Category: Love

The Joy of the Lord is my Strength!

On By IreneIn Faith, Family, Grace, Grieve, Hope, Journey, Love, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Sacrament, WorthLeave a comment

I could finally doze off once I received that scripture after a whole night of struggling with fear. It was Mother Mary’s birthday, 8 Sept 2021, we had our appointment cancelled in the last minute and we thought let’s still make the best of the day. I made the decision to happily finish my food despite struggling with difficulty in chewing (due to worsening of Myasthenia Gravis) for the past few days. As I sat down to have lunch, my mom called with the news that my younger brother had a stroke and was unconscious. That immediately sent me down the spiral of fear. I cried and started shivering the whole day through. We made preparation to get back to my brother as soon as possible.

The Joy of the Lord has indeed sustained me through this difficult time of losing my younger brother. The stress from this has also taken a deep toll on my health as my condition continue to worsen. As I try to make sense of the whole situation I came to realize fear was the main factor that may have triggered the thymoma in me which eventually led to MG. For that revelation, I am grateful. Balancing between regulating my emotions, taking care of my body, being present for my child and husband and at the same time fighting for my brother in prayer was quite exhausting. By the grace of God, he received the sacrament of baptism. Then on Saturday, a day we honor Mother Mary, my younger brother Bartholomew was called to eternal rest.

When the stroke happened on Mother Mary’s birthday, in the midst of chaos, a still small voice whispered hope in me. I could not put everything in perspective as there were just too much fear of losing my brother. On the day he passed, that gentle assurance came back. I knew Mother Mary is taking care of Bartholomew. When I found out that his funeral was going to be his birthday, 15 Sept, I knew without doubt he is in the safe care of Mother Mary. 15 Sept is the day we celebrate Our Lady of Sorrows.

Seeing his final resting face gave me so much of peace. He wore his signature smile and looked absolutely peaceful. With peace begins the grieving process. It is very raw at this moment and once again learning from my father’s passing, I encouraged everyone to grieve with gratitude. I certainly am going to do that. That process does not take away tears, rather grieving with gratitude elevate our praise of God. The loving memories become something we cherish. Healthy grieving is so important as part of our human experience.

We were best friends growing up and sometimes best fighting buddies too

God is seeding something in my heart – a desire to help people through an experience loss. Let’s see where this is leading. Dear friends, as you read this please pray for the soul of my younger brother, Bartholomew and I pray that you are immensely blessed in your journey.

With lots of love,
Irene

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For the Love of Food

On By IreneIn Celebration, Creativity, Faith, Family, Grace, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Love, Motherhood, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Season of LifeLeave a comment

Food is a great means of unity, celebration, expression of love, reconciliation, happiness and heaps of other things. For me food is my source of creativity. I am a person who refers to recipe and method but never really follow the exact measurement or method. Most of the time, I prefer to modify the recipe to suit my taste, the needs of my family as well as availability of ingredients.

Recently I felt inspired to try steaming fish the way restaurants did. It was a pleasant learning experience because in the past, I could not be bothered doing a few steps process. I like things simple and easy. However, my past way of steaming fish never produce truly satisfactory taste. With the newfound knowledge, I immediately hooked on to the method and started creating all sort of sauces for steamed fish. It was such fun experiments and I look forward to Fishful Friday just so I can create new dishes every week.

Creating food being therapeutic has been a great help especially when changing diet is a neccesity due to the autoimmune diagnosis. Eating healthy can be tasty and enjoyable. All that is needed is a dash of creativity.

I recently came to realise what a great gift is this expression of creativity. It was a difficult morning and I was starting to beat myself up for not being a perfect parent. I knew “being a perfect parent” is a lie, I had that intercepted so those negative emotions did not drag me further. As I was trying (and struggling) to gain better perspective, I decided to create a new dessert for dinner. It resembles milk pudding from my hometown but I have never been able to get any recipe. So with a little bit of imagination of the taste I began my experiment. Praise God it turned out well.

The effect of that 20 minutes of creativity was beyond just yummy dessert, I was able to clear my mind and start seeing things from a better perspective. I was able to show empathy towards myself and to express my loving concern towards my child. My level of happiness increased so was my overall wellness.

I recalled my days in the mission centre where celebration of life was emphasized. We will work together to create a beautiful atmosphere for celebration. The most elaborated one would be an Agape Meal that typically involved good food, well decorated room, well dressed people and heaps of honouring – a setting that enabled expression of creativity in so many ways. I remember having fun cooking, baking and sometimes trying things like decorating and flower arrangement. That kind of excellence has become my lifestyle though not as elaborated. We recently celebrated my husband’s birthday and it happened to be a Friday. I was jumping with joy as that was an opportunity to express myself creatively. I steamed a large fish and made a marble milk pudding as the “cake”. It was a joyous occasion filled with love.

Some of my food creation

The experience of having my mind cleared and filling my love tank through creative expression has demonstrated to me its importance. Creative outlet does something great to our being. It helps us to connect deeply to our true self and hence enable us to appreciate the being who’s made in the image and likeness of God. The direct impact is the release of stress and clarity of mind. In our fear saturated and highly stressed out world, creative expression becomes a remedy to bring us some sanity.

Dear friends, I pray that you are encouraged to make time for creativity, however you like to express it. May you find joy in the little things in life that fill up your love tank. Make sure you also empty your stress tank regularly. Have fun expressing yourself creatively.

With lots of love,
Irene

A Year On Living with Myasthenia Gravis

On By IreneIn Celebration, Faith, Grace, Hope, Journey, Love, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Providence, Season of LifeLeave a comment

It was a bright and beautiful morning but the symptoms of muscle weakness has been worsening. We were planning to go back to my General Practitioner and then head out for our delayed Valentine’s lunch afterwards. As we arrived at my GP’s clinic, we decided that I would go in to check if she could see me (it was first come first serve with a limited number basis pre covid era). Unfortunately she could not see me, so I walked out to wait for my husband to drive by. When I saw him, I took a step down to the road and fell flat on my face. My husband saw someone fell but was shocked to find out it was me. I could barely lift myself up. That incident propel us to go to the hospital that very day.

For a year now, we are very grateful that the protection of God was upon me and still is holding us tightly. Just days before the incident, I saw my chiropractor for a different issue and told her what happened. She checked me and found that my muscles were fine. She also told me if things worsen, go to a neurologist because that would likely be nerve problem. Looking for a hospital with a neurologist was made easy thanks to a dear friend of mine who worked in that hospital. After checking in to the hospital, a brain MRI scan was ordered immediately to rule out stroke. No stroke but Myasthenia Gravis (MG) was given as a preliminary diagnosis. My neurologist needed to confirm the diagnosis through a nerve test and that was only available on weekdays (it was a Saturday when we checked in). We decided that we will go home and get back to the hospital on the following Monday for outpatient consultation.

My condition worsened to the point that it was difficult to breathe and that got us to decide to admit me the very next day. The difficulty in breathing freaked everyone out. My neurologist initially thought he could treat me as outpatient but when he saw me the following Monday in the ward, he ordered the nerve test to be done immediately and rescue medication to be administered right after the test. The nerve test result baffled my neurologist so was the ultra high autoantibodies level. MG is so variable that he could not predict what would happen to me, his only hope was that I respond well to treatment and hopefully I can get into a remission.

Ever since my diagnosis, I have learnt a lot about MG. The variability and uniqueness of each patient’s condition are just simply mind blowing. The more I learnt the more I am in awe and grateful for the goodness of God. I was literally days away from a myasthenic crisis. If I had been a few days late and got into a crisis, I would have needed intensive care and intubation would be necessary because MG also affect voluntary muscles including those for breathing. Those thoughts brought tears of gratitude and just filled my heart with praise of God. He is really good to me. My autoantibodies level was 200 times above the minimum trace level, an 8cm thymoma was present and the nerve test was horribly failing. Who could have saved me from the worst if not God?

From the beginning of my journey of healing I’ve sensed the Lord assurance of His presence and love. He meant this for His glory and for my good. Living with MG has brought me to a place of even higher praises where I learnt about surrendering in victory. I name this a process of spiritual healing that affects my physical healing. One of the greatest victory is my ability to let go of my burdens. A dear friend of mine lovingly reminded me to let the One who loves me most carry those burdens I was carrying. From the beginning, I’ve recognized stress as a harmful trigger to my symptoms, what I did not recognize was how much stress I put myself through. Motherhood was new, I did not realize the years of living in the lies of the world has dampened my ability to connect to my natural maternal instinct. The rejection of genuine womanhood in my surrounding has chipped away my own natural womanly instinct. It was stressful when most of the voices around me were literally telling me what I’ve done wrong as a mother. I began to shut everything down and was determined to reconnect to my heart again on top of all the stress of new motherhood. Not only that, I was also malnourished but I just did not realize it back then. When my body could not take it anymore, it broke down to bring me to a place of clarity again. I regretted my lack of care towards my own body and I apologize to my body, made a promise that I am going to take care of me seriously.

We took so many actions to give me the best chance to beat MG in many aspect like changing diet and lifestyle.  Even our prayer life changed for the better. For this post, I’d like to focus on the blessings of prayer. I initiated a 54 Days Rosary Novena for my healing on 19 March 2020, the Feast of St. Joseph. I was daring enough to ask for a forever remission to happen on 19 March 2021. My prayer journey with the support of numerous people has blessed me tremendously.

I’ve improved so much and am now on the last leg of steroid dose adjustment (I am still on high dose of immunosuppresant). The most stubborn symptom that remain is ptosis. Throughout the year of good days and bad days, I’ve remained positive and hopeful thanks to the grace from prayer. Then finally in mid Jan, I started experiencing more symptoms free days (I’ll share more about it in the next post), my boldness to hope for a full remission also increase.

Meanwhile the current climate of what’s happening in the world is pretty chaotic. We see a greater need to pray even more fervently. By Divine Providence I stumbled upon a video talking about consecration to St. Joseph by Fr. Donald Calloway. I’ve wanted to do it last year but MG was just overwhelming (plus another major drama of my brother’s hospitalisation), so when reminded about, we made a decision to do it this year. I wanted to consecrate on 19 March 2021 and my first action was getting the book early Jan but it was on restocking list that may take up to 5 weeks to arrive. We bought it in faith hoping that it’ll arrive on time.

Praise be to God, we got the book on time and when I realise the significance of the date to begin the consecration journey, I was awestruck. It begins today, 15 Feb – the anniversary of that fateful day I fell flat on the road. Wow!!! The love of God through our Spiritual Father, St. Joseph moved my heart to praise Him. I felt so loved and it’s like St. Joseph is assuring me of his prayer. How awesome is that!!!

I am feeling hopeful!
Photo Credit: Karen Soh

Dearest friends, I pray that you are blessed by my story. I believe our personal story is a unique and exciting one when we see it from the perspective of the One who love us most. May the coming Holy Season of Lent brings grace upon grace in your life and may your story be one that bless the people around you.

With lots of love,
Irene

The Sorrowful Face of Christ

On By IreneIn Celebration, Faith, Grace, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Love, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Providence, Season of LifeLeave a comment
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Many of us would agree that the year 2020 has been a real mixed bag on high speed. Everyone is affected in one way or another. It has been really heartbreaking to see people losing their livelihood and my biggest personal heartache is the lost of communal worship. It’s really complicated and the complication somehow pushed me to a book on my shelf – Consoling the Heart of Jesus by Fr. Michael Gaitley.

I was desperate and how blessed am I, due to that desperation. Given my daily rhythm with an active toddler, I did the retreat very slowly. One small chunk daily with the time I squeezed in during my daughter’s nap. The grace I received has been so abundant and I am just living in gratitude daily.

My daily connection with Jesus has been really rich ever since my DIY retreat. As the title suggests, consoling the heart of Christ becomes my daily “work”. I just come to the suffering Christ as I am in all my being – the mixed bag of my virtues and vices; offering him my little bit of presence as His friend. This in turn raised me up to praise His goodness.

So this particular December day was a tough one. My symptoms worsened and things were just not how I planned it. I was frustrated! Somehow grace comes flowing while I was nursing my child. I was sort of forced to stop with everything and just pray. And then there I went again, complaining instead of consoling but somehow grace overshadowed me. I decided to just be still and gaze upon the wounded and suffering Jesus. As I gazed on, I saw a pattern in me that needed redemption.

The pattern of my complain was an accusative one – my accusation that God did not answer my prayer. It has been a struggle of mine for a long time. Instead of judging me, Jesus brought me to the reality of His “neediness” – wounded, scarred and in need of a friend. I was quite struck by that image. That in turn brought me back to Feb 2020 when I was first diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis (MG). After being discharged from the hospital, I created a fund raising page with an intention to create awareness mainly because prior to my diagnosis, I have never heard of MG. I gave a face to MG and at that point of time, it was also very important to raise enough money and to raise more awareness about this autoimmunity. I wasn’t thinking much back then or rather I did not have much capacity to think at that time.

During that grace filled time of prayer, Christ showed me what kind of face was I wearing back when I was first diagnosed – a needy face and probably quite sorrowful too. I was in need and I did not hesitate to reach out for help. I see the generous face of Christ in the people who supported me financially and through prayer. Little did I know back then, I was also a face of Christ – the needy and poor face of Christ. It was like scales came off my eyes and I felt humbled.

My mighty able self does not like to be needy, always prefer to give than to receive. Bu here’s a reality: there will be no giver if no one is willing to receive. Jesus humbled me to my knees and I realized that I have never wanted or like being a sorrowful and needy face. I also do not enjoy being needed, which is such a big lesson after the birth of my child. Now I am given the grace to embrace being needed and being needy with healthy limits.

Being the needy sorrowful face of Christ is also a beautiful face of Christ, a face to be desired. Sharing this reflection with a dear sister of mine led me to realise something deeper. Have you ever wonder why we have an affinity towards helping the poor? In the past helping the poor gives me a mood boost, always leaving feeling better after an outreach to a poor village. But deeper than that, our conversation left an even more profound reason – the poor face of Christ is the touchable and reachable face of Christ. I acknowledge that our preachers and community leaders are also faces of Christ but sometimes they are not reachable or touchable. I remember a sharing from a friend about his community leaders who are an amazing couple but being the leaders, my friend felt at that time, it was so hard to even talk to them. He literally felt they were high up there, too good to touch although that was not be the case. This revelation left us both so deeply encouraged. I am so grateful for the this beautiful lesson the Sorrowful Face of Christ taught me.

Dear friends, oftentime we are called to be both the Loving and Giver Face of Christ as well as the Needy and Sorrowful Face of Christ. Both are to be desired! Whichever we are called to at any season, I pray that we are given grace to carry that face lovingly. May you enjoy being the ambassador of Christ.

With lots of love,
Irene

Remembering Beginnings

On By IreneIn Celebration, Commitment, Dreams, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Love, Resurrection, Season of LifeLeave a comment

July is a month packed with important celebrations – from celebrating lives of loved ones to remembering a very important starting point.

The story began with a promise of resurrection at Easter of 2017 after spending 3 years in “death”. My season of death began when my father passed in 2014. Everything I knew and was good at was literally stripped away from me. In obedience to my loving God, I gave my yes to every step He led me to and that included tonnes of discomfort being broken so that He could rebuild me from a redeemed place.

So when I heard the promise of resurrection, I jumped in joy and God in His loving kindness confirmed that promise with tangible signs. Good Friday of 2017 was one of the most painful experience of allowing my all to be buried with Christ. As I rose with Christ at the vigil, I experienced something really wonderful and beautiful. It’s like Christ when He rose – wounds were visible in a glorified body. That’s the best I could word it. I experienced a sense of renewed joy with all my wounds visible; my sense of confidence was renewed and I felt I was ready for more.

That was also the year of decision as my formation programme was coming to a close. The sense of invitation to stay in New Zealand had been lingering for a long time and I had also been resisting it for as long as the invitation began. I knew fully well at that point I have not reached the state of holy indifference and I want to be in that state to make my decision. Hence from Easter onwards, I was occupied with God’s dreams for me and possibilities ahead. I felt it’s time to spread my temporarily clipped wings.

In the excitement of going deeper in my calling, the thought of state of life vocation did cross my mind. That thought somehow led me to remember a friend of mine who met her husband in her 40s. I made a conclusion that if that were to be my case, it’s a long time away. Since I’ve waited long enough by then and the wait ahead is going to be a long time, why not enjoy my present to the max and live my calling to the fullest?

With that mindset and attitude, is there any wonder that I was oblivious when the man who would become my husband reconnected with me? It was early July and I later found out the reason he reconnected with me through our Young Adult Prayer Meeting was in response to an answer he heard from prayer – Irene (he was asking God: where is she?). There began our friendship and I was still oblivious until my community members started pointing it out to me – some very directly and some too subtly that I did not get the cue.

My new awareness did not change me much but the events that followed led my now husband to ask me out at end of July. I responded with a yes with the intention of getting to know him better and if I don’t like him at the first date, I can say no the next time round. Turned out I liked him and that led to many yes to follow.

The First of Many

The first month of us seeing each other was packed with special events like my first Marian Consecration Journey and my silent retreat for the close of my formation programme. I was just enjoying our dates and getting to know this amazing man better. Then a serious “now what?” question popped up in prayer after our 3rd date when I realized he shared my principle. It’s a very important element for me. People who know me well enough often describe me as a strong woman. I am indeed quite a strong woman both in character and in my conviction. Sometimes too strong in my opinion that my facial expression spoke before my mouth.

Falling in love with Jesus and deepening my faith journey has led me to be convicted with the teaching of Christ. One of them being authentic Christian marriage according to St. Paul (Eph 5: 21 – 33), hence it was crucial for me to marry a man who shares my principle because I want to honour him as the head of the family and be able to submit to him as my equal.

As the time came for my silent retreat, I entered that grace filled 8 days with a deep sense of love from God. I was ready to work it all out but my Lord and my God turned that into a loving experience of rest and restoration. Through that 8 days, I missed Hans (and he missed me too) and when the retreat ended, we made arrangement to celebrate together. The celebration led to the defining question about us which marks another beginning – the start of the pursuit of each other’s heart exclusively.

I remember distinctly sharing my story with a dear brother priest of mine and his comment was that it sounded like a fairy tale but this is real. Indeed it’s a beautiful story that I have allowed God to write. The bigger part of our individual stories were filled with great struggles and pain. Prior to meeting Hans, I spent vast amount of my time discerning and embracing my state of life vocation. After embracing the invitation to marriage, purification in the most painful way was a big part of my story. All these happened during my season of death and the biggest gift of my resurrection would be the gift of my husband.

Hans is certainly worth the wait although he wished we met each other 10 years earlier. Well, that’s how it’s written and we choose everyday to celebrate each other and to encourage each other in the path of holiness.

Dearest friends, if you are in your season of waiting, be encouraged to wait actively. Seek the Father’s heart and allow yourself to be loved completely. Your joys and agonies of the season are seen by our loving Father. None of us know how will our stories progress but one thing for sure is that God is faithful through it all. He writes your perfect story, are you willing to let him hold the pen?

With lots of love,
Irene

My Postpartum Prayer Life

On By IreneIn Bountiful Potential, Celebration, Commitment, Family, Fatherhood, Hope, Journey, Love, Motherhood, Season of LifeLeave a comment

Chaotic would be my word to describe how my prayer life looks like after the birth of my daughter. There’s hardly any structure and I am missing the consistency I used to enjoy, not to mention it is almost impossible to pray my favourite prayer – the rosary. As I reflect carefully on the word I used to describe my prayer life, other words started to emerge: raw, honest, desperate, HUMAN. Imperfectly human!!!

Although energetic by nature, I still like my life to have some kind of order. My daughter’s arrival brought great joy has also thrown me out of balance. It took me a little more than half a year to find my prayer bearing when I moved back to Malaysia; I really hope it doesn’t take too long this time round. My desire for control is pretty apparent but who doesn’t like having their lives under control?

I am basically pinned to my breastfeeding couch that face the little altar in my house. Great place to pray! I spent most of my day crying out to God for the lack of control in my life. The floor is dirty and I could not clean it; the toilet needs cleaning; the kitchen needs organization; meals needed to be prepared; the laundry needs hanging and folding and the list goes on. My honest helplessness of not knowing what to do and also my occasional meltdown from overwhelming emotions has somewhat become my prayer.

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Just recently my husband asked me to pray for his work and I was almost playful when I prayed in tongue. That playfulness reminded me I have a treasure in this gift of tongue. St. Paul’s letter to the Romans (Rom 8: 26-27) kept ringing in my head that the Spirit helps us to pray. The day I spent edifying my soul by praying in tongue was not the easiest day. Baby was extra fussy and extra clingy, not to mention wrists injury felt worst than ever. A stark difference I noticed on that day was my extraordinary calmness. My spirit cried out in sincerity and it helped me through the day. I can only thank God for His grace upon me.

Another treasure that I was reminded of was the examination of conscience. I realized I could do that while feeding my baby especially when woken up in the middle of the night. The examen has helped me to be more aware of God’s presence in my day – more aware of my own frailty especially when frustration gets better of me. This is where the design of God is just simply awesome. One night I was woken up by my baby needing a nappy change and she moved a lot while being changed. My injured wrists were not taking it too well. In my frustration, I told my baby to stop and frowned at her. She in turn gave me the sweetest smile. My heart melt into a smile on my face. That is definitely another occasion of abundant grace of God.

Dear friends, my prayer for you is that you will appreciate the grace of your season. May you always see the beauty of God’s abundance in your life.

With lots of love,
Irene

Motherhood

On By IreneIn Bountiful Potential, Celebration, Commitment, Faith, Family, Fatherhood, Journey, Love, Motherhood, Pro-Life, Season of Life1 Comment

Finally holding my child in my arms was a feeling that is beyond words. Our little one decided to come early and turned our world around. The idea of sleep deprivation and not knowing what to do became a day to day normal. It was truly not easy given the fact that hormones were also erratic and making my mind unclear. Tears of joy and then tears of defeat all come at once. Self doubt, spiritual warfare, lack of confidence, feeling at loss; you name it.

I thought I knew what it’s like or at least I thought I could imagine it well enough. Turned out that my imagination was not as concrete as the real experience. Never in my wildest imagination would I have seen conflicting idea of parenting would occur with my own mother. The reality of sacrificing for the sake of my child helped me to get a glimpse of what it was like for my mother to care for me as a little child totally dependent on her. I have the privilege of my mother helping me during the first few weeks postpartum; that was a great blessing as well as an opportunity for conflict to arise.

Some days were so difficult that made me say things I regretted immediately and some days were just too overwhelming that I could only cry. As I calmed down, I asked myself what was more prevalent? Gratitude for my mother’s presence or the occasional conflicts? I was overall more grateful for her presence. My husband wisely pointed out that I took most of what my mother taught me. There were just a few things that I stood my ground and not taking her way. Those were the stuffs that kept being magnified by the enemy; making me feel like a horrible ungrateful daughter.

The more I communicate with my mother, the more I see my own poverty. One instance was her suggestion to help my child sleep better. Due to lack of space in my home, I did not take her suggestion. After she left my place, there’s only me and my husband with our child. Between the two of us, I am the main caretaker and I quickly realized how valuable were the extra pair of hand. My child is not the best when it comes to sleeping, hence the idea of getting sleeping aid came into our conversation. I admitted to my husband that my mom made some suggestion but in my pride; I refused to acknowledge it.

After the conversation with my husband, I asked myself, what was happening to my heart when I refused to acknowledge that my mother was right about the sleeping aid. The words “I told you so” were sounding loud and clear. My whole being cringed to those words but how could I respond better? It was by the grace of God that I can come to a place of forgiveness, rest and acceptance. My mother was just trying her very best to be of service.

A few days after that, I told her about our decision to get sleeping aid and she was supportive; without telling me “I told you so”. That was one amazing work of grace! Threading through motherhood has taught me how much I do not know and how much I am dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. Learning from my experience with my mother I wonder if I would step on my daughter’s toes when it is her turn to be a mother? God willing, I guess I will find out when the time comes. Meanwhile, it is now time to be present in the moment.

The unsolicited parenting advice from other people is also a rather annoying thing we have to deal with. Everyone seems to be better in parenting my child than me and my husband. For this, we decided to not invest too much emotion in it. People has all the freedom to say whatever they want and I can choose to be polite and just take what is useful and chuck away what’s not. After all, my husband and I are responsible for our child not other people.

Now that my child is physically in my care, I can really say parenting is hard work. I come to appreciate every sacrifices my parents made for me. This new role of mine also opened up my heart to embrace the struggles of work from home mom. I used to think it’s the easier path until I became the main character in this story. Being so used have full control of my time, I am learning everyday to prioritize my child who is genuinely in need of me and whose survival depended on me. I want to give the best chance in life for my child and I want her (and her subsequent siblings hopefully) to grow up with our values. Hence, I am well aware that my husband and I are choosing the narrow path in such a time as this where single income household is almost impossible.

Our child has also inspired us to start a new venture with the aim to encourage parents in our parenting journey. We know now how hard it could be, so why not have some fun by seeing the lighter side of parenthood. Do check out Bountiful Potential for more info. Tell us what do you think about it and how can we serve you better.

We wish every parent grace upon grace as you raise children who are full of potential into great adults. May your journey be filled with joy.

With lots of love,
Irene

When Providence is Insufficient

On By IreneIn Commitment, Faith, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Love, Providence, Season of Life, WorthLeave a comment

It was one of my hardest struggle to face. When I decided to leave self-providence behind for God’s providence about 6 years ago, financial insufficiency has been an uphill journey complete with challenges of the elements. Flipping from being self sufficient financially to being totally dependent on God has been quite a crazy move. Looking back I am so convicted that it was grace that brought me through it.

When I move into my new lifestyle I did not know it would be that difficult as things has always been relatively easy for me. I sailed through university smoothly, got a job less than a month after graduation, moved to a high paying job in less than 2 years and I excelled in everything I put my heart into. Then the calling to leave familiarity behind to an adventure of mission came. It was LOVE that got me to give my yes to this beautiful journey and it was also LOVE that has allowed the purification that came with it.

Being a capable person, it was not easy to be dependent. The concept of being dependent entirely was foreign to me. So the hard lesson began. Over the years, things has not gone the way I wanted it to be financially. I could not raise enough funds for my living expenses let alone raising enough to pay off my mortgages (properties that I bought not knowing God will call me out of my “normal” life). My family ended up helping me out for the debts that I started to accumulate. But there was only so much they could help me by.

It was really conflicting as to why there were deep peace in my radical response to God and at the same time, providence wasn’t sufficient. I was hearing all sort of unpleasant stuffs from my loved ones who was helping me and that led me to judge myself as being irresponsible. I hated being irresponsible as that is just against who I am as a person. Financial scarcity became a giant I have to face through my sincere response to the Lord being in mission.

Those difficulties has thrown me into bouts of doubts about my call. Questions like; “if I have heard and discerned this correctly, why isn’t providence pouring in like a floodgate being opened?”; “maybe I have heard God wrongly”; “maybe this is just me wanting a fantasy of being holy”. All sorts of thoughts which was not entirely wrong but certainly confusing. I pushed through because I knew greater things were yet to come. The grace of God has truly sustained me and I did experience some miracles of finances along my path. There must be good reasons and great treasures awaiting me if God allowed those financial difficulties to be part of my journey. The hours spent in prayer has certainly shaped me in ways I would not have imagined. How my heart was able to truly surrender this giant to the Lord was just simply miraculous.

What struck me today as I look back into my journey of conquering the giant of financial difficulty was the immensity of love I’ve experienced from the people I am indebted to. I would rather be owed than to owe because I believe it is more blessed to give than to receive. However, being on the end that receives mercy, taught me heaps about humility and the way God’s economy works. The people who has bailed me out financially has nothing but pure love for me. I would love to repay them but I guess peace in within my heart can only come when I allowed God to provide in His time. One friend of mine whom I am indebted to assured me that the providence will come when she actually needs the money. Someone being that generous to me showed me a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. I came to acknowledge my own pride and my brokenness that needed great redemption.

As I look into my life today, I can still easily see areas where providence is insufficient. The difference in me today is my response. I am rather at peace to just simply praise God for what is provided and keep praying for open doors. It’s surely not easy when we are not doing that well financially but I am very sure that’s also an opportunity to be creative. It’s a matter of priority and being happy with what we have chosen. For example; choosing to home cook our meals over eating out; choosing quality goods over less durable stuffs so that we don’t have to replace our goods too often (that way we are also reducing the amount of waste on the planet). More importantly; choose to live simply and trust generously.

Dear friends, I pray that you are sustained through times of difficulties. When providence is insufficient, take heart that grace is always overflowing to bring you through it. Greater things are awaiting you at the other end of the trying time. May you be blessed abundantly.

With lots of love,
Irene

Father – the Source of Life

On By IreneIn Faith, Family, Fatherhood, Journey, Love, MotherhoodLeave a comment

Hearing those words from my parish priest on the reflection of this week’s gospel reminded me of something I read recently. Placenta is a temporary organ in a mother’s womb to nourish the growing baby, attach the baby to the uterine wall and also the means to excrete waste. What fascinated me was the fact that the father’s sperm is responsible for creating the placenta and the umbilical cord.

The father becomes the source of life for this growing baby – providing protection and bridges the mother to the child. How wonderful and awesome are the designs of God! How very reflective is this to our spiritual life! Our Heavenly Father is indeed the Source of Life. Without Him thinking about us, we would cease to even exist. It’s so humbling to realize that we are indeed loved into being from conception to natural death.

It makes me wonder how great it would be if our men are empowered to enflesh the truth of fatherhood – be it physical or spiritual. My earthly father was far from perfect – not the most faithful husband nor was he the most gentle father. I am so blessed to have started the journey of reconciliation with my earthly father the year I was baptized. The journey that involved forgiving him of his shortcomings; forgiving myself for judging him and making the best effort to rebuild our relationship. Despite being closest to my dad amongst my siblings, I still experienced hurt from him. I am very glad that I dared to walk the path of forgiveness and today I can look back at the memory of my late father with a heart full of gratitude. That’s the grace of being courageous to embrace my father in totality – his love and his failures. In fact, he was the reason I started this blog.

My heart goes out to numerous people who did not have the best experience with their earthly father. It’s my prayer that men will rise up and take fatherhood seriously. This is a path of holiness and I also pray that all of us in society will support and empower our men to be real men with authentic masculinity. One way of doing that, I believe is for women to have Christ centric standard. The standard that we set for ourselves would influence the world around us. As we help each other in our path of holiness, let us be bold to ask Our Father for His Holy Spirit to guide us.

With lots of love,
Irene

Resistance to Love

On By IreneIn Celebration, Faith, Journey, Love, Season of Life, WorthLeave a comment

The title may sound illogical at the first glance. Yes, I would have said that was totally illogical 10 years back when I was starting my faith journey. How could anyone in their right mind resist love? It did not make sense until I started to go deeper into the heart of God.

My days used to be so filled that I hardly had time to stop and take a good look at my life. Or rather, I hardly desired to make time for it. That changed about 5 years ago when I took a new turn. It was quite a drastic change from what I was used to. From a life of total busyness to a life of total surrender. From a season of self sufficiency to a season to total dependency. 

Time was suddenly in my hand. At that point, I was very uncomfortable with the change. I felt useless, not chosen, sidelined and under appreciated. However, me in my stubborn nature was determined to make full use of that season because I would not know how long that season will be. In all honesty, it was pretty difficult. I was forced to withdraw from my comfort zone – the stage front, a place I know God has for me but for my sake, that was the season He withheld it from me. 

With time in hand, I had the luxury of whining to God in His holy sanctuary every day. Yes, I was a whiner. I complained almost all the time. As I look at my life now, it is clear to me that those time spent with God has been bearing great fruit. I came to see my need of Him, to acknowledge my human-ness and to embrace it fully. I came to term that I am not the superwoman almost everyone thought I was (myself included). That was the time, God taught me more about Him and more about myself. 

Those precious moments has shaped me to be who I am today – imperfect but perfectly LOVED. The time of formation has been a season of deep intimacy with God. It was a season I learnt how to fight properly by knowing who is my real enemy and by being aware that worship is my strongest weapon. 

Just a little over a week ago I had a God encounter through someone who loved me dearly. My complaint of back pain due to bad posture was taken seriously and action was taken immediately to solve that. The action taken to help me came with a sacrifice. I was really touched and at the same time felt bad that someone has to sacrifice for me. On the other side of the story, it was never a question of sacrifice, it was only love. 

When I look at that beautiful experience, I could not help but to draw a parallel (although unequal) to Christ’s love for His bride, the Church. It is hard for us to watch our loved ones suffer and we do all we could to stop that. I wonder what was going on in Mother Mary’s being when her Son, our Lord was going through His passion? It must have hurt her so badly. I bet she was tempted to stop Him but look at what she did instead. She accompanied Him through it and was obedient to God’s will. With Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, we are made worthy to reconcile with the Father. 

We may at times resist love without us realizing it. As I had when I was tempted to believe I was not as important as my beloved’s work. After we had spent the time solving my back problem, I told him about the temptation that maybe his day should be spent working not taking care of my back. His response to me was; “that is not happening! You are my priority and I want you to be well”. The only appropriate response from me was “thank you!”. I knew deep in, the temptation to “sacrifice” me seemed noble but at the same time it will be unhealthy for our relationship. To really honest, I do want to receive his love, I want to be able to embrace the love he showed me and that was when I realized I still needed grace to receive. 

In a world like ours, the struggle to just receive love is real. We want to be independent, we want to do things our way and we always want to be the giver. To a certain extent, those are good values. However, we do need to be careful not to go overboard. Those time that we are unable to receive are time of abundance grace. From experience, just acknowledging my need to be humble, being truthful that I cannot receive has been of great blessing. 

Truth be told, if no one is receiving, we can have no giver. So, if you are in a position to receive, be encouraged to receive gracefully. At the other side of the story is love and the person who gives is blessed beyond measure. Giving generously and receiving gracefully make a beautiful God-story. Happy giving and receiving!

With lots of love,

Irene