Category: Worth

mindset matters thymoma healing myasthenia gravis

Mindset Matters In Healing Journey

On By IreneIn Faith, Grace, Healing, Mental Fitness, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Season of Life, Suffering, The Beloved Who Suffers Well, WorthLeave a comment

The difference between a strong mindset day and a weak day can be felt in my body. On days I feel strong and possible, it normally go that way – strong and possible, symptoms at bay. When my mind are being cluttered with objections to what’s possible, my body gets the bashing – symptoms flare. After years of living with Myasthenia Gravis (MG), my observation is that it is way better to have a strong mindset. It takes time to build up those mental muscles and the good news is that our brain is pretty dynamic to serve us better.

Mindset in the context of healing basically covers how strong or how deep is our belief that our body has the capacity to heal. Do we believe that healing is possible? Knowing the answer to this will help us to see how far we will go. If our belief in healing is not that deep, we can change that because again our brain is dynamic and those mental muscles can be retrain towards serving us better. The next question to ponder is; are we willing to do what it takes to get to our desired bodily healing?

I sure am willing but I was also painfully aware of my own limiting beliefs. It was like a tug of war in my head; I really desire and believe that healing is possible for me and at the same time there’s an opposing voice throwing doubts. My prayer at times like that mimics the father from Mark 9: 24 – Lord, I do believe, help my unbelief. His grace indeed does not disappoint as He continued to help me to strengthen my belief.

During the early days of diagnosis, things can be overwhelming and I was not spared of that. I remember hearing so many noises and I did not know which one to believe. All I knew at that time was that the journey of healing is going to be grace-filled for me. I started learning about more about MG just to gain better understanding on what’s going on with me. The things I learnt did not always sit well with me; in fact some of the information or medical labels was personally quite discouraging. One example is the definition of autoimmunity. It is commonly expressed as your body fighting against you. That did not sit well with me because I believe in a God who made all things well and that includes my body. Our body is made to fight for us, not against us. It is made to protect us but why autoimmune happened then?. That question led me to dig deeper into the health rabbit hole that I got into and I found a definition that resonates better with me. 

What causes disease is first of all a weak body as a result of toxin accumulation. The accumulated poison in our body can then confused our immune system. Therefore my body needed of help and time to detoxify, and then heal itself. With a picture like this, I felt at peace with my body. Knowing full well that my body is not at war gave me confidence and even built up my endurance in the healing journey. Just the change of view or label if you’d like that; change my whole perspective which in turn change my belief system to a more life giving one.

The opposite of life giving is life taking and what often caused that is FEAR. Fear is an integral part of life, necessary for survival but there is also fear created by our hypervigilant mind. These fears are often a result of a traumatic experience. For those of us who live with a chronic condition, it is a traumatic experience to be diagnosed with something that change our lives forever. For me I can no longer be that energizer bunny I used to be; my level of efficiency dropped and it takes me way longer to complete a task that used to be easy for me; at the peak of the symptoms I cannot even tie my own hair. There was a period of time when driving was so hard that I gave up for safety reason. It was hard and it can be scary. So I recognized how my hypervigilant mind would “warn” me about dangers that were often irrational. If not properly addressed, these fears can cripple us to the point of not living well.

Just a few weeks ago, I went for a walk on a lonely road surrounded by beautiful forest accompanied by the sound of the river. On the side of the road were lands owned by independent farmers, so on one of side of the road, I spotted a few empty chemical barrels. Immediately fear kicked in; my heart rate went up and I started to feel symptoms rising. In Apr 2023, I had a myasthenic crisis requiring ventilation that was caused by chemical induced pneumonia. Long story short, I was exposed to pesticides while walking at a park. The memory of the ICU stay came rushing in and it was not pleasant. My survival mind said: I do not want that again. Thanks be to God I became aware of what’s going on in my mind, it was my hypervigilant mind going on high alert and it was irrational. I started doing pursed lips breathing to calm myself. As I calmed down, I started thinking more clearly: I was in a way better state than I was in 2023. I’ve done a lot of work on my body, so my body has way better ability to detox, plus the thymoma shrunk by 50% and scripture said that no poison shall prevail against me (Mark 16: 18)!. I said a prayer and told myself that it is safe, that I am strong enough for this and that if any chemical has been sprayed, it would have been some time ago as evidenced by the appearance of the grass.

Regulating back to safety reinforces in my mind that the irrational fear can be overcome. I finished that walk feeling stronger, climbed about 800m of distance in a 200m ascend without the need of mestinon (the anticholinerase drug I used to help manage symptoms). 

Stronger mindset is a life time of work. As we build our mental muscles, we will also grow more resilient and will be able to do things that was seemingly impossible when we were not living with chronic illness.  Do you find this helpful in your journey? Let me know in the comment what helps you to build a stronger mindset. Let’s connect to support each other in our journey of building stronger mental muscles.

Our being is body, mind and soul. To achieve bodily healing, actions need to be taken to give our body the best chance. I will share more in depth in my next post.

With lots of love,
Irene

Why Pursuing Our Passion is Crucial for Our Children

On By IreneIn Celebration, Commitment, Courage, Creativity, Dreams, Faith, Grace, Healing, Homemaker, Homeschooling, Hope, Journey, JumpStart, Kingdom Lifestyle, Motherhood, Season of Life, WorthLeave a comment

What legacy do you want leave? How would you like your children to remember you? These are questions that I asked myself often. I aspire to be a mother who inspires my children to rise higher and that involves some sacrifice from me. In my current triple-H reality of Homemaking, Homeschooling and Health Healing, wanting to rise higher myself can feel like an impossible task. Parenting is energy intensive and it can drain us at the end of the day. Some days I feel like I don’t even like my child due to the drained energy. And those are the days that I easily fell into the trap of blaming her for not being able to live my life fully. By the grace of God, I am aware this is not to be. My child is my reason to rise higher not my stumbling block.

After days and months and years of reflection and evaluation, I came to see some light. I want to pursue my passion and dreams as my means of living fully. That in turn will fill my tank and that tank overflows to my child. But I also need to be realistic; what works and what does not. How do I move in the ever changing rhythm? What becomes important in this journey? I am going to share practicals in three areas that would hopefully help us to move forward in our journey of pursuing our dreams.

Stress Management
This is an inevitable part of our modern life. Stress is also a nasty cause of diseases, hence it is so important to possess the skills to manage our stress. In my current reality, my days are pretty full as I am the kitchen ministry, cleaning ministry, children ministry, health ministry, purchasing officer etc. I cook most of our meals at home due to our health condition. My child is involved in cleaning, cooking and housework as this is part of homeschooling. This does not make my task faster but it does make our lives more pleasant and fun. Living with Myasthenia Gravis has limited me in a big way and to add that on, being a supporting wife of a struggling entrepreneur added a good amount of stress in my life.

So what works best when life gets overwhelming? Before the downward spiral spins out of control; STOP, PAUSE and BE PRESENT. This helps with emotion regulation. Simply by noticing your breathing or any one sense at a time helps us to relax. Just doing it for 5 minutes can free our body from the grip of stress. Once we are calm, we can acknowledge what happened in a neutral way and then let the grip go. This is helpful on a daily basis and when practiced intentionally, we trained ourselves to relax and let go of stress whenever we need to.

Staying Focused on Your Dreams
What are your passions and dreams? What makes you alive? Are you working on it? These are questions that would give us a clue where we are at with our dreams. If you can name your dreams, write them down and have it in a prominent place. Take encouragement from this scripture;

This serves as a good reminder of what is in your heart and what you are working towards. If you are unsure of your passions and dreams, I’d like to invite you to connect with us at JumpStart. JumpStart is a programme that will help you to discover what’s in your heart and you’ll also receive the tools to plan towards them. Engaging with a coach or someone to accompany you in your journey of the pursuit of your dreams and passions is a good idea regardless of where you are at.

Incorporating Your Dreams in Your Daily Life
Pursuing our dreams as parents is a delicate balancing act. First thing to evaluate is our daily and weekly rhythm. What does your typical day look like? What time do you wake up and then what follows? Are there time in my day that I wasted? I surely have that, I sometime waste my time on the internet doing things like scrolling videos that did not help me to further my dreams. Including time wasting activities in our evaluation will help us to clearly make a decision of what work best for us.

Making pursuing our dreams part of our lifestyle IS going to cost us. Be prepared to make sacrifices for our children and also be gracious towards ourselves from time to time. I am a typical go getter hyper achiever type of person. When I am focused on something, it is not easy to slack that off. So for me, growth is to be able to slow down, enjoy the learning from parenthood, soaked in the love of the Father in my season and be gracious to myself when I did not achieve what I aimed to do. It will take longer for me to pursue my dreams but what’s important is that I am on the track.

These practicals becomes easier when it is lived with great intention. I highly encourage having someone to journey alongside you as you pursue your dreams. Our children are precious and they deserve to have great role models in us, their parents. May you find great fulfillment as you pursue your dreams precisely because of your children.

With lots of love,
Irene

The Gift of Spiritual Motherhood

On By IreneIn Celebration, Faith, Family, Grace, Healing, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Motherhood, Season of Life, Womanhood, WorthLeave a comment

When I was researching on the whether women has the innate desire to mother, I was pretty surprise to see articles coming from secular sites that said it is a myth. So what they claimed is that not all women has that mothering desire or instinct. I personally don’t agree that it is a myth. The world we are living in are trying to take women away from their natural ability or desire to mother. We were told to be career focused, that motherhood can wait. What seems to be common is that something in us tells us otherwise. For me, it was hard to pin point what was that opposing forces within me – what I presented and live by was a strong career minded women who appreciated her independence. The other other part of me was feeling so satisfied and fulfilled when I spend time giving myself as a gift by nurturing young souls.

That was an expression of Spiritual Motherhood that I experienced as a single unmarried woman. Something unbeknownst to me when I enjoyed my time with my nephews, nieces and Goddaughters. Those years of living out my womanhood as a Spiritual Mother has prepared me to where I am as a physical mother now. The blessing is mutual: I was immensely blessed, so was my Goddaughters. Looking back at those days, I wish I knew these three guiding elements that would help me to be a joyful, effective and fulfilled Spiritual Mother. I share this is in full in this video and here’s the summary for those of us who prefer reading.

The first one is deepening our relationship with Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church No. 27 states;

The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for:

It cannot get clearer than this: our deepest longing or we may call it a deep hole that keeps on leaking unless it is filled with the love of God. Having a living relationship with Christ will fill that God sized hole in our hearts. Why does this matter for Spiritual Motherhood? The living relationship with Christ is the base of our lives, this is something for everybody. In the context of our service as Spiritual Mother, a living relationship with Christ will help us in the way of detachment. Long time ago, I had an encounter with someone who played the role of Spiritual Mother to me. She was incidentally available at the time I needed someone to talk through some issues I was facing. The conversation helped me to hear myself out and to calm down from the stress that I was experiencing. So I thanked her at the end of our conversation and she in turned said this: thank you for making me feel needed.

That actually left me feeling cringed. Gosh, the need to be needed can be unhealthy for us. If we are not careful, we can unintentionally idolize it. I acknowledge there’s place for being needed; as a mother I am needed and that’s a reality. To help us moderate and sanctify our need to be needed, we need Christ as our centre. The best way to do it is to make time for prayer. I would propose making the first hour of the day a sacred hour for the Lord. Spend that hour seeking knowledge of God through scriptures reading. It is also really good to read the commentaries on the chapter you are on. The sacred hour doesn’t have to be a full hour; it’s not five minutes either. It’s a chunk of time that you dedicate for prayer and scripture reading.

Becoming a woman of the Word is a way to shape our lives to be better Spiritual Mothers. Who is a better model of this than our Blessed Mother Mary? This brings me to the second element; consecration to Mother Mary. She is the perfect disciple, a woman of the Word and truly a woman after God’s own heart. In John 19: 26, Jesus gave His Mother to us. She’s called THE MOTHER in that verse. How awesome is that! She is our Mother as well! When I finally consecrate myself to her, I had in my heart set on having a relationship with her as well; I want to learn from her, I want to be a better disciple, I want to model after her as a woman after God’s own heart.

With that desire in mind, my consecration to Mother Mary has truly bear fruits of holiness. Areas of my life that needed sanctification were brought to light. Slowly but surely, I am growing in my dignity as a beloved daughter of God. It was also really interesting to note this beautiful connection of how Mother Mary was instrumental to intercede for me. I was so inspired to put aside time to live out my consecrated and intentional singlehood in 2014 and when that period ends, the main fruit was a clearer invitation as well as a clearer courage for me to embrace sacramental marriage as a state of life vocation. So with that fruit, I started a 54 Days Rosary Novena with the intention to pray for my future husband. My intention was to be married to a man after God’s own heart, that God is his absolute number one so that he will lay his life down for me, his bride. At the same time, I also prayed that I become a woman after God’s own heart, that God is my absolute number one so that I would be able to submit to this man God has for me. God wasted no time and got to work on me. The amazing thing then happened in 2017, when I finally decided to consecrated myself to Mother Mary. I did a 33 Days DIY retreat towards my consecration and at that period, I was reconnected to Hans, although totally unaware of the movement God was making through Hans. On consecration day, Hans attended the Assumption mass with me, we were seeing each other back then and the rest is History. Of course I am not suggesting that Mama Mary will lead you to your spouse but who knows!

When we intentionally make time to know Jesus deeply and when we consecrate ourselves to our Blessed Mother, our life becomes richer. This richness is meant to be shared in community which brings me to the third element; becoming part of a life giving community. We are social beings and as a woman, a support system outside our home is essential. It is also important to choose a community of people who are as committed to your growth as you are committed to theirs. What does a life giving community looks like?

Before we get there, let’s be a little cliche in this. I used to roll my eyes whenever people say this to me whenever I pointed out elephants in the room that existed in the community. I almost always get this: “there’s no perfect community, Irene”. Duh! I know, I just wanted to be heard. What it sounded to me was just an excuse to not change. But that line is true; there is no perfect community because we live in a broken world. This is something we need to be aware of when we join a community. A healthy community ought to be imperfect but life giving. Life giving in the sense of speaking the truth of Christ, providing support, encouraging and challenging you to rise up. This is the place you share and celebrate your growth as well as the place to get support when you are in need. A place where accountability is taken seriously. Try to visit different communities and see which one resonates with you most and which will support you in your journey of holiness.

I really wish I knew these 3 element more clearly when I was younger and made it a lifestyle more intentionally. Our dignity as women is God given, we are called to steward our gifts well and therefore express our identity in the best way possible. Our life experience is also so precious, there are times that we are honored and there are also times that we are disadvantaged. As in community, the world in which we live in is also not perfect, it is not always easy to navigate our lives as women. We feel the pains of loneliness, the pains of unfulfilled longings and so much more. Deeper than that is the truth that Christ is still our centre and He is faithful. In this Mother’s Day, may all women be honored in our dignity. To birth and adoptive mothers; thank you for loving sacrifices for your children. You are indeed the pillar of society. To all bereaved mothers, your tears are counted and thank you for growing even more beautifully in your vocation honoring the children that has returned to the Lord. To spiritual mothers, thank you for channeling your innate maternal energy to add colors and positive impact to the lives of our children and most importantly thank you for your sincere prayers for the conversion of the world. Happy Mother’s Day.

With lots of love,
Irene

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

Turning Misfortunes into Blessings

On By IreneIn Affirmation, Celebration, Coaching, Courage, Creativity, Dreams, Faith, Grace, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Resurrection, Season of Life, WorthLeave a comment

I used to be a person who proclaim certain ways of eating some food as being food crime. How could someone possible put rice on pizza? Or what a strange way to eat chips with ice cream! There were heaps of comments that I would make as I was a picky eater. Then the ultimate funny thing happen when I actually started liking the very food crimes I used to judge. It started when I ran out of ingredients to cook the conventional way. What’s the best next option in that case? Creativity kicked in and I started experimenting making food in ways that was crime for me. Those turned out to be the most fun experience as I managed to turn a challenge into a blessing.

Seeming misfortunes happen all the time because our plans do not always turn out the way we want it. The matter here is our response towards those incidences. Some are small matter that can be easily turned into something good and some are heavier stuffs that need time and space to make sense of. Big stuff like the diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis for me was not a pleasant thing that happened. I certainly did not choose that misfortune. However, I have the power to choose my response to move forward to make this a meaningful season in my life.

The experience of making the best of the worst that happened reminded of the song, This is How We Overcome. It says: “You have turned my mourning into dancing, You have turned my sorrow into joy”. Such powerful way of turning the worst scenarios into a blessing – turning to God almighty for help. Even your deepest hurt can be turned into a gift to the world. That brought me to a principle I learnt in prayer school that says: “Your deepest hurt becomes the launching pad of your greatest calling”. More often than not, this is hard to comprehend as deep wounds like childhood trauma often scars people deeply. So much so that some chose the destructive path.

Tragic childhood trauma like an abuse is indeed very detrimental to the person. It confused the child and sent wrong messages to the child which in turn destroyed the true identity of the child. It takes a lot of work and heaps of courage in the part of the victim to rise up to victory – reclaiming their true identity as a beloved child of God. We know for a fact that none of us are immune to trauma whether inflicted by a trusted person, teachers, schoolmates etc. Treating ourselves with great compassion and taking the courageous path of healing with trusted companions have proven to be a path towards great victory. Putting these misfortunes in its right place bring out blessings that would otherwise be hidden.

In my current season of immersion in Positive Intelligence (PQ), I see a connection to this concept. The author of the book, Shirzad Chamine shared his childhood wounds were indeed blessings in disguise. It took him heaps of work to be where he is today, a deeply compassionate person who is directly blessing me with this programme. The inspirations drawn from this program is beyond what I imagined. Being an active gift and opportunities seeker in all circumstances is a powerful gift to self and the world we live in.

Dear friends, what are you facing today? I pray that you are given the grace to turn EVERY circumstances into a blessing. My father’s death which was a tragic event has taught me so much about life precisely because I choose to grieve with gratitude. This blog is one of the beautiful fruit coming out of that season of grieving. Be encouraged dear friends to be conqueror that is capable to tap in the grace of God – turning misfortunes into blessings. In the event that you need some help in getting there, feel free to contact me for coaching information.

May you be blessed!

With lots of love,
Irene

The Power of Affirmation

On By IreneIn Affirmation, Bountiful Potential, Celebration, Coaching, Courage, Faith, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Motherhood, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Season of Life, WorthLeave a comment

Recently we recorded a podcast with the title The Cry for Affirmation, that turned out to be such a powerful and healing experience for me. The past year has been focused getting my body back into a new optimum and we are also aware that the past year has been tough for most of us. Isolation has been especially hard for me due to my natural preference of being around people. Little did I know, I slowly lost sight of my true self. I have not surrounded myself enough with people who live with a lifestyle of affirmation. So happened word of affirmation scores high for my love language.

With the challenges of the lockdown that rendered us to react rather than respond also has activated the survival part of the brain big time. Reacting to every announcement made became a constant fight or flight response. Not only it is stressful for the body, it also has the ability to rewire the brain in an unfavourable way. I was constantly tired, unmotivated and found myself settling for the small things. We have managed to find ways out of those episodes of reactions.

God is truly generous in providing resources like the availability of communion, books, courses as well as master classes that I can learn from. We dare to dream bigger with each hurdles we overcame. It has been a slower process when we are isolated. Going back to coaching is also a great blessing and now being part of my friend, Justin’s podcast Don’t Just Talk Lah, I am provided with a platform to give. All these works are possible also thanks to my body’s healing progress. I have the attitude to give as I am, although still not 100% healed yet as I occasionally get mild symptoms.

The recording of the affirmation episode helped to dust off the dirt that covers the whole true self. I have somewhat become less affirmative through this challenging year. Being affirmed through the recording, I was so energized and decided to live that more fully again. So I started affirming my daughter for every little things she did well, even to the detail of her listening to my instruction. She was glowing with joy with my new attitude; so was I and my husband.

Challenges ahead when met through the truth of own goodness can produce wonderful results. When we choose to overcome problems and deal with sin through the lens of our inherent goodness, we are elevated to a place of higher praise. I believe that is a place of freedom and happiness!. After all, if negativity has ability to rewire our brain unfavourably; positivity ought to do the favourable rewiring.

Dear friends, if you are in a place of uncertainty or are embarking on a new venture, do surround yourself with people who affirm you or hire a coach to achieve better results. A coach will help you see new perspectives when you are met with blockages; hear you out and affirm you in your journey as well as celebrating progresses with you. May you be blessed in your venture and remember you are worthy of happiness and joy in life.

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

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 

Celebration

On By IreneIn Celebration, Coaching, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Worth2 Comments

Celebration is an integral part of life and a lifestyle that I am living by. Whenever we talk about celebration, the first thought a Malaysian would typically have is MAKAN (food). We take our food seriously and to mark any celebration, the food plays a very important role. More important than the food is the reason of the celebration.

We celebrate to mark an important milestone, an important event, successes or progresses we made in life. In my coaching training, my coach taught me to apply celebration as part of the principle of a coaching session. I found it really essential as part of a healthy and connected lifestyle. Last night I was privileged to be reminded of the importance of celebration based on St. Paul’s love poetry (1 Corinthians 13: 4 – 8) and that has left me thinking about my own lifestyle of celebration. Have I been celebrating God’s goodness as He deserves?

When I put celebration in the right perspective, I found that it is way to grow in humility. This is how it made sense to me. Through my countless conversation with people I encountered (or I coached), it is common to hear this from me; “Have you celebrated your progress?” or “How are you going to celebrate this?”. It is also common for me to encounter a startled look, especially if the person has just started to talk to me or just started their journey with me. Those priceless responses were my opportunity to share what I believe celebration is all about.

For some of us, celebration can only happen if a big goal has been achieved and yes that is totally justified and necessary. Here I am talking about celebrating progresses along the way, even the smallest progress. I believe celebration is the fuel that propel us towards our goal. Very often I see people getting discouraged because they did not celebrate their progress. For them some progress is just way too insignificant. Think about this; without those seemingly insignificant progresses, can we actually make it to our goal? It is precisely those small steps that brought us to our goal.

You may wonder now, how can celebration be a way to grow in humility? So, this has been my story. The right perspective of celebration for me lies in the WHO. Who am I actually celebrating? Every progress we made is by God’s grace. From my experience, being able to acknowledge that God is the One who made it possible for me to progress in my journey brought me to a place of celebration. Celebrating the One who made it possible for me. When my focus is celebrating God, I am humbled because the focus of celebration is not me, rather it is Him who made me.

Through my journey of having coaching conversations, I also get these question often; “What do you mean by celebration? How do I do that? Must I eat all the time to celebrate? I encouraged people to celebrate their progresses by doing something they enjoy. For example; if you enjoy reading a book by the beach; then set aside some time to do that as a form of celebration. If you like eating, it would be so easy to celebrate though eating is not the best celebration if you are celebrating your progress in weight loss. If you like watching a movie; that would be a great form of celebration. And if you are a people person like me, celebrating with people who cares would be such an occasion of joy. To mark milestones, I would encourage we do something really significant like skydiving to mark your 30th birthday. Or something crazier like leaving your secular job to serve God full time (ONLY recommended if that is what God wants of you). Hence, it is also important to choose your form of celebration wisely.

I am indeed very blessed to be influenced by people who live a lifestyle of celebration from the beginning of my faith journey. These saints-in-the-making taught me the value of living life to the fullest – a life in humility that always acknowledge God as the provider of everything in my life, including the seemingly insignificant progresses I made in my life.

Dear friends, let us celebrate the goodness of the Lord in our lives. He is our reason of celebration and He is certainly worth celebrating as you are worth celebrating. I pray that celebration becomes the fuel for your progress in life and know that your being are worth celebrating.

With lots of love,

Irene

 

Spontaneous Humour

On By IreneIn Faith, Humour, Journey, Worth1 Comment

I was fully concentrating at mass when the gospel from Mark 2: 13 – 17 (the call of Levi) was proclaimed and what caught me was the question posted by the scribes and Pharisees;

“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Precisely at that moment, the answer I got was;

“Because their food are tastier”

I was immediately entertained by this spontaneous humour which I believed was a gift from God to lift me up and break me away from mundane seriousness. When I ran a survey by asking people around me this question; 90% of them gave me a serious answer and the one who knew what was in my head was prepared for a laugh. I was touched by the gesture of having a serious answer that Jesus came to save sinners and by the those who were also up for some jokes. I see how people are touched by Jesus’ purpose of coming this earth (Luke 19:10) and how some of them would also be interested by another perspective.

Through that survey, I get to know people better and I also get to bless them with a little laughter. It is always true that good food do attract people, hence good cooks has lots of friends. And that for me is an opportunity to love people through food. Food for some reason has the power to build friendship and bring people together. This is so true for my root culture – the Malaysian Hospitality that always involve food.

We need food to sustain us and help us grow. Tasty food would definitely make eating a much happier experience. However, the taste of the food is not the purpose of the food. Food is meant to sustain us and praise God if we get to eat tasty food. Having been blessed by Fr. Rob Galea recently, I found a connection between worship and food. When he posed the question, what do you think are in heaven? My immediate answer was; “Good food”. Jokes aside, I came to embrace even more that the purpose of worship is for our holiness and the feel good factor is a good byproduct that we may not get all the time. Is not that the same with food?

In case of Jesus, the tasty food, I would imagine was fueled by His company. Tax collectors and sinners would probably be one of the most real people. People who are well aware of their brokenness and recognized that they are in need of a savior. Sincere people who live ordinary lives and being unaware of their worth would probably break His heart. I would imagine Jesus being really moved by that and that would have propelled Him to spend time with this group of sinners. That is good news! The good news of knowing that my Savior wanted to spend time with me just because I am Irene – Irene in my goodness and my flaws, in my awareness of His presence and in my ignorance of His goodness, in my desire to be holy and in my inability to do what is right.

I am just so grateful that God sees the heart and all that is needed of me is my pursuit of holiness in my life. And I pray that my pursuit of holiness will serve as “tasty food” for the people that God place over my path. But I am aware how human I am and I would not be “tasty food” all the time and for those time, it is my prayer that I am graced with the humility to own my shortcomings and allow Christ to redeem them. I pray that you will also be encouraged to pursue holiness in your humanness.

 

With lots of love,

Irene