A sweet friendship refreshes the soul

How sweet is this proverb!

"A sweet friendship refreshes the soul." Proverbs 27:9 (MSG)

Often we have a bad day or week or month hopefully not year... we have a get together with some friends and simply by being in their company, all that negative emotions get lifted. The miracle healing of friendship! SWEET!

Friends are like life's cushions!
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Monday, February 22, 2010
How to connect with people
by Rick Warren
"A sweet friendship refreshes the soul." Proverbs 27:9 (MSG)

One of the deepest needs we have in life is the need to be understood. We all desperately need to feel that somebody can feel what we're feeling and understand what we're thinking. We all need people who connect with us.

A study by the California Department of Health Mental found that if you're disconnected from other people -

You're two-to-three times more likely to die an early death;
You're four times more likely to suffer from emotional burnout;
You're five times more likely to suffer clinical depression, and;
You're ten times more likely to be hospitalized for an emotional or mental disorder.
We need human connections for physical, emotional, spiritual health. We need people who understand us, who relate to us and who can connect to us.

Learning how to connect with people on a heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul level is one of life's most important skills. Unfortunately, nobody ever teaches us how to do this. You learn science and geography, history and math in school, but nobody teaches you how to connect with people. You may be brilliant in some subject, but if you don't know how to connect with people, you're still not going to go very far in life.

Over the next six days, we'll look at the six principles of how to connect with people. It doesn't matter your age or stage of life. If you're a parent and you want to know how to better connect with your children, you can use these principles. If you're engaged or married and you want to know how to better relate to that other person, you can use these principles. If you're a teacher or an employer or employee, no matter who you are, if you need to get close to anybody in life, you need these principles.

Together, we'll see that human connections are good medicine and a "sweet friendship refreshes the soul."

Just for Laughs - Clockman

Why did they name it clockman? Men can be yakky afterall!

hahahaha

Getting ready for our winter adventure!

Must find winter outer wear for -30 degrees Celsius in the cold cold north.
So went shopping in the tropical Sg. Guess how the inspiration for South Park came about?


Must keep our toes warm in night too! Found these socks really helpful! Loved them!


Also must test out if our Sg milk pudding tastes better or those in Japan hee


Winter Wonder Holiday! Yeah!

Fabulous 2009!

Touched

Once in a cab ride, we drove passed the Novena church and the driver commented that the church answers prayers. Surprised that he visits the Catholic church as his taxi had displays of other religious items. So I asked him what brought him to church. His response:
"This church hor, very powerful, I pray for 4D, I get!"

*stunned*

*recovery phrase*

Me: "Uncle, like that also can ah?"
Him: "Although God here know I not christian ah, but my prayers were answered leh!"

The power of praying does the most unexpected, impossible tasks for us. God knows our needs even before we asks, so all we need to do is ask and you'll be given. Its like a unlimited guarantee that all your desires are satisfied!

We've seen how broken marriages are healed and turned around through prayers.

We've seen how families come together in unity through prayers.

We've seen how people were pulled away from tragedies with prayers.

We've seen how difficulties were conquered through prayers when nothing else seems to work.

So when a person say that they are praying for you, its like a special blessing, not just because the prayers were said for you. But also because you're often thought of by this person who is offering a prayer for you. Isn't it touching?

Often than now, I have a friend who shares that we're in their prayers. I feel so blessed! And touched of course.

Thank you all of you who've thought about us, prayed for us, prayed with us.

Thank You!

Singing: Birth of Christ

Christmas has always been special to me, it was how I was brought to our church literately.

A friend invited me to attend his church's midnight Christmas celebrations, it was a elaborated affair that I never had imagined. Dressing up for church as if they were going to a grand ball at MIDNIGHT! Who does that?

Well, christians does that!

Why?

Because its a celebration of the birth of someone very very dear to their hearts.

I was impressed by the music on my first Christmas midnight mass. There were drums, guitars, bass guitars, piano, organ players who played in great sync with such joy. There was a sense of warmth to their worship. That great desire to play beyond their very best to celebrate the birth of Christ. I have not seen worship at such genuine level before. There were hiccups and last min obstacles that they need to overcome but everyone pitched in to put up the greatest show they can.

And the choir.... oh my, they stood for almost the entire 2hours, blasting their lungs out. The melodious music with the festive mood was overly joyful to the soul.

I was an addict to Christmas celebrations in our church.

Gradually over a few years, I just kept wanting to go back for the Christmas mass. It was always so delightful!

THEN I myself started to join in the choir to create the "noise" hee.... Time and time again, we all looked forward to performing a great show for the birth of baby Jesus. We sang our hearts out, belt our voices hoarse.

Today I finally knew why we enjoyed doing that so much....

Today our Saviour is Born
Today our Saviour is Bo-rn
This is the day
This is the day
Christ our Saviour is Born!

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Friday, December 25, 2009
We Praise God for the Gift of Jesus
by Rick Warren
From the Gospel of Luke we see the birth announcement of Jesus -

Suddenly, God's angel stood among them and God's glory blazed around them. They were terrified.

The angel said, "Don't be afraid. I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David's town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you're to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger."

At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God's praises:

Glory to God in the heavenly heights,
Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.

Luke 2:9-14 (MSG)

Christmas - what does it mean?

Its Christmas time!

What does it mean?

Shopping for Christmas gifts?

Receiving Christmas gifts?

Year end wrap up of projects, events, work?

Mega gatherings to catch up with those that were too busy during the actual year?

This year its alot less festive for me. Perhaps its because I've done most of the Christmas shopping way early in the year. So no need to cheong for last min presents or force to buy something for the sake of buying.

And perhaps also because there were some pretty notty boys in my life this year, making me not feeling so loving towards them. Yah, lots of emotional baggage you can say.

Perhaps also because we attended 3 funerals in just 2 months. One grandaunt who survived the boat journey from China just to be with her husband. Raised 4 kids with very limited resources, lived to see her own grandchild get married before she left the mortal world. There were more amazing stories about her which were shared during the course of her wake. Makes you feel so blessed to be born in today's modern world. With all our modern luxuries.

Ad's godpa also left us, but not for good. As we celebrate his departure from this mortal earth, we know that he's up in heaven with Jesus. Nonetheless, the sense of loss is felt, when we learn so much more about him in his youthful days, the things that he did. Just makes you wish you've heard it from him personally. Or had that chance to give him just one more hug. He's got such lovable personality. You wish that you can clone that and inject it into every unpleasant elderly you meet. hee....

Then came the departure of a dear friend's mother. A 80+ elderly who has combat cancer for the past few years, never with a word of complaint nor grumble. She just bore the pain, the discomforts, the frustrations. We were glad we made it to see her one last time the day before she left. Though she was frail and weak, she was definitely without pain. On the day of her funeral, my heart went out to her DIL, who cried so bitterly about her loss, that my tears flowed in synchrony as well. She had the most beautiful funeral mass I've ever attended. The music which made up a large part of the mass was soft, light and comforting. Memories of all those who have departed came flowing back. We pray for all our departed brothers and sisters to be safe in Jesus's side up in heaven.

Some lessons that I've learnt this year:

Your earthly family may not = your spiritual family. So feel blessed anyway.

Forgive every wrong that comes your way, even if that person never apologize, or will never come to know what damage he's done towards you. Because you need healing from the event. He can go settle his behavior with God in due time.

We should envelope ourselves with positive, like-minded people. Never mind even if that is your childhood friend, if he/she is influencing you in a negative way, its time to stay away. Just pray for that person to turn around, but you dun have to join him/her at it.

There are those who love you no matter what you do. Treasure them, for they may not stay around the next time you commit the same error.

Some actions, no matter what good intentions you have. If taken the wrong way, it is still not achieved its desired effects. So take some actions with cautions and consider the consequences carefully.

Sometimes when a person is angry with you or something you did, it may not necessarily mean that you've done something wrong. It could mean that this person has anger, and you happened to be there. So dun let that get you down.

Hugs are great wondrous actions! Give more hugs!

Have crystal clear goals in your mind. Dun allow yourself to be distracted .... (note to self in bold)

Celebrate every success that you have. Send joy to every cell in your body! You deserve it!

Dashes of snow

Light dashes of snow always remind me of the 1st time we experienced snow together on the eve of Christmas.

That magical feeling of snow, lightly touching your face is so memorable.

And guess what? Its snowing on my dashboard today!