The usual: coffee, heart-to-heart conversations, God.
Watching the lights and boats go by at my favourite dungeon
Finally met Darren after a long long time. I thank God for all the friends who are popping up from their corners and meeting again. The nice thing about meeting friends once in a blue moon is that you see how much you've grown since the last time you met. I used to rant to him with my teenage angst all the time, and he was this older brother who kept reminding me of who our God is and how we should prioritise properly. And today we're all grown up in our own ways. Though the bummer is that we still talk about our problems and get a little sad, it is so great to see that these obstacles are different from the ones we talked about last time. How depressing would it be if we were still battling the same demons from 2 years ago? As we were talking about issues, I thank God that we had new issues to battle. It meant that we overcame our old problems, and we definitely can overcome these ones as well. The God who saw us through our obstacles in the past is the same one who is walking with us today.
We used to think that as we grew older, things would fall into place. But no. The older we get, the more things fall apart. People become more difficult to read, relationships become more complex, and the world screams at us from every corner. But as our situations evolve, so should we. We cannot deal with problems the way we used to. We can't dwell in sadness and make us hard (I love Kurt Vonnegut for reminding me about not letting the world make us hard). We can't complain about our burdens because these burdens are now legit responsibilities. We can't wait for people to swoop in and save us because there are others who need our attention. We gotta get our shit together.
Yea, growing up sucks. But the good part about growing up is growing up with your friends. You face shit together, you carry each other's weight, and you encourage each other. I'm really blessed with a bunch of amazing friends. If this were some award ceremony I'd name all of you and thank you for individual things. But I'm trying not to get dramatic or unnecessarily emotional here. But if I've met you and we've had coffee and heart-to-heart talks, know that I keep you in a special place in my heart and you've kept me grounded and sane. My friends know this: the measure of our friendship can be calculated by the number of times we had coffee together and whined about life. Coffee, gong cha, same same.
My motto going into 2013 was John 3:30 "He must increase, but I must decrease." When God tells us that we must decrease, it isn't because He wants to hog attention. Do you believe that God cares for you? That the Creator of this universe would care when you are hurt? I believe He wants us to not be inward-looking to preserve our sanity as well. When we focus so much on ourselves, we begin to amplify all our problems. We can't discern the trivial from the real issues and we get so obsessed that we implode. But when we let God increase in our lives, we also look at others around us and care for them. And our issues start to seem smaller. It doesn't make it less painful or less real, but we see that others are suffering as well. One, we are not alone. Two, it is normal (we like to think that we are the exception and our problems are different from others, don't we?). Three, we remember that we can carry each other's weight. And when we let God increase in our lives, we give Him the space in our hearts to work our problems. He wants to be involved in our lives and we know that with Him, all things are possible. So why don't we simply surrender and let God fight for us? Easier said than done, but we just have to try.
We all need our hearts to be broken. We need to be soft. We need to need.
I came from a place where I thought I was independent and I didn't need anyone or anything. But for a relationship to sustain itself, there has to be a need. If we don't think we need God in our lives, would we go to Him? Not saying we should treat Him like a genie and keep demanding things, but we have to recognise that sometimes we like to take control of our own situations. And things never work out. And we have to admit that we need God, and let Him take over.
Why worry about the future when there's so much to worry about now? Why worry when God already tells us to trust in Him? Gosh, this is a lengthy post. Well it's been a week filled with conversations of sorts. And the angels I am especially grateful for this week are Waichan, Ice, Jemtoh. Medals for all of you. Take. I wish I could be as helpful to you as you were to me.