Tuesday, May 06, 2008
God is good indeed
Hehe.. I have practically a few hours left to complete my assignment and here I am blogging.. *tsk tsk* Naughty notty. But I absolutely have got to blog about this. There are just some days that when you leave it to another day to blog, it just feels different. In fact, there are no more feelings left. I'm not an advocate of acting on your feelings, but this is more about capturing a moment in its purest or rawest.
Yea, God's just able to prepare us for trials ahead with His still small voice. Somehow this idea popped out of nowhere today, and boy did it sustain me or did it sustain me. 'For every piece of bad news I hear, I must strive to hear two pieces of good news'. I thought it was a radical idea, and pondered what it meant. But soon my day turned out to prove that maxim true. I awoke to find a verse sent by a friend in my phone to encourage me about an issue I had been struggling with lately. I claimed the good news by faith. Then I got to work and found someone scolding me anonymously. Haha. Bad news. I was thrown off balance for a while. But I went over to school and wondered how I could face the students feeling the way I did. I bumped into a colleague and soon decided to go to the POP Cafe for a drink. We had a good talk there, not about being scolded but I felt better. Soon I bumped into students with an opportunity to build rapport with. I was ready! Then after lunch hour my colleague called me telling me there was a distress call by a student. I had to go over immediately to assess the situation. It was an issue of relational problems. It was quite a tricky one, and I found myself reminded of some other students also facing similar issues, to which I had no clear insights to offer. It kinda reinforced my hopelessness in dealing with that issue. Began to see the tough side of being a counselor. But as I began to work on my assignment I felt empowered and saw the importance of distinguishing between giving advice and advocating change. Good news. Then another of my friend called me with a distress call and it was a real challenge to stay objective and non-judgmental. In any case, it was bad news to hear my dear friend not coping well. I felt so helpless being unable to share anything that bore weight enough to influence change in the situation. But I soon talked to my other friend and began to untie hidden knots in my own heart. Then during prayer meeting a song was sung that really spoke to my situation and I was able to praise God again. At the end of prayer meeting, Canon broke the news about the death of a sister of my fellow Psalmist. It shook me quite a bit. We prayed with a heavy heart, but still thanked God for bringing her home. Then on my way home I saw a beautiful cat by the pavement. I gave a few clicks with my tongue and approached cautiously. It received me surprisingly well and as I stroked its fur it turned its head and licked my hand! It was so heartwarming. God knows cats have comforted me since primary school. Soon after that I got a pleasant piece of news about a friend's birthday present. It's the little things in life that leave big footprints in our hearts. My point is not to substitute the good news for the bad. My point is to give equal attention to both. Sometimes we are only affected by bad news, and that soon promotes negativity as a way of life. We can be affected by bad news, but when good news comes along, it just might be God's way of telling us, He's still in control. If you think about it carefully, death had lost its sting when Christ died for our sins. And bad news always denotes death or imminent death of some kind; of our dreams, goals, little wants, big wants, relationships, something dear to us. If death has lost its sting and Christ has the final victory, I personally believe it's only right to have more good news going around than we give credit for.
Mantou at 10:43 PM