An unexpected flow of emotions

Yesterday, my church held a 100% Praise and Worship event. It was great, but the emotional experience I went through was something I completely didn't expect.

The helpers for the event (which included me as I was a befriender) met in church at 5. After a time of prayer, we split up to have our dinner. The band, however, got some takeaway food as time was rather short for them.

Shortly after we split up, I found myself alone again. Ok, so it was going to be a solo dinner. Fine. I walked and saw where some of the others were but didn't join any of them. That wasted more time that I realised though. Eventually, I walked over to the market opposite and bought a plate of chicken rice. Most of the time, the chicken would be boneless, but this time it wasn't. I felt rather irritated, and the irritation made eating alone feel quite terrible. I ate for a while, then suddenly I realised that I was short of time, so I hurriedly ate the rest and went back to church.

I had volunteered to help as a befriender, but to my unexpected shock, I realised that the irritation earlier had completely put me off the mindset of a befriender. In fact, I came back to church then only I remembered that I'm supposed to be a befriender! Realising I was feeling too emotionally disturbed, I sneaked up to a room all the way upstairs. I sat down in the room and prayed to calm myself down. It worked to some extent, so I went back down to help out, but after a while I realised I still wasn't feeling well, so I decided to just go into the Sanctuary and wait for the worship to start instead of helping out.

The 100% Praise and Worship this time was different from the rest as it adjusted to accommodate non-Christians. There were testimonies and a lot of explanations of many Christian things. As I was listening to the first testimony and how the girl sharing had suffered in her life before coming to know Christ, the difficult times of my own life came back to mind. The pain, the rejection, the loneliness, the suffering; all these came back to memory. After that, we sang the song "There Is None Like You". As I thought back to my past and also what had just happened, I felt deeply moved by the song. Not long after that, we sang the song "Your Grace Is Enough". The timing of this song touched me like it never did before.

Listening to and singing these 2 songs within such a short span of time, I felt God ministering to me. He made me realise again that through all I had to go through, indeed there is none like Him who will always be there for me in times of difficulties and trials. Indeed, His grace is enough, His grace is sufficient to help me tide through difficult times. I came out from this worship event feeling a renewed comfort and strength in my heart.

1 day, a dark painful memory and a deep encouragement

6 Aug will be quite an interesting day to remember. This day holds one of my darkest and most painful memories, but it's also a day of one of the deepest encouragement I've ever received.

I still remember one of my darkest memories 2 years ago, on 6 Aug 2004. That morning, I was in NJC attending the National Day celebrations. After the celebrations, a lot of people went out with their friends. However, I couldn't find anyone to go out with. It was a dramatic change of mood from a celebratory mood to a depressed mood, and I definitely didn't want to go home cos I was not in the mood to study (that was the only thing I would be expected to do). I was at a complete loss at to what to do. I decided to go to Orchard to see who was there, not to show my face, but just to see what others were doing. Feeling extremely alone and depressed, I walked all the way from NJC to Orchard: From NJC to Farrer Road, then to Holland Road, and then I followed Holland Road all the way to Orchard Road. I felt SO alone, SO abandoned, SO depressed. I cried many times along the way, asking God why I had to be so alone, why I had to endure this pain. I almost literally cried myself all the way from NJC to Orchard.

After I reached Orchard, I found a secluded corner in Cineleisure and just sat down and cried for some time. After that, I got up and walked around, just wanting to see where others were. I was being careful (at least, as much as I could) to not get spotted by any of my friends, cos I was very sure that they would be surprised that I came alone. At one point of time, I had just come down from an escalator. I spotted some people I knew in the shop in front of me, watched them for a short moment, and just as I turned to go down the next escalator, 2 of my friends came up the adjoining escalator!

"Hi Guangrong! Eh, you came alone ar??"
"Er...er, yah."
"Oh...ok, bye!"
"Bye!"

I was SHOCKED that my friend found me alone cos I didn't want anyone to see me alone like that! I think my friends were also quite surprised to see me alone though. I was more careful after that, and didn't meet up with anyone else I knew (although I saw many of them). Later on, I went home, couldn't do any studying, and kind of cried myself to sleep. What a day...

There were many other occasions when I went out alone (if not, go out with who?) for events like talks, exhibitions, open houses... Admittedly, it didn't feel good seeing almost EVERYONE else going in groups. There were times when I happened to meet friends too, some surprised to see me alone (who in the world goes for events ALONE?? Got 1 example right here...). However, I went for these activities with an "okay" mood, and also I got used to it over time.

The experience today was quite different though. I did spend some periods of time mentally reliving what I had gone through 2 years ago, but there was much more. The speaker during my church service spoke about service and especially about serving the the church community. He spoke about serving and caring out of love and humility for the people around us and gave us an example of an occasion in which he felt that he had failed to do enough of it (which led to his friend's suicide). The importance of reaching out to and supporting believers in the community was quite strongly emphasised, and it felt it as a very deep encouragement for what I had been doing in my own areas of personal service. My efforts of reaching out and caring for others (not exactly very few people) has been quite draining, but today's sermon deeply encouraged me, strenghtened my passion again and helped me to feel that I am doing what God wants me to do.

Thinking back on today, it's really an interesting day. This day holds such a dark memory, but it's a weekend in which I've sung 3 comforting worship songs (In His Time, God Will Make a Way and Still). Thank God that life now is different from what it was 2 years ago. Yet, I know that this spiritual journey is far from over and there's much more to come. Lord, guide me.