Tuesday, December 07, 2004

when i fear

it was 3 days before grad nite. my friends had just returned from johor bahru with bags and bags of purchases and were showing them off to me. i just stared forlornly at the bevy of jewelry, shoes and happy faces.

i had yet to make any progress in terms of getting ready for the much overrated "big day".

"you can't just sit there, lishun," said meiyin. "you have to go out and fully confront your problem. i mean, the perfect outfit isn't gonna fall from the sky. go look for it!"

i thought alot about what she said. although it was a simple statement about my pathetic dress-less situation, it actually referred to alot of things about my life. everything i feared, i dared not face it head on. i shrank away. when i read alice sebold's "lucky" a few days later, i came across a phrase in the book where sebold said that the philosophy in her family was "if you don't talk about it, it'll go away."

that sentence struck me as horrendously true about me. i've always thought that if i just ignored my troubles, they'd erase themselves and cease to be a problem. in the past, i'd been in self-denial, believing that it worked.

now, i thought about the problems i'd encountered in the past. when my plans for a prefects' plan fell through, i avoided the confrontation. i hid...and that resulted in no camp for my batch of prefects. when the national day mass dance was falling into pieces last year, i ran away instead of dealing directly with the problem. i thought that if i did, we'd be able to withdraw. we didn't. my cowardice resulted in my house captain having to draw up a last minute dance routine with her class...and she and my house master lost faith in me. now, the prom dress issue. and i am still the coward i was.

has it been in vain that i spent 2 years in singapore? how can 2 years not change me? how can i have come to know Jesus and not sorted out the imperfections that are barring me from carrying out His plans for me? i do believe that my lack of courage is a hinderance to whatever i am meant to do. yes, i know that Gideon was a coward who went on to lead God's army into victory, but even he had to commit entirely to God, and his faith was entirely in God.

is mine?

today i received a word directly from God. i was just reading and listening to music when a tug came from the heart to reach for my bible. a voice called to me:

Matthew 8:26
'But He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea. And there was a great calm.'

and it greatly encouraged me. why am i fearful? by shying away and taking things into my own hands, i was drifting further into the tempest. faith is still the key. faith that God will calm the seas. faith that God will rebuke the winds. why was i running away?

it just became more and more ridiculous to me. my old behaviour: all signs of a girl who didn't have faith in God. how could i not, when He has been so faithful to me? it is ridiculous. even now, when the thing i fear most is my future, the indecision over which university i am going to be admitted into, the mess about converting the conditions of my scholarship...what is there to fear if God is on my side?

now i know. when i fear, there is absolutely no reason to. i just have to keep my head up and put my faith in God.

lishun at 9:44 AM

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