Tag: delight

ありがとう日本!

Tina 1 Comment

When I was a kid, I fell in love with the Sailormoon series. I loved it so much that everyone in school associated it with me, and I even cried several times when I missed it, or when I watched a particular episode where they all died and such. It was my first introduction to anime, and I thought that because I loved Sailormoon, I would probably like other anime, too. Eventually, I watched some, and then because I was such an otaku (or so I thought), I found this how to speak Japanese booklet at home and started trying to learn it, because I thought it was cool and all that.

Then I just lost interest, and never really looked back. (Except when I catch some Sailormoon episodes that they air here every now and then.)

Here’s the thing: I never had Japan in my bucket list. I have friends who love everything Japan and Japanese – from music to food to TV shows and all that, and every time they talk about it, I just nod politely and listen. It’s not that I didn’t want to go – I just didn’t have it in my list of places I wanted to go to. I wasn’t as fascinated with Japan as I was with New York City, or Europe.

Then late last year, a friend called me and asked if I wanted to go to Osaka because there was a seat sale and they were about to book a flight. Being a Yes-girl to a lot of travel stuff like that (which is how I got to go to Jakarta last year in the first place), I said yes, and then ta-da! I had a ticket to Japan!

I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t do much research until a few weeks before the trip when we were working out our itinerary. We had five days there – less, because we arrive in the evening on our first day – and there was just so much that everyone in our group of 9 wanted to do. In the end, after we got our visas, we decided to go crazy over it: Osaka – Tokyo – Kyoto. All in five days.

Let me tell you: it was ambitious and achievable, but prepare for aching feet, long rides, and very quick stops. Because friends, three cities in five days = crazy. Even more so, Japan in five days = NOT. ENOUGH.

Time to let the pictures speak for themselves! (Photo dump!)

大阪

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It was raining on our first night, and we got lost on our way to the hotel. :D
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First group selfie at the hotel! :D
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The next morning, near the Osaka Castle. :)

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Lost in Transition

Tina 1 Comment

So I open my laptop today, after using it last night, and found myself staring at the stats of the Facebook page that I now handle for work. Then I thought, Cut it out, Tina. It’s Saturday.

This day a month ago was a Wednesday, and it was my first day at my new role at work. I wanted to blog about it, but things got really busy with our SFC Christian Life Program and then the Japan trip and then the transition at work that I couldn’t find the time, and now it’s just a month later that I am finally telling myself to sit down and write if I care for my sanity at all.

So hello, there, random blog readers. I missed writing. I missed a lot of things that I used to do before I jumped into this new role, namely slacking off. Or, I mean, doing all the other things I do. But yeah, slacking off, too, I guess. ^^

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t hate this at all. It’s a tad bit stressful, because many of the things I do are new to me and I’m scared of messing up and I like being in control but everything’s so unpredictable sometimes that I just want to scream in frustration, and that kind of makes it feel like I hate it. But I don’t. When things go right – and most of the times, they do – I feel very happy. And I like being challenged. It’s just when things happen fast and I have to deal with the stuff I need to do, then I remember all the free time I had before this, I feel like maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to this, that I shouldn’t have jumped.

But will I even be really happy if I didn’t jump? Won’t I regret knowing that I didn’t take this chance, simply because I didn’t want to be stressed?

So these are most of the thoughts that come into my mind in the past month. I tell myself to quit worrying, that it’s just work, and you don’t have to bring it home. Of course there are times when I had to take phone calls when I’m already out of the office, but it’s okay because I learn a lot about it. And it teaches me about necessary sacrifices. And it keeps me on my toes.

Some days, though, I just feel so tired.

“Of course you feel that way. You’re still in transition.”

One office friend told me that, when we happen to go into the office at the same time and I told her about this. She also told me, “The Lord is so good, He’s always watching over you.” And it was Truth. Because I really did pray for this, for change, for something new, and I knew for a fact that this was His plan that unfolded before my eyes. It’s just that I had this wrong expectation that when God’s plan unfolds before me, it will all be smooth sailing.

But hasn’t last year taught me that it’s not? Hasn’t my year of being brave told me that if anything, when God’s plan happens, it will always, always require me to hold on to Him a little more tighter?

Sometimes I think I expect too much of myself. Wait, scratch that – I do expect a lot from myself. I’m so scared of messing up sometimes, of disappointing the people, that I worry about everything to the nth power. But all of this is new to me, and different, and no one expects me to get it all right at at once – the one who expects that is just myself…and I shouldn’t listen to that. And I tell myself, over and over again, not to worry, because it’s useless, and don’t I know the One who has power over everything, and He’s got me? He’s always got me.

Funny how that could easily get lost in all the rush of the day.

In a way, I see this as a perfect exercise to choose joy, to take delight. Because again: Joy and delight are not happy feelings; they are choices to let love win. They are the choice to trust that love triumphant. Sometimes I don’t know what this love is, and then I remember that I know who Love is, and it’s God, and being joyful means trusting that God is always victorious. Always.

So this is what’s happening lately – transition.

Will you pray with me about this? :)

My name is Forgiven

Tina 2 Comments

As soon as the Easter Vigil was done on midnight of Sunday morning, I felt an overwhelming sense of joy. It’s Easter, people! The tomb is empty! Jesus is risen! The Glory of God has defeated the night! Hallelujah!

And it was an amazing kind of joy, of delight, to know that it is Easter and Jesus is victorious, as He always is. Over the Holy Week, I pondered over how his disciples must have felt, right after Jesus expired on the cross. I couldn’t even fathom the idea of their pain, of their sense of loss and how life could possibly be after their friend was buried in the tomb. They didn’t know that Jesus was going to rise on Sunday. Jesus spoke of it, but I’m sure it was hard to understand then. What’s all this rising again mumbo-jumbo? Why is our friend speaking of death? Surely he didn’t mean it that way.

Then I realized that I actually knew that pain. I felt it, too. I felt it in a miniscule way when every time I was disappointed, I felt it in a bigger way in the times when my heart got broken. I knew a variation of that pain, that sense of loss in realizing that what I had known for the past few days, weeks, months, years is just…gone. And there is nothing I can do to get it back.

Of course I knew that pain.

Earlier in Holy Week, I was reflecting on Jesus’ pain as the week went by. Apparently, Holy Wednesday is also known as Spy Wednesday, because it was day when Judas went to the Pharisees to turn Jesus in. The Gospel that day felt like a knife to my heart:

Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priestsand said, “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?” And they weighed out thirtypieces of silver to him.From then on he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Jesus. (Matthew 24:14-16)

I could only imagine Jesus’ pain then, knowing that one of his closest friends betrayed him. For thirty pieces of silver. There was so much pain for him in the next few days, but I think the pain of this betrayal — and Peter’s later denial — was even worse than the pain of the crown and the scourging and the nails.

How terrible it is to be betrayed by a friend.

Even more terrible when I realized that there is very little difference between me and Judas.

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