lamah?!?!?!

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holy friendship

an excerpt from Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales, found in Elisabeth Elliot's book, Quest for Love:

Holy friendship has no looks but what are simple and modest, no caresses but those that are pure and sincere, no sighs but for heaven, no familiarities but those of the soul, no complaints but that God is not loved, the infallible signs of purity.

Worldly friendship confuses the judgment. . . . Holy friendship has a clear light and does not seek to hide itself, appearing willingly before good men.

When we see a man dress himself out and draw near to flatter and wheedle, and whisper in the ears of a woman with no pretension to lawful marriage, without doubt it is in order to incite her to impurity; and a virtuous woman will close her ears to the voice of the charmer who seeks to enchant her: but if she hearken to him, what an ominous sign it is of the future loss of her heart!

Young people who indulge in looks and caresses, or speak words in which they would be unwilling to be surprised (i.e., overheard) by their fathers, mothers, husbands or wives, bear witness that their conduct is not that of honor and conscience. The Virgin Mary was troubled on seeing an angel in human form because she was alone, and he praised her greatly although his praise was heavenly. O Savior of the world! Purity fears an angel in the form of a man; why then does not purity fear a man even in angelic form, when he pours forth praises sensual and human?

---

i concur.

a bedtime story

once upon a time there was a child named taylor. taylor grew up with wolves. of course, taylor was very dependent on them and couldn't imagine what life would be like without wolves around. wolves were all taylor had ever known, and taylor loved them.

taylor also loved the sea. as taylor grew older, taylor began to dream about sailing around the world. the sea constantly beckoned to taylor, "taylor, leave your wolves and your land, the only life you've ever known, and respond to the call of the waters."

there was a strong conviction in taylor's heart that taylor belonged not on land, but on water. however, taylor was torn because taylor did not want to leave the wolves, and taylor knew that the wolves would not be able to come along. there was no way for taylor to cling to both... taylor had to let go of one, and it was the hardest decision taylor had ever faced.

in the end, taylor chose to sail the seas and leave the wolves behind. and the waters were made salty by taylor's tears, along with the tears of many others like taylor who were called to sea and had to leave behind all they ever knew and loved.

finalement!

praise God from whom all Bibles flow!

last weekend, i was checking out Bibles at mitchell's and i ended up buying a cheap print $2 NKJV Bible for the purposes of my inductive study assignment. they had a promo going where i could come back the week after with my receipt and get one regular priced item at 30% off, so i figured it'd be a good time to get myself a(nother) decent Bible. so i finally, finally, finally bought myself a Bible to replace the blue NIV one i "misplaced" months ago... took long enough! i'm not letting this one out of my sight :P same compact size as my old one, except it's ESV and nutmeg in colour. i'm very pleased with it... decent price (on sale for $23) and it's an "essentially literal" translation... one of the newer ones of its kind to come out but apparently up there with NASB and NRSV... i'm very pleased with it :) i also bought myself a simple black NASB Bible for the mere sake of owning a copy of this wonderful, wonderful translation (elisabeth elliot uses it and i just absolutely look up to her, not to mention my OT prof had recommended this version along with ESV for serious study whereas NIV should be read for more devotional purposes) and also, i'd been wanting a Bible that i can highlight and underline and mark and essentially 'deface' without feeling too guilty about it. this one i bought at 30% off, which came to about $15... not bad. one of the first Bibles i actually picked up was a navy blue NIV compact Bible similar to the one i used to own, but that little thing cost $50! i'm still hoping to find mine one day. what else... pastor andrew says there's a sign-up for students to receive a free TNIV Bible, so i'll definitely be doing that. clarice says it's like the NIV but gender inclusive... maybe i won't need an NIV replacement then. and i'd still like to own a copy of the NRSV (my NT prof prefers this version) but i know i won't find it at mitchell's... they had like, one !

oh, and stan, just for you, a friend in hebrew class today pointed out that sin is a feminine noun. hope that smoothes out your feathers a little ;) but not too much now, cuz my response to him was: "so is wisdom..." it never really ends, does it? :P

freebies!

you all know i love books, right? a couple of them have come into my possession over the last few days. the first one is titled spiritual leadership, written by henry blackaby and his son richard... one of several door prizes on saturday when he spoke at tyndale. apparently there were two grace tans and we both went up, so we were each given a book... but i have a feeling it was *my* form that was actually drawn :P in all honesty, i was eyeing the tyndale hoodie or zip-up... but hey, i never win anything so i'm thankful for the book! plus my mom got him to sign it too... and he gave an awesome message that morning (the best of three messages i heard him give).

the second book i received just this afternoon... a hebrew OT bible! thank you, canadian bible society! so now i've got an actual copy of the tanakh in my hands... feels great :) while i'm on the subject of hebrew, might as well share some interesting things from today's OT class. you know how everyone blames eve for the fall? WELL... apparently, when the serpent was tempting eve (chapter 3 of genesis), the hebrew shows usage of second person plural pronouns. the king james version translates this plurality by using 'ye' instead of 'thou'... of course, with the modern versions we have today, the translation uses 'you' which the reader can translate as either singular or plural. in the case of the serpent's address, the pronouns are meant to be plural but i bet you all thought it was singular and he was addressing eve alone...... well guess what guys, the serpent was talking to adam as well. yah, eve may have taken the first bite, but stupidity is relative here (as in, stupid is as stupid does), and anyway, in eve's defense, when God gave adam the direct command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:17), eve wasn't even formed yet. really, adam should've known better. tsk tsk. and on top of that, now we know where (or shall i say who) finger-pointing originated from!

btw, xy's, you know i'm just ruffling your feathers... so relax. have an apple or somethin ;)

resistance

so my prof tells me that i don't smile enough... that i look too serious in class.

i dunno what to do now. concentrate less? smile more??

---

time and i... we've been enemies for as long as i can remember. i don't like time and time doesn't like me. i don't submit to time and time doesn't submit to me. time always screws me over and i always try to screw time over but it never works. right now, time and i are battling head to head...

people tell me all time (hah! time!) not to fight with time but to work with time. my response? tell that to time! why can't time work with me? why must time resist me all the-- ah, i won't say it!

---

my current perspective on women of strength is this: any woman can muster up the strength and courage to defy, but it takes a special woman to submit. (notice i purposely didn't specify a direct object... ) not everyone will see it this way, but i believe that submission is not a sign of weakness; instead, it is an indication of true strength... one that doesn't mask pride, but obedience.

i admire these truly strong women. i dunno how they do it.

---

for when i am weak, then i am strong. for when i am weak, then i am strong.

His grace is sufficient. His grace is sufficient. His grace is sufficient.

growing pains

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NKJV)

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

---

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

enya

i really really miss my enya cd :(

it's been missing for ages, probably still in my house somewhere but i don't think i'll ever find it. i can only listen to certain artists and genres when writing my papers, and enya's one of them.

i could really use her music right now...

*sigh*

raw or refined?

on a scale from raw to refined,
where do you think you lie?
to what end do you strive for?
or do you believe in balance and middle-ground?
perhaps you prefer neither designation?
are the two qualities mutually exclusive?
do you perceive one to be better than the other, or is it all relative?
which of the two best defines "pure" to you?
which of the two best defines you?

---

the source of inspiration for this post: jennie put raw sugar instead of refined sugar in my coffee the other day.

creation tidbit

i'm finding it really helpful to be taking hebrew and old testament at the same time. my most recent connection had to do with the creation account... apparently, though the english translates genesis 1:1 to "in the beginning," the hebrew has no definite article attached to 'beginning' and so the more literal translation would be "in a beginning"...... this makes a huge difference to me! the hebrew allows for an indefinite period of time to be assigned to 'beginning'... on top of that, the counting of 'days' is also indefinite according to hebrew grammar, so instead of "the first day" it should actually be "a first day," etc... and just when i'd had enough, the possibility of 'subordinate clause' was thrown in my face as well... as in, "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" could possibly be translated as "in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth..." my goodness, all of this allows for stuff like gap theory or pre-creation chaos theory... and these theories have always bothered me greatly. i'm gonna have to do more research on this... and may God grant me wisdom along the way.

kim phuc

june 8, 1972 - kim phuc, age 9, naked with napalm burns, victim of napalm bombing of trangbang during the vietnam war

during chapel today, i was privileged to hear kim phuc give her testimony. her story was very moving... one thing she said that stuck in my mind was this: the weapon of forgiveness is more powerful than any weapon of war. how true indeed... God has done such amazing things in her life. watching that documentary clip the day her village got bombed... oh man... i dunno why, but everything just makes me wanna cry these days. so many things going on around the world... even locally... enough to break my heart into a million pieces.

thanksgiving perspective

so here i am at my desk, working on my late paper and listening to some music in the background... 94.1, 91.1, 98.1 and of course my ccm and mandarin cds. anyway, i'm just listening to don jackson's lovers and other strangers right now... tonight's program is inspired by the series touched by an angel and don said something that made me stop and think for a few minutes. so let me ask you guys:

if you could re-live one day in the past, how would you do it?

my mind, by default, thought of the days i would've wanted to do over differently... anyone else's mind do the same? don presented a different perspective. all the things of our past, both good and bad, mold us into who we are today, and we are all the wiser for it. if there's anything we ought to think of changing, it shouldn't be the past, but the PRESENT... so going back to the question, wouldn't it be nice to instead re-live one day in our past that has left such a wonderful impression on our hearts and minds that we wouldn't want to change a thing about it?

humbee update

someone in my house is toying with me..........

i came home today and found humbee on top of some clean laundry. when i asked my mom about it, she said she found humbee in the 'green' pile to be washed. (fyi, humbee is half yellow-orange, half purple.) i personally sorted out the laundry myself, and humbee was NOT in any of the piles as of last night. now, i was very very public about my search for humbee... looked everywhere, asked everyone... my whole house knew i was upset that she was missing. so someone must've secretly sneaked her into the laundry. the question is: WHO??? there are 11 of us plus a baby... everyone is suspect.

there was this one time i couldn't find my white puma sneakers. i ransacked the house and asked everyone about it, but no one knew where they were... one day, a few months later, i opened the shoe closet and there it was sitting on the top rack. no one admitted to putting them there.

and i know some of u are thinking this, but NO, i'm not hallucinating!!!

p.s. i'm really glad i didn't lose humbee, and i guess having her back is all that matters :)

MBTI update

(i should be working on my paper!)

i have an update re: my myers-briggs beef from last entry. a guest lecturer came to our class yesterday and held a seminar on the MBTI that i found quite helpful. i was able to clarify the instructions with him... so basically, when it asks for what appeals to me or what i prefer, i'm supposed to interpret that as my natural tendency for things versus what i'm striving for. honestly, i felt quite dumb after asking :P i thought maybe other people were faced with the same dilemma of conflicting answers, but no one else spoke up about it. i guess it's relatively clear to everyone... good grief, why can't i just take things at face value for a change?! if only my brain would acknowledge that trick questions are the exception and not the rule, my life would be less stressful.

anyway, i've been like this for as long as i know. i distinctly remember a history test i wrote in grade 1. it was multiple choice, and i had to identify the president of the philippines. i narrowed it down to two choices: ronald reagan and corazon c. aquino. i knew that ronald reagan was a president, but not of the philippines... i also knew that our current president's name was cory aquino. but are cory aquino and corazon c. aquino the same person? am i being tricked into choosing corazon c. aquino because it so closely resembles the name of the president i know? what if corazon c. aquino was indeed a real person, but not the president of the philippines? maybe a parent, a relative? someone else with high reputation or political standing? in the end, i could not be sure of who corazon c. aquino was. but i WAS sure that ronald reagan was president. of the united states, yes... but he was a president, so i got at least half the answer right, which had more certainty than i could give this corazon c. aquino person. if there was even such a person. yes... maybe the teacher made up that name and put it in the test to throw us 6-year-olds off. well, *I* won't be falling for that one. and so i chose ronald reagan.

when we got our tests back, apparently corazon c. aquino and cory aquino were the same person after all. WHO WOULDA THUNK IT... but i got a bonus mark for choosing ronald reagan anyway. at first, i thought it was cuz she accepted my answer as being equally legit. but then, in hindsight, i think i must've been the ONLY one in the class to get the question wrong... she probably thought i chose ronald reagan by mistake when i really meant to choose corazon c. aquino (cuz how could i possibly NOT know who our president was??), and she was just willing to overlook the error.

anyway... back to the myers-briggs test. i mean, instrument. inventory. whatever. before i get into my results, here are the 8 possibilities and their general descriptions:

Extraversion -- People who prefer Extraversion tend to focus on the outer world of people and things.
Intraversion -- People who prefer Intraversion tend to focus on the inner world of ideas and impressions.

Sensing -- People who prefer Sensing tend to focus on the present and on concrete information gained from their senses.
iNtuition -- People who prefer Intuition tend to focus on the future, with a view toward patterns and possibilities.

Thinking -- People who prefer Thinking tend to base their decisions primarily on logic and on objective analysis of cause and effect.
Feeling -- People who prefer Feeling tend to base their decisions primarily on values and on subjective evaluation of person-centred concerns.

Judging -- People who prefer Judging tend to like a planned and organized approach to life and prefer to have things settled.
Perceiving -- People who prefer Perceiving tend to like a flexible and spontaneous approach to life and prefer to keep their options open.

so the first time i took the test, i got INFJ. the first two came as no surprise, but i wasn't sure what to make of F and J. between thinking and feeling, i've always believed myself to be split right down the middle. actually, the results were quite accurate... i got a tie between the two. but in the case of a tie, i'm supposed to choose F. now the J i had a real problem with, cuz i was apparently a "clear" judger (versus being only a "slight" introvert and feeler with "moderate" intuition). i'm certainly not a "clear" judger! this is where the whole tendency/preference issue kicks in. i try to be more organized and timely, i really do... i'm even keeping an agenda and making to-do lists and everything... but those of you who've known me a while know that i'm not naturally like this :P it's extremely draining to keep up a J lifestyle!

during the seminar, we did a short test to determine a self-estimated hypothesis of our indicator types, and i got INTP. i tried to be objective, but i can't overrule the fact that i questioned my initial F and J designation to begin with... anyway, i re-wrote the full test and got INTP as well. hopefully i was honest and not overly biased in my choices. out of the 93 questions, i answered 21 of them differently. i ended up being a more "moderate" introvert, which makes sense cuz i'm wanting and trying to be more extroverted and so of course i swung that direction on the first test. i have a "clear" preference for intuition instead of "moderate" as my initial result... dunno what swayed me for that one. i ended up with a thinking (T) designation this time around, but the results were still close... instead of a tie-breaker, thinking won over feeling 13-11. and i only came out to be a "slight" perceiver (P), but a perceiver nonetheless.

the moral of this story?

i dunno, but i'm gonna grab myself something to eat.

"more pressing than matters of the mind are matters of the stomach."

or "the stomach grumbles louder than the mind." --grace tan

^_^

hodgepodge

i've had the greatest urge lately to use my blog as an outlet... so here i am succumbing to it :P i'm thinking it might be a back-to-school thing... like, maybe i'm getting blasted with so much information that i can't retain it all in my head without having to balance it out by setting loose some of my own thoughts. normally i like to keep these thoughts to myself cuz i think they just scare people off, but alas, between my own sanity and the sanity of others, i'm gonna have to be selfish on this one. my apologies :)

---

i woke up this morning with a note on my phone that said: "non vocal." i have absolutely NO IDEA what the note is referring to. see, it wouldn't bug me so much if someone else had left me that note, but *I* was the one that wrote it! i probably put the note in my phone in the middle of the night, but i must've been really sleepy when i did it cuz i had no recollection of it the next morning. BUT i can't ignore the fact that i was awake enough to write it. what in the world would possess me to leave myself a note like that? what was so important about the message 'non vocal' that interrupted my sleep just so i could make note of it? or perhaps the most important question is, how mentally screwed up am i that i can't even recall the wakeful moments of last night?? in any case, i'm forced to accept that the message will forever remain a mystery to me.

---

i was at walmart the other day and i wanted to buy some mouthwash, so i was checking out the different brands and i noticed that listerine has a new product out that whitens the teeth. same price as the other listerines (orginal, freshburst and tartar control) so i figured i was getting a deal with the added functionality of listerine with whitenol. but i'd never heard of whitenol before, so like any smart shopper out there, i started reading the back for more information. apparently, whitenol is just a fancy name for zinc chloride, and the way it helps whiten teeth is in the prevention of tartar build-up between visits to the dentist. is anyone following me here?? it's not active whitening, it's passive whitening... in fact, it's not really whitening at all because it doesn't actually make teeth whiter than they are, it just keeps it from getting more stained. so i was thinking about this when the other words dawned on me: tartar-build up. whitenol prevents tartar build up. so then what the heck makes it different from tartar control listerine? i picked up a tartar control bottle to compare its ingredients with the teeth whitening one, and LO AND BEHOLD, tartar control listerine contains zinc chloride. same percentage and everything, with no difference whatsoever between the stated ingredients (medical and non-medicinal) of the two bottles. so how did i end up choosing a bottle? tartar control listerine comes in artic mint flavour... a nice dark blue shade to it. new listerine with whitenol is a lighter blue, so it's probably a mint flavour except there's no indication of it on the bottle. i prefer my mint-flavoured products, so based on the probability that listerine with whitenol would not be minty, i chose tartar control listerine.

---

i took two personality tests the other day and got really frustrated with them. i didn't think the results accurately reflected my personality. it's funny cuz i always complain about how i'm so complicated... in fact, i'm still trying to understand myself, let alone others who are forever trying to figure me out. the fact that i don't agree with the results can only mean that i know myself better than what any test can say about me. mind you, the tests weren't completely wrong... they just didn't take enough factors into account to accurately assess someone like me. let me give you an example. one of the tests i took was myers-briggs with the four indicator types. what i didn't appreciate about the test was the ambiguity of the instructions. yah, they tried to be very direct and clear, but my case shows that they didn't do so enough. when they ask us to make a choice as to what we'd rather do, or choose a word from the word-pair that most appeals to us, already they're limiting the personality assessment to preference, which is not necessarily the same as (and in my case, almost always different from) what we would do in a real-life situation. in other words, i'm the kind of person that wants to be what i'm not. for example, if i'm analytical but i want to be more compassionate, how am i supposed to interprete the instruction that asks me to choose what is most appealing between the word-pair analytical and compassionate? the first time i took the test, i answered the questions based on what i wanted to be (i.e. what appealed to me)and not what i was, but the end results supposedly told me who i was. how are the two perspectives to be reconciled? well... my conclusion is simply that there just isn't a test out there encompassing enough to accurately assess a personality like mine.

ah well.

my baby is missing!

no, not my hunnie bunnie baby-cakes...
no, not my cousin shanie baby-poo...

HUMBEE!! BABY, WHERE ARE YOU?!?!

my comfort, my confidant, my companion of 16 years...

I CAN'T FIND YOU!! WHERE DID YOU GO?!?!

i thought i brought her home from the retreat.
i'm SURE i brought her home from the retreat.
i was the one who checked to make sure nothing was left behind.
all this time i thought she was still packed with my blankets and sheets.
i can't accept that this might be it, that i might've truly lost her...

I CAN'T!! LORD, GIVE ME MY HUMBEE BACK!!

randomness

my mom walked into my room today, took one look at the mess, and made a very interesting association:

"...[as for] all the things you don't need... stop keeping memories; just throw them away."

if only memories were that easy to store or discard! i guess some people are just better at it than others.

speaking of memories... i have one that i'll never dispose of. just wanna make it known to the world that i beat brian, jeff and lawrence in a race up the Rocky steps in phila, PA :D no one can take this from me, ever!

i HATE bleach!

let this post serve to remind me of the night i officially declared war against all laundry bleaches of the world! i have tolerated bleach up until today, watching it ruin the beauty of one article of clothing after another, but my discovery of yet another bleach stain--this time on my new favourite green shirt--has pushed me over the edge... enough to warrant this post!! NOTHING, be it living or non-living, messes with my beloved t-shirts and gets away with it!!! grrrrr!!!! bleach is an evil, cruel, heartless monster!!!!! i will NOT let bleach claim another victim from my wardrobe!!!!! if bleach had a neck, i'd be squeezing the life out of it right now!!!!! BLEACH IS THE ENEMY!!!!! DOWN WITH BLEACH!!!!!

me and my (little) bro

once upon a time...... hehe, i love this pic!
this ought to clear up any misconceptions as to who is the older sibling :P

moved

"break my heart with the things that break Yours..."

---

Break Our Hearts Again

how easy we forget that cross of shame
where One who did no wrong took all the blame
because of love

how easy we forget the love You show
how welcoming You are to everyone
who cries to You

break our hearts again
break our hearts again

how weary we become of doing good
how deaf and blind we are to those who hurt
who cry for help

break our hearts again
break our hearts again

to love as You have loved
to be a friend
to comfort those who mourn
and dry their tears
to hold the broken hearted
share their pain

break our hearts again
break our hearts again

i never will forget that cross of shame
where One who did no wrong took all the blame
because of love

Noel & Tricia Richards © Thankyou Music 2004

---

"...prepare our hearts to risk again."