Juxtaposed

"I don't mean to speak forth doom, but relationships started in secret always have problems later on."

Always?
Sigh.
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"If you want to slim your thighs down, you should do what I do in bed."

"Mom, I can't do what you do in bed!!"
Hehe.
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Today was a day of good conversations. Some excerpts that stuck are highlighted above, one serious and the other tongue-in-cheek.

He stands like I do.

With locked knees.

Managing Expectations

is the proper thing to do. Make sure you can deliver what you promised to do. Don't over extend yourself, go the second mile or make yourself too available or willing. You might get taken advantage for, and that's really unacceptable. So play safe.

Get specifications, requirements so you can count your cost. Oh, and add in allowances for depreciation, inflation, devaluation and rising oil prises. Then recheck your calculations twice over so that you make sure you know exactly what you're getting yourself into. Because you know, managing expectations also has got to do with making sure you get what you ordered.

Leave no room for chance, faith or God because those elements are just too unpredictable. You can't quantify or measure them, so it's impossible to factor their effects into your picture-perfect plans. It's therefore best to discount them entirely.

Ignore instinct. That's usually easy, 'cos we've all been taught since childhood that it doesn't exist.
Don't trust. Don't trust others, don't trust yourself to rise above yourself, don't trust yourself to succeed in the near-impossible, don't trust yourself to fail and still come out standing.

When ever I hear someone talk about managing expectations, I wonder which is worse. Not getting what you expected, or getting exactly what you did.

The Rest of the Facts

Up at 9.10ish. In hindsight, it was good that traffic was a little heavier than normal, was busy concentrating on the road and not what I would say about my probably unreadable disc. Arrived just before 930 but thankfully, there was time to test it out. Seems that Sunday services are not as tight as Sat. There were only 4 people in the AV box, with much less clutter and frantic activity. Nice.

Oh yeah, it could play and the quality wasn’t crap like the last one. But by then it was already an afterthought. It was nice to attend Sunday morning worship, with a bunch of not very well-rehearsed kids on stage trying to get the passive crowd to respond.
It was nice to be anonymous for once, standing at the back and watching the undermanned AV crew struggle cheerfully. It was nice not to feel hypocritical in church for once, because nothing is expected of me.

It's been ages since my Sunday morning has been as pleasant. Actually getting out of bed at a decent hour because there’s something that has to be done sure beats wasting the morning away by staying semi-asleep in bed cos there’s nothing, not even the will power, to force you onto your feet. Whew.

And the drive home.
It reminded me of the dream of a promise, or a promise of a dream of lazy Sunday morning drives with you.
I saw you in service today and my heart skipped a beat, but it wasn’t you.
I saw the road stretched away in front, with the sun not too hot and a sprinkling of other cars about for company. You for company. And I never had to come back to where I am right now.

If only.

I should qualify the post above by saying that 'you' does not represent of a single person, but is an amalgam of individuals from the past, present and (in a strange, hesitant way) the future. In particular, I thought of a white, round car with certain fondness. Dear Teardrop, I miss those times and all that they represented.

All the Facts

Finally turned off the com at 4.30am last night. Not that I worked the whole time from 12 though. Productivity plummeted at about 1.30 and I finished before 2 anyway. Filming the second part and the whole editing process was actually a breeze. I was actually happy. Wow.

Getting the clip onto a disc in a readable format was the killer. Stupid, stupid, stupid me didn’t remember to check how to do it and at 3am, there’s nobody you can ask. Stupid, stupid, stupid Macs. All I could do was burn it as a QuickTime movie and when I tested it on my home PC (using QuickTime), it couldn’t support the video, so only the audio played. I thought it unrealistic to hope that the Parousia PC would miraculously be any different.

So, in situations like that you’re supposed to commit it to God right? You know, do your best, and let God do the rest. Amazingly, I could. I could not have done it any earlier, any other way, any differently. Letting God do the rest is much easier when you can look yourself in the eye and said that I really, truly, absolutely did try the bestest of my best.

Then I flipped open The Daily Bread.

“All the known facts are not all the facts”, and “The known facts are against them. But God, who came down in the person of Jesus, is on our side. We have a hope that does not disappoint.”

Even when the known facts are against me, I have a hope that does not disappoint.

The poem at the end was the breaker.

The Lord above has kept you safe, Yes all throughout the night.
Why, then, should you awake to fear the things beyond your sight?

All we’ve seen of God’s provision teaches us to trust Him for what is unseen.

I cried a little and went to bed. After all, why should I lie awake to fear the things beyond my sight, even when the known facts appear to be against me?

Cut Again.

To the bone.





I envy every happy person I see.
Add that to my ever-growing archive of failure.

For Once,

Something positive-

Being fine most of the time. Being occupied most of the time.

Talking online.
Standing in the carpark on Wednesday night. Feeling understood.

Still being able to loose myself.

Still being able to cry. At least my heart's still alive. I actually prayed, "Lord, take my heart of flesh away and give me a heart of stone." But.

Crying.

Nobody knowing the truth. The insane truth that may very well turn out to be a lie. I hope I never not know.

Hope that someday I'll know. Or, that someday, it wouldn't matter if I know. I'd say chances are pretty good 'cos it's happened before. But it's an awful, awful, risk.

God, please spare me.

Thorn in the Flesh

I do not suffer fools gladly. Especially self-righteous, pompous, condescending, ignorant, arrogant fools. They are insufferable.

So.

God, I feel so trapped where I am now. Why did You helm me in so? I am at the end of my rope. I cannot handle this anymore. I do not want to. Do you hear me? I do not want to. No more rope please.

I hate the taste of humble pie. It makes me retch. I would rather self-destruct.

I hate sounding so bitter. I should be happy.

Nobody knows.

I'm tired of venting myself emotionally here. I want to get away.

I grit my teeth and bend my head.