I’m currently dying of laughter as I browse through my dad’s pictures from his recent business trip to Beijing (my mum went along). Excerpt of some captions: “on top of one of the ‘fake mountains’ [next picture] “and in front of ‘fake lakes’ with fake bridge.. why did I go there? ok, the trees are real.” / “No camera in front of my belly!! what a surprise.” [he's as much of a perpetual photo-taker as I am.] / “Bird’s Nest at night. One of the about 1000 I took that night.” [ah, I see I'm not the only one who likes to take a million shots of the same frame. :P] / “color-coded apartment buildings so you can tell your friends: “oh, I live in the green building”. Wait.. there are two green buildings, never mind..”
“I think they don’t want people to step on the grass but you probably need an advanced degree in English to figure that out.” – Dad
(Seriously, how did they get that translation ..???)
Perhaps that’s where I got my silly captioning skills. ;)
Also some other random things to share: DCB ‘s [SMS (Shine)] MV is insanely cool (seriously, stop animation using Lite Brites… o_O?!?). I also really like the lyrics as it reminds us how God’s love is enough – indeed, overcomes and surpasses anything we experience in this world, whether it’s joy or pain, even in times of sorrow. Glyu also recently shared Starfield’s [Saving One] album with me. I love their music. “Saving One”, “Rediscover You”, and “Absolutely” have easily made it into my list of favorite songs. =)
In other news, life has been good – I would say, very blessing-filled. =) Granted, I’m not immuned to the stresses of this world which are manifesting themselves in the form of a sudden increase in schoolwork this week and the career fair this Thursday (wait, that’s tomorrow! Shoot, I still have not done any research); but, ever since retreat, I’ve experienced much more… peace about life. Yesterday’s LG (Yeah, JAVAAA!!) was wonderful as those of us who went to retreat shared about how God was working – not only in ourselves but also in others. Through it all, I really got to see a glimpse of how God really spoke into each of our lives, addressing our needs and answering so many prayers. So many times we secretly get discouraged when we feel like God’s not listening to us; but, just hearing testimonies from others really confirms how great He is working! Praise God for the work he’s been doing. May we continue to be sensitive to His calling in our lives to surrender to him.
Finally, last quick points of sharing (ask me to expound upon these in person; I feel like if I did it on ‘paper’, it would take another age): other convictions from retreat –
Be content – not in the sense that I grow lazy, but rather that I’m not constantly wishing I were in some other circumstance.
Be still – and know that He is God. What with the added ‘stress’ of research, job searching, and being a co-leader, I get so “busy” and worried that I forget that God’s got it under control. The focus of that last sentence being the last 5 words.
Be satisfied – in Him. As humans, we’re bound to secretly compare ourselves to others. Myself included. God’s response: “What is that to you?” He has his unique plans for each and every one of us; there’s no need/point to compare.
In short, be CSS! (Haha, oh dear, HMCC does really make you think in acryonyms. XD [For those of you who don't know, CSS is a style sheet language for websites.])
