Happy birthday Hannah...31/08/2018

This post is specifically for Hannah my dearest daughter who left me too soon. I think about you all the time Hannah. I miss you all the time and I wish you were here with me. I know that you’re in a safe place and you are having a great time there. Are you as naughty as your twin brother Joel? Do you put your hands up when you eat as well? You know, Joel is really a cheeky boy now. He can speak many words now and he can protest a lot now too. If you’re still here with us I believe that you’ll be a very good Cece to Joel telling him not to block his mouth or struggle when he eats or does something. You should be very proud of Joel, Hannah. He has come a long way and we are so proud of him, just like how we are so proud of you when you were born three years ago. You put up a great fight then. Whenever I see Joel, I know that your heart is also with him and with us.

I’m feeding him as I’m typing this and at times I imagine what it would be like feeding the both of you at the table. It would be such chaos I feel, but I long for it. I long for it so much. I wish I could turn back time. I wish you were here with us. I wish I could do some girly stuff with you. I wish I could just give you a hug and a big kiss right now. Couldn’t you come back to us? Couldn’t you just make all these a bad dream and suddenly appear in front of us? I miss you Hannah.

It’s hard for me. It never gets easier. It is always hard whenever I think of you. I still remember seeing your photo for the first time today and the going upstairs to see you in person at the hospital. I was so happy that Joel and you were born into this world. I heard your cry for the first time today three years ago too. That faint and cute cry in the delievery room. I wish you were here Hannah. I wish you didn’t leave us.

Words just can’t describe how I miss and long for you. I love you Hannah. Happy birthday to you again and thank you for coming into my life and teaching me how things in life are so temporary. Thank you for giving me a chance to be a mummy to a little girl although it’s only for a few days. I am happy even so.

I love you Hannah. 

Zac’s First Camp 16/8/2018

Zac is now out having his school camp for one night. This marks his independence as a boy. It’s pretty emotional for me to think that he is slowly spreading his wings to fly and soar above in the sky. Seeing him carrying the huge backpack that’s nearly as big as him conjures up mixed feelings within; proud, happy, anxious, in awe and touched, just looking back on how far Zac has come along.

I believe he is having the time of his life although he was pretty anxious the days and nights leading to camp. Questions kept popping up into his mind - ‘what if I need the toilet at night?’, ‘what if I lose my way?’, ‘wonder who will I sleep with’ and many others. I got a picture this afternoon of him cooking some sausages and giving a huge smile with his current bestie Sam. I felt at ease knowing that he is at least having fun and feeling relaxed and happy.

By now, he should have taken his bath and having a campfire night with plenty of performances by his peers. I suspect he might have difficulty sleeping tonight as always, hoping that I’ll hear a different story when he comes home, since he’s so tired.

I felt the emptiness this afternoon without him in the house. I surprisingly miss him a lot although he has been away before for sleepovers with his friends. This is rather different as it’s more of a ‘maturing’ stage that he is going through to become a fine young man. I miss his voice and his usual antics at home and I will definitely be welcoming him home with big open arms tomorrow.

Have a wonderful time at camp my dearest son. Mummy loves you heaps and I am so proud to have a son like you. Have a good night in camp and I look forward to hearing all your adventures tomorrow. 

Joel is going to school! Zac is in Year 3!

Tomorrow 22/01/2018 marks a very important milestone in Joel’s life. He will be starting school! He will be in nursery class and wearing uniform and all. It’s amazing how he has progressed from a little baby in the incubator up till today, a toddler toddling around singing and screaming and playing and laughing. He has come a long long way. Looking at him sleeping in his bed, makes me want to cry tears of joy. Nobody would ever understand the gush of emotions thinking about Joel getting this far in life. I am so proud of his achievements to date. He is such a bright and cheerful kid who brings so much joy and laughter into our lives. 

Zac will be starting Year 3!!! He will be starting his 7th year in school. I can’t believe how much Zac has grown. He is fast becoming a young man with his own sets of values and thinking. I’m proud to know that he has grown up to be a compassionate young boy who is kind and empathetic to others. He strives to do the right thing. I am proud to be his mum all these years. 

These two boys are like the veins in my body that keep me going everyday. Without them in Dave and my lives, I believe it would be less meaningful for us living on this earth. I believe that they will achieve what they set out to do in their lives and I will always support them no matter what. I love them and will always do. 

Oh and I have to add this: ‘Mummy does that mean that Joel and I will be in the same year book?’  This sentence really warmed my heart. Zac is right! Both of them will appear in the same year book! How cool is that? Extremely cool to me! I love the idea of having both my boys in the same book. I’m hopeless like that. 😂

Have a great first day in school tomorrow my precious sons! 

Joel’s Achievement 17/1/2018

Today is the first day after two years plus that Joel didn’t puke the entire day!!! He threatened a few times but he managed to contain it. It is really an achievement and I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. I may not be feeling that much excitement on the outside, but deep down, I am grateful that there’s even this one day that he didn’t puke. If there’s one day, there’s going to be two, there’s two there’s going to be ten, twenty, hundred and no more puking. It has been such a long and difficult  journey with Joel’s eating. His drinking has improved tremendously and now I just hope that his eating and chewing would just miraculously happen.

I am waiting for the day that happens and I think I will be crying with joy.

Had a rough day at home today, so my thoughts are all jumbled up. A very messy blog today, but I just had to pen this down as today is such a memorable day with Joel not puking even once!

Let there be more of such days and let the puking be gone forever. 

11th Anniversary

A simple collage of our day today. A quick lunch at Holiday Inn and tennis lesson for the older one while poor little man is sick even while I'm typing this. Today marks our 11 years of being married to each other. Perhaps three of the biggest words that got us through the 11 years are - HUMOUR, FORGIVENESS and TOLERANCE towards each other. We fight and love over the years just like any normal couple would. Looking back at all the stuff that we did and are still doing brings back lots of memories. Calling each other dingo and wombat for 11 years, being squashed to the end of the bed while there's space next to him enough for two more people, annoying each other while the other is sleeping by squeezing the nose or opening the eyes lol, disagreeing with each other about something which happened years ago thinking that I'm/he's right, getting used to him squeezing the toothpaste from the middle instead of the end, letting each other sleep in every now and again during the weekend, arguing over the kids, getting corrected for pronunciation until we have to google to agree that there are many ways to pronounce certain words, laughing at each other's silly antics, getting in fights because both want to win in games, debating about who's more fatigued, getting into something that the other person enjoys so we get to spend time together, being a back seat driver when the other is driving and so many others which would take me forever to list. If we didn't have humour, forgiveness and tolerance in this marriage, we probably wouldn't have made it this far.

I hope that we continue this journey on earth together with the two little man, like we vowed to in church at the altar 11 years ago - till death do us part. :)

Love you dingo David.

Ps: Zac bought a PS4 himself with half of it subsidised by his dad and started playing street fighter 5. Somethingto document. :) Wonder if he is enjoying it more or his dad. :p

Encounter Weekend 18-19/3/2017

Last Saturday and today were the two days that I attended church related events or seminars or conference in a very very long time. The last time I did I believe was when my family and I were still in Perth, in Riverview church.

It has been two fruitful days that I had. I remember struggling with hubs about attending it because hubs would have to hold the fort at home with the kids for two continuous weekends. I was not very happy the last weekend in HongKong with my friends too. We had plenty of drama during the trip and we weren't really agreeable on most of the stuff that we decided to do. So, when I came back, I was actually in fact looking forward to the encounter weekend organised by FCBC which I was reluctant to attend initially. 

Since I had to take time off from the kids and hubs, I wanted to make the most out of it and make it a meaningful time for myself. I prayed about it and wrote a list of what I wanted to get out of the encounter weekend. I wrote five and managed to get answers and revelation from God for three. God is real. Many things happened during this encounter weekend as if it was so coincidental, although I strongly believe that it's not a coincidence that those things happened. 

One of my checklist items was to seek forgiveness for my sins and ensure that I am definitely forgiven and that I will not ever doubt again the assurance of forgiveness from God. I have always blamed myself for losing Hannah. I blamed myself for not putting in more care in ensuring that both Joel and Hannah were comfortable inside of me and that they will feel the love from me even when they were inside. Instead, I was often angry during the pregnancy due to issues that surface and when I had a premature labour, I blamed myself. I blamed myself even when I was in the hospital before they were born. I even cried a lot before they were born as if I knew something bad was going to happen. To cut it short, I had the spirit of unforgiveness within me. I blamed myself each time I think of Hannah. I felt that I had committed grave sins and also sins for not protecting my own flesh and blood. 

During encounter, it was during the release of curse session that I literally broke down and wept and fell over. After renouncing all the stuff that could have been carried down as a curse into my current life, I felt liberated. I've always wanted to publicly renounce all these idolatry, false stuff and many others in the presence of other Christians to proclaim that these will not have anymore effect in my life and have no authority in my life. While I was getting prayed for, I resisted but when I finally open my heart to allow the holy spirit to work within me, I felt this tingle going through my body as though it's zig zagging from the top to the bottom of my body. It's like having a big snake wriggle from the top of my body to the bottom and then I fell onto the ground. I wept as Pastor Wendy and the lady who acted as "curse" during the role play started praying for me. When I lifted my hands and the lady said "Holy spirit do your work as she is willing...", I could feel God working within the body.   I somehow believe that there are things that are not of God within my body, growing up in a temple going, fortune telling seeking, Buddhist chanting, etc household. I felt liberated after the session. Pa Wendy asked me what was it that I felt and saw when I experienced that. I told her the spirit of unforgiveness. She assured me that it is not my fault that things happened and that God made things happen for a reason that we may never know. She told me to release this bad spirit and that I need to know that I'm loved by God and also forgiven for whatever that I have done. So, first checklist item crossed out. 

Another thing that I always had a doubt In is my speaking in tongues. I received the gift of tongues just weeks after I accepted Christ in 1998. I had been exercising the gift ever since then, but started to doubt myself suddenly after I chanced upon some articles of people speaking in tongues supposedly praising God but In actual fact, cursing God. Another reason was in Riverview church, speaking in tongue wasn't heavily practiced and hence I stopped speaking in tongues for a while after that. Leaving Perth further drifted us from regular attendance to church due to logistics and also lack of churches that could work for our family. Anyway, coming back to the point, I doubted myself regarding the gift of tongues. During the gift of Holy Spirit session, we were all being prayed for. The guide came to me and started praying for me. Abit into her prayer, she told me to speak in tongues. I started to in faith and while praying for me, her first words to me were "Don't doubt and use this gift as it is from God". This once again affirmed me of my own doubt and another checklist item crossed out. 

Finally, I seem to have lost my purpose in life since I left Perth, stopped attending church and also became a housewife who does nothing but caring for the kids and family. I was lost and didn't know why I even exist on earth. The session today renewed my spirit and longing for God again and to do his works and to draw closer and closer to Him again. I feel energised again to want to wait on him and do His will in my life. That crosses another item of my checklist. 

All in all, I am grateful to hubs for helping me with the kids at home so I can go experience all these and to find a meaning in my life again. This has been such an intensed two days that I really want to record down to remember for a long long time. I hope that days when I feel weary and down, reading this blog will lift my spirits up again because GOD IS REAL. He will be there for me even when no one is there for me. I just need to call upon Him. 

This verse came to mind at the end of this blog. 

Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you. James 4:8

Sounds of my life...

These days, the sounds that I hear everyday are repetitive and distinct to a point it scares me. The truth of these sounds gives the heart a bit of a tug here and there. There's no escape, no comfort, no assurance, no hope...

The sound of the fan whirring gives me a feeling of emptiness
The sound of the occasional fogging outside gives me the feeling of distance
The sound of the traffic on the road gives me the feeling of helplessness
The sound of the birds chirping gives me the feeling of unrequited love
The sound of my own breathing gives me the feeling of loneliness

Makes me question the purpose of my life again and why I'm made the way I am. Why me and what's me and who's me and where's me and lastly how did I become the me I am today. Numerous questions. Will these questions be answered? God knows. Searching for an answer from the bible, from God. Ultimately I'll probably get the answers if I keep searching for them. Seek and you shall find..........