Now talking about funerals, my 2nd bro in law went home to the Lord last week, after a 3 yr battle with lung cancer. Like my husband it was only during the last days of his life on earth that he came to know Jesus. I rmbr sharing with him the story of how God came into our lives during Chinese New Year when i was back in Alor Star a year ago. He never said much then, and i left it at that, tho i never stopped praying God would touch his heart. Well, it looks like God did, for suddenly out of the blue, March this year, he announced he wanted to be baptised. And so he was. My sis called for the pastor the nite before he passed away; and after being prayed over, he never regained consciousness; so peaceful was his passing.
I had journeyed back with some misgivings in my heart; for my sis' family relationship had been somewhat strained betw her and the daughter-in-law. (the only Christian amongst them) Things had gotten to such a stage, she had in a fit of anger disowned her only son who sided with the wife. I was wondering if World War 3 would break out at the funeral, but thank God He heard and answered my prayer for peace to prevail; i was shuttling to and fro betw the parties trying to reconcile them, to forgive harsh words spoken in anger , irrespective of who is right or wrong ; just as God forgives us who have all sinned against Him ; who are we not to forgive those who sin against us...
And i fell back to thinking how true wat the Bible says about the human tongue - it is a fire, a world of evil amongst the parts of the body. Such a small little organ, yet so lethal is its effect. How many times have we spoken out w/out thinking and lived to regret our words? Once released out of our mouths, nothing can be taken back. We could say sorry, we could whack ourselves on the head 1000 times for being rash, we could cry our hearts out; but we could never remove the sting of words. The worse part is if we allow the sting to fester, it becomes toxic poison in our system, building up hate, resentment, bitterness, pride and a critical spirit which only serves to destroy the peace and love which should attend our relationship with others.
I used to think i was entitled to say anything and everything if i was right. (and even if i was wrong, i would say it anyway, becoz i figured that's my right to my own opinion). Well, i m discovering my perspective is not the criteria in determining right or wrong. So before i open my big mouth, i bite my tongue and ask in my heart, God, what's Your take on this? Isn't it true that only God's right is right? I mean, my right could be very wrong to you, and vice versa. If the world was to be governed by every individual's idea of right or wrong, it would be even more messed up than it already is! But hai, we human beings can be so self-deceived; in the name of independence, liberty and tolerance, we tink its ok to just live and let live, hoping to preserve the peace. But that kind of peace is a delusion really; it merely sweeps everything under the carpet of pretence that each of us can live as we like with our own standards of morality and ethics.
At the end of the day, there is only 1 standard against which we are judged; and that is no man's standard, but the standard of a 100% holy, 100% just God. Before that absolute standard, we all fail, some more miserably than others, but all fail, becoz none of us are perfect; God knows all have sinned, that's why He sent us a Savior, coz He knows we can't rescue ourselves, no matter how much good we do or attempt to do. The rights could never cancel out the wrongs... when we come to realise that truth, that's when our heart will finally acknowledge the need for a Savior....
Thank God He has already anticipated that need, and answered it by giving us Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life; if only all would believe this.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Monday, November 03, 2008
Of weddings.......
Talk about beautiful beginnings... the other day i received a most unexpected call...from a loooong lost person from loooong ago... it was my mom's fren, whom i call aunty Molly, back from the days when we were still staying in this fabulous place (employees quarters) with a swimming pool called Taman Aman. I rmbr i threw my very 1st b-day party by the pool side when i turned 18; and i wore this black tingy - my 1st 'sexy' piece (well, it was sexy to me then!) presented by Cat and the girls... wow, such a throw-back to the good old days... well, anyway, back to the present.. aunty Molly btw is actually Jinai's real aunt... and it turns out her son was getting married in KL, and to cut a looong story short... yep, i went, and i met up with aunty M and Jinai as well... not only dear Jinai, but her whole family - i kept marvelling how her impish sister Amy and the little bro David had grown soooo much! (ok,ok i keep forgetting how old I am myself! ) Well, Jinai is... Jinai, still same bubbly character i rmbr her as....
and of coz weddings being weddings, hai, the bride's beautifooool, the groom's handsome...i was kept entertained by the screen put up to run the 'life-history' of the happy couple... my mind rewind back to the weddings of our yesteryears... rmbr we only had video taping, and even then, there would be this guy who had to lug around this huge, big blinding light tingy sticking it into everyone's face, capturing every pimple and every drop of sweat in the heat! The weddings now are so hi-tech, man... everyone is using computer techno to do up cutesy pix of 'him-n-her' from baby in diapers to teens courting, down to how and where the question was popped finally. I attended one where the guy actually wrote it out on a waterproof board underwater, as they were diving in the deep blue sea off the coast of some exotic island... man, talk about romance!
Indeed, marriage is such a beautiful beginning, ya. It symbolises the epitome of man's journey for wat is commonly termed a 'soul-mate' to walk thru life together. And it should be beautiful; after all God created the first human relationship to be that of a man and woman bonded in holy matrimony for better for worse, for richer for poorer till death do they part. And i m sure every couple who walked down the aisle would not hv thot anything else to the contrary on that big day. Yet if we take a peek at what happens 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 7, 15, 25, years down the line, isnt it sad that some of the beautiful beginnings have turned out less than beautiful. Indeed dont even have to wait that long; sometimes in a matter of 6 months, the happily-ever-after euphoria is already turning into black-faced mornings after.. no matter how perfect it started out, all too soon, the honeymoon is over and all couples are put to the test, not once, but again and again...
How many of us, to be honest, have entertained silent doubt in our heart abt our partners, especially after a quarrel??(If you hv never quarrelled with your spouse, i salute you, becoz you must be a very very rare 'breed'). I rmbr once my husband asked me whether i ever regretted marrying him... and i m ashamed to say i couldn't answer, becoz the truth was sometimes i did. To say no would be a lie, to say yes would hurt him; so i changed the subject. (ya, typical woman!) It made me feel even worse when he volunteered that he never regretted marrying me. At that moment i realised wat a terrible person i can be...i recalled horrid things i did; like taking out work frustrations on the kids and on him, never wishing him good morning, always waiting for him to say sorry after a fight (even if it was my fault), oh, so many many little tings that negated love. Not that he was a saint either; but then who am i to judge, when i myself am such a sinner?
Weren't there any good times to rmbr? Of coz there were plenty. And it was these that kept me going when he was so ill with the cancer eating up his body... it was calling up strength from the memories of a love which began beautiful, got a bit worn and off-color thru the years, but still was strong enuf to weather the pain of disease and yes, death. I knew my husband loved me, but i never knew how much till after his passing, when my brother told me wat my husband said when questioned why he wanted to become a Christian; his answer was" becoz of my wife". Wat he did tell me after he prayed to receive Jesus on his hospital bed was that now he understood wat i had been trying to tell him about Christ - finally he knew wat peace was.
And so it is, i treasure those last moments of his life, when his love for me led him to experience the supreme love of God. How merciful God is, to bless me with 17 years of a marriage that survived the ups and downs of crisis after crisis, and above all, saved us both when we were yet sinners, and promised us that eventually we will meet again in heaven to live a life that surpasses anyting we can ever imagine or dream of.....
So today, i can still smile ... ...i am not a poor,little widow.... i am rich beyond measure; for tho i may have nothing in this world, i have everything in Christ Jesus... and i know wat was a beautiful beginning on earth will end up even more beautiful in heaven! My husband breathed his last on his bed at home, with my bro-in-law at his side singing Amazing Grace.... how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, i once was lost but now am found, was blind but now i see.... i used to hear and even sing this song at scouts/rangers' campfires in school but i never understood its meaning till that day.... praise God for His grace that He gave us His one and only Son Jesus who came to seek and save the lost, to bring us out of darkness into light, from death into life. For He is the Beginning and the End, He is the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega; from Him, thru Him and to Him are all things.
and of coz weddings being weddings, hai, the bride's beautifooool, the groom's handsome...i was kept entertained by the screen put up to run the 'life-history' of the happy couple... my mind rewind back to the weddings of our yesteryears... rmbr we only had video taping, and even then, there would be this guy who had to lug around this huge, big blinding light tingy sticking it into everyone's face, capturing every pimple and every drop of sweat in the heat! The weddings now are so hi-tech, man... everyone is using computer techno to do up cutesy pix of 'him-n-her' from baby in diapers to teens courting, down to how and where the question was popped finally. I attended one where the guy actually wrote it out on a waterproof board underwater, as they were diving in the deep blue sea off the coast of some exotic island... man, talk about romance!
Indeed, marriage is such a beautiful beginning, ya. It symbolises the epitome of man's journey for wat is commonly termed a 'soul-mate' to walk thru life together. And it should be beautiful; after all God created the first human relationship to be that of a man and woman bonded in holy matrimony for better for worse, for richer for poorer till death do they part. And i m sure every couple who walked down the aisle would not hv thot anything else to the contrary on that big day. Yet if we take a peek at what happens 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 7, 15, 25, years down the line, isnt it sad that some of the beautiful beginnings have turned out less than beautiful. Indeed dont even have to wait that long; sometimes in a matter of 6 months, the happily-ever-after euphoria is already turning into black-faced mornings after.. no matter how perfect it started out, all too soon, the honeymoon is over and all couples are put to the test, not once, but again and again...
How many of us, to be honest, have entertained silent doubt in our heart abt our partners, especially after a quarrel??(If you hv never quarrelled with your spouse, i salute you, becoz you must be a very very rare 'breed'). I rmbr once my husband asked me whether i ever regretted marrying him... and i m ashamed to say i couldn't answer, becoz the truth was sometimes i did. To say no would be a lie, to say yes would hurt him; so i changed the subject. (ya, typical woman!) It made me feel even worse when he volunteered that he never regretted marrying me. At that moment i realised wat a terrible person i can be...i recalled horrid things i did; like taking out work frustrations on the kids and on him, never wishing him good morning, always waiting for him to say sorry after a fight (even if it was my fault), oh, so many many little tings that negated love. Not that he was a saint either; but then who am i to judge, when i myself am such a sinner?
Weren't there any good times to rmbr? Of coz there were plenty. And it was these that kept me going when he was so ill with the cancer eating up his body... it was calling up strength from the memories of a love which began beautiful, got a bit worn and off-color thru the years, but still was strong enuf to weather the pain of disease and yes, death. I knew my husband loved me, but i never knew how much till after his passing, when my brother told me wat my husband said when questioned why he wanted to become a Christian; his answer was" becoz of my wife". Wat he did tell me after he prayed to receive Jesus on his hospital bed was that now he understood wat i had been trying to tell him about Christ - finally he knew wat peace was.
And so it is, i treasure those last moments of his life, when his love for me led him to experience the supreme love of God. How merciful God is, to bless me with 17 years of a marriage that survived the ups and downs of crisis after crisis, and above all, saved us both when we were yet sinners, and promised us that eventually we will meet again in heaven to live a life that surpasses anyting we can ever imagine or dream of.....
So today, i can still smile ... ...i am not a poor,little widow.... i am rich beyond measure; for tho i may have nothing in this world, i have everything in Christ Jesus... and i know wat was a beautiful beginning on earth will end up even more beautiful in heaven! My husband breathed his last on his bed at home, with my bro-in-law at his side singing Amazing Grace.... how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, i once was lost but now am found, was blind but now i see.... i used to hear and even sing this song at scouts/rangers' campfires in school but i never understood its meaning till that day.... praise God for His grace that He gave us His one and only Son Jesus who came to seek and save the lost, to bring us out of darkness into light, from death into life. For He is the Beginning and the End, He is the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega; from Him, thru Him and to Him are all things.
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