Problems

(i'd written this a long time ago. i can't remember why i didn't post it.)

I'd attended a leadership seminar by Chester Wright earlier this year. I'd expected workshops on leadership, how to lead, how to care for your followers, etc.

I got a whole bunch of lessons that seems irrelevant at first. (Of course, when you get an 'at first', you know there's a twist somewhere further down the line.)

One of those lessons was basically this:

Jesus never promised that if we follow Him, all our problems would be solved. Instead, we'll have the peace, the joy, the hope, to be able to endure all things.




And yet, it isn't wrong to say that Jesus did promise us that all our problems would be solved if we follow Him and bear His cross.

The meaning's the same, only different phrasings are used.

What is a problem?

I've come to realize that a real, true problem, is a situation that even God wants to change, and plans to, if only we let Him.

Most of the 'problems' I've encountered and are encountering, stayed and is staying, even after prayer.

I believe there's nothing barring my prayers from being heard from God (yes, this is possible) so He'd heard them. I believe that God loves me. I believe that God answers prayers.

So when He answers 'No' when I ask Him to help me take away a problem, I know, or maybe I let myself think, that this is another fire I have to go through.

Those aren't problems. They are to me, but to God they are simply trials. No use just taking trials away, especially not when He knows there's a lesson I need to learn or an experience I need to obtain.

Experiences are important. You never know when you need to draw on a particular experience to be able to learn a lesson properly.

Back on the subject. If our faith in God is extremely strong, then perhaps we will be able to see all the poop of life simply as trials. There are no problems. I won't be seeing something as a problem if it doesn't or will not be causing me strife or anger.

Someone's going to chop off my leg. Is that a problem? No. I'll lose a leg, but if losing a leg won't make me sad or angry or hurt or blah, then it's simply not a problem. (Nevertheless I think most of us really appreciate having both legs functioning properly so this is generally a big problem.)

Too bad (Or is it...?) not many, if any at all, of us have that kind of faith in God.




Carmelia has a tendency to not view something as a problem, and if she kinda double-visions something as a problem and yet is not, that's very probably because since it's going to be a problem for a loved one, which by itself is then a problem for Carmelia.

I'm not blowing any trumpets here, and especially not my own (Or am I?) I don't think my ability to forget about problems or view them lightly is because of how awesome and great and strong my faith in God is (It's NOT). Someone told me before that it has something to do with this defense mechanism I'd subconsciously built into my brain. Anything unhappy or unsettling, and it's PAP into the shredding machine, you mean little problem.

Unfortunately when you shred something, it doesn't disappear. It only becomes shredded into many, many pieces, which get mixed up with other many, many, many pieces of problems, which then all clutter up the place.

And when you realize, oh, there's a lesson there, somewhere...

Well, it's probably difficult enough to find a lesson on a piece of problem. To find a shredded lesson in the midst of gazillions shreds of pieces of problems?




ANYWAY (I digressed, now I have to scroll back up to remember what the skeleton of this post is)

Recently Jerry's ice cream fell off the cone and onto the carpet. Guess what I did? I laughed, and got a really angry, non-playful punch from dear brother.

I was writing a really good, really long chapter once, but because of some fault of the computer, nothing was saved. The frustration lasted as long as a snap of fingers, and I was happily thinking, hey, I'm improving my memory and writing skills by rewriting the whole thing again.

Coffee, family pet dearest, passed away. I didn't mind. Yeah, very cold of me. Some of my friends were (they seemed anyway) devastated. I was thinking, now I can get my bunnies, we don't have to risk getting bit, no more having to tie up the dog when we need to open the gate, no more noisy nights...

I crashed an Avanza with three family members in it. Though it was a trauma afterwards, the first few minutes after it happened? I was laughing quietly, thinking about how I have another good story to tell friends.



SICK. I can't type in anymore examples lest any readers here start to think I'm a cold-hearted psycho who laughs and is gleeful at anything and everything. I can't remember anymore anyway, I think the defense mechanism's working again.

I'm not, okay? I cry at stupid little things, things that aren't problems. Like that dog who had no hind-legs and was dragging itself happily over the road near the burnt-down Servay. Like Jimmy, the student who committed suicide.

But when faced with a problem or a disaster, and given time to think... I just...

I don't really know what I do. I do analyze myself a lot, but I just can't remember the outcome, and I can't be bothered to record them immediately before I forget (I don't want to have to get scolded by mum for blogging about every little thing.)






It rained extremely heavily last week. Somehow I got stuck at Centre Point. I wanted to roam the place, drift around a bit after the heavy-duty lifestyle at camp. Basically, the evening was an unusual one, as in, it wasn't as comfortable as my other evenings were. The pretty white slippers I had on easily slipped off when wet, being plastic, so I couldn't run across the slightly flooded road. I might accidentally leave a shoe on the road and try to get it back and get hit by a car. I was cold, I'd left my jacket over at church. Dad kept postponing coming to fetch me, because it was superbly jammed on the roads. Mum wasn't happy that I wasn't home immediately after camp. I had no appetite to eat, and I didn't want to use any money, but I ended up at SR for a piece of apple crumble, since it was the cheapest food item on the menu. Stanely was there, bless him. Someone else was around too, bless him. After that I finally forced myself to cross the road, limping so that the slippers won't slip off my feet, get to church, which was locked, sat on the stairs waiting for someone to come open the door...

That seems like a horrible evening for me. It didn't FEEL horrible, not now, not at the time, because I was just being myself, all happy and thankful for what I have and knowing that I don't have the right to complain, etc. But that, I think, counts as a bad evening.

Maybe I'm wrong, because maybe I'm a little princess whose worst experiences are like fairy cakes compared to other people's okay-lah experiences.

Maybe I'm right, and I have a lot more of these horrible experiences that I can't describe because I'd never thought of them as 'horrible' at all.

Nana just sent me a text saying she'd slipped in front of the boys (She's at Melaka) and it was embarrassing. Followed by an 'XD'

XD usually means GOSH! smilingly.

Hey, she has that upbeat attitude too.

Maybe all of us has.

So why do I sometimes have to hide my smile in the face of a disaster?... To avoid people thinking that I'm happy that something horrible has happened, I think.

I'm not happy that something horrible has happened... I'm just happy to know that I have a God, He will be there for me, I just have to surrender, and though I'll still have to fight and struggle, I can be assured He's around.