Paper Angels

March 2013

2013-03-29T08:06:00.001+08:00

An Update

It is early on Good Friday morning. Here we get a holiday on Good Friday so I don't have school today.

It has been a crazy first quarter of the year as a new teacher. I haven't had knives pointed at me yet this year but just recently I've physically had to break up a fight. And the past week I have had my 6-month confirmation observation (though really I've been teaching for three), which was really scary! I also had to help out with some stuff at my school's cross-country run (which sadly got rained out), and our Year 9 camp. Also, I'm one of the teachers in charge of our school's dance troupe, and we have a major performance in April (aahh!). Sometimes teaching feels like doing two jobs at once!

I'm still working on memorising 1 Timothy; the time taken to memorise books seems to get exponentially longer because it takes so much time to go over what you've already memorised so you don't forget it. Sometimes it also makes me feel like a Pharisee, though, because they knew the Word of God really well but they didn't put it into action. I find that one of the most convicting parts of scripture memory is realising just how far you fall from the mark, all the time.

Recently I have also been teaching my Year 7s about heroes and heroines (I try my best at gender and racial equality in the classroom). Non-fiction wise, we've been looking almost exclusively at non-white female heroines, and they actually are a lot easier to find than you'd imagine—Aung San Suu Kyi for example. Fiction wise it's a bit harder as the prominent children's books now are something like Harry Potter, the Hunger Games and Percy Jackson. Jon has been helping me out loads with the Harry Potter bits!

Anyway, I remember that last year just before the wedding I was panicking over my new classes, as I'm not very good at classroom management. Things aren't exactly smooth sailing now but I reckon we are hanging in there. The A to C rate has surprisingly not been too shabby, and I think we'll be able to push them all up in the end. They're lovely students, they really are.

On Good Friday

One of my students (whom I had told off earlier in the day) came up to me late yesterday afternoon and asked, "I'm really sorry. Are you still angry at me?" I couldn't help laughing, partly because I never really get angry (just sad) and partly because that reflected so much of me, the sinner me. As a teacher, I couldn't be angry any longer. The matter was closed. We'd moved on. The lesson was over.

And the thing is, God offers us something way better than that. More than a forgiveness that depends on the sinner learning his lesson, he offers us a forgiveness that depends on his Son. And that's what we remember on Good Friday: the ransom was given, the sacrifice was made, the atonement accepted.

As a Pharisee, as a lackluster teacher, as a sinful wife—I am accepted because of Christ. I am his glory, and he is my beloved.

via earth adventurer

January 2013

2013-01-19T21:29:00.002+08:00

credit: Mike's Sorry
At the start of the year I had big ambitions about getting this blog up and running again, and posting regularly. But being married and having a full-time teaching position, while stepping up my commitment to volunteer work, apparently don't mix well with blogging.

What's been up? Well we've just started a new school year, my students are absolutely fab, I've been memorising 1 Timothy (because that's the current sermon series at church) and I have to work on a new curriculum for the primary aged kids I volunteer with. And I've been sleeping at 9.30pm everyday.

Also I have been reading the entire Percy Jackson series and cannot believe I have to wait until October to find out if Percy and Annabeth survive. WHAT.

December's Instagram

2012-12-31T03:04:00.001+08:00

Also, married life is awesome.

Waking up next to Jon is unbelievable.

Photos from Facebook

2012-12-12T17:43:00.000+08:00

Three Weeks

2012-11-17T23:12:00.001+08:00

via ariana lynee
In exactly 3 weeks I'll be getting married.

Some days, like today, have been extraordinarily normal.

We went to Little India in the morning, to buy some hula hoops. We had lunch at a fast food joint. I went to Clementi club; you played computer games with your brother. We met for dinner at a food court and went to get more hula hoops from Toys R Us.

Recently there have been a lot of errands to run, a lot of meetings to attend and a lot of things to organise. Some of my friends remarked in surprise that I'd gotten darker before my wedding (the Asian perspective on beauty is fairer is better) but I couldn't help it; last Saturday was spent erecting tents under the sun in a park for a community event.

The thing is, I don't want to put my life on hold for my wedding. I don't want to step back serving in club and go for fancy photo shoots and look like someone I'm not on my wedding day. The wedding, after all, is hardly for us. It doesn't really matter if we want a big wedding or an 'intimate' wedding, flowers or balloons, pink or gold. The wedding, just like what we'd like the rest of our lives to be, is about celebrating a Father and the people he's placed in our lives to make us who we are today... our families, our friends and churches. Marriage will be about putting the other person first; the wedding models that by putting our friends and families before ourselves.

So no, we haven't done a pre-wedding photoshoot; we're not doing the gatecrashing; and no, we're not going to match the ang pows to the guest list (haha!). Instead, we will be honouring the people who have poured their lives into us thus far. Not mainly because it's the right thing to do but mainly because we want to.

It will be an extraordinarily normal wedding, and we will lead extraordinarily normal lives after; no big destiny, no grand romance, no riding off into the sunset. No especially divine moments when we suddenly realised God had created us for each other, no spectacular story (read the previous two posts for proof! Haha). Just a humble recognition that we have received far more than we deserve, for to live kindly and generously with the knowledge that heaven awaits must surely be the greatest thing on earth.

The Story Continues

2012-10-29T17:51:00.000+08:00

Christmas of 2008 was cute. We did a Secret Santa on the Globe team (as we did every year) and I got Jon. He got me too. (I swear it wasn't rigged. I think.)

At the same time, Jon and I got called up to serve on the CU committee for March 2009-March 2010. Now this was back in the ancient times when people were appointed rather than elected, and also when we weren't allowed to date other people on committee. They've changed all that now.

So we spent the next year being really good friends. I went to China on mission for the entire summer of 2009, and Jon was one of the few people I kept in contact with when I was there. I still wasn't sure what to make of our friendship, and being on committee provided a good excuse to avoid thinking about it.

But finally in the fall of 2009, Jon and I decided we needed to talk. So we did. And we decided that things were going somewhere. But we had a full six months left on committee. To make a complicated story short, we waited.

Things weren't easy when we started going out in March 2010. Neither of us knew anything about being a boyfriend/girlfriend, and it was hard not really knowing what to expect and having to work out how everything was going to be done. Again, I went to China for the entire summer; but this time, after a second time of living with a group of mission-minded Christians, I became certain I wanted to become a long-term missionary in the future.

Jon had planned a trip to Singapore. And the poor boy had expected a fun three weeks of spending time with his girlfriend doing tourist-y things, that turned out to be a three weeks of wondering whether we were being pulled in opposite directions since I wanted to become a missionary and he wasn't sure if he did.

At the end of the three weeks, we broke up. (You weren't expecting that, were you!)

created by oswinald

But, as you guessed, it didn't last for long. After a few more weeks of thinking and praying and talking about it, we realised we didn't have different visions for the future after all. I had no intentions on marrying someone whose only ambition was full-time ministry, and Jon (and I) realised that there are many opportunities for teachers and IT people and all sorts on the mission field.

And so we decided to give it another shot. (Plus I couldn't really bear the thought of a fourth year in uni without Jon around.)

2011 was God's answer to our prayers. We organised several new events for our uni (it's amazing how much time you find you have when you stop attending all those committee meetings!) including a missions fair and an East Asian fair; we attended several missions events including a weekend with New Tribes Mission, and I went back to China again for the summer—only this time with Jon. It was becoming clearer and clearer that God had placed the desire for missions in me for a reason after all.

In addition, Jon won a scholarship to study for a PhD in computer science at a university in Singapore. The future was looking pretty alright.

To be continued...

2 more months!

2012-10-08T21:35:00.000+08:00

Their eyes met across a crowded room. It was love at first sight.

No, not really.

I don't actually remember the day Jon and I met.

My earliest memory of him is somewhere in the winter of 2007-2008 after an early morning prayer meeting. (Seriously, that sentence makes me sound a lot holier than I actually am. Angel wings sprouting now.) We were walking back to our rooms and (I think?) someone introduced us. Or something. Anyway, whoever introduced us obviously didn't do a very good job because I promptly forgot his name after.

A couple months later, I decided to start attending Emmanuel Church in Leamington (I'd been church hopping for a while). However, under the sound advice of the two lovely ladies in the previous post, I'd finally settled down and started becoming a regular. Jon went to the same church. Nope, we didn't really talk. I had a lot on my mind, attempting to leave a church in Singapore (another story for another time), trying to cross the Herculean divide between international and local students (again, made much easier by my two awesome friends), leading a small group with Twiga (oh and the story of how I met Twiga* is far more exciting)...

Jon was undeterred by the wall of silence between us. He added me on Facebook.

I had no idea who he was. Seriously. But Aggy okayed him, certifying that he was indeed an acquaintance and not an unsavoury character out to relay my Facebook information to the rest of the world. So I clicked 'add'.

And to be honest, nothing much happened. So let's fast forward to the autumn of 2008.

A lot of fun stuff happened that fall, like playing hide and seek around the lecture theatres at night, and Jon going for Chinese hot pot and karaoke for the first time. Jon started serving in the Christian Union in the same ways I did, and lived in the same end of Leamington, so we started to spend a lot more time together. We also went to the same church. Now Jon was in charge of allocating students to have student lunch on Sundays with various church families. I didn't think much of it then, but Jon always put the both of us together in the same house, which forced us to spend entire Sundays together. (How sneaky!) And so weeks would go by where I would literally see him every day. And every time there was a party in Leamington, Jon would engineer it such that he could end up walking me home. (Even sneakier!) Apparently he would volunteer to walk me back as soon as he could, before anyone else could volunteer, but he also tried to avoid letting it look too suspicious. :O

And this would continue through to Christmas. I'll continue the story the next post.

The day I finally learnt Jon's name and taught
him how to use chopsticks. (Sep 2008)

* I met Twiga really early on at uni. I went to his room one evening, ostensibly for a small group meeting. The room was filled with people. I was given a piece of paper, that read 'Tuesday Nights with Jonathan Ross'. I found this quite odd. The next thing I knew, the guy sitting opposite me (Twiga) was introducing himself as Jonathan Ross. I couldn't for the life of me understand why a guy would name a small group meeting after himself. It wasn't until many weeks later that I learnt that Jonathan Ross was a famous talk show host in the UK, and that 'Tuesday Nights with Jonathan Ross' was actually a joke.

Hello Friends

2012-09-29T11:56:00.002+08:00

I miss both of you very much.

An Incident at the Station

2012-09-28T00:03:00.001+08:00

credit: clarysrunes

I didn't go for discipleship group tonight. I hung out nearby instead with a friend whose exams are around the corner.

We were going to a nearby void deck to get some work done. But as we walked through the MRT station, we saw two familiar faces by the lift, calling out in Chinese, "3 for $1!"

I've always fallen for his cheeky grin. He's only eight, the younger one, and I just call him 'the cute boy' now. The older one is ten, and takes care of his younger brother with great generosity.

We spoke with them for a while. It's always the same response. "How are you?" "I'm okay, just hungry. Haven't eaten dinner." A passer by stopped and donated them a rice burger, which the younger gratefully accepted. (We've been trying to wean them off constantly asking for food and expecting it from others, but I'm not sure how well it's worked.)

This was my first time seeing them selling tissue paper. I was angry, but relieved that they were okay, and also bewildered: it's a Thursday night and they have school tomorrow, who lets their kids sell tissue paper to earn money (?!), what kind of thought process goes through a parent's mind before they arrive at: yes, let's leave a ten and eight year old to sell things at the MRT station. But there are things that I don't understand about the stress of poverty, and probably never will.

As we walked away, I texted a social worker, who called their parents, and the kids soon disappeared.

It's hard to know what to make of it all.

Some Instagram and Thoughts

2012-09-23T16:24:00.001+08:00

Yes that is actually Kate (with Wills next to her) in the fourth photo! Wills and Kate came to visit Singapore a couple weeks back and Jon made me go see them. Kate is even prettier in real life. No I didn't get to meet her or shake her hand; there were way too many people who got there ahead of me.

I'm trying to get into the whole social media thing, so I'm trying to use Instagram and Facebook (and blog) more. Figured since I enjoy design I might as well put it to some use, whether for ministry or educational purposes.

I'm up to my neck in work, setting exam papers and marking schemes, designing worksheets and illustrated children's books, organising an overnight camping thing in November, giving O level tuition twice-weekly and special-ed tuition once-weekly, on top of a full PGCE that has its own slew of assignments and yes, planning the wedding for December. I haven't got much time to serve in church or do discipleship group stuff, so it's quite different from uni, but God is still merciful. I'm using some RC Sproul children's materials with some girls and it's going okay, kind of a two steps forward three steps back thing, so some prayer would be nice, but I can't share too much about it.

I do try not to take on too much, but in Singapore it's not always possible. It's just sort of the culture; it's what's expected of you, so you just do it. I try not to wear it as a badge of pride, because I think in Singapore we idolise busy-ness and productivity. I'm not there yet. At the moment I think I need to avoid becoming unreliable. In some ways it's too late. So I guess I'd better get back to those illustrations...

follow me on Instagram?

Nothing to Prove

2012-09-18T18:57:00.001+08:00

via hopewillrise
These days have been days of proving ourselves.

Days of comparing the impact we've made on students, days of comparing how bad schools and students can really get, days of explaining how our best efforts that failed were not failures but blessings in disguise.

I've got nothing. It seems such a crime to admit, but I'm really quite a bad teacher. I've probably made every mistake in the book: scolded too much, scolded too little, expected too much of my students, expected too little, used the wrong pedagogy, lost control of the class, taught too much to the exam, forgot to focus on the exam, didn't encourage critical thinking, spent more time disciplining than teaching, been unfair, and everything else.

more sinful than i ever dared to believe, but more loved than i ever dared to dream.

It's crazy to recount the failures; there have been too many. And yet it is pretty apparent that God still has a plan to use me that has got nothing to do with me. Doors keep opening to avenues to show his love in unexpected ways. They're not grand, they're not glamorous, and they're not anything particularly newsworthy. But there is something beautiful about being a sinner and an instrument of love at the same time. I have no success stories. If you must, an eight-year-old smashed my (half-broken) watch on the floor on Saturday for no apparent reason. That's the lack of difference I've made in his life after weeks of talking to him and playing with him and trying to discipline him. That's my inspirational teacher story. I have a new watch now.

So, I only have an abundance of grace. Grace to accept that I fail, and will fail, and the unfamiliar comfort of having nothing to prove to Someone who already knows all my weaknesses. Grace to keep on, because in Christ the inevitable end is a love for God and a love for others. Grace to draw comfort from his willingness to use broken vessels, and that while he is increasing, I am decreasing.

perish every fond ambition, all i've sought or hoped or known
yet how rich is my condition! God and heaven are still my own.

Every Season

2012-08-27T21:12:00.002+08:00

I don't really know where to begin. I've always said, without a doubt, that being 13 and 14 were the worst years of my life. But now all I do everyday is talk to 13 and 14 year olds. Sometimes (well almost all the time) I think they'd be a lot better off with someone else as their history teacher.

It's really hard being a teacher.

Sometimes it also gets hard to see God in the workplace. It's good to remember that greater things are coming. Even if we have to wait till eternity.

credit | jesusiwillfollowyou

A New Kind of Living

2012-07-23T22:20:00.001+08:00

Gone are the days when I could, you know, write here daily.

Those were the days of library haunting and JSTOR trawling and relatively fun anonymity.

Now I'm in a totally different place. Now I can't go out to get lunch without seeing one of my students or a kid from TYA. I'm like a street cat. Mornings are broken before the clock strikes 6, I can tell off the kids screaming/ smoking at a neighbourhood bus stop by name, and I might as well start holding parent-teacher meetings at the mall.

I don't think I'm a great teacher, but I love my job.

It's a nice feeling, to be let into someone else's life so unreservedly. It takes a lot of time, and means I have a lot less energy for church stuff and non-school/TYA stuff, but I think I do like my new mission very much.

image credit | my nightmares are about losing you

The Past Week

2012-06-30T10:38:00.001+08:00

via

While my group of friends and myself have been trying to conquer our first week in school as PGCEs, the rest of Singapore has been reeling with the news that the pastor of the biggest megachurch here has been charged in court for using tithes ($23m?) to fund his wife's music career.

My heart goes out to the poor guy. The newspapers have run multiple stories on him and his lavish lifestyle, and his rags to riches story. What's made equally showstopping news is the undying loyalty shown by most of his congregation, who continuously declare his innocence and who have lined the paths outside the courts to shield him from the cameras and reporters.

And maybe he's innocent. Maybe the facts are somehow, wrong. And maybe this guy who's gone from trying to make ends meet to millions of dollars somehow had the superhuman strength to not use any of his newfound riches for 'personal gain'.

I don't know.

But I do know that if I were him, I'd have fallen faster, and harder. And that's why we fight, right? That's why we say no to an expensive wedding. That's why we make a beeline for the mission field. That's why we try never to get used to spending on things we don't need. That's why we force ourselves to give, give and give, because materialism is knocking at the door.

And that's why we pray—for God to have mercy on the many ways we fall short, and to count us as his own though we still bring more sin than virtue to the foot of the cross.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling,
Naked, come to thee for dress,
Helpless, come to thee for grace,
Foul, I to the fountain fly
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.

Dirty Feet

2012-06-14T16:14:00.000+08:00

1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

This will always break my heart. And mark Survival Camp 2012 for me.

I can't begin to share the experience; I don't quite know how. It was that moment when all was pure speculation and I was acting on what others had said and so not in tune with the whole listen-to-the-Holy-Spirit idea and a million thoughts crashed through my mind when the words about farewells and servants and love and death tumbled out and God, maybe this is the reason why we're all enduring bucket showers and everything just crumbled and nothing made sense and—I washed her feet.

I am glad God uses filthy sinners with dirty feet.

source: lovelybeards

Seasides and Bays and Sunsets

2012-06-04T01:35:00.000+08:00

It's easy to remember God's greatness when you're at the edge of the sea.

Who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb,
when I made clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed limits for it
and set bars and doors,
and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

Job 38: 8-11

Turning 24

2012-05-28T02:42:00.002+08:00

I'm not the easiest person to befriend. Due in part to the fact that my life often feels like a hallway of mirrors where someone stuck up the words 'YOU SUCK' and everywhere I turn I see it magnified a million times over. It's not even like whoever wrote it had to dig too far to find the evidence; it's all there. Like food stuck between someone's front teeth. You can't miss it. And then you curse the self-pity because you think it's lame and it continues in a sort of unproductive circle.

And then I met this guy. And every time I want to just give up and give in he takes my thoughts and unpicks them one tangle at a time. And every time I get too tired of seeing how my mess of a life is supposed to be Christian in nature, he loves me like God does. So I don't have to force myself to imagine that God still likes me. I just let him make me feel it. Because his love so closely mirrors God's in relentlessness and ferocity. And then he prays with/for me and gently draws me back to redemption.

Best part is, I get to marry him at the end of the year. And then it's like I can look up and see his love in the mirrors everywhere. The love that tenderly lifts my gaze to greater things, so that I get smaller and one day so tiny tiny that you won't even see me anymore.

"I think the best part about heaven is we'll finally get to see what Jesus looks like."
"I can already guess what he's gonna look like."
"I mean, I know he'll look like a man."
"No I meant he must look something like you."

"Because you're quite a lot like him you know."

image credit: colorindo

May Musings

2012-05-22T12:32:00.002+08:00

I blinked, and May is nearly gone. I did, for the first time since my pre-university years, pull an all-nighter to submit a lesson package on time. After waking up from the 12-hour nap that followed, I got myself a hamster. This is not really advisable. My new hamster's called Junior.

I've also finally finished the dance concert we were organising (phew!) and I've also gotten my final school placement for the next few years.

The next major thing on the agenda is of course, the wedding in December. I'm not very good at frivolous and romantic things, so I'd be quite alright if we slotted the wedding at the back of a Sunday service with all the baptisms and announcements. But apparently that's not how things are done, and if we do too quick a job people might assume it's a shotgun wedding (since I am after all way too young to get married; apparently 23 years isn't enough on this island). So cue the themed decorations and ruffly dresses.

It's just... what do you do when we know we're on a mission? How do you spend hundreds of dollars on a white dress you're gonna wear once in your life when you know people who don't always know where their next meal is coming from? How do you say yes to flowers and food and favours when you know you're supposed to be standing against materialism and indulgence? And is this battle even worth fighting if weddings are just to placate extended families anyway?

I know, I know, weddings are supposed to be meaningful; they're supposed to symbolise your everlasting-eternal-forever-till-death-do-us-part love, but surely they're most meaningful when Christ is at the centre. Not a bride dressed in frills and sparkles. When people leave our wedding, I don't want their enduring memories to be about Jon and myself, but to be about Christ and his church. And I don't think that's achieved by matching bridesmaid dresses and floral arrangements.

The Normal Christian Life

2012-05-06T18:26:00.001+08:00

I've always wished to be able to write a blog post about what God's been doing in my life—about how I'm now more faithful, or about how I've had to write or make fewer apologies, take fewer comments back, about how God's made me more compassionate, more courageous or more prayerful.

Nope.

If anything, I'm sure I'm a messier person than I was last year, with more things to be ashamed of and to wish never happened.

Sometimes at church we hear stories of people who have clung onto Christ despite their suffering. Then there are the stories of missionaries who have given up their lives for the cause of the gospel. And it's great that God is the God of these normal-turned-extraordinary people... who still smile and trust God no matter what. But what about the sinners? What about the normal-still-sinning people? What about the people struggling not just with 'Christian respectable middle class sins' but with people who are really, really struggling and whose only real hope is a resurrected body that will no longer desire sin?

We've been going through Jeremiah in church. There's been a lot of warning about God's judgement and avoiding idolatry and not getting used to sin and how far the Israelites had fallen from God, don't be like them, for you never know when it's gonna be too late and you're going to fall away completely, so don't, don't, don't. Instead, remember the exodus, remember Christ, and live accordingly.

It's not that easy. And after trying I still bear more resemblance to the idolatrous Israelites than Jeremiah or Jesus. Is it too late for me?

I've been told that my views of the cross of Christ border on cheap grace, sinning more so that grace may increase, general antinomianism. It's hard to keep going.

It's really hard to keep going.

photography by ellie niemeyer

Things I am trying to do at the same time

2012-04-25T18:22:00.003+08:00

1. my PGDE (where lesson plans are too thick to be stapled)
2. be a good volunteer at TYA (just finished organising Parents' Night!)
3. attend church and discipleship group
4. plan 2 weddings in December (Dec 8 - Singapore, Dec 15 - UK)
5. give free tuition to my friend twice weekly
6. choreograph & teach dance classes weekly
7. design all the publicity material for a dance concert in May
8. not abandon family + friends
9. eat and sleep and not be ill
10. survive

Only one life, 'twill soon be past
Only what's done for Christ will last
- wise words from CT Studd

photography by click traveler

Christian Fellowship

2012-04-12T18:35:00.003+08:00

Singapore in one word? Tiring.

Today is Jon's birthday. It is a wonderful thing to have a kindred spirit who is as vulnerable as yourself.

Singapore is a constant pursuit of excellence. A constant, constant drive to get better, be better, and account to everyone else how you are better.

The other day we watched a video of a very gifted friend speak about her first two years in teaching. It was painfully real, honest and humbling. And I was so grateful that someone had finally spoken up and described things as they were. Some of my friends were confused how she'd managed to pass her teaching course, having made so all those mistakes she was so honest in sharing. Of course I replied that she was a very humble person and I'm sure she had actually passed with flying colours.

But within, I knew the truth—that none of us is as good as we crack ourselves up to be—and my humble friend had just been honest enough to point out the emperor's nudity.

We create dizzily high standards for ourselves to adhere to, because that's what society expects of us. But we're just human. And if you define human the same way I do, then I think the platter of mistakes is far closer to who we are than the list of achievements we try to scramble together about ourselves for our supervisors to admire.

But rather than admit how flawed we are, we crown ourselves with false modesty and expect praise from others.

I don't think society is ever going to change that though. I don't think we're ever going to move towards a society where it's cool to be wrong. We are told to tell our students that it's okay to make mistakes, but we don't extend the same grace to our colleagues, or to ourselves.

But Christians have a different calling. Christian, don't bow. Don't cave in. Don't blend in with everyone else who's trying to prove what a great teacher or doctor or economic contributor they're going to be. Please. From one Christian to another, I can't do it all by myself. I need you to boast in your weaknesses, so I know it's safe to boast in mine. Please be different. Please be secure in your identity in Christ, and know that your only duty is to act justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. If you really believe you're forgiven, then stop trying to justify yourself. Stop trying to convince yourself you're on the right side of the fence when you hear a sermon, or when you discuss one. Know that you're not, but you're saved anyway. Of all people, Christians should be most unsurprised when receiving criticism, most loving when wronged, and most grateful when praised. Please be those people for me. Because I don't think we're meant to survive this success-driven world alone.

I need that from you.

photography via retrocedee, original source unknown.

The Hunger Games... and OT Judgement

2012-04-02T22:06:00.000+08:00

We caught The Hunger Games last week. It's worth watching. I'd not read the books before, and I didn't really know what was going to happen in the movie apart from a gladiator-type fight to the death (I had no idea about districts and tributes and all that). But I did enjoy the movie. (plot spoilers below)

source: sheilapimples

Perhaps what leaves people most disturbed about the movie is the disconnect between the frivolity of the Capitol and the sheer bloodlust of the Hunger Games. The rationalisation for the games goes like this:

War, terrible war. Widows, orphans, a motherless child. This was the uprising that rocked our land. 13 districts rebelled against the country that fed, loved, and protected them. Brother turned on brother until nothing remained. And then came the peace. Hard fought, sorely won. People rose up from the ashes, and a new era was born. But freedom has a cost. When the traitor was defeated, we swore as a nation we would never know this treason again. And so it was decreed that each year, the various districts of Panem would offer up in tribute one young man and woman, to fight to the death in a pageant of honor, courage, and sacrifice. The lone victor, bathed in riches, would serve as a reminder of our generosity and forgiveness.

And then it hit me.

That's what we sound like, all the time.

Every time we try to rationalise suffering, every time we try to explain why God has a right to judge his people... that's what we sound like. Every time we try to explain away Old Testament judgements with the glib statement that "God created them, so he has a right to judge them, he's just being fair," or, "They knew the punishment that was coming, so they should have obeyed God instead. God gave them such a long time to repent." We sound just like Effie Trinket trying to justify the horror and the suffering that followed and that swallowed up innocent children during the wars in the last days of Judah.

So don't. Don't try to explain the gospel to someone by rationalising why God has the right to judge them and why they don't deserve heaven. It sounds hollow. And insincere. And we look like the citizens of the Capitol who have never experienced a day of suffering. Besides, God isn't like the sponsors of the Hunger Games whom we have to appease to avoid judgement. It's not like if we do the right thing then he'll send a bit of medicine or food or water or divine providence our way to help us survive. That god is sovereign. But he's not loving. That's not God. That's legalism. That's anti-God.

source: ponds who wait

Instead, begin with Christ. Our God is a God who couldn't watch from afar without helping. Our God is a God who volunteered to come right into our world, right into the killing and the betrayal and the unexplainable horror and suffering to take our place, and to suffer the punishment we should have suffered. More than Catniss who volunteered to take the place of her sister, our God volunteered to take the place of his enemy. He died for those who wanted him dead. God never gave us the full explanation why suffering and punishment and genocide were allowed. He just gave us himself.

And as a parting thought, McCheyne once said we should never preach hell without tears in our eyes. I'm going to build on that. Let us never speak of the Old Testament judgement without tears in our eyes. They may have been fair, they may have been just, they may have been well deserved. But whatever the case, they were horrifying. And to think that we can broach the subject without our hearts shattering for those who suffered, is a very dangerous thought indeed.

I'm Back

2012-03-24T10:45:00.002+08:00

I'm so sorry guys! It's been absolute madness round here, with presentations, projects and events covering my entire schedule. Even poor Jon has had to run massive errands for me. I've barely had time to eat, let alone blog!

source: almond x linus summer bike

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot lately about how God is ultimately and in essence love, and how that has to be the start and the end of our thinking about God...

We must ask, “Do I fight merely for doctrinal faithfulness?” This is like the wife who never sleeps with anybody else, but never shows love to her own husband. Is that a sufficient relationship in marriage? No, ten thousand times no. Yet if I am a Christian who speaks and acts for doctrinal faithfulness but do not show love to my divine bridegroom, I am in the same place as such a wife. What God wants from us is not only doctrinal faithfulness, but our love day by day…

We must be the loving, true bride of the divine bridegroom in reality and in practice, day by day, in the midst of the spiritual adultery of our day. Our call is first to be the bride faithful, but that is not the total call. The call is not only to be the bride faithful, but to be the bride in love.

Francis Schaeffer

HT: Vitamin Z

I really need to rest. It's one of those great days when you are reminded that holiness is not about working hard but about resting hard too. Take that, workaholic Singapore ;)

The Divide Between Sentimentality and Gospel Love

2012-03-10T11:27:00.000+08:00

In Christianese (especially reformed Christianese) we like to draw a divide between the God-loves-you sentimentality and the this-is-for-the-glory-of-God hardcore theological truths.

There should be no such divide. As Mike Reeves would happily remind us, the essence of our Trinitarian God is love. His wrath is not an intrinsic part of his character; it is his response to sin destroying his loved ones. His glory is his love for wretches. So it's not about balancing out God's glory with God's love, it's about exalting God by celebrating his love for sinners like us.

So let's try not to be too rash about asserting that it's all about God and not about us. It is about us, too. And that's the crazy, awesome, embarrassing thing of it all. God's taken the riffraff and declared before the rest of Creation: 'This is my son, in whom I am well pleased.' Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating a self-centred Christianity. But the moment we cease to be moved by God's love for us, then something must be quite wrong indeed. I don't mean to downplay the vital importance of contemplating his love in the wider context of the bride-church and his love for all mankind, but to lose a sense of God's love for the one whose sin we are most deeply acquainted with is to lose our deep appreciation of the grace of God.

I guess I want to be very wary of hinting at a narcissistic god who just wants to make every living creature bow before him. I don't want a religion where the beautiful thing of self-denial is transformed into a badge of pride for a God who just seeks his own increase and our decrease as if the Stoics and legalists got it right. This means that self-denial is not merely a good ideal for Christians to aspire to, but the only reasonable and most comforting response to the sin we see in us and the love we see in God. Here is a God who is sweeter and more tender than the most sentimental speaker could intimate, and he is not ashamed to be found holding, loving and sustaining us while we were crucifying him.

* * *

As an aside, it has been crazy busy on my PGDE. That means I don't have time on weekdays to keep an eye on comments and stats on my blog, which, as a teacher, is quite a dangerous thing. If I may, I'd like to humbly ask you guys for two favours: 1) your patience in me getting back to comments, and 2) a short note in any way if you are posting a link to my post on Facebook/ other platforms (you could say so in the comments, or just tag me on Facebook when you post it). This helps me an awful lot to anticipate how I should best facilitate what's happening here. Thank you, lovely readers. :) You are so much more awesome than you know!

photography by xiu xiu (so gorgeous!)

The Impossibility of Getting Married Young in Singapore

2012-03-03T13:53:00.000+08:00

Let me explain. Jon and I are under 24, we are both earning incomes, we both have assurances of employment for the next 4-6 years and we are engaged. But we live in Singapore.

"What's the rush?"
"WOW you are the first people in our generation to get married!"
"This is so exciting! You are the first non-shotgun marriage from people our age!"
"But you are so young!"

To the rest of the world, this is, of course, absolutely ludicrous. But in Singapore it is normal.

source: m0rtality

Why Singaporeans Marry Late

1. Marriage = Flat Ownership

To encourage people to buy a home and settle down in Singapore, the government decided to tie marriage to getting your first home. They did this by offering subsidies to newlyweds buying their first flat. However, with most flats in the upwards of $200 000 (£100 000), making a down payment on your mortgage means having to save up a hefty amount before even thinking of settling down. (Median household income in Singapore is roughly $5000, so you can do the math.) Rents are sky-high and few people are willing to splash out, so most Singaporeans live with their parents until they get married. Living apart from your parents has become a massive financial burden. As a result, it's become a national joke that men in Singapore may propose to their girlfriends by making a joint application for a subsidised flat. (Funny because it's true.)

2. Wedding = Massive Banquet

It's not uncommon in Singapore to have a wedding banquet that costs upwards of $50 000. There is a peculiar tradition here where couples hold a very expensive banquet for their wedding, and each guest pays for his/her own dinner by bringing a red packet with a speculated sum of money inside. Example, if your friend is getting married in a premium 5-star hotel on a weekend, you bring a red packet with at least $200 inside. Less premium, less money. But the dinners don't typically cost less than $100 per guest. So yes, the idea is that the newlyweds earn back the money they spent on the banquet through red packets. But of course since no red packet price is actually specified, couples do often end up losing a lot of money on the banquet. And since such banquets have become very traditional, the family expectation on the couple to spend a lot on their wedding dinner can be very great indeed... meaning that some couples start their married life in debt.

3. Career Progression

I'm training to become a teacher right? We've already been told numerous times not to expect to 'have a life' while we're at it. We're told explicitly that job first, everything else second. If you don't have time to sleep, don't sleep. If you don't have time for family, that's it. The work-life balance in Singapore is work=life. People lead intensely busy lifestyles, which means less time for family and children, often leading to later marriages and fewer kids. Maybe that seems crazy to you, but that's what life in Singapore is like. The ideal family man is the one who brings home the bacon, even if he's never around to watch the children grow up.

Why We're Not Getting Married That Late

We've been blessed.

We earn just about enough so we can rent, survive, and save. We don't have family pressure to have a fancy banquet, or a banquet at all. We are trusting God with the attitude of family first, work second, and knowing that he will take care of our jobs. Yes there are awkward situations when our friends want to go for a meal and we turn them down because we can't afford restaurants... we are the late night bus-riders when everyone else wants to share a cab... and we are the strange people who pack meals to Universal Studios because the food there is too expensive.

Yes, postponing marriage would mean we could afford cabs and Thai Express and eating with colleagues, a flash engagement ring and maybe someday even a car. But that also means missing out on chances to show hospitality as a couple, to show that the middle class lifestyle isn't all it's cracked up to be and it might even let other things get in our way of pursuing Christlikeness.

This isn't the way for everyone (who would give us lifts otherwise, right? ;) ) , but it's the way for us. Marriage is a beautiful thing. Middle class lifestyle, not so much. At the moment we're just trying to do the best thing. And for right now, that's living out the truth that a marriage in Christ means more to us than material comforts.