Pixies & Stardust

Category: Spiritual Journey

  • Amazing Grace

    The overwhelming love of God for an unworthy being – me.  He initiated the love, and in response, what have I done?  I run towards it, and then shrink away from it with my sins.  I plunge into its amazingness and then withdraw and drown in my own misery.  It’s like that scene in Tangled where Rapunzel was finally out of the tower and she was celebrating her freedom one moment then feeling bad another moment.   Yet for me it’s celebrating how God has freed me and then going back to sinning then feeling bad for sinning.  And all the time, God looks at me with love and mercy, waiting for me to realise what I’ve been doing and return to Him.  That immeasurable patience God has for me, I have no words.

    If only letting go and letting God is easily done as it is being said (in a span of few seconds).  Experience has taught me, and most would agree, that it is not the case.  I happened to read on this verse from Romans 3:23-25 last night and dived into the grace of God.  I knew that grace is God’s gift – God’s mercy, my salvation and the promise of eternal life.  Amazing, amazing grace.  However, last night led me deeper into what grace is and I encountered these words telling me to guard this grace, to use it wisely and make it increase.  How?

    (more…)

  • Advent 2018

    A season of coming.  Expectation.  Longing.  Waiting.  A call to be vigilant and awake, to wake up from slumber and to be on the watch.  And yet the weather just makes you want to cuddle up with someone or with your blanket and take a nice warm sleep.

    God is not asking us not to take our naps or sleep physically, obviously.  He created sleep for our bodies to recharge and regenerate.  To stay awake and not to slumber is a call for our hearts to be on the watch and more vigilant than in any other season because God is coming and He will surely come in a time we never expect.  Just so happen, advent is also a season of busy-ness, holiday rush, deadlines at work, ending the fiscal year, decorating homes, attending gatherings and dinners, holiday shopping – there are just too many things to do that our Lord is asking us to guard our hearts, our thoughts and our bodies lest all these to-do take over the yearning of our soul – the longing of the soul to see and recognize our Saviour.  That, for me, is to stay awake, to be vigilant, to be extra watchful.

    I struggle in this season – concerns flood my mind and things happening around me affects me easily.    While the Christmas cheer rings around me, my heart moves along a roller-coaster that seems to drop farther than it lifts.  Outside it seems well, inside it’s a battle.  I grapple to hold on to something, anything, to keep my head above the water, to come to terms with events in my life, to understand the unknown (which is insane, I know) and to stay awake and keep watch for the Lord’s coming.

    If there is one thing I am grateful to God, it is that He created me with a stubborn heart, very stubborn!  Some may think that is not a positive thing, but in this moment, it is for my good – that I refuse to let evil take over me, that I refuse to accept the lies of the devil in my life – to just drop everything and not fight because it’s futile, lies!  So I fight by surrendering and dying, in silence I fight and hope in the midst of confusion, in this waiting.  All these things I have no strength to do by myself, so I do the only thing I can and am asked to do – PRAY.  Even when at times I don’t understand my prayers anymore or the text I’m reading or what I am even telling God or that I need to rush because I’m running late for work.  In His faithfulness, He keeps me here in the waiting.  In my tears, He listens.  With every breaking of my heart, He picks up the pieces.

    Advent is a season of expectation for His coming and this year I see that the Lord also looks at me and waits for me to approach Him in humility and surrender, and meets me in this very situation to walk with me.

  • I’d Still Take This Road

    No regrets.

    There are moments that sometimes challenge me, showing me the things that could have been, should have been, if only, what if’s … shoulda, woulda, coulda…  yet, I wouldn’t trade anything for this path I have treaded.

    True, there are times I wished life could have been kinder to me, wished that I could have avoided all the tears and heart aches, betrayals and battles, yet those were exactly the things that shaped me, events that put me to the test of faith.  I cannot say I’ve always emerged victorious when it comes to that test – of faith.  Like Peter, I would lose my focus on Jesus and gaze at the waves surrounding me and sink.  Yet by God’s grace, I made it through each storm, and I continue to weather through the storm through His grace.  Not without sinking in tears, not without bending from the wind, not without gasping for air through the waves, yet time and again, He reminds me whenever I call out to Him – trust Me, I got you and I got this.

    The future will always scare me, even if when I think I had it figured out.  For one, I know no human can have it all figured out.  Secondly, I’m not someone who really plans so far ahead and I only have this simple vision of a future that I desire.  It still scares me because the simple future I mention requires so much humility and obedience to achieve.  And the devil clearly knows this, when what you desire is contrary to his, he attacks the more.  I read in a book by C. S. Lewis that it is exactly in making you think of the future that the devil will put fear in your heart, for one it is because no one knows the future – not him, not you, so he can suggest to you all scary outcome to attack your peace until fear turns to doubt and chaos.  We all fall prey to this.  Nothing wrong with daydreaming, with wishing for a future, with desiring this future, yet when it starts to scare us, when it starts to scare me – learn to run to the One who has it all figured out and who holds our future.

    So looking back, I will still take this road because back then this was the uncertain future that I didn’t expect and it played out beyond what I could imagine.  Though life is hard, it is beautiful.  And what’s next in this wonderful journey, I take it moment by moment with prayer in my heart, entrusting the future I know not and the desires I have to the One who loves me.

    “I know not what my future holds, but I know who hold my future” ~ Homer

     

  • In The Waves

    Life throws events in haphazardly and kinda expect you to figure it out and survive it.  Often it seems like that.  And to find myself in a situation I never imagined is truly a blow in my I-know-what-I’m-getting-into stance in life.  I have often heard and being told to step out of my comfort zone, to step into the waves and move from the shore – well, HELLO WAVES!  I, myself, am surprised with the things that I’ve done for the past weeks, months, and surprised as well to how I’ve handled situations – sometimes poorly, other times I think I did okay.

    One thing I am certain is, I do not regret anything – stepping out of the comfort zone, going for something my heart wants, jumping into the middle of the waves – no regrets.  It was definitely scary, and it still is, yet I also see in all this how God has been faithfully keeping me from drowning and how patiently He waits for me to act.  Sometimes I struggle with His timing, His time frame, His idea of love and sacrifice yet He is ever-present and reminding me to trust, to wait, to hope and to obey.  Well, the last one is the toughest one for me, because I have a stubborn heart.  If you can get away with something, won’t you?  But He has been patiently reminding me, forgiving me, His patience for me, I HAVE NO WORDS!

    I am writing this down for the reason that I haven’t written anything recently here as my thoughts are lately too personal for sharing.  And at the same time, writing this down to share and pray for other people who might be going through the same as I am – take courage, stay steadfast, He is in the waiting, (as the song goes…).  Definitely, God is in the waiting.

    And I need also to be reminded of His Word.

    Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. ~ Proverbs 3:5-6

    We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. ~ 2 Corinthians 10:5

  • The Cross & The Empty Tomb

    We speak about the cross, about carrying our crosses, about laying down our worries at the feet of the cross.  The cross – the symbol of His infinite and unfailing love.

    I stand beneath Your cross and I look up, I see Love, my sins, my unworthiness, and my redemption.  And then I look at the empty tomb – Love fulfilled.  The tomb of my sins washed clean.  The tomb of my failures, gone.  Your resurrection is my Hope fulfilled.

    The cross, Your Love.  The empty tomb, Your victory.
    The cross, my salvation.  The empty tomb, my Hope.
    The cross, a reminder of the life in this world.  The empty tomb, a reminder of heaven.

    Beneath Your feet my tears fall, outside your empty tomb my heart rejoices.  Lord Jesus, my God, unworthy as I am, Your Love overtakes me.  There is nothing more than I want than to rejoice in Your victory.

    Help me.

    1144 06.18.2018

  • How often I’ve wandered
    And returned when I am wounded.
    With arms wide open,
    You wait and mend and heal me.

    How often have I leapt
    Only to fall and hurt myself –
    And watched as my broken pieces
    Are picked up by the hands that bled for me.

    djane
    05.15.2018

  • I will live through all the wrongs with Your Truth.
    I will trust through all the wait with Your Word.
    I will see through all the pain with Your Love.

    •djane•
    03.08.2018

  • Be You

    I chanced upon this post by Ann Voskamp in a period where I badly need to hear from someone words to encourage my downcast soul.

    Believe in angels, because they are all around us, instruments of God, reaching out and touching lives.

    To you who feel you’re too much, you who wants people to see you for who you really are and accept and love you, you who struggle to love yourself and others, you who fear judgements and find yourself sacrificing your identity to please people… this is also for you.

    Read: No more apologizing for being you, for being fully you in Christ.

  • Alone

    Previously I have called Lent the “white space”, the “white noise” of God, the period where winter turns to spring and it becomes cold and eerily quiet, it’s beautiful yet eerie.  This time, the battle rages on but our God is ever faithful.

    I have been struggling internally with all the emotions and delusions I have – of the deceit and lies the devil feeds my mind.  I am unwanted, I am alone, I am made to be alone in this world, I will not find love, I will forever be left behind – name the lies, the enemy has it.  Yet, God, in His loving mercy and almightiness knew beforehand what will happen and has sent forth the weapons and help for me.  Well, He could have just stopped it but He didn’t, like with Job’s story.  And as for me, I could let the enemy fill me with lies and not use the weapons God has been providing me.

    Yet here we are, here I am.  Faced with all these lies and deceit, God has been feeding me with my dose of Daily Bread, with His Word of Truth and Mercy.  It’s not easy, it sounds  (more…)

  • La Madrugada

    Es en la madrugada
    Aquí en el momento
    Mi corazón, en silencio
    Palpita en Tu gracia
    Laté para Ti

    © 02.10.2018