the beauty of grace

here's a lesson i re-learnt recently. JESUS LOVES ME. yep, simple as that, the very basics of Christianity i think. i've just been struggling these past few days, with my circumstances and with the people around me, and with the lies i've been fed. i was so caught up in thinking how useless i am. i was also just exhausted of life really, everything was so difficult. it is still, so difficult to always choose to do the right thing. some days i really just say, God i can't do this anymore. i didn't wanna forgive anymore, or be nice, or live up to the standards i have set for myself. i walked around carrying all these rojak emotions for a while, until sarah reminded me that God wants to hear all our complains, all our rambles, everything. for so long, i've been trying to find the right words to pray with, to explain to God how i really felt, and what i wanted. right after she said that tho, i knew what my prayer was already.

God, i'm tired.

it was a pretty crazy night, but i was so super duper touched by the incredible support given to me by everyone in that retreat and i was just blown away la. peace didn't drop on me like a piano onto a street, but i was so certain God was there, He was listening and comforting me, and i definitely left the place very very much less troubled. my greatest blessing in this life, is to KNOW that God is always with me and that He loves me.

thank You God, for caring that i was burdened. to think that there are 6.7 billion people in this world for You to bother to, and yet You still want me. that You still care about my every smile, and my every tear. i love You Lord! :)

the other day, pris challenged rachel and me about why we were Christians. why didn't we choose any other other religion, why is Christianity different to us? and i had two answers. firstly, the security. i don't know about others of different faith, but i've always had the security of knowing God has a plan for me. :) even if i didn't get into med school, which ONLY by GOD'S GRACE i did, i know for SURE that He's got different plans for me. i'm not perfect, and i cannot always just believe in myself to scale greater heights. but i have a Father God who i know, is always in control. and my life will head where He pleases it does, and i know that it is a good plan, according to Jeremiah 29:11. "For i know the plans i have for you, not of evil but plans to give you a hope and a future." :) by no means, an easy life, but a blessed one. :)

secondly, my God's a personal God. the other day me and my sisters got into a debate with my dad. He was telling us about Sai Baba who performs wondrous miracles like manifesting gold and pieces of the cross and such. i prayed for the words to tell my dad about my God, but i kept coming up short. and then i started telling him, out of nowhere, about how God does miracles for me too. i told him about my math final exam and how God spoke to me, and His promise of discovering the right answer came true. and my dad too, witnessed the miracle God did in entering Monash for medicine. talking to miss aananthi from placement, she said she was surprised i got it, cause only two of us got into clayton this year. and the only thing i could think of was how God was limitless. He can do all things, and He extravagantly spends such handcrafted miracles on those who love Him. truly, all things work out for the good of those who love the Lord. and there it was, one of the many reasons why i am a Christian, this makes Christianity different for me. Miracles happen everyday everywhere, and no doubt many are capable of making miracles happen. but at the end of the day, it is my God, that listens to my every prayer, that loves me deeper than i can fathom, that bothers about my little math exam when He has to worry about world peace or something. my God is a personal God and i learnt that through experience. :)


via thehopemovement

leader's retreat this year made me really excited to be a CG leader. sadly, i won't be one this year already since i'll be leaving. sometimes i look around and see, everyone around me is being such a HUGE impact on those around them. my friends are doing great things, witnessing God's miracles and promises come through, watching God move in those around them. and me? i'm leaving, and i feel so sad that i cannot be a part of this years movement and growth in YC. and i think of how once i'm in Aussie, i'll have to start over. build a new relationship with new people in a new church, start serving from the beginning again. i felt upset that i couldn't make a difference as a CG leader anymore. but i realized, that no matter all these feelings, i know that i am right in line with what God wants me to do and where He wants me to go, i am walking through the doors He has opened before me. and because i am doing so, i know He has other things for me to do where He is leading me. and that He'll give me the strength then to accomplish those tasks too.

thank You Lord, for everything. use me i pray, wherever You send me next. :)

"The most alarming thing in your last account of the patient is that he is making none of those confident resolutions which marked his original conversion. No more lavish promises of perpetual virtue, I gather; not even the expectation if an endowment of 'grace' for life, but only a hope for the daily and hourly pittance to meet the daily and hourly temptation. This is very bad."

"But the obedience which the Enemy (God) demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does wanna fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself-creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them, but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons."

"Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those (initial) supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-to carry out from the will alone duties which must have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best.... He wants them to walk and must therefore take away His hand, and if only the will to really walk is there, He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and STILL OBEYS."
- The Screwtape Letters by C.S Lewis (Letters from the devil)


this is a BRILLIANT, inspiring song. check it out! :P

Jesus loves you too :) ,
candice