Journey of discovery

Recently, I have been reading this book Captivating by JOHN ELDREDGE. This book starts me on a journey to discover God's love for me, and bring me into a journey of emotional healing; addressing the issues that are so close to my heart.

First, I learn about what God had created me for and how important I am as a woman in HIS creation plan. Woman nourish life. And they also bring life into the world soulfully, relationally, spiritually-in everything they touch. Eve means "life"or "life producer". Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all living. Satan know that this is a threat to him, so he hated woman and will do anything to deceive us, woman, into believing we are not good enough, there is no man who will love us, or we are just not beautiful at all.

Secondly, God LOVES me, and He pursue me with an everlasting love! Like a lover pursuing his lover. He always know what is close to my heart, my desire. He will just show me his creation and I will just be so captivated by it, and it touches my heart. The things that He created is so beautiful, magnificent, glorious and mind-blowing that no words can describe it.

I once dreamt of going to Australia and always wonder how does the pacific ocean looks and feels like. I never thought I would have a chance to travel there, but God made a way for me and I finally went and get to experience the life there. Though it a short trip with the school, it a gift from God. And I enjoy ever bit of it. I get to feel the breeze of the ocean and touch the fine grained sand on the seashore, it amazing! This is the small little things God did to captivate my heart and draw me closer to Him. This is not the only example. There are too many for me to list down.

Thirdly, beauty comes when our heart is not striving. We must be at ease with ourselves. We must address the wound in our heart, ask God to heal those areas that has been bugging and affecting us. Ask God to show us our beauty. One important thing, we must not let anyone validate our life! He/She can't tell you who you are, only the one and true creator-God can validate you because He created you, not man! Don't go looking for things, people, theory to validate your life because you can never find true meaning of your life. Look to the LORD for your meaning in life.

Lastly, beauty invites, offers mercy, isn't demanding, it deepens a relationship. ;)

Managing expectation

Yesterday a friend of mine was complaining to me about how frustrated she was about this guy who just can't match up to what was expected of him as a leader or a man.

I can empathize with her frustration. But what kept me thinking was this: Firstly, are we putting too much expectation on a person? Secondly, why should they be obligated to keep to our expectation?

I come to realize that everyone of us have our own expectation we want to meet, and these expectation are different for every individual one of us. So my expectation might not be the same as yours. Maybe for me by doing A, B, and C I can achieve D, but to you, by doing B, C, and A you can achieve D. So no point getting all upset and work up when people don't meet our expectation.

And people are not obligated to follow our expectation. We all have our freedom to choose! God gave us the freedom to choose in life as well. We don't have the right to ask someone else to follow what we do. But one thing we can do is to show them by our lifestyle. The way you lead your life produces good result. When people see the fruit of your labour, they might follow.

So the next time when you meet some one and they don't meet your expectation, don't get frustrated. They have a different expectation from yours and they are not obligated to meet up to your expectation. Let your lifestyle show them what is right! ;)