Serving in Worship

The days are passing quite monotonously. Well, almost but not quite. I almost don't feel like blogging, but it's a habit I'll like to keep up. So here goes :)

Yesterday we had worship practice - combined by youth, campus and acts. Actually the majority there were the youths. There were very few from campus too. in fact I was the only one from campus in the choir. There was one ex-Acts member there too, Alanie. Other than her, no one from Acts was in Choir. I guess it was a weekday and people were tired from work.

I'm a person of inertia, and it's hard for me to up and about unless I really want to. Even walking from Block 5 to Comm hall is some kind of chore if I have nothing to do there. So I wasn't like 100% raring to go for worship practice. But then I went, and it God was good to me. In fact I took the worship with me home and the songs were still ringing in my ears when I was in bed. Especially the song Offering. I realized that I had been giving God shallow offerings everyday, through devo and worship. And I think He's worth so much more than that.

I like worship. I remember just the day when I was going home I was helping Ms Chia with some songs, and they realized that I wasn't playing piano for church over here in Singapore. (But I have played for Campus though, twice I think). Last time I sang with the Choir once when I was in youth and campus.

Last time when I was still in secondary school, I was pianist for our youth choir. And I loved to play. I always think the best place to be in the choir was to be behind the piano when people are out there singing in front. And true, you're always not in the pictures when people take pictures of the Choir team, and no once can see your face, or even notice much of your music either. But back then every song was a challenge - they had to be unique, they had to be played differently, and I try to make repetitions sound different. The piano was the only source of music - no drums, no e-guitars, not even the e-piano to cover it. Those are nice additions, but not when people are not in sync. That's why usually I prefer playing on my own more.

I always think the best place for me is behind the piano, and now I'm singing in the Choir. And I realize that I love it too.

Back in Tampin I'm not exactly known for being able to sing :) There are always this batch of 'singers' who always backup those in front. I suppose my ability to sing is overshadowed by my ability to play. After all you can't always serve in two things at the same time. And it's fair because everyone gets to serve in one way or other. I never knew I had a good pitch, and a nice voice, till I came to NUS. (I hope this is not bragging.) I think Choir training in Raffles Hall brought it out. It made me like singing too. In a choir, not on my own.

I think God always equips me in the ways I need to serve him. I realize that my voice somehow sounds much better when I'm in Singapore and when I need to sing, as compared to the times when I come home. It always goes away when I'm at home - or let's say, becomes less inferior. And in contrast, I always play best when I'm playing in worship - not when I'm fooling around, or just practicing away in that old piano at home. Somehow it just comes. And I thank God for always supplying what I need at the right time. Just enough for Him to use, not too much that I brag, nor too little that I do have enough.

Thank God for letting us worship Him! I always like the way one pastor described worship. He said that many people come to worship desiring to be fulfilled or get something from worship. They say things like 'oh, I received so much from worship today!' But actually, worship is an act of giving! It's giving everything to God, our praises, our obedience, our commitments, surrendering. You got to worship to give, not receive. But we are made to worship, so that's why we love to worship God :) Many people come to worship to take away, not to give.

I wonder in the coming semester I would be able to give more in my worship. Will pray about it. :)

Back In Singapore

I'm back in Singapore and RH now. Got a room at Block 5, room 5-217. It's a double room but I'm currently the only occupant there. Wonder when my unknown roomie would suddenly pop in. Somehow I always get double rooms that act like single double rooms. LOL.

More than half my stuff is still unpacked and are in Jon's room. I've just got enough things around me to live by (except paper).

The train trip back was quite tiring. Couldn't really sleep well on the train, partially because I was feeling really homesick then. Was crying on and off in the first few hours of the trip. Must be partly the effect of the nice dinner Po Po cooked for me before I left.

RHOM hasn't started working yet. Lucky people who got the first half of the vacation! Some of them practically had nothing to do. And I can foresee that in the weeks to come, those of us who are here are going to have a really awful time sourcing for all those float materials. The list comes late, they rush us for materials, we rush the sourcing, they rush the work. Without freshies, together with the slow rate the materials come in, I wonder if they could even finish things on time. They are going to need a lot of hands indeed.

I went to the Central Library again, and did a bit of self-studying. Next semester's materials require a firm grounding of basic understanding, and hopefully I get to bursh up my basics before school starts! I was quite disappointed when I had my lunch at YIH. They took my favorite cheese/mushroom omelette off the menu (and it was only $1.50), and left other items with increased food prices :( Don't think I'll be eating much over there again.

RHOM will have our first meeting tomorrow. Hope all will turn out well. Meanwhile I shall enjoy the nice Agatha Christie murder mysterey I managed to borrow from the library. I'm jolly lucky to have in my hands one of the very few stories she wrote from the Central Library. I wonder why they don't keep the whole set! Furthermore, the cover looks really unimpressive, just a black hardcover book - in contrast to those nice glossy covers of the copies found in my secondary school library. Well, I guess in the end it's the contents that matters!

Helping others?

I'm in a very idle state these days, but surprisingly enough my mind is not. I guess playing computer games does in a way benefit me, as I usually go through issues with myself while playing. Issues I wouldn't have thought of, or specially allocated some me-time to think about.

Just wondering why I don't seem to be able to help people much these two years. In fact progress has been so backward, that I've given up caring to know how these persons are getting along.

Is it because people just don't want to be helped, or I don't care enough? Or do I care enough, but am just doing things my own way?

I'm not like this. And I wonder why I'm like this. Worse still, sometimes you put your hands behind your back, don't want to care, but there's this little voice nagging in your head saying, "What if?". What if I cared again, would it make a difference?

I know I can't keep going on like this, but part of me still wants to stop because I'm too afraid of the discouragements ahead. And people around aren't being too encouraging about it either.

Sigh. One day I'll really have to face myself about this. But when?

An Update for Tirza

Tirza said I don't blog much lately, so here's an update for her. Actually, I did update - once every two days! But then again she's right in a way - I do blog much lesser now, since last semester. Somehow the drive for blogging isn't quite there.

I deleted a whole long passage I was typing. I'm quite protective when it comes to blogging and I believe certain private issues should be left to the diary or private blogs (well locked up). Ranting can prove to be dangerous and might lead to explosive catastrophes, if not attended to properly.

Sigh. Dear diary. I miss you. Why is it that you're always in Singapore when I need you?

Anyway, on other news - I'm bringing back a new laptop this semester! It's newer, has a smaller screen and is lighter. I think it's quite cute. It has much more storage space too. My Dad helped me install MATLAB into it, and without thinking much, I asked him to put in the entire games of the GameHouse collection in my comp at home into it too. Now I kind of regret doing that. Might prove fatal during stress-periods.

Tsai Sheng is coming back to Tampin next week. He just has to come back from Russia at this time of the year, just in time for me to miss his coming back! This is so irritating.

I'm going back to Singapore next Monday for Orientation Marketing work - which, I don't have a clue of what I'm supposed to do after I'm back. I hope Float materials aren't too hard to source for. Last year, Zhi Jun spent so much time just looking for buttons, and those paper cups took practically forever. As for the blue sponge, which I was in charge of, it turned out to be shockingly expensive. And you would think sponge is something really cheap to acquire. But worst of the worst was the dry leaves. We gathered two big bags for them (mind you, it wasn't easy, bending down and collecting, and choosing nicely shaped leaves all around the hall compound), but in the end they didn't use it! On top of that, all our nights were spent looking for bottle caps.

UFO 4 is on 13 July, and to Malaysian NUS seniors to want to help out (from RH), please let me know, so that I can plan out something for hall helpers. There won't be freshies from RH this year, but then, we might need to help out freshies from other halls. I don't think they will need too much help this year though. It seems like hall seniors are getting more and more involved in MSL as the years go by, which is a good thing.

Guess I'll end my blog here today. Don't worry, Tirza, maybe I'll be so bored back in hall that I will blog as frequently as I did last year.