当我开始偷偷地想念

“我和大姐说好
老爸 60岁要给他摆第一次大寿
说长不长，再多 9个年头，老爸就60岁了”

“爸妈总说，我们才不盼你们养我们
能养得起自己就不错了。。。”

刚刚从朋友的blog游览了一圈回来，看到了很触我心的几个句子，决定把这一阵子的想念、想法，好好地给它做个记录。最近开始偷偷 地想念爸妈了，这好像是我来这儿读书这么一段日子以来，第一次正视这件事。其实也不是偷偷的想念，只是对他们的感觉，最近特别感性。自从朋友的父亲突然去 世直到最近大大小小的天灾人祸，就对家人，格外地珍惜，只是除了为他们祷告，也不知道我可以做什么。

的确，人越长大，越会 发现对家人，尤其是父母，有说不出的不舍。念着朋友写的给她爸爸摆大寿，不知怎的，眼泪就在框里打转。人生无常，不是我悲观，只是我真的会害怕。看着新 闻，在为世界另一个角落的人祷告的时候，会在想，若那些事是发生在我家，我会怎样；不敢 再继续想下去，只想回家叫妈妈赶快安排什么时候一家去拍张幸福漂亮的全家福。

记得那天接到妈妈的来电，只是打电话来纯聊 天，好像很少有这样。但是我喜欢。妈说她正等着妹妹下班，待会儿要去接她，闲着没事就给我摇了通电话。我说：“哦！是没事做所以才打来kill time的啦。。”她笑了，听得出我在说笑。很短的一通电话，在挂了之后，我很无谓地send了一封message给妈妈，很无谓但是我觉得有价值。我 说：“Thank you la, at least you think of me when you wanna call someone while waiting for CC :)” 出乎意料，她回复：“Of course think of you lah. Bodoh!” 我就知道我这封message有意义。 今早，有小事所以联络了妈妈，临挂电话前，她要我check我的email。开了inbox，原来是要我把假期时间整理出来，email回给她。值得我珍惜的部分，我想copy paste记在这里。管他奇怪不奇怪。

dear girl, pls send yr school holiday time-table when u re free to do so. I brought yr sister to SUPP there, after all, the man said he can help to appeal to get into Matri if we fail to get it ourselves. 100% sure, with cc good result. god bless. he mentioned the water problem at Matri is already solved. bye. god bless u dear. 

Today's Mitchell ：我感觉，想念家人就像谈恋爱的那种sweet。特别我要谢谢妈妈。

APK Semester II for 2011

Well this isn't my APK, yet I start enjoying the process of preparation with my friends who having theirs this semester. APK stands for Asas Pembudayaan Keusahawanan, which is a course that we gonna apply some technique, creative and innovative (I suppose) to market our products. We can choose any product to sell as long as it's something related to our own profession.

Here my friends, who are from International Business (IB) and another one from Entrepreneurship. The one who is doing IB are going to sell her "luggage tags" during the APK while another of our businesswomen is doing "fancy hair clips" for hers. Not to miss the fancy pretty stuffs I loved, I did some support by purchasing as well as DIY with them. Spent my whole morning which I should have working on my lab reports instead of these fancy stuffs. Somehow I found I enjoyed it. Not to forget, I got 3 clips for my sister and cousins; 3 to 4 luggage tags which I think I'm not going to use it as luggage tag as they're too fragile, I rather keep them for some other purposes. 

Today's Mitchell: DIY for little fancy stuffs made my day :)

Simplicity

I'm a simple person, even if there were people saying that I was "thinking too much", still I can concluded that I'm actually a simple one, as comparing to lots of people out there. Maybe this is my personality, my character, or maybe there's some factors triggering.

Firstly, I'm sometime an emotional one, so-called "emo" person. However, I can still handle the emo feeling in myself when it's trying to overwhelm me. Maybe I ain't a high EQ one, but now at least I noticed I have EQ, not really low one. Other than emo, anger is also a part of EQ management as my "homework". I'm doing hard on it, hoping there's anyone can notice and experience the benefit of my change.

Everyone has own problems to face. Or maybe some people prefer not to face it. I found myself always like to get a solution rather than hiding away from the problems, even though sometime really hope to do that. In fact, problem doesn't go away if we ignore it. It will definitely drag you back one day later and maybe double the suffer. So I never like to be the doggie named "courage" in Cartoon Network as it's too tiresome to meet and ignore problem comes one after another, instead I tend to find my way out.

When I couldn't figure out on my own, and also seek no help from the others, I would finally back to Him. He is always larger than my problem, I told myself. One thing that I felt bad is, I always seek for Him only after trying other ways until no way. He should have be the first solution in my list ! Well, back to the previous part, even if I have not much faith, sometime, I will try my best to convince myself as I know I can find no way out other than Him the creator. Maybe there's someone out there is disagree or even laughing at my genuine, it's always better than he/she never hear about Him from me.

Today's Mitchell: My Lord, please bless me wisdom and genuine to overcome the complexity of this world. I would like to be strong with the strength from You, and then You can use my hand to do Your work.

The Parables of the King

Went to Sunday service in Community Baptist Church (CBC), I found there’s another lovely thing I like about this church. Pastor prepared his photocopied script that everyone can have one in our hand. While listening to his preaching, we’re required to “fill-in-the-blank”. This is definitely an interesting way of listening and paying attention to the teaching. Take your time to read this and you'll be blessing :)

The title for today’s sermon is “The Parables of the King Part 1” from Matthew Chapter 13, verse 1-58. Let’s define “Parable”. About the same as I looked through the dictionary in my phone, pastor gave definition of “Parable”----A parable is an earthly story used to illustrate heavenly (spiritual) truth.

Some parables were recorded in the bible, and I suppose pastor is going to explain one by one in the following weeks. I’m looking forward for it as I didn’t used to have such an easy-to-understand sermon when I was in my own church in Miri. Even though I ever heard about this part of bible and understand it before this. His preaching was still attractive for me. And I managed to learn again from the same story. 

The first part I gonna mention here is “The Parable of the Sower”. The story begin like this: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it didn’t have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop…” (Quoted from Chap 13 Verse 3 to 8)

The story mentioned above is about some responses of people when they received or heard about Jesus Christ or gospel. The seed is presented as the Word of God. The sower is one who shares God’s word. The soil represents the Human heart. Basically there are 4 hearts which means 4 types of responses given.
(1) The Hard Heart – Pathway Soil represents those who hear and does not understand it or rather does not let it sink into their heart. Some of this type of people had already made up their mind that they are not going to be affected by the content of sermon before entering the church. Exaggeratedly I said there may be even some are sitting there looking for grammatical error that the pastor made throughout the preaching.
(2) The Shallow Heart – Rocky Soil represents people with “shallow heart” who joyful receive the Good News of the gospel because of the promise offered. They understand some of the basics but do not allow God’s Word to be rooted in their hearts and make a difference in their lives.
(3) The Crowded Heart – Thorny Soil represents those with “crowded heart” who hears and accepts the Good News, giving hope of a harvest. But thorns grow up and “crowded” and choked the growing seed. The “thorns” here refers to the worldly worries and false sense of security brought on by the materialistic wealth and then crowded the hearts and distracted many believers “choking” them and making them unfruitful.
(4) The Fruitful Heart – Good Soil represents those with “fruitful heart” who hears and understands the Word; then rooted in the Word and bear fruit, i.e. “produces a crop…”
God’s Word can produce different kinds of spiritual fruit in the lives of believers, for instances, Winning souls to Christ; Christian character; Practical holiness; Good works; Sharing needs and blessings others.

From the 4 types mentioned before, I think I gonna admit that I’m so limited and imperfect as I used to be the (3) type of person. Usually when a lot of worldly troubles start overwhelming me, I lost my mind. I shouldn’t have become like this as I have the responsibility to behave myself. So which type you think you are?

Today’s Mitchell: The sermon gave impact to me, and I wish I can record every part and hence able to keep reminding myself about my role.

“Unfortunate is always odorless” 2

Unfortunate is really hard to get over, for me.

I'm home for these 3 days 2 nights, and after fulfilling the main purpose that I came home this time, I got to pay some friends a visit. And this was definitely a really heavy heart and deep-mediating day for me.

After leaving brother to his school, I went to look for my girl friend as my accompany to visit another friend who lost his father few days ago, as I mentioned previously in "Unfortunate is always odorless". As I know, his mother was a sweet one who liked to spend time with her husband and son. This is absolutely a great loss for her and I guess I know how bad she feel. Staring at the calm face, the father who lying in the "freezer" before they get him a coffin, I hardly hold my tears. Felt sour.

After spending around one hour with him, we went for another friend, whose I mentioned before too, both admitted to the hospital. A bless in the unlucky, the wife (my friend) and children were safe. God bless them. However, the husband hurt badly, really bad. He was admitted in the ICU until today only he can be considered as out-of-danger. He smiled at us when I walked to him. Approaching him, I showed my concern. He answered me: " I'll be strong, I was brave, I tried hard to protect my wife and kids... I'm strong.. I used my hand to defend them, my thumb was chopped off.." while talking he raised his right hand up. I hold him as a response. He continue: "I'll be strengthen... But...I loss my leg.." while talking this, he hold his left leg. My tears were rolling down, non-stop, and I didnt wanna stop it. I didnt know what should I say. I only know to wipe my tear and the tears came out again and wiped again. His tears came after mine, and the wife as well as my friend who came along. I wiped mine and wiped his. I could only answer him: "I'll pray for you, I'll pray for you, you're really a brave man.." No doubt, he need a lot of courage to accept everything. But not too bad, the loyalty lovely wife never left him alone. This is love, I defined.

Today's Mitchell: It's a heavy day but I'll bear them in my prayer.

“Unfortunate is always odorless”

It’s complicated. And I picked “Unfortunate is always odorless” as my title as I directly translated it from Bahasa Melayu. This idiom was what we usually used in essay writing during primary school, i.e. “Malang tidak berbau”. Yes, and I always feeling uneasy toward this phase.

Received a shocking bad news in the early morning when I was surfing around with my facebook. A friend pop out from the chat box, wonder so early this fellow online, supposing he was arrived earlier in the office. In few sentences of time, I was informed that he lost his father this morning. What!? I really can’t believe this! That’s the first response I gave him. After some elaborations, I finally got him. I ever met his father last year when we went to his house. I’m so sorry to you, my friend. I don’t know what I can do for you, other than saying sorry. Maybe you’re right; you said you’re glad to know your dad is now in the Heaven, with our Father. Deepest condolences for the family, hopefully his mother can be strong. Rest peace in Father’s arm, uncle.

Here came another terrified breaking news from a phone call, dragged my appetite for my lunch. My friend and her husband were admitted to the hospital due to some social cases. I wasn’t really sure what’s going on, but I definitely felt bad the moment I heard that she harmed badly, and the husband was even worse. I kept saying prayer every moment when this came to my mind. Hoping I know what I can do for her, too. 

Today’s Mitchell: Heavenly Father, please do bless them what they need now. And bless my family every second.

Great Metaphor to Share

感情就像躲猫猫
有时候 找到的不是想要的
有时候 被找到的一点也不想被找到
有时候 却没人发现那个想被找到的
然后就会开始觉得
为什么我不找点容易被看见的地方
为什么我不躲紧一些呢

I read this when I came across my best friend's blog, and I like it so much. Like it, share it, my principle of life. And here I'm trying to translate into simple English (or maybe French in the future, haha...) as I wouldn't like my friends who can't read Chinese to miss out this. You know who you are :)

Feeling is just like Hide-and-Seek the game we played
Sometime, we found the one we never want
Sometime, the one who never like to be found somehow been found
Sometime, nobody find out the one who hoping so much to been found
And then we start to wonder
Why didn't I hide somewhere easier to be found?
Why didn't I hide myself properly so nobody can find me?

Today's Mitchell : Which role I'm now playing in the Hide-and-Seek ?

你承认你认识我吗？

最近被assignment、report、midterm搞得我忙进忙出，晕头转向，差点没时间update一下我的灵修心得。我觉得不能再姑息自己这样，所以硬是挤出一些时间，写一写。题为：决心与榜样。经文：耶稣说：“凡在人面前认我的，我在我父面前也必认他”。（太十：32）

 

今天的《灵修日程》的故事是大概说到作者在家里做谢饭祷告的时候，务必轻松、舒服；但是在公共场合都不敢公开做谢饭祷告，害怕因为公开信仰而被揶揄。看到这里，我想到，似乎我也听说过身边好像有这样的人，感到害怕、有负担，但是心里又有罪恶感。但是奇怪的是，我没想过公开做谢饭祷告，会让我面对这些；反倒我觉得这是与非基督徒朋友开始信仰话题的好机会。就举例说，之前多次朋友看到我祷告的动作，就会笑着说：“小心我把你的份给吃了！”笑了之后，就会问：“你为什么要祷告啊？祷告的时候都说了什么啊？”哈！机会来了！

没错，很多时候，就比如今天谈到的公开做谢饭祷告，就是打开传福音话题的好开始。又自然、又比较不容易让人抗拒。传福音，是每个基督徒都应该知道是他们必须做的，是他们的责任。再严重一点的说法，就是，如果你不把福音传给身边的人，你就是欠了他们。尽管如此，我们要还，别人却不想收，怎么办？就想尽法子，祷告上帝，让我们有智慧，生出让他们愿意听听福音的办法。再强调，公开做谢饭祷告，就是其中一个超棒的法子，就看我们愿不愿意、敢不敢做。

就拿《灵修日程》的结尾当我的结尾。每个人都可以下决心借谢饭祷告来感谢上帝。我们这样做就荣耀上帝，即使我们可能永远不会知道这么做对身边的人会带来什么影响，但上帝在做事，祂可能借着我们的行为举动，让别人看见他们极需要的榜样。

Today’s Mitchell: 虽然我不怕在公共场合公开做谢饭祷告，但有时候只顾着说话，就忘了最重要饭前要祷告！太不应该 =p

抱怨！

今天早上的灵修题目，让我一翻开《灵修日程》，就微笑了，题为：发怨言！发怨言！
经文：你们无论做什么事，都不要发怨言起争论。（腓二：14）
的确，最近发怨言的机会比以往的多出很多，但是我终于都习惯了找不到可以诉说的对象，所以渐渐就惯于把它往肚里吞。毕竟，大同小异的困扰，我也懒得再再地去在意。

灵修内容的短篇故事让我联想到，在Senardin那里的McD还没开张营业之前，全美里就只有一间小小的McD在Parkson的某个角落。每每在大家McD瘾发作的时候，尤其是每天的12-3pm的Promotion时间，小小的McD总是人山人海、被挤得水泄不通、挤得像沙丁鱼罐头。。总之小学的作文里用来形容巴士里有多拥挤的形容词，全都合用。更甚的是，McD在这时候总是有三个柜台，开放运作的却只有两个。在排长龙的时候，相信到过那里的各位，或多或少都抱怨过几句，最常听到的，就是指着那个“counter close”的牌子说：“怎么看到人这么多，却不要开那个counter？”又或者：“很慢耶。。他们的动作。。”也有：“很笨耶。。难怪他们只是McD里的小员工。。”等等。整理整理一下，全都可以归纳为“抱怨”。在这里，我承认我也说过类似的话。那是我的不足。

其实仔细想想，那些事情根本微不足道，根本没有抱怨的必要，是谁叫我喜欢在那个时候到那里去？McD的员工也没一个打电话叫我去啊。我在抱怨个什么劲儿。当然除了这种小事，其他比较大一点的事，就算觉得有抱怨的必要，也应该换个角度去看。换句话说，就是操练自己的耐性、训练自己换个角度看事情。就比如，昨天与一位朋友谈到关于忍耐的事，她觉得我现在比以前更更更厉害忍耐。忍不住拍拍彼此的肩膀，说：我很了解，所以很佩服你。她还说，其实，这对我，换个角度想，是件好事，预备将来我出社会时，有很好的EQ。说到EQ，我真的觉得这些日子的忍耐，或许就是当初在我心里羡慕别人的高EQ时，上帝也想赐给我的礼物。谢谢那位朋友把这个想法告诉我。我很喜欢这个说法，很安慰。

就套《灵修日程》的几句为结尾。在这黑暗而邪恶的世界里，我们的耐性与平安能像光明那样照耀出来。你似光明照耀，还是你是被怨言所包围以致模糊不清？每个人都能选择为上帝似光明般照耀。

Today’s Mitchell: 感谢上帝赐给我的EQ，虽然祂的方法与我能想到的截然不同。