One about letting go, moving on....and trusting in the love and sovereignty of God =P

Part of Something Greater

I’m just waiting for the time when I can say
All of this is now so far away
And seeing you won’t remind me of the last time you made me cry

Cos right now seeing you is worse than saying goodbye
And all the times that you didn’t apologise
Are unforgiven, floating in the depths of my mind

Time moves on, what we had becomes the past
If I go on, will I find rest at last?


I’m just waiting for the time when I can say
All of this is now so far away
When I’ve forgiven you and swallowed up the pain inside

Cos in the end it doesn’t matter who’s to blame
We’re not the players moving pieces in this game
And what was wrong’s now right, part of something greater

Time moves on, what we have becomes the past
If I go on, will I find rest at last?

What I’ve learned on this road
Is that there’s a stronger hand to hold
I am not in control
I’m part of something greater
And what was wrong will be made right
We’ll walk by faith and not by sight
Knowing all of my life
I’m loved by my Creator


I’m just waiting for the time when I can say
All of this is now so far away...
But I’ll know You’re not so far away from me.


20th-21st February 2010

When I Go Down - Relient K

I'll tell you flat out
It hurts so much to think of this
So from my thoughts I will exclude
The very thing that
I hate more than everything is
The way I'm powerless
To dictate my own moods

I've thrown away
So many things that could've been much more
And I just pray
My problems go away if they're ignored
But that's not the way it works
No that's not the way it works

When I go down
I go down hard
And I take everything I've learned
And teach myself some disregard
When I go down
It hurts to hit the bottom
And of the things that got me there
I think, if only I had fought them

If and when I can
Clear myself of this clouded mind
I'll watch myself settle down
Into a place where
Peace can search me out and find
That I'm so ready to be found

I've thrown away
The hope I had in friendships
I've thrown away
So many things that could have been much more
I've thrown away
The secret to find an end to this
And I just pray
My problems go away if they're ignored
But that's not the way it works
No that's not the way it works

When I go down
I go down hard
And I take everything I've learned
And teach myself some disregard
When I go down
It hurts to hit the bottom
And of the things that got me there
I think, if only I had fought them

Any control I thought I had just slips right through my hands
While my ever-present conscience shakes its head and reprimands me
Reprimands me

Then and there
I confess
I'll blame all this on my selfishness
Yet You love me
And that consumes me
And I'll stand up again
And do so willingly

You give me hope, and hope it gives me life
You touch my heavy heart, and when you do you make it light
As I exhale I hear Your voice
And I answer You, though I hardly make a noise
And from my lips the words I choose to say
Seem pathetic, but it's fallen man's praise
Because I love You
Oh God, I love You

And life is now worth living
If only because of You
And when they say that I'm dead and gone
It won't be further from the truth

When I go down
I lift my eyes to You
I won't look very far
Cause You'll be there
With open arms
To lift me up again
To lift me up again

World Through Your Eyes - Reuben Morgan

Hear the silence shout,
Highest praise
God to You alone
All creation waits
On Your every word
Where time and heaven meet

Let me see forever
With eyes You’ve opened
Standing in Your beautiful light
Hold me near
Hold me near to You
And let me see the world through Your eyes

In this perfect hour
I am changed
I’ll never be the same
Help me follow You
And keep in time with the sound
Of heaven in me

Let me see forever
With eyes You’ve opened
Standing in Your beautiful light
Hold me near
Hold me near to You
And let me see the world through Your eyes

Hide me in Your love again
Let me hear the songs of Your heart

Train to Edinburgh (2002)

Moving backwards slowly

Towns and cities glide past

Yellow street lights glint

On raindrop speckled glass

People seem to stare strangely

But there’s nothing to look at

Outside there is darkness

I only see a view of black

I’m tired and lonely

Though surrounded by everybody

I can’t find the sun in the sky

Or this life you promised me

Do I keep falling, drifting endlessly

Or will someone come and lead me on my way?

We’re speeding up slowly

Chugging along the tracks

Headed to a destination

But I don’t know where I’m at

I’m tired and lonely

Though you’re sitting right next to me

Where is the sunshine,

Where is this life you promised me?

Do I keep falling, drifting endlessly

With no one to come and save me?

On this long and winding journey

Don’t know what to do or what to think

Every thought is a cliché

Every feeling slowly sinks

I’m tired, my mind is numb

But I’m surrounded by everyone

I can’t find the sun in the sky

Or this life you promised me

Do I keep falling, drifting endlessly

Or will someone come and lead me?

Where is the light,

The life, that was promised to me?

Edited 2010

[Edit] By the way, in case you're wondering, this was written like 7 years ago and while thoughts of hopelessness, doubt, and the like, plagued me for a few years, I'm a lot happier now =) God is good and has a purpose for the times we go through...Sometimes I still feel impatient or discontent with where I am today but I trust it is all part of God's plans for me and He is leading me somewhere =)

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

25 Random Things

As on Facebook...thought it'd make a good blog post too :P

Rules:
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.


1. My favourite fruit to eat at breakfast is a banana, because it's good for you and fills you up :)

2. I've been to the U.S. more times than I've been back to Hong Kong.

3. I used to have a lot of trouble in highschool falling asleep because I would lie awake thinking/worrying about stuff (I still do sometimes)

4. I often wonder what plans God has in store for me for the rest of my life, and if it involves moving out of Sydney or doing something else other than my chosen profession, and how much of life's comforts it will require me to sacrifice.

5. I can be quite stubborn sometimes, in that if you ask me to do/tell you something and my original answer is no, the more you ask me, the more determined I become to not change my mind.

6. My email and blog URL "certainhope" was inspired by a series of studies on 1 Peter we did in Glue (Friday night youth group) 2004.

7. I like to play piano, it is one of my favourite things to do now, but I didn't start enjoying it until a few years after I had stopped going to piano lessons.

8. Sometimes I can appear cold and unfriendly to people I don't know very well, because I am naturally shy and not very good at making conversation. But I really am quite nice, please talk to me because I would like to get to know you better :)

9. I am good at expressing myself in writing, not so much when I speak.

10. I sometimes wonder how different my personality would be if I had grown up with siblings.

11. I have come to realise the futility of pursuing career, money, mortgage, marriage, kids, fun and pleasure as the primary aim of life, and wonder why more people don't contemplate their lives from the perspective of eternity.

12. A lot of my youth leaders have had a big influence on me, and I hope I can do the same for the youth I've led/will lead in the future.

13. I am a lot more short-sighted in my left eye than in my right eye.

14. I have seven first cousins on my mum's side, and one on my dad's side.

15. I've been out of highschool for more years now than I've been in highschool, which makes me feel old.

16. But I often feel too young to be taking on the responsibilities required of my profession.

17. I don't like walking outside when it rains because the raindrops get on my glasses and then the world becomes speckled!

18. I want more people to come to know Jesus but struggle with how to go about it in a way that is practical, loving and non-judgemental.

19. I feel I'm using the word "I" too many times in this post.

20. I have a thing for correct grammar and spelling...I get a bit annoyed when people do things like using the wrong "your/you're"....although I'm probably guilty of doing the same thing online sometimes :P

21. I don't fear death for myself, but that it will take away the people I love too early.

22. It takes a long time for me to build up close relationships with people, so I really value those that I have.

23. I dislike wearing heels and make-up.

24. I think I often worry too much about gaining other people's approval, and too little about what God thinks about the actions and thoughts other people don't even see.

25. I laugh at lame jokes and make even lamer ones :P

Switchfoot does Beyonce cover

This is brilliant! =P

Musings on music

Ahh music.

How it gets the feet tapping, hands clapping, hearts pumping, hips swaying and arms waving is a mystery. It feels natural, it makes you feel alive, and connected...it just feels right.

On the other hand, if it doesn't feel right, it can be very wrong indeed. Disinterest. Lips barely forming a mumble, voices barely a murmur. In bad cases, snoring.

I went to Jazz in the Domain on Saturday night, the main act of which (well, the only act actually) was a band called The Gyspy Kings and Queens. Or Queens and Kings. Probably not what springs to mind first when you think of "jazz", this was more the Latin America, fusion, flamenco sort of jazz, played with spanish guitars, bongos and a horn section, rather than the piano-with-bass-and-drums-and-maybe-some-brass sort of jazz (which is the type of jazz I always think about first).

It started off slow, but after a few songs with the horn section and flamenco dancer in colourful twirly skirt, there were crowds of people up on their feet and dancing, transforming the Domain from an oversized picnic into a kind of large open-air salsa club. I have to admit the rhythm was pretty catchy, even if every single song sounded the same. While my bum remained firmly on the picnic rug, I found myself tapping my feet and bopping my head and generally getting into the groove of things.

Ahh music.

On Sunday the church music team played a bunch of songs which I also got into the groove of, so to speak. The wanting to sing loudly, getting your head into the lyrics kinda of groove. The kind of groove where melody, words, rhythm, beat and meaning resonate with both your core beliefs and your taste in music.

Of course not all church music is like this all the time for all people. And it depends on a range of factors much larger than the number of instruments, quality of the musicians, and...stuff like that. If music in church just depended on the music itself to get it's congregation feeling encouraged and uplifted and hyped about worshipping God, then we would have a big problem. Apart from teaching and preaching, music is probably one of a church's more time and resource-consuming ministries. And some may feel that what you put in isn't always what you get out.

Why do we have music in church then? What is it about music that makes it such a special way of expressing our relationship with God as individuals and as a church? Is it because numerous Psalms begin as such... "Sing to the Lord a new song", "Shout for joy to the Lord", "I will sing of your love and justice; to you, O Lord, I will sing praise", "Come let us sing for joy to the Lord", "It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name"...?

Maybe God knows that sometimes words are not enough. Words alone are not enough to get the feet tapping, hands clapping, hearts pumping, hips swaying and arms waving (although the latter two would probably be looked down upon in most conservative churches). Words alone are sometimes not enough to make you feel alive and connected to the something, or Someone, greater than the four walls of the room (or the four sides of the lawn).

But what if the melody, rhythm, beat and meaning resonate with your core beliefs but not your taste in music? What if music is just not your thing in general? Maybe the words are enough then. You'll always have something to be passionate about, even if the singers are off-key, the pianist is out of time and you can't hear anything above the banging of the drums. So there's no excuse for mumbling, murmuring, chatting or snoring. As painful as it may be, this is praising God we're talking about here. Or at least sing loud enough so the person next to you knows it's about praising God and not a weekly going-through-the-motions thing.

Having said that though, we should try to do music well, like anything else we do for God and other people. That's why music teams have to practice. And have meetings. And why song leaders spend ages choosing the right songs.

Yep. I like music. I like music in church. Especially music in church that's done well. So let's get into it.

Hi AK! :)

This one is just for you :P

It's the end of the world as we know it

So after an ambiguous year of 'yes I've finished uni and I'm working now but I still have to study'... I've officially finished all pharmacy-related study forever and ever...How exciting! And what a relief. Sometimes I think God's way of blessing me is to let me get through exams with relative ease...strange, but useful. Although after a week and a half, the high of passing the dreaded Pharmacy Board oral review is now fading somewhat...

Which then leads to the question...what am I going to do with myself next year? (my current job finishes once I complete my 2000 hours at the end of Dec.) 'Find another job' (which is what my mum is nagging me to do) is not really appealing to me at the moment, as we'll be going on an overseas holiday for 5 weeks at the end of Feb through to end of March....Guess doing locum work will be most likely, both before and after the trip, as full-time work is not that easy to find these days. Maybe I should become a professional blogger again in the time being. Just kidding.

I was planning to write something creative in this post but I think I used up all my creativity during the procrastination phase before my exam...It's funny how once you have all the time in the world, there's no motivation to use it productively...

hmmmm...ok, more later if I come up with anything.

Meh!

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/meh--the-really-boring-buzz-word/2008/11/17/1226770336183.html

Unremembered dreams

So I have this week completely off work to study, and it's reminding me strangely (or perhaps not surprisingly) of those good old days of stuvac, when I would write songs or poetry to procrastinate from studying and as an outlet for my angst (while my creative side has been rather neglected recently, I'm glad that the days of angst are over). So I've been compiling a list of all the compositions I've done over the past years; they're scattered all over several notebooks, sheets of scrap paper, this blog and on files on my computer....along with many other "thought scribbles" and unfinished works, half-written lyrics without music....and I came across this on a word document on my computer, which I don't remember writing (so therefore must have been previously unpublished on this blog!) It's dated 21st May, 2006...how interesting to find snapshots of moments in one's past...


Unremembered dreams

Sometimes the moment passes by
And is lost forever
No second opportunity
For those bound by time

To think that moment could be like a thousand years to You

Sometimes you wake up
And in a fleeting moment
You remember what you dreamt last night
Sometimes it’s just the next day
Either way it’s soon forgotten

Do You know me while I’m sleeping?
I don’t know myself
While my eyes and mind are blind
In the darkness of night
Can I still find the light in You?

So wake me up
At the right time
Or I’ll be lost forever
Within the realm of unremembered dreams

Why don’t I feel You now
Am I all alone?
I don’t want to fall asleep while I don’t know You

So can you heal me now
I’ve just been waiting on my own
And I’ve been foolishly evading Your amazing grace

[21/05/06]

movie questions

Tagged again, this time by Cat:

1. One movie that made you laugh: The Incredibles, I watched it for the first time on TV a while ago and I think it's on again tonight...I thought it was the funniest animated film I'd seen in ages. And Monsters' Inc. Therese and I laughed our heads off when we watched that during one of our HSC "study" days at her place...

2. One movie that made you cry: The Lion King, the first time I watched it as a kid. And I'm ashamed to admit, Titanic...

3. One movie you loved when you were a child: Aladdin...loved the genie and the songs and all...

4. One movie you’ve seen more than once: The Sound of Music....watched that one quite a few times on video....

5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it: Haha, I used to love (and mostly still do) anything animated or Disney....including High School Musicals 1 and 2...cheesiness to the max but very enjoyable.

6. One movie you didn't like: Traffic...it was about drug trafficking and I had no idea what was going on in parts...

7. One movie that scared you: Those Alfred Hitchcock ones we watched on Angi's (?) laptop at Terrigal....Psycho and Rear Window and others. Also horror flicks like Shaun of the Dead....yuck (even though it's meant to be a comedy). And parts of The Da Vinci Code as well.

8. One movie that bored you: Hmmm not sure about this one, there was that Chinese arthouse film Pun made us see at Paddington, I can't even remember what it was called, so definitely I would have been slightly bored in that one.

9. One movie that made you happy: Amelie, that's a good feel-good one.

10. One movie that made you miserable: A Very Long Engagement - another Audrey Tautou film, but this one had a rather tragic ending. King Kong was quite tragic as well.

11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see: Um, not sure, there's probably a lot (judging from my answers to no. 7)

12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with: Legolas in The Two Towers was quite good, especially with the whole skateboarding down the flight of stairs on a shield while shooting arrows :P

13. The last movie you saw: At the cinemas it was Jumper....that was like at the beginning of the year. A bit disappointing that one.

14. The next movie you hope to see: High School Musical 3! :D LOL.... And Step Up 2 did look kinda cool too (Ok, so I'm into the whole singing/dancing in movies thing...)

15. Now tag five people: Not going to bother naming anyone specifically this time, but if you happen to be reading this and enjoy doing these things, go ahead :)

Laughing at myself

I've just been reading over some of my posts on this blog from the past year and a half....and it's so funny...!

And Burn Your Plastic Jesus with speaker Mark Driscoll is on TONIGHT at the Sydney Entertainment Centre! Been looking forward to it for a while...hope my friends come on time and that many people will have their views of Jesus challenged...

I've been tagged!

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

Thanks to Alicia who was concerned for the health of my blog ("barely alive; hanging by a thread..."), I now have something to post!

Unfortunately, the nearest book to me is the Australian Medicines Handbook 2008 Edition (aka "The AMH"), which is basically like "the bible" of the pharmacy profession...in fact, I was meant to be studying from it before I was distracted by Alicia's blog and found out I had been tagged.

This is rather hard seeing as the start of page 123 doesn't even have proper sentences...but here is an excerpt from that page...I'm in the Antibiotics chapter, in the Penicillins section, in the drug monograph of ampicillin:

[under heading "Indications" (i.e. what it's used for)]

Exacerbation of chronic bronchitis, community-acquired pneumonia
Gonococcal infection, UTI
Non-surgical prophylaxis of endocarditis
Acute cholecystitis, peritonitis, epididymo-orchitis, acute pyelonephritis, acute prostatitis

Riveting. Although, there's quite a few interesting "-itis" 's in there, maybe I should look them up.

Yay, now I can tag 5 people...even though hardly anyone reads or updates blogs anymore....

1. Cat
2. Pun
3. J Chow
4. Kazzart
5. Alex Fung

Have fun!

Back to the AMH...

Argh it's the end of June!

hmmm proper post coming soon.....or later....

Eurovision!

Well as Alicia kindly pointed out, it's nearly the end of this month and I haven't posted yet, so thought I'd just write about something generic...

So last weekend was the first time I'd ever watched the SBS broadcast of the annual Eurovision Song Contest...and surprisingly, it was rather entertaining (and also mildly amusing in parts). Some of the performances were pretty tacky, but there were others that were quite good. Loved the wit and sarcasm of the UK commentator as well...

Anyway, the Albanian entry was my favourite one, even though they only came 17th or something...the vocals weren't perfect, but the singer is only 16, so thought it was pretty good considering....Have no idea what she's singing as it's not in English, but apparently the title translates as "Hearts Trapped in Time". Hmmm...anyway, it had a good melody, and I liked the guitar part in it too :) Go Albania!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqqblwBvubA

Trying to maintain at least one post a month!

Wow this blog is getting very dusty....and so are my writing skills!

So what has been happening? Well March was busy with the first PGTC assignment, April has been rather busy with weddings and other social things, and May is looking to be rather busy with 21sts and PGTC assignment B (which hopefully will be over soon, since my preceptor wants to cram 5 weeks' worth of prac assessments into 3!) Anyway this year is flying past, I'm rather scared I'll come to the end of all this training and suddenly find myself a pharmacist who doesn't know anything! Surprisingly, half of what I do at the moment at work is quite brainless, which is a bit worrying, really...

Retail pharmacy is a strange balance between an exercise in marketing and providing healthcare...I mean, am I trying to sell something, or give health advice? There are pharmacists at both extremes, sometimes I feel like I don't have the skills to do either very well, so I'm kind of stuck in the middle.

Hmmm...

This is cool...

http://www.maniacworld.com/frozen-in-grand-central-station.html

Don't worry, I'm still alive...

:) :) :)

Christmas Carols Medley

Hark the Herald/Joy to the World/O Come All Ye Faithful

(Arrangements Veronica Abednego 2006)