Feast Awaits!

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A New Stitch-ie with Many Faces
Yeah! Now I have another Stitch joining my Stitch "family"... today a dear friend gave me another Stitch for my birthday and this Stitch changes face :)



Nice? Haha, this Stitch will keep my surfing Stitch in office company...

Hurtful Words
Today, I made a decision to "confront" a friend about her choice of words, which can somewhat be hurtful. It has happened a few times over sms and I just kept asking myself whether I am just being too sensitive (since I could be a bit overly sensitive at times and read too much into things). But after a few times exchanging sms and getting hurt, I find that I just need to be frank with her and share with her how her choice of words could sometimes hurt me. (Picture "Words" by BJN)

I got to know this sister-in-christ some months ago. She is extremely introverted and to a certain extent, I sometimes see myself in her as well. She was going through some emotional struggles with her career and one of my sisters-in-christ was supporting her. However, I later learnt that they had a minor conflict due to a clash in personality. I started to provide support during that time and we exchanged smses. Interestingly, we seldom talk face-to-face but mostly through sms (for example, when walking in a group last week, we said very little to one another). Recently, she told me that that sister-in-christ shared with her how her EQ might need some brushing up.

Over the past couple of weeks, I received a couple of sms that, in my opinion, can be hurting. For example, we were talking over sms about finding a job and I was suggesting that she might want to consider part-time and maybe slowly find a job which she like, especially since she had been jobless for more than a year now and didn't seem to be coping well emotionally. She messaged back that she know how to handle her life. Maybe I am being too "kaypoh". I can't remember the other times (don't really want to keep tabs of these kind of things).

Today, I made the decision to be frank with her about her choice of words and how it hurted me. I did say that I might have been over sensitive too... but her reply was that I shouldn't read too much into things which irritates her...

I understand some of the struggles she is going through and can also empathise how difficult it could be. Anyway, I really thank God for giving me the courage to tell her about how I feel about her choice of words. I did share with her I am not confronting her to find fault but to hopefully to help each other to grow and to be frank about things. In the end, we both agreed to let the matter rest and that she mentioned that she will be more tactful with her choice of words. Am not sure if I did the right thing.

A Feast Awaits

Food by RDSDESIGN

I was having lunch with another colleague today and we were discussing about the Christian faith. I like an analogy that he shared about we should live our lives as Christians. The bible has given us good guidelines for living Christ-like lifes; the 10 commandments. But yet, the 10 commandments can yet be summarized into 2 simple principles... (1) love God and (2) love thy neighbour... Indeed, imagine how better a place the world will be when this is true...

There was this God-fearing couple who loved each other and most importantly, they loved God. Both passed on one night and being faithful Christians, they were assured eternal life with God in heaven. They were greeted at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter who welcomed them. "Welcome to heaven and since you will be here eternally, spending time with God, what would you like to have?"

The old man, after deliberating for a while, responded, "since we are going to be here eternally, we will not know what hell is like, can we take a short tour of hell?" St. Peter agrees and brings them on a short tour of hell.

Now, it was lunch time in hell and the old couple and St. Peter saw a large table with a feast laid down right before them. They saw that everybody sat around the table and held on to extremely long chopsticks. There was so much good food around but no one seem to be enjoying it because everytime someone takes some food for themselves, the food will fall off from the chopsticks on the "way back". There was much bickering and disharmony around.

Malaysian Gourmet by krisssssen
(OK, I love dim sum too, so got to have a picture of dim sum :))

"OK, we have seen enough" said the old man and they were brought back to heaven. Later in the day, they were brought to the dining hall where a feast was laid down in front of them... "wow, do you usually have feasts like these when you welcome someone new?" asked the old lady. "No, this is a commonsight everyday."

It was the same feast and everyone was using the same long chopsticks but everyone enjoyed the dinner. The old couple observed that, unlike in hell, everyone here used the chopsticks to get food for their neighbours opposite them.

At the end of the whole story, my colleague shared with me: "God is fair, he gives us all the same things but it is the attitude that matters..." Indeed, do we love thy neighbour and most importantly, love God?