60

negaraku, tanah tumpahnya darahku.

maybe one day these words will become reality for me. happy 60th independence day Malaysia; you are so so beautiful, and you have captured the Bridegroom's heart. Revelation 7:9 is your destiny, so come forth, sons and daughters!

who reads this anyway?

still there was a face missing.

i wish you were there.

break

two friends of mine had close family members pass on to eternity this year. i had the utmost privilege of spending time and having church with them in the midst of that. 

no, there wasn't a worship service, but it was church as it was always meant to be.

there were no fancy lights or sound systems. no bands. no friendly people to welcome you. no pulpit. no preacher. no agenda - at least, no other agenda, other than to mourn and to remember.

on one occasion, it was a living room lit with fluorescent tubes, an acoustic guitar, and voices.

on another occasion, it was three people having an honest conversation at a table.

but there were hearts. broken, confused, but childlike hearts. 

and it was real. it was authentic. it was honest.

it was all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength invested. it was grieving and crying with one another. it was supporting and encouraging and standing with ones who were shaky, when in actuality, they were the ones who were supporting, encouraging, standing with us. it was openly coming before the Lord with questions. it was Habakkuk 3:17-18.

it was hearts laid down before the worthy King.

and it left my heart heavy for the Church.

Jesus, You love Your Bride so much more than i would ever be able to love Her or love You, so would You put the love in Your heart in mine.

hidden

there's something oddly fascinating about the sound of waves crashing. it's huge and thundering, but at the same time it plays a quelling melody. roaring, yet peaceful. chaotic, yet tranquil. you get the gist.

it's so easy to miss. so easy. but if you just sat down and challenged the ocean to a staredown, it's possible to be teleported someplace else in the midst of all that noise.
 
maybe peace isn't the absence of chaos, but rather, the losing of oneself in the chaos.

what was it people said? that it's calmest in the eye of the storm?

maybe.

punctuation

we'll come back to this someday, i know we will.

we'll laugh, we'll cry, we'll reminisce.

maybe this is merely a brief pause in our dialogue; a comma, or an even longer semicolon.

or perhaps this is the full stop? the end of the line?

'til then.

picking at scabs creates scars

how do you pick up the threads of an old life? 

how do you go on when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back?

that there are some things that time cannot mend. 

some hurts that go too deep.

— The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

vade mecum

my favorite books are the ones that transport me to a place that i've never been before. the ones that make me want to live in a totally different period of time. the ones that make me crave for food unheard of hitherto.

the books that make me miss someone i never knew. and cry for a loved one i never lost. the ones that make me long to relive a memory i never lived.

and this is why i love books. they lie to me, sweet beautiful lies, that open doors for me to live lives i could never actually live. i can be a prophet one day, and a god the next. a widower in search of his first love, then a teenage runaway.

be right back. finishing one last chapter.

fleeting

"Werner thinks about the men in the sunflowers and a hundred others: each lay dead in his hut or truck or bunker, wearing the look of someone who had caught the tune of a familiar song. A crease between the eyes, a slackness to the mouth. A look that said: So soon? But doesn't it play for everybody too soon?"

— All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

rest

You never ask that i earn Your affection, cause i could never earn something that's free.

i never have to fight for Your attention, because Your eyes are ever upon me.

abluvion

what do we do now? what do we make of this? where do we go from here?

throw down all the empty vessels onto the floor, burn up all the broken pieces, smudge the pretty colors, let the flames consume and purify. ironic how the fire washes away the impure.

make puppets of skeletons.

make-believe.

i guess i'm just aching to return Home again.

even today. 

especially today.