drug question earlier?
Number of CDs I own: eclectic, considerable and gaining a character of their (collective) own
Number of Piercings: 4, though I think they've almost all closed
Number of Tattoos: none
Number of things in my Past I Regret: I don't regret. He has settled them all. Living with Him is much easier.

I ever remembered a girlfriend showing me the picture of her then-current boyfriend on MSN, the Mother of all online chat engines.
I said He's good looking!
She said Thank you! =)

It is just three degrees more silly and illogical than replies to compliments on looks:
(any letter from)A-Z says You're pretty/cute/good looking etc.!
You say Oh thank you! =)

Of course you could be a really good dresser; or much better still, a character with a generous dose of confidence and assuredness to boot. But in all honesty you cannot possibly say thanks to what is certainly a blessing of admirable genes from those who have come and gone before you? ie. your parents' parents' parents' to the power of (any letter from)A-Z?

So are you thanking us for acknowledging your good taste in choosing a mate; sharing your appreciation for looks he did not fully earn on his own efforts; or rejoicing over the possibility that if all works out well, you will be able to partake in the double joy of blessing a future generation with admirable genes?

If I were your progeny, I'd say thanks to that!

We were chatting last night just before bedtime. The conversation led to things which when never mentioned, were never known; till last night.

xhua: I found a girl who has similar hands to mine - hairy arms!
This drew attention to her outstretched arms which were generously covered with hair. Straight not straggly.
lux: Oh.
xhua: But mine's better, more organised.
lux: Oh really? That's good. Sadness for her.
xhua: Yes sadness indeed.
Pause
xhua: Good arms. Good hair.

We brushed teeth and peewee-d. I was sitting on the upper deck of our double decker bed (which lower deck she had long since vacated on the excuse that mosquitoes tormented those sleeping in cave-like conditions) and she decided to pursue another relevant topic.

xhua: You know ah, when I was in primary 5, I went for an exam even though I was sick. During the exam I cough cough cough, sneeze sneeze sneeze. I was a nuisance.
lux: Oh my goodness, 5 years after the incident then you admit you were a nuisance.
xhua: The following week those seated around me were all sick.
lux: Ohhh.
xhua: It happened when I was younger before too.
lux: I see.
xhua: I'm a 100% effective vector!
lux: Good to know you're an effective flu messenger.
xhua: I always get sick during exam time.

Both: Good night!

Perhaps I have been giving too much of myself and I am currently rather drained out, emotionally, physically and mentally. Last night as I prayed to Him, I asked: Father, I don't think I can quite take it anymore.
Thanks Jesus for being there. I am on the verge of tears. Again I wonder what did I do that others can inflict wounds on me with the words they use. And then I find myself somewhere near where I was just about a year ago - the very person I helped just as deftly, and how matter consciously, did and said careless things which lashed painfully at me; or more accurately, who I am. But thank You that Your love still abounds, hugs me to sleep even when my candle is about to blow out. Thank You for blessing me with a sister who seems to understand even when few others do; who stands by just by being there when her 21 year old sister is emotionally dry.
I pray for Your living waters to rush over me, sweep across my being and leave love, grace and power trickling all over me. I need that right now. I think I have to step back. It is never about me, it has always been about You.

Isaiah 22:11
but you did not look to the One who made it,
or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.

Everything He has purposed for me is to bless and propser. So why am I, in so many areas of my life, looking to improve the situation in ways I was used to, and attempting to understand human emotions and condition through patterns of thought I have been accustomed to? When I know that there is One who oversees all and whose wisdom supercedes anything I claim to know?
There is this reluctance in me to stop the cycle of thinking*
*when Lux was younger, her thought processes were fine products of the world and its system of education. the more knowledge she acquired the more cynical she grew. the more questions she asked the more she realised no one had adequate, or even satisfactory, answers to them.
and I realised that the patterns of thought I am once more immersing myself into were undeniably insular and self-consumed. Easily I have settled down into the comfortable life I'm used to in Singapore and to an extent also found myself settling back into the questionable 'comforts' of the way I reasoned out life and relationships.
Thoughts are not bad but when I leave out Christ in my life as a Christian, where does that leave me? An -ian waiting for a noun to fill up the space left by the hyphen? What have I been orienting my life toward? Even when I profess being Christian, and blessedly so; have I forgotten His grace and love and providence?

Father I cry out to You! I need help with my thoughts and the way I try to handle my life. There is a gap which cannot be replaced by anything else. Teach me how to lead a life that's full of You. I am sorry that in the busy-ness of life, throughout all the wrestling with relationships and emotions and thoughts I have put You aside. Here I am trying to wrestle with the heaviness of living and forgotten how You Lord have saved me and will bear the burdens for me.
I want to live a life in line with Your plans and desires for me, a life rich with a heart knowledge of who You are in me. Let me not pray prayers which are empty of heart but rather prayers overflowing with You, Lord Jesus. I want to look to You, to see You, to rest in You. I pray for the strength to step out in faith, out of the processes and conditions I have grown used to over the years and into a garden filled with peace and hope.
Only You know what lies inside of me. I pray for humbleness and obedience in the name of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Amen.

Psalm 144
'LORD, what are human beings that you care for them,
mere mortals that you think of them?
They are like a breath;
their days are like a fleeting shadow.'

I have not posted any devotions on this blog for a long time. Why now I do not quite know, but I'll just let the Spirit lead in these writings.
In all honesty, in the whole corpus of human history; in comparison to all around me, humans and animals and creation and creation - I am that small. Really. He has seen the passing of times, civilisations and empires. He has witnessed the gradual corrosion of the earth He created. He has seen how the elaborate and infinitely beautiful home He has built for those He loves and makes in His image, being slowly laid to waste by... us.
Nothing is perfect about me. All my achievements - from putting together a fine-looking outfit to writing an award-winning poem to topping the class in an examination, can never draw me closer to perfection. How can it be when these achievements can become keys which unlock a heart wrecked by spite, fear, pride, envy as I compare myself against the images set by others? And it is because I hold on to these worldly standards that days do become fleeting shadows. For who is fully immersed in light if every moment is spent hiding in the murkiness of a spirit so used to chasing after that which has little light of its own, if any at all?
Father, why me? I who tire easily and whines and despairs and sits around wondering when the next buzz will arrive? I am merely mortal. Yet in all my mortality You can still see hope and in whom You still have much faith in. I am fallible. Strip everything off me and lay me bare, without all the accoutrements I have attained over the years living here, and I am small and weak and still immature in the desires I harbour in my heart.
But I want my heart to grow bigger, knowing that You desire far larger things for me. Grant me the faith to nurture a gentle, patient and discerning heart large enough to believe in the great visions You have for Your people. Forgive me for I have grown insular and selfish. The thoughts I think about myself have outnumbered those I think of You and others. Yet You continue thinking about me - not bad thoughts but good ones, ones meant to prosper me and this world I live in. Father I pray for a change in my heart and a strengthening of my faith. Please ignite fresh new hopes in me that they may empower me to see beyond the limitations of my own faculties.
I have been praying for passion, passion, passion. Now I want to pray for something new. I pray that I'll slowly come to full understanding of how great Your love is for me, for people and for the home You created for us. I pray that my desire to know You more and more will never be superceded by my passions to serve Your kingdom. I want You, Holy Spirit, to blossom in a heart that is big for You. I need realignment Father. The only One who knows how to go about this is You. Teach me how to pray and wait this through, to trust sitting on Your shoulders and to remain actively faithful through it all.
Even though I may seem small; I know and want You to be big in me, my Lord and Saviour, Friend and Comforter, all in all.