april 05 2019

Dear God,

How best would I explain my joys, my sorrows, my insurmountable pains and my days - through the noise of all my memories, whirlwind of emotions and outbursts? I am a horrible child when it comes to spoken prayers for my thoughts fumble and flicker and I get distracted so easily. I don’t know how to sit still and verbalize the varying shades of my emotions, thoughts and of myself. They come out horribly wrong or disjointed and all I desire is to talk to you in dueness and in heavy contemplation, in a quiet place where I feel safe. My heart and mind races like rapid fire; pounding furiously when I am alone and overwhelmed with thoughts. I know, I know you are near and I want to surrender my anxieties, my worries and all of my clumsy unadulterated thoughts to you but my heart is a monster that can’t stop beating and even as I fervently prays to you, it smashes and pounds as furiously like deep dark storm-brewed seawater.

unless I am here -

here in this page and in this quiet place, trying to meet you. writing to you soothes and calms me down. I feel small, vulnerable but protected by You. I want to meet you slowly and achingly through my words.

I still ache when I remember the movie’s rendition of Amadeus - Mozart’s endearing, childlike purity and passion to praise You through his musical gift; to create a musical cacophony of life to best represent and praise Your creation. And then I remember, Salieri’s green eyedness and how his envy and jealously slowly and insidiously transformed into anger and hatred for You.

SALIERI: What was God up to? …All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing—and then made me mute! Why? Tell me that. If He didn’t want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?

The past few days I endured a series of heartaches - fleeting, much more minuscule but nonetheless still painful. I thought I was growing cold again but then again, You know my character best for I am that stubborn greedy child who clings on to things and people. The past few days I had felt the flickering pain of grief, loss and uncertainty again & again, as if it was on Spotify repeat. Having to come to realisation that my touch league is ending, our coach is returning back to Australia and that Ras is finally fulfilling your calling. I am very proud and excited for her new journey that You are embarking her on but its double edged eh? For she will be gone ‘forever’ without a deadline and it terribly saddens me - why do You take the things and people I love and connect with (prematurely) away from me before our time ripens? I know, I know, Your timing is perfect but please can’t You give me more time?

It’s the same with touch rugby and with people I connect with, I am anguished with uncertainty. People come and go. I recall the dream I had in Japan on the last day of the trip. It was a dream of loss and it weighed heavily in my mind & heart. In a way, it was a foreshadowing and omen for loss. In the hazy clouds of the dream, Melissa was baked with an earthy tanned glow and her nose was reddened and sun-kissed. She wore a tight beautiful dress that wrapped around her body and in the fragmented dream, I remember waving and saying goodbye for she was on an en route to Japan; migrating from Singapore to Japan. In the dream, I felt a sinking and heavy anchor in my heart - her migration would signal that she would no longer be physically near. I woke up from the dream to that dread and weight. But funny, because why was I so saddened in the dream as Melissa & I have never lived in the same place & country. She had always stayed in Perth or Jakarta and our paths merely crossed because of circumstances. And it made me so wretched because God, why do You have to bless me with souls and connection as if it was a tantalizing trailer or a prequel to something deeper and more, only to shut it off again & again. My heart is too small to stand that kind of pain and potential loss. Moving from FPR to AXA office made me increasingly anxious because it signaled another potential for loss. I don’t think I can handle any more loss anymore. Please.

I know, I know, I know. I am greedy and I don’t want to trek down the paths of Salieri to become furious and hardened at You because of my narrow and selfish conception of what You can do (for me). and there I said it, for me to feel loss and to grieve so deeply was because You have once gifted these moments of joy and exuberance and deep connection. To be able to feel this resonant sadness was because You have given me much joy. I don’t know what is Your plan but please pry open my heart again. you see, I had wanted some form of closure from M because of how brutal and how painful the breakup was; of how much he had disregarded my feelings and our five plus years of relationship. I was so pained, angered and saddened but You came to me through Your angels and lightened the weight of the loss that I had felt and yet, the obstinate human that I am still desired for some form of closure and answer from M. the thing is, I will never get the closure I desired, right?

It’s like Jobs - having everything taken from him was Your doing and yet he found the closure he needed within himself and hoped and waited for You, knowing that You have the best for him. I need to find the closure on my own accords. Please let me hope and wait like how Jobs had waited with patience, with stride & with dutiful hope.

“Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:24–25).