Stayin' true
I've been busy. Among other things, I went dating with this weird but still good-lookin' fellow on Saturday night. Okay, okay, I confess, he's my brother, and no, there's nothing incestuous going on between us, okay?! :D (and in case you're wondering, that's an orange perched in the middle of the cushion on top of his head...)
When I was in college, I'd come home for vacations and Blink would be the one asking me, "How's your spiritual life?". It was really weird coz here I was, the elder sister, and along comes this fella four years younger than I am, asking me how my spiritual life is. Am I not supposed to be the one setting a good example for him? How did things get so topsy-turvy?
He's scary in some ways coz he's sooooo much more disciplined than I am -- he would wake up at 5:30am to read his Bible and pray, whereas I couldn't even wake up for 8:30am church service yesterday (oops!). I admire that kind of steadiness. Even on Saturday night, when I dropped him at our uncle's place, he said something like, "Keep growing in the faith" before he got out of the car.
One of my aunts asked me last weekend what has caused Blink & I to remain steadfast in what we believe and to continue living according to the principles we were brought up with. People commonly talk about the "trials & temptations of the world" and I admit that when I left home, I finally realised just how sheltered and protected I'd always been. There's a whole world out there! Knock yourself out, man!! Here's your chance to try all the stuff you weren't allowed to when you were under your mother's eagle eye...
I did some crazy things (like calling a male friend's house at 3am in the morning and pretending to sob whilst asking for him, when his father answered the phone... bwahahahah) and although I didn't pay much attention to my relationship with God -- hardly prayed, wasn't reading my Bible at all, etc. -- I continued attending church services & cell group meetings and still held on to the principles I believed in.
Maybe that's the key word: I believed in those principles for myself, not because they were something my parents had taught me, but because I thought (still think) they were right and good. And I went to church service every Sunday partly because it was just something I had been doing my whole life, but also partly because I wanted to. If I hadn't wanted to, I don't think anything could have made me do it!
I admit that there are temptations, especially material ones. When I see people whip out their camera-equipped mobile phones, palm-size PDAs, or shiny small digital cameras, I feel sudden pangs of envy. And when I see people driving gleaming Hyundais, I wish I had that much money so I could ditch my second-hand Kancil (which developed a sudden problem last Sunday night, while my parents were here. All of a sudden, It.Wouldn't.Start. Grrrr). But I keep reminding myself of what's important.
I tell myself, You know you'd probably end up not using your PDA anyway if you had one. You can barely keep a daily planner for two months. And what do you want a digital camera for? You don't even have a PC to download the photos to, let alone burn them to CD! As for a camera-equipped mobile phone... the resolution is so poor, don't even bother to think about it. Right. So I talk to myself. I know that's a sign of insanity. It's all right, they say if you know you're insane, you're really not insane at all. The insanest people are those who don't know they're insane. Don't lose sleep over it, okay?
But anyway, I have to keep reminding myself of what I believe in. These things are not really necessary, although it'd be nice to have them. It'd be nice to have more money too but it's not like what I'm earning now is inadequate, exactly. There's often a tug from other directions, but when I stop to think, I know that's not really what I want. And then it's easier to change course and stick to my guns. Notice, I said easier, not easy!