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| BEFORE
Monday to Friday
7:00 – 7:15 am- (depending how late I stayed up the night before) wake up, quickly wash up and go to work…….breakfast? What is that? Oh you mean a packet of Tiger or Parle G biscuits…yeah, that’s breakfast. Lunch? - will go to the dhaba..so what if there are flies all around…its food guys!!!
6:00 pm – back from work. Mind starts thinking “where can I go”, "who do I meet up with?” "Anything happening with the gang tonite?" " Any fun thing?" Count me in I am all for it!!!! I am free..
9:00 pm – Dinner-chips, maggi, wai-wai? Nah, actually I had gol gappes and lots of jalebi so I am really full. I’ll just wash clothes read a book and get to bed.
11:00 pm – Psst…are you sleeping? No not really. Can I say something? What? Well you know the other day I was……(and it goes on till maybe 00:00 until we chat ourselves to sleep).
Weekends
Get up as late as you want. Make plans with friends to go shopping, eat out, movies. Anywhere but home. Let’s just get out but of course after I finish my cleaning etc. cooking??? Uh…maybe but then let’s eat out after all it’s easier and so much more fun with friends.
NOW
Monday to Friday
6:30 am- Yawn!!! I try to get up so that I can make breakfast and prepare our lunch…..we really need to take lunch cause home food is so much better than outside food and do much more hygienic and healthy.
6:00 pm – Dipped clothes for washing now I need to start washing them. Oh, we don’t have anymore Dhara, and also need to get 20 litre water. Mental note of what needs to be done. I also need to start thinking about dinner. What shall we have? Potatoes? Sure. We love it anyway. And of course dal, chutney, and some fruits and salad. Shall we go out tonite? No, would love to but there is so much to do at home….and let's save some money for the future OK? And anyway, tomorrow is another working day. Let’s store up our energy for tomorrow.
9:00 pm – Dinner is served!! Sitting and relaxing. Chatting. Strumming of the guitar. Dishes being cleared, straight into the sink. Getting late. Any clothes to iron for tomorrow? Few phone calls. Hardly any sms.
11:00 pm – Lights out.
Weekends
Let’s stay at home. Maybe shopping once in a while, okay? But we need to clean the house, go to the bank, and do some more laundry. Let’s just have this day for ourselves. Maybe go out for a date? Coffee? Sure babe.
Life has changed – it’s not all about me anymore. It's worth it!! | | |
| GTT 2006hmmm.. back to delhi. from mussoorie. the last memory that i had of Gtt, 2006 was the immense loneliness that i felt when i was preparing to go down to dehradun to catch the mussoorie express. by that time most of the guys had boarded the shatabdi. so it was me and lal along with dave and rebecca and martin and prema on board together again. while the other two couple went down earlier me And lal were recuperating from the dramatic turn of events that made us miss the last 4 or 5 sessions. who was to tell that lal would be in landour community hospital diagnosed with measles (or was it german measles?)? quite horrific i must say for a husband to see his dear wife covered all over with rashes on another one of those beautiful mussoorie mornings when all you can think of is the next power packed preach from the guest speaker. but to cut a long story short, one day and one night at the hospital later we were tired and ravenous like wolves. so we decided to catch up on sleep that we thought we deserved. but i must thank at this point all the ccc gang members who came and prayed for us. i think you all know by now but prayer works, definitely. three cheers to his family (not the cult). so four hours to board the train. lal is recuperating wonderfully. she says to me “honey, let us go out and have some fresh air on the balcony outside”. so we go out and enjoy the cool breeze that can only be mussoorie’s monopoly. man i felt like my lungs were thanking me for bringing them up here. looking down we could see the town preparing for the night. and then crushing down much more heavily than a commercial building in delhi being bulldozed by the mcd was this sinking melancholy, so painful, and so sharp. my wife didn’t know at that time. neither did i want to tell her. never did i in my entire life feel so lonely. i could see the workers cleaning up the place, room by room. the owner/manager was up and about doing some odd things here and there. and i was there like an actor in a stage on whom the spotlights were on; but it felt like i was performing to an empty stage. man, this was worse than being inside an existentialist painting!!! but then the light dawned, the revelation from god that pierces through the darkness like a spear darting across the sky. i was reminded about god’s calling (brought to life by tyrone on the second day of the gtt), his plan for my life. god has planted my feet in ccc in delhi. it is his decision not mine. god wanted me saved but in this church, in this city, whether i liked it or not. but come to think about it, i don’t think there is any other place that i would want to be except new delhi; because this is my home. this is where my family is. the church. praise you father for the work you are doing. of course he is doing his work everywhere around the earth. but he is so detailed, meticulous even. he doesn’t have a backup plan for any of us. neither does he for the church. father i just want to do your will, neither to the left nor to the right. i want to obey your word. this is how you want my life to be. lead me by your good spirit on level ground (psalm 143 v.10). shake this city, lord. shake this city. let your people go and increase their influence, their stake on their inheritance. let the gospel fly out, bombarding people out of their complacence, their fatalism, their blindness, the injustice, the corruption that has become a way of life here. let the church shine in new delhi. let there be healing, restoration as the church sheds passivity, fear and compromise. lord I pray for the church to rise. more leaders raised up, more power flowing from you through us. and thank you lord it is possible only with you. help us to be dependent on you for everything. how great is your name!!! | | |
| A PROJECT (NOT FOR BELIEVERS)A Disclaimer: The author is not a self-declared Guru of Good Living or Living Successfully. If he was, he won’t be copy/pasting it here. You would have to buy it and then only read it.
Think about this for a while. In the silence of your home, in the quietness of the shadows, sit down somewhere where the light falls gently and as you reach out for your cup of tea or coffee ask yourself this question – what is it that you are living for, or who is it that you are living for? Let the pace of work, the cares of the present be set aside for a while as you ponder on these questions. Even as you read this I want to tell you at the outset that I don’t know who you are; you may be a housewife, a teacher, a 9 to 5 professional, a police officer, a businessman, a student, an activist, an intellectual or a salesman. Whoever you are, you are a person who has to deal with decisions everyday; some minor, some crucial and others quite tricky requiring you to summon all your talents, skill and character to execute the right one. Sometimes there is neither right nor wrong, it seems (I am not going to be the Judge of anyone’s mistake/error). But nonetheless at the end of the day when you are alone by yourself and a certain amount of reflection starts pouring in to your mind, you wonder, now that today is about to crawl back into the dense past, what about tomorrow? Will things be still the same? Am I satisfied about myself? My work, my family, my money, my resources, my friends, my car, my health. What about my future? Will I be a successful/influential/happy person? Now friends let me tell you that I am not a mind reader. But if you are like me, the normal/average person, I can say with a fair amount of boldness that these are some of the thoughts that can bombard us from time to time. Let’s face it guys, the world is not a safe place to live in. It’s a rat race, it’s dog-eat-dog (funny how we humans have now descended to the level of animals, even if these are just metaphorical terms). You know as well as I do that everywhere we go, at every turn, there is competition, stiff and relentless, like a phantom figure somewhere behind the walls of a dark street looming large waiting to catch you without warning. Now that’s a scary thought, isn’t it? I would not want to be caught in its embrace and lose myself in it. Not that I want to make you feel that all that I am about to write about is oh, life is rotten and there is no joy in living or that I am against competition. What I am laboring to point out is that very often we kind of lock ourselves out of the meaning of life, willingly or otherwise. I do accept that there is an ugly side to life that we would rather choose to shut our eyes to. Or that there is a faculty in us that makes us want to dream of better things and reach out to grab a hold of that. And very often we fail. Haven’t we all? (Putting aside the few in the world who have made a difference and let me say that I am glad there are examples/heroes/heroines that we can emulate or try to be like). But let’s face it. All of us want a better life, don’t we? Who doesn’t, you might say. But have we become so engrossed in our straining, making all efforts to reach for the sky that we have left out a perspective, that of knowing where we have come from and more importantly where are we going to end. I am not referring to death itself. But right now, ask yourself, where are the decisions that I am taking going to lead me to? That’s sobering for me, at least. I don’t know about you, friends.
So coming back to where we started (I am sorry for the long digression): What is it that you are living for? What adds meaning to your life? Is it full, vibrant, joyful, content? Is love (not just the love between filmy heroes and heroines running madly around trees) a vital part in your life? Can you live in forgiveness? Do you live in fear of losing something, or someone? Because if you are, then that something or someone will control you, with or without its or his/her knowledge, for the rest of your life, without a doubt. And when you lose that thing (a position, a job or a title) or person (spouse, child, lover, mentor) will you still be the same person? What about your failures? Just because you have wiped it away from your memory, does it mean that it’s not there. Do you struggle with past hurts? Does guilt, addiction or the burdens of life rob you of happiness/completeness? Are you ever chasing after things but never knowing what is it that you want? Just ponder. Let it settle in your mind. Don’t worry about the mobile. It is your life.
The reason I am asking all these questions is because:
1. I do not have the answers to them.
2. I do not know what your life is like (assuming I am not yet your friend as of now).
(TO BE CONTINUED) | | |
| My Grace is Sufficient for YouHow often we go to bed wishing that the things that happened that day would never come again, that somehow while we sleep, the darkness of the night would envelope the uneventful event of the day and the bright rays of the sun would paint it fresh. Also, how often we wish the day would never end and the night go on and on where words like boredom and mundane life cease to have meaning and definition and all we want is to enjoy the presence of that moment and only if, only if, we could capture it forever, trap it before it slips from the last hours of the night and before the wee hours of the morning arrives, and hold it in the palm of our hand so that we may always have it.
How often I have gone to bed with these thoughts – good days and bad days. I am human. No one knows it more clearly than my family and specially my husband. Like everyone else I break and I crush. Like everyone else, I fall and get bruised. How in those moments I wish I was invisible and somewhere far far away, where I can just be alone.
PSLAM 139 : Where can I go from your presence, where can I flee
If I go up to the heavens you are there, if I make my bed in the depths you are there
If I rise on the wings of dawn, if I settle on teh far side of the sea
Even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
How often my father has stooped down just to raise a lowly, stubborn, self centered human like me. How often my daddy, in his love and mercy , has used close friends to speak to me. And Abe, my dearest Abe, how glad I am to have him. What a gift from god. Always stands by me and has never failed to direct my gaze back to daddy.
Where would I be without his grace and love?
I am human yet I am the image of God the almighty. I am frail but God is my help and my portion forever. I am small, but with God nothing is impossible!!!!
Keep me safe Lord. Keep us safe Lord. | | |
| Wo(e)man!!!Men all over have always been told that women are hard to understand. They are different! Don't even try to understand them, just love them. Well said whoever came up wiht that thought. He (I am assuming it must have been a man 'cause any woman in her right mind would most probably keep it to herself or she will give a long list of how to be loved and what a man should to do - in other words INSTRUCTIONS!) must have been a very wise man. Now for those thinking surely I must be a feminist lemme proudly say I'm not!! I am writing this because of late, I have come to realise that being a woman is definitely no simple thing!!!
I have been married for almost five months now -- never ever did I think that I was a complicated person. Not once. I mean, okay, we all know girls are not like boys and we think differently etc. I had somehow believed that I was a fairly simple person, of course wuth some idiosyncracies just like every other person has. But when God puts two completely different people together - little do we know what awaist us.
I am not saying that marriage is a horrific rock and roll experience. It is anything but that. It is one of the most beautiful gifts that god gives to us........so pure, so personal and so intimate. Its extraordinary and divine. Yes, for those not called to celibacy, you have a wonderful life ahead. But that is not where the story ends (believe me I know what I am talking about). Marriage brings out that very character in you, which you probably have never even revealed it to your best friends - or flat mates.
When you marriage is centred around Jesus, your partner's act of selflessness and agape love only reveals how short you fall of what Jesus requires us to give in marriage. For every character of your partner's purity, your deep sense of impurity is reflected. It is really quite challenging.
I really don't know why on earth I am writing this. I really was about to write something else but I guess I got carried away......hehehehe!!!!
I could write a whole lot more but alas, my work beckons me. Until we meet again.......mangtha!!!
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