an old friend popped up an FB message recently, someone very dear to me.
someone who i once pursued in the past but fate seemed to be against us somehow.
she asked how have i been and if i had any plans coming to singapore.
i could lie and say no, thinking why should i be entertaining something with emotional baggage like this, knowing she’s already a family woman with 2 kids.
i was thinking how should i protect my emotional health and move away from this kind of thing.
and suddenly, out of the blue, something popped up in my mind: i’m also running away from other things in my past.
things that made me reluctant to face my old friends from the past.
things that deep down in my heart i know: i owe them my honesty.
not that i cheated them financially or anything like that, God forbid (financial sins do have huge social costs: it severely limits your physical movements as well as emotional freedom).
no, none of that kind. i owe them honesty because in the past i wasn’t being authentic enough. subconsciously i gave them a version of myself that was…well…half true.
to illustrate this, just last nite, over a course of a normal chattery dinner we joked about some girls in college who made themselves “available” commercially. i told them thats quite common, girls making extra money on the side, as some of them may not be too well off.
but something caught me offguard: when they mentioned the price of how much they are selling themselves. GOSH…it’s just equivalent to 1-2 times of fine dining. WTF, really.
a bit of sadness creeped in.
and then i asked, which was a huge mistake, in comparison how much is the going rate at the local red district area? and so quickly they pound on me “what??? you dunno whats the going rate? r u gay???”
no, am so not gay, in case you readers are wondering.
i’m just living in a world so protected from taboos of life.
back in my good old uni days in Sydney, i presented myself with squeaky clean morality and reputation that i never (in my 7 years there!) even once went to a strip bar in Kings Cross.
my weekends were spent in fellowship and church, discussing theological issues, but never got anywhere near the “world”.
oh yeah we know stuffs, but we spent very little exercise on how to love God and love others.
how to increase our surrendered-ness to God.
how to have more faith.
and other “soft” things the Bible speaks about so loudly and yet we ignored because it’s more juicy to discuss about more “hard” stuffs like inerrancy of scripture, the reformed doctrines, TULIP, etc etc.
(and many times even when i felt running away from “ministries” i forced myself anyway, in the name of “not being a stumbling block”, being “obedient”, etc)
my adventure only went as far as renting R-rated videos in my nothing-to-do afternoons.
lame huh?
and so i graduated from all that, with no skills to handle life.
now repeat after me: NO SKILLS. because I was to busy playing it clean n safe tat I didnt let myself / my personality gets formed naturally through rich variety of experiences of life.
as i grow up, now that i’m in my late 30s, i realise how equally important authenticity is to good reputation. dun sacrifice one for the other.
that life is an adventure to be lived.
that mistakes (including grammar mistakes, ha!) are a part of life.
that God’s grace covers those mistakes.
the picture on top (i’m sure you’re wondering) speaks of purity and openness and…”here i am. this is me. i got nothing to hide.” moment.
thanks for reading.
Grace Alternative 