You made all the difference

You fill my heart with joy,
     that nobody can foil
You fill my day with grace,
     challenges I am not afraid to face
You fill my soul with peace,
     overcoming anger becomes a breeze
You fill my mind with truth and wisdom,
     that I may enter Your kingdom

You fill my view with colors,
     a palette of sorrows and laughters
You fill my world with beauty,
     animals and flowers aplenty
You fill my pen with inspiration,
     praising You becomes my aspiration
You fill my song with meaning,
     that I can go on singing

You fill my path with light,
     that I can regain my sight
You fill my journey with purpose,
     to spread Your word to the lost and joyless
You fill me up with love,
     to a new life you give birth
You fill this new life with Your presence,
     the presence that has made all the difference.

Praises and cheers, to He who hears

When a prayer is said
He listens intently
And delivers His promise of aid
Through His powerful army

When a sheep is lost
A shepherd is sent
To find the sheep at all cost
So He may nod in content

When a child weeps
An angel descends
To hold the child in his sleep
So that His love transcends

When a discouraged soul sighs
Or sings a song of lament
He offers comfort to their cries
And puts an end to their torment

When the rich would not share
With the poor who are hungry
He sends His servants who care
To make the poor their beneficiary

When His soldier is in danger
Of falling to the veiled enemy
He calls upon the wind and the weather
To overturn the wicked conspiracy

When a serpent tries to foment
Discord between brothers and sisters
Mediators are sent
To tear down walls between faith and colors

Just as no evil ploys hides from His eyes
No sincere cry for help escapes His ears
If your heart is true
And His will you do
In His timing, He answers your prayers

Scattered seeds, with the same needs

To me, no one in singapore is really poor
Compared to many of our neighbours
in asia, south america or africa

Here, if you have an able and healthy body
and you are not too choosy
you can find a job quite easily

If you are handicapped or elderly
bring your documents to the nearest CDC
government handouts you may get monthly

Or so long as you own a HDB
you can sell it and migrate to JB
and settle there quite comfortably

But then many have told me, I cannot compare
because "we are singapore, we have different standards to bear"
So just because we live in Singapore,
does that mean we deserve a bigger share?
Think about it, is it fair?

A certain living standard we must maintain
Each meal should have a staple with three mains
When elsewhere, people only have rice or sugar cane
and we consider it enough for them to sustain

But aren't we all human, all with the same need?
Our stomach needs to be filled regardless of the feed
We need a shelter from the heat and the rain
and some medical attention when in pain

We did not choose to born here
Neither did they choose to be born there
Different places He assigns
To fulfill His special design

Just because we're born in Singapore, are we of higher worth?
Just because they are born elsewhere, do they deserve this dearth?

Since we didn't earn our place of birth
Better be thankful that we can live in mirth
and be grateful for our body's girth
and towards our poorer neighbours, show more love.

Sitting on the reserve bench

I am Kathy, aged twenty-two,
I live with my parents in a nice apartment
I got a job, right after I left school
So in my comforts, I became complacent

I work hard to earn my daily keep
To feed my family, my terrier and me
What others are in trouble, better pretend to sleep
So long as I have my meals, clothes and weekend movie

After all, the number of needy is countless
What difference can I, one person make?
So I decided that any effort is really pointless
Better just save my money for my future's sake

Intentions to help, I often harbour
"Here I am Lord, send my neighbour!"
So when I said my prayer, He did not humour
Because in the first place, I did not labour

Finally came the day when I was retrenched
Because I've sat too long on the reserve bench
Now I am hungry, my thirst unquenched
Is there anyone to pull me out of this trench?

I have learnt my lesson, pardon my inaction
Recruit me back, to be part of His mission
I promise not to be complacent again,
I shall never be oblivious to others' pain
Because I now know that the one in need
May one day be me or you indeed.

The richer kind of Love

Our love can be so poor
Our love can be so self-centred
We cannot resist the lure
of lust, of pride and of greed

Jack loves Jill for her beauty
She is twenty, pretty face and body
But when she ages, he loses his fidelity
And seeks his comfort from another lady

Ken loves Kate out of his wishes
to feel needed by somebody
In her helpless dependency he relishes
so that he would no longer be a nobody

Lola loves Lance for his wealth
A fancy car he drives and a gorgeous house he lives
But when he loses his riches in a stealth
A divorce paper from her lawyer he receives

May loves Mike with a tinge of possessiveness
She equates loving to having
So when he rejects her excessive kindness
She turns her love to hatred in a blink

We all want to receive in love
One penny in return for every deed
But to love, is to give and serve
To meet others' and not our own needs

Let not my love be weak or poor
Or limited to those I prefer
And as I receive, let me always remember
that the gifts will never be greater than the Giver.

The problem of forgetfulness

Often I grief,
over the problem of forgetfulness,
that I remain in my foolishness

My brain is like a sieve,
pieces of information leak through
the tiny little holes

Time is like a thief,
lessons learnt yesterday
are forgotten today

Memories can also deceive
what I remember now
may not be the correct picture

I cannot retrieve
the information that has been lost
the vapour that has turned to frost

Nothing can bring me relief
from the agony of my loss
and the sting of the consequence

But maybe practice can weave
what the mind knows
with what the body does

So I can finally find solace
in not repeating the same mistake
the roots of the old mandrake

Hence, this message I leave
my wishes that you will not share
my pains of not remembering

Home is where He is

For as long as I can remember, I have always longed to move out.

Although the reasons for my wish has changed, the wish itself hasn't. Not that I do not love my mum, but because there are fundamental differences in our beliefs and values, and my recent change only plies open the wedge between us. While I can perfectly understand her good intentions, it doesn't mean I agree with it. I don't think I can continue to live with somebody who constantly asks me to be selfish, who constantly suspects that I have some psychiatric disorder, who constantly needs my attention.

Recently, I have been thinking that maybe if I move out, she will learn to become more independent. Maybe if I stop trying to play the counsellor, she will stop thinking that she is depressed. Maybe if I stop trying to play the role of a mediator at home, the communication (or lack of communication) between them would improve and their relationship would blossom. Maybe I have overcompensated for too long, that I have become the biggest stumbling block to their growth. While I know that nobody is indispensable, yet I cannot help but worry what might happen if I were to remove myself from the triangle.

If only He would be the wind that rocks the tree and causes the branch to snap off from the trunk. If only He would be the butterfly that extracts the pollen grains from the anther to scatter on a foreign ground. If only He would be the tide that sweeps the driftwood onto the shore. If only He, the sole supplier of joy, would never ever cut His supplies from his child.

A Mid Day Prayer

Dear Lord,

Thank You for showing me that it is possible to resist selfishness when it has become the norm, to be gracious when kindness is lacking, to be patient when I am irritated, to give even though I'm not receiving, to do what's right and not what's convenient.

Because what I have is not mine but Yours, so teach me not to withhold my time or money from people based on my own preferences.

Please grant me Your grace to get by this present day, each present moment. In the face of challenges, please go before me and make the way for me. In the face of adversity, please guide me to see Your purpose and Your lessons for me. In the times of loneliness, please hold me close to Your heart, as I hold You close to mine.

Amen.

Unmailed Letter #1

Dear friend,

I hardly know you but I accept you for who you are. I accept that you have certain flaws that have become rooted to the core of your soul. I know that you love the world because the world was all you thought you had in your times of despair. I understand that you love money because you have an old grandmother waiting on the hospital bed to be treated, and five mouths waiting at home to be fed. or maybe you love money because you had grown up with little or none on your plate. I know that you have hardened your heart because you were brought up in a cold ungracious world, or maybe you have grown apathetic because there was nobody around to lend you a hand when you were in need. I wish I could have been there to give you some warmth, but I wasn't and I'm sorry.

But my dear, if only I can hold your hand now and tell you that all is not lost. What was doesn't have to be now, and what is now does not have to be forever. So what had been perpetuated on you, does not have to be and shouldn't be brought into others. Because this moment truly contains all moments. This moment is all that matters now.

I wish for your sake that your heart would thaw. For it is only after you have given, will your hands be empty to receive. If I could, I wish I could give on your behalf, but I can't. I can only walk with you, if you would allow me to. I wish for your sake that your heart would soften. I wish for your sake that the stash of compassion that you have locked away once upon a time willl be opened again. I wish you will understand that His Will will always be done, you can choose to be the tool he uses now, or somebody else will easily fill your place. Hence, I only wish for your sake, not mine or the people waiting to receive.

I pray that you will choose what you think is right, even though you may be unwilling, even though you may be unsure, even though it may mean sacrificing some thing from you. Please don't close that door.

I wish for this with all my heart and all my love.

Falling through

These days, I have been living in my mind much more than I should.

I write something, and realised that it is pointless; I speak about something, and realised that it is meaningless. Conversations end up in a knot and silence tightens it. If I were to illustrate this in a picture, I imagine a string of words seeping through the gaps between the fingers, falling through the air in a slow painful motion, and scattering on the floor as arbitrary letters, the meaning lost forever.

When the inability to express myself without my illocution being misunderstood begin to weigh like mud bogging down my feet, and the act of expression becomes a tiresome chore, I can only look to the Lord to search my heart, feel what it feels and mend what needs to be mended.

The scare of scarcity

Scarcity was the first word I learnt
in my boring economics course
It taught me about unlimited human wants
in a world with limited resources

As such, scarcity results in trade offs
where we have to prioritize our "needs"
It also leads to competition for resources
which can instigate unscrupulous deeds

And scarcity makes us believe that
we cannot have the cake and eat it
But why should we fear that we will starve
if we believe that He will provide for every bit

So the perceived problem of scarcity
is essentially the problem of greed
If we put a limit to our wants
and be contented with our daily feed
I assure you, there will be more than enough indeed.