“Dear Jesus, I acknowledge the fact that I am a sinner and that you loved me so much that you died and paid the penalty for my sin so that I may have eternal life. I believe that because you died and rose again, I have received the gift of eternal life. Thank you for cleansing me of my sin through your death on the cross and for accepting me now as your child. Teach me and direct me through Your Word and Your Spirit to discover your purpose and will for my life. Amen.”

Until now, the memory of me saying this prayer is still so fresh in my mind, me on that cold concrete pavement in the freezing cold past midnight…saying it without fully believing it, saying it with reckless abandon, saying it because perhaps all along, I was searching more to this life, I was searching for greater purpose and meaning to this thing we call Life…perhaps inside my heart, all along, I was thinking, “There must be more to this life than what I can see now.” Don’t despair if you say this prayer, and the earth doesn’t shake with groundbreaking force or angels don’t mysteriously appear and sing ‘Hallelujah’. Because the moment you say this prayer, heaven is rejoicing, for you have been reconciliated to God the Father and your name has been written in the book of eternity. Just like the time when I prayed this prayer, and it seemed like nothing happened. Then I continued pursuing God, and my whole world shifted from henceforth. Draw near to Him, and He will draw near to you. Shall His word return void? Not, in all eternity.

I did it because I know of a God, a God whose love is so complete, so all-round, so eternal.

A bursting forward, a pouring over.

That moment…that moment when I gave my heart to Jesus, that moment changed everything, changed forever, changed eternity, rewrote history.

That moment when I was dunked backwards fully submerged in the water, now that I think back, that moment was like as though I was drowning in his love, over and over and over again.

God has so much more in store. Let Heaven rain and unleash multitudes of blessings over and over again.

The magnitude of God’s love, how wide, how high, how eternal…the human mind can never fathom.

I would give Him everything, including my life.”

I got water baptised today in church, in front of hundreds and hundreds of people.

I got into the spa pool, the pastor placed her hand on my forehand, and said, “I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” I was too focused on the spotlight to even pay clear attention to anything the pastor was saying. I was told to pose for the cameras, and all I could think of was how eye-blindingly bright the spotlight of the camera, lights and everything else were. It was like everything was a blur. And, then I sat down, and was brought down backwards into the pool, fully submerged underneath, and then as fast as I had been pulled in, I was pulled out of the water and lifted up again. The pastors prayed over me, and I got out of the pool. I made my way outside, and the first thought that hit me was how freezing cold it was. I was soaking wet, my clothes thoroughly drenched, as I made my way to the prayer team outside.

Water baptism is a significant ceremony for a Christian believer, it is an act of obedience, and it is following in the footsteps of Jesus, because Jesus himself was baptized in the Jordan River. But, you know what? I thought water baptism wasn’t such a big deal, it was just like the time I got saved two years ago, and I saw my friend’s face lit up with a kind of happiness that I have never ever seen before (and never ever saw again), and how she yeaped for joy and couldn’t stop smiling and making a big hooha over it. In my mind, I thought, “Ok. Yeah. I got saved. So what? Whatever.”

It was only after some time later that I realized the impact of my decision, a decision that would change my entire life. When I told my friends that I was going to be water baptized, all of their reactions were the same, “I am so excited for you!” One friend told me that to her, my water baptising was like a friend getting married. So I began to think, “Ok, maybe water baptism is a HUGE deal after all!” And, so my anticipation began building up.

Now, as I made my way to the prayer team outside, my hands and legs were shaking from the coldness as my skin came into contact with the wintry temperatures of the auditorium. I shivered, and dragged my feet along. The prayer team prayed over me. Suddenly, this woman said,

“I can see that you are a very quiet person.”

Something in me snapped. I looked into her eyes immediately, her face a hazy mess with my blurry vision. If she wanted my attention, she got it.

She said it again, this time differently, “I sense that you are a quiet person.”

I looked at her. WAIT A MINUTE. HOW DOES SHE KNOW THAT?! I DON’T EVEN KNOW THIS PERSON, IT’S MY FIRST TIME MEETING HER, AND SHE CAN BRING MY PERSONALITY DOWN INTO A SNAPSHOT IN A BLINK OF AN EYE.

She continued, “You are known as a quiet person, that’s the opinion other people have of you. But, God’s word says otherwise. You are a quiet person, but inside you is a beautiful heart. You are called to be a person of BOLDNESS. I sense in you a spirit of boldness, and so right now, I call upon you boldness. For God has not given you a spirit of timidity and fear….”

Something inside me snapped again. The morning before the baptism service, God gave me a verse over and over again, “For God did not give you a spirit of fear and timidity, but of love…” Over and over and over again, that verse ran through my head the entire day, I was even saying it aloud in my room, over and over again. And, here, this woman was telling me about boldness!!!!!!!

Boldness!!! What I yearn for!!!! God knows my heart’s deepest desires!!! I am bold, but I need more boldness, I need greater boldness, a kind of boldness that is so godly. My prayer this morning, or even this week or month, was the eradication of fear and timidity, and God knows!!!!

And then when the pastor said, “I REBUKE EVERY SINGLE OPINION THAT HAS BEEN SAID OVER HER, THEY ARE NOT FROM GOD, AND SO I REBUKE IT. AND I CALL UPON HER A NEW SPIRIT OF BOLDNESS.”

I broke down and began sobbing uncontrollably. I had signed up for the baptism service, thinking it was just another service, just like I had gone to a church camp, thinking it was just another camp, and here I was, soaking wet, hair dripping with water, hands shaking, feet trembling, crying like a mad woman because of…

AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD.

Sooooooooo surreal. Just the night before, I was reading an article I wrote about a year ago, about how everyone’s opinions of me in the past were quiet, quiet, quiet.

But, precious, the way God views us is so different from the way people view us. The way God treats us is so different from the way people treat us. The way God loves us is so different from the way people love us.

Another pastor said, “You will be baptized in the Spirit. You will do great things, but you will have to rely on the strength of the Holy Spirit and the Father, and NOT on your own strength! One day, you are going to prophesize over others, you are going to speak words over their lives!”

Again, another bingo. Another jackpot. Totally got me there. Everything I needed wanted desired to hear, God gave me back plus tenfold.

As I made my way out of the service, an indescribable sense of pure unadulterated joy flooded me.

Suddenly, sitting in the auditorium with clean, dry clothes, listening to the pastor preaching and letting every single word fly over my head, God’s love just poured over me like torrential rain.

How do I even describe it?!!!!! I cannot…my words cannot do Him justice! My friend once tried to describe God in words, and she ended up in tears before she even began. I think about God…and I end up in tears!!!!!!

I cannot even begin to describe the kind of feeling, the kind of pouring over.

Water baptism is symbolic of Jesus rising from the dead, a washing away of the past, a cleansing of the past, it is turning your back on your past and starting a new life again afresh, anew.

My friend, there is a tomb there is empty!!!!! Jesus is risen from the dead!!!! While the flesh of saints rotted and settled into dust and bones, there is a Risen Savior that has walked free from the grave!!!! He died and rose again, all for the sake of humanity!!!

I don’t even remember a single word – except for “I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” – that the pastor said when I got water baptized in the pool, but yet it was such a powerful encounter with God, and once again, it is a moment in my life that I will never ever forget.

I remembered two years ago when I walked through the “prophetic tunnel”, the leaders in the church all prophesied the same thing . And, this time as I walked through the tunnel, it was a very different word indeed. The leaders – the majority of whom I do not know personally – were prophesying stuff over me that echoed my own thoughts and desires. No more about “a father-daughter relationship”. This time, it was about a “renewing of the mind” — exactly what I have been praying for and the very core of my heart’s desire.

The moment I walked in, hours late, sunk into a chair right into the shadows at the back, I couldn’t stop crying. It was a dance segment, i.e. nothing about it was supposed to make you cry. But, it made me, because the presence of the Lord always make me cry at the most inappropriate moments! I remembered once, during an offering message, with everyone poker-faced sitting around me, and the pastor on stage saying the most non-emotional stuff, there I was, crying my heart out. The person sitting next to me had to hand over a tissue, which was embarrassing, because I barely knew her at all.

Kleenex is a must at church. I must try to remember that.

So, as people emerged from the “tunnel”, they were weeping their hearts out. Even guys who I’ve never seen crying were wiping away tears from their eyes. And, me? Nothing. Just poker-face, blank-face. And, I was like, “OK, thanks, God, thanks for always making me cry when no one else around me is. And thanks for the blank emotions when everyone is crying their hearts out.”

So, I was sitting there all by myself, deeply immersed in my own thoughts – which was threatening to drown me out – when suddenly this girl whom I barely knew came over and sat right next to me.

She had been sitting one row ahead, a couple of seats away from me, and as she was sitting there, the Lord spoke to her and said, “Go to that girl sitting over there (i.e. me) and tell her how much I love her, and that I am going to fill her heart with a joy like she has never known before.”

So, this girl did what God told her to do. Got out of her seat, came up to me, and sat beside me.

She said, “I’ve never really met or spoken to you before right?”

I shook my head. No.

She continued – yelling above the loud music and chattering – “I was sitting over there, when God spoke to me and said, ‘Go over to that girl over there and tell her how much I love her.’ Look, I don’t know you, and I don’t know what you are going through at the moment, but God asked me to tell you that He wants to fill your heart with joy, an unspeakable joy.”

I was slightly speechless. “OK…” I said, struggling to find the correct words to say, “Thank you.”

The girl, got up, left, and there I continued sitting in my seat, still blank-faced, still blank-emotion.

Five minutes later, I was crying my heart and two lungs out. Never knew I could cry so hard and so much? But, for the next half hour or so, that was what I was doing. With my head bent down, my hands crossed, and my lungs struggling to take in oxygen given the rapid rate at which I was crying – sounds funny, but it’s true – and at that moment, I could feel the raw emotions within me just bursting forward, materializing in the big, fat, hot tears that were falling off my cheeks, down my outstretched arms, and into the puddle of tears sitting impassively in front of me. That night, I cried a river and flooded the aisle of the row I was sitting in. True story.

A week ago, there was an article in The Straits Times on the rise of Christ in China and how Christinity is sweeping China, a country previously with mostly no religious leanings.

Church pastors in China – mostly underground, because of atheist views from the Communist Party – have to turn away worshippers simply because there are no space left for them, with churches bursting at the seams from huge crowd turnouts.

Hallelujah.

The Lord’s word is made flesh, and the world will watch on.

Spotted eating donuts at Ion Orchard, also spotted at Suntec City and Burger King.

Try your luck anyone? Who knows, you might just bump into them!

Man A: God Bless America!

Man B: (with deeply-set furrowed brows) You are in the bloody wrong country, mate!

Everything is possible for him who believes (Mark 9:23)

Because of the nature of my scholarly ambitions, often I have to hunt for potential sources. Not any random interviewees, but rather, those related to the particular story that I was working on. This can be easy or hard. It is easy if you narrow or restrict your sources to representatives from certain organizations or bodies. But, what if you want to look for an individual, a normal, everyday netizen, who serves a purpose for your story? For example, if you were doing a story on marital disputes between middle-aged couples, it would be well and easy to contact civil lawyers, marriage organizations, counsellors, psychologists or prominent speakers on that subject. But, how about if you go on a hunt around for a middle-aged couple currently going through a marital dispute?

So, I was doing a story on how a particular hit cooking show had led to the emergence of culinary wannabes. But did I know anyone around me who went from cooking noob to chef wannabe after watching the show? Nope. Did I know anyone who were fans of the show? Nope. Did I even know anyone who watched the show? The answer again is no. All negatives didn’t paint a pretty picture. I didn’t know how I was going to find the sources that I needed for my story, and the best solution I could muster with my finite intelligence was to limit my story to representatives of official organizations, chefs and the like.

So, what did I do? I turned to God for help. I asked him to help me find an individual that was a fan of the culinary programme. What did God do? He didn’t help me find one individual. He gave me many.

In the span of a few days, I went from not even having one person to interview to finding over 400 people to interview.

YES. You read right. I said 400. I found 400 fans of the cooking show, whom I were able to directly contact, and many of them were willing to be interviewed and delighted to participate in my story. In fact, because it was impossible for me to interview so many, I had to limit my interviews to approximately 50 people.

God’s bountiful providence threw me off guard. I was utterly shocked and amazed, and thought to myself, that God must be trying to tell me something. On hindsight, I discovered how God answered my prayers – I went from pathetically desperate to find even one individual (even calling up a prominent Australian food editor to ask him if he knew anyone) to being utterly gobsmacked stunningly amazed at the reservoir of sources that were at my story’s disposal; I went from obsessing over finding one individual to cherry-picking among the crowds.

It was like a water dam had burst open.

And, that’s not all. I was working on my story, and was just finalizing details and prettifying my masterpiece one day before deadline when – BAM! – God gave me a ridiculously amazing idea. Apart from being ridiculously awesome, the idea was given to me at what I thought also was a ridiculous time – just a couple of hours away from deadline.

At first, I thought it would be impossible to execute the idea, because of the pressuring deadline, and also because the information I had to consummate that vision was incomplete. I was ranting to God, “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? Why couldn’t you give me more time to do this??!!!! Did you really have to tell me this at the very very last second?!!!”

With so little time before deadline, I contemplated whether or not to embark on this creative endeavor. But I have a weakness for perfection. It was simply too good an idea to resist. I remember sitting in front of the computer monitor, staring at my nicely laid-out design, and contemplating my options. 1) I could just ignore God and do it my way, which would be so much simpler and convenient for me, since it required no extra work or; 2) I could work my arse off the next couple of hours trying to piece together the creative vision God had planted in my mind.

Of course the answer was delightedly obvious. I worked my arse off.

All this while, I doubted. What if my sources didn’t get back to me in time? What if I couldn’t complete my work before time? What if what if what if? But, I felt in my heart that God wanted me to trust Him, and I heard him saying to me that since He had given me the idea, He would provide me with the resources, and all I had to do was to have faith and trust in Him. And, so I prayed.

Amazingly, the individuals whose names I specifically prayed over got back to me before my deadline. The ones, I didn’t, didn’t.

Turning that utopian vision into reality was no easy task. I sent off desperate emails bordering midnight, my pillow had hardly warmed before I jumped out of bed; and, after hours and hours of working my arse off and struggling to keep my eyelids open, I found myself staring at a workpiece which was anything BUT the image I had envisioned before I embarked on this project. It was too amazingly wonderful that I knew I couldn’t have accomplished this masterpiece without Him.

Birthing something is never easy. Sometimes, all it takes is a leap of faith, hard work and trusting God for the impossible.

How many nights must I go without sleeping?!! It’s seriously driving me insane.

I can’t even begin to say how these three months have been for me. Can’t even begin to imagine what a stressful period I’ve gone through! This is starting to get ridiculous.

After the end of this semester, I will stuff myself with food before going into hibernation like black bears during winter. I reckon 7 days and 7 nights would sufficiently compensate for all the sleep deficit.

…

One day, this drive for perfection – where I must do 10 times more than what everyone else does, put in 10 times more the effort of everyone else – will slaughter me alive.

Is there a mental asylum for perfectionists?!!