SUMMER

It's not that there are more lows this year compared to the last. In fact, perhaps there are actually less lows. But relatively, because there are significantly less highs, the balance is upset... and I've been drowning in melancholy so much more this year.

So save me.

Let the summer bring with it new tidings of Your love.

NEW BEGINNINGS (AGAIN)

Very soon 2011 will draw to a close... as so is my long row of shifts!

The start of this year was a time of... being involuntarily taken away from my comfort zone, psyching myself up to start a new beginning in many ways, feeling guilty of choosing to stay rather than go back to Malaysia as I have promised, and feeling inadequate as an intern starting out.

And the middle of the year... realizing that I wasn't all that I thought I was/ capable of, giving up persistent praying because there doesn't seem to be an answer, working very hard and long because I don't have a life anyway (note the sarcasm & bitterness), and in many ways just being apathetic and going with the flow.

The last bit of the year... working in Frankston (and now Warragul) but driving to the city on average twice a week and enjoying friendships (and playing guitar) again, knowing I'm nowhere perfect and being ok with that, feeling relieved and not guilty anymore because the job I wanted was served to me on a silver platter, and learning to be very intentional with my times with You.

I would say the year passed pretty quickly, and relatively well (with the exception of not being able to see friends as often as I would have liked and not being able to play guitar).

And the end of this year actually feels more like a junction compared to last year, because most of my friends are moving on this year, onto many different new journeys; and will be leaving a huge part of my life empty - yet a fertile ground for new beginnings.

ALL THE BEST TO ALL I HAVE KNOWN AND LOVED BEING WITH!

Oh, and I still feel somewhat inadequate as an intern! :S

THE STILLNESS THE DANCING

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

T.S. Eliot, East Coker

I will leave it to You to order and provide: in every change You are faithful.

SEASONS

OCF was for a season of my life, and that season has now passed. For a time it was - a safe refuge, a place to fall back on, where there's laughter in the hardest days and kindred spirits for melancholic moments. I thank You for what OCF was, and in many ways still is to me.

We mourn the seasons that pass, but yet celebrate the new seasons that come, knowing full well that each season brings treasures of it's own, if only we embrace them.