Tomatoian Thoughts

ZongHan CloseUp 

posted by Ivy @ 5:43 PM 1 comments

Visit to Yinwei's

Me and Baby Zonghan!

Went to visit Yinwei mummy and ZH!! He is the cutest on this earth as of right now!!
makes me wanna have my own baby so i can dress him/her up and take pictures!! Aiyo. I can't wait till Ann and Bea have their kids too! We can open a creche.. SOOO CUTEE!!! I'll quit my job and just sit there and watch them... SOOOO CUTE!! Yinwei, can i "chope" him to be my little ring bearer or bible bearer for my wedding if he's big enuf by then??

Such a darling!!! Yinwei u are very brave to have this child! i'm sure it must have taken u plenty of sleepless nights ... U are an inspiration to me!!!

Anyways, it was really cool to meet my SNGS prefect pals again.. just 10 years ago.. we were still er.. doing discipline duty and making sure people were buckling their belts and buttoning collars..and Yinwei was taking down minutes... sigh!! I wonder where another 10 years will take us!!

ZH, be a good boy ok??? GOD bless this child and this entire family!!

posted by Ivy @ 5:17 PM 1 comments

Reminders to Me

Just came back from a mini surprise party at Praise's! So nice to see my disciples there...! :)
God is SO good.. He answered all my prayers.. that i'd be able to leave with peace of mind.. and I just felt so much peace knowing that I'll be leaving with them well taken care of .. and just, being well!

Few things i need to remind myself:

1) Facts is not = Truth. See and acknowledge the facts, but know and proclaim the Truth. Truth=Word of God!

2) Do not despise small beginnings...

3) You are there to be a blessing! Have a blessing mentality... not pride, not needy! Look out for opportunities to bless..

4) 1 Tim 4:12...Do not let people despise you because of your youth...Set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity

Thank you God for blessing me with such great spiritual family and friends.. I AM BLESSED! Thank you Jesus... :*)

Now i'm beginning to look forward to going... and starting to feel the ??? (li2 bie2 chou2)/farewell sadness. Actually i really really miss lestari coz she went back to Indonesia today.. God, please protect her and give her a good guardian for her daughter so she can come back with us! She is family... I miss her. Didn't think not having her around would make such a huge impact on me.. it really feels like losing another loved one. But i hope she will come back!

And i think i'm going to miss alot of people here... O wow. It;s just starting to sink in... uh oh...

posted by Ivy @ 1:43 AM 0 comments

Greater Love has No One Than This...

Extract from My Utmost for His Highest:

Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Peter said to the Lord, "I will lay down my life for Your sake," and he meant it ( John 13:37 ). He had a magnificent sense of the heroic. For us to be incapable of making this same statement Peter made would be a bad thing—our sense of duty is only fully realized through our sense of heroism. Has the Lord ever asked you, "Will you lay down your life for My sake?" ( John 13:38 ). It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God. We are not made for the bright-shining moments of life, but we have to walk in the light of them in our everyday ways. There was only one bright-shining moment in the life of Jesus, and that was on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was there that He emptied Himself of His glory for the second time, and then came down into the demon-possessed valley (see Mark 9:1-29 ). For thirty-three years Jesus laid down His life to do the will of His Father. "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" ( 1 John 3:16 ). Yet it is contrary to our human nature to do so.

If I am a friend of Jesus, I must deliberately and carefully lay down my life for Him. It is a difficult thing to do, and thank God that it is. Salvation is easy for us, because it cost God so much. But the exhibiting of salvation in my life is difficult. God saves a person, fills him with the Holy Spirit, and then says, in effect, "Now you work it out in your life, and be faithful to Me, even though the nature of everything around you is to cause you to be unfaithful." And Jesus says to us, ". . . I have called you friends. . . ." Remain faithful to your Friend, and remember that His honor is at stake in your bodily life.

This is perhaps the most difficult decision that i've and will have to make for the rest of my life.. to choose to live a life worthy of His love and call. Though this a choice that I make.. and it is a free choice, I know that I won't be alone when i walk this decision throughout my life. As daily as it is a decision, He also gives the grace needed.


This abstract reminds of this link i used to go to http://www.donghaeng.net/english/duty/duty.swf. And though I really look forward to the day I meet my First Love... oo Soooo much! I will do my best and give my utmost to Him with what I have while I m here on earth and may the grace found through our Lord Jesus Christ carry me through...

"I can only imagine what it will be like, when I walk by Your side...
I can only imagine, what my eyes will see, when Your Face is before me!
I can only imagine. I can only imagine."

~ I Can Only Imagine, MercyMe

posted by Ivy @ 10:43 AM 0 comments

Worth Living For

so sad! i can't post pictures up!

I think i have too much software on my new laptop.. for camera, for my palm, for uploading stuff to Snapfish, for CutePDF.. BUT, i think i'll need them leh.

Wow.. jst back from a 3 day 2 nite youth leadership camp! haha.. i'm a little exhausted but still very amazed that I was fairly calm (din lose my head) through out though some things jst din work out the way it should have. aniways, i can't believe it's over! yahoo!

though it was run for the youths.. i felt that it was a leadership camp for ME.. except it was in practicum.. haha.. i think alot of emotional stress on my part though i may not display it all the time,, but it was as if the grace of God cloaked and doused that... it's funny.. coz u feel abit of isolation from the moment.. coz the focus was really jst to walk it through... so in a way, i felt abit removed. but it was learning camp for me.. through this camp and its preparation, God really reminded me that at the end of this, it's not just the camp, but also to develop the people that were involved in the camp.. not that i have all the skills already or i know everything (coz obviously i so do NOT) but I had to change my perspective of seeing this camp as not just for the youths but also for everyone involved in it. Give grace for mistakes to be made... give grace for second chances.. coz God is a God of second chances and I've been a MAJOR recipient of that. And u noe wat? ? i think in the midst of doing that, i realised that it was also easier to be more forgiving of my own mistakes! and that was good too :)

I don't know if that's a good thing or bad, but good in the sense that i didn't take things too emotionally.. but not so good in the sense.. that well, mabbe i could have missed out on feelin more joy? u noe, the same analogy of "what's the point of not feeling pain when you can't feel love?" anyway, i don't if it was the case, but i did feel a guard/ separation of facts from feelings while there and it's DEFINITELY different from the way i've felt abt camps before. I'm alot of less emotional now for some reason.. and more guarded. Good? Bad? two sides of a coin i guess.

But if u ask me, my greatest ta pao from this camp is also knowing how much more inadequate i am apart from God in the area of relating to pp... I don't know where that ability i used to have went. It's so funny that when i was in school, i always felt that the only skill or talent i had was the ability to have close friendships. First of all, i really felt i had like ZERO talent, and it seemed to me that the only thing i was good at at, was to be a friend to someone and be there to listen etc etc.. BUT, it looks like this as changed along the way! i don't know if my girlfriends would agree with me.. but i really do feel a greater inability to have that kind of close friendships i used to have.. or mabbe just to relate to people etc.. there's some kind of stress some how..and also a wall.. and i rather be alone. Honestly, I think i'd be super contented to just sit around and observe the people and the conversations.. to laugh.. i don't mind sharing stuff either.. but relating.. is different. It consumes sooo much energy from me.. I like to be a high S profile.. to be a 'D' or 'I 'is such a stretch and energy consuming... i become beside myself.. it's like from outside looking in.. and just watching Ivy @ work, in action.. while the other Ivy wants to sit down, listen and relax. When did relating become a chore? or is it only in certain situations that it becomes a chore? I don't know.. i haven't really analysed that yet.. I just wanna sit down and be still. i miss the days that i'd just have a consistent ONE person to share with.. and not different pp with different chunks :(

I guess I miss the kind of friendships i used to have in school, but i know they won't come back.. simply because we've all moved on to a new phase of our life.. if u ask me, THIS is the most difficult part for me to accept and adapt in growing up. But i know i must, and by the grace of God, I know I will.

O well, the past is not to be dwelt on.. but just have to walk onwards..

When i look at my next step.. bells go a-ringing in my head! i'm now at a state of "what am i doing???" Who says i'm not afraid? I am. Afraid of more pain that'd come in my life... I don't want that. I really don't. What makes me think there'll be more pain? simply because i'm alive in this world. and there's nothing that can shield a heart from pain and heartache... if i could invent anything in the world,, i would invent a pain shielder.. so u feel love and all good things but not heart pain.. no more missing people, no more sense of loss, no more disappoinments.

But I have to remind myself again... Who am I fighting for? Whose blood-stained scarf is it that I carry in this fight? It belongs to Someone worth living for.


Who Am I

"Who am I that You are mindful of me, That You hear me, when i call... "
"Who am I, that the Lord of all the Earth would care to know my name, care to feel my hurt.
Who am I, that the bright and morning star, would choose to light the way, for my ever wandering heart..
Not because of who I am , but because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done, but because of who You are"

Help me, Lord, to live for You!

posted by Ivy @ 1:02 AM 0 comments