Dear Lord...

Lord, the past week has been nothing short of overwhelming. I was looking forward to this past week as a welcome rest after all the hassle of the wedding. Yet by wednesday I had found myself wishing I was back at one week before the wedding, so much less I had seemed to have on my plate.

I imagined having time to take stock of myself, and to just think of all that had happened, coming to terms with the reality of my sister's marriage to Joseph. I thought I'd be able to slowly ease myself back into the studying frame of mind. I had pictured myself doing so many things. Yet maybe they're right when they say that you love to make a man eat his words and swallow his plans. They say you love to watch a man struggle to keep his head above the water, delighting in the instance that he will finally see beyond himself and call out to you for help.

Lots of things they say about you, Lord. And many a times like this, I'm tempted to believe them. I was told just last night that I have a gift of opening pple up, that somehow I'm able to be a comfort to them in the midst of their pain and troubles. I was told before many times that I'm one of the happiest persons they know, always able to smile and put on a brave face no matter what had come my way. Some have even been kind enough to tell me that they think I'm pretty mature in my thoughts, while others pay me compliments of being nice, generous and patient just to name a few.

Yet if I were ever asked to say something about you that the pulpit does not usually say, I'd tell them you were the God of Ironies. How else do I explain why I know of people who somehow appreciate my company enough to confide in me, and tell me my presence and my words have helped, when there are so many times alone in my room when I feel so desperately lonely, finding it unbearable to be with myself?

How else do I explain why I’m never short of female companionship, yet always missing out on the best friend of my life?

Why else would there be so many who see me as cheerful and positive, when aside from my facades that I assume in the company of others, there've also been plenty of my melancholia I no longer hide, which people don't recognize as being part of who I really am?

How else do I explain how I can encourage most around me and sort out their problems for them, when my life remains such an unmitigated mess?

Lord, sometimes I feel like my life is nothing short of an unending chain of ironies. Maybe that explains my brand of humour, and my take on life – always tinged with a slight trace of cynicism. Yet beneath the surface of that bravado, I somehow still carry deep within me the optimism and hope that I’m wrong, that somehow you’ll still make sense for me, of all the crazy things that seem to happen around me.

This world somehow seems bent on telling you that this is a great place to be in, with the seemingly endless varieties and potential it promises, only to take each dream you’ve built up along the way, and shatter it into an unrecognizable state. And Lord, after a few such experiences, its so easy to give up on my dreams already. Go through the machinery of life and see it through to the end seems to become the motto. Follow through on the conveyor belt like everyone else, and try not to end up as a defective product. That seems to have become the new ideal, the new dream. And so many of us have learnt to couch it in more spiritual terms, assuming a pseudo-heart of thanksgiving and contentment. So much so that we don’t recognize the value of dreaming and reaching for the fullness of life you’ve promised.

On my worst days, I start thinking that I’m falling into that trap. Getting a little too engrossed in my work, I begin to value my rest time above the level of commitment I gave – not in terms of the time I put in, but in terms of the willingness to participate. And as I start berating myself for the blurring of my priorities, my internal debate begins again, justifying to myself my course of actions and at the same time refusing to believe its legitimacy. At the end of the day, I just end up being more and more disappointed in myself.

Maybe that’s why tonight and for the past few days, this song has persistently haunted me. Cos in the midst of all that goes on inside my head, of the demons I’ve made for myself in my life, there are always those brief moments of respite that you offer… a slight glimpse of yourself here and there, an inexplicable change in attitude out of the blue that chases the clouds away for that one day, that somehow keeps me sane and safe in this crazy world.

Maybe this is a little of how Job felt after you showed yourself, yet refused to answer a single one of his questions. Somehow just your very presence offered the comfort that made all words superfluous.

I’ll need more of that in the upcoming weeks, Lord. All the way till I celebrate your birth here in this crazy world you made, that we’ve messed up. Until then, this song serves as a prayer to you, for your elusive love that never fails to find me every time I stop searching and wait to be found. A prayer of thanksgiving, and of gratitude… for how you’ve always been so near even when I’m the one who has kept you so far… and I guess even for understanding me in the midst of my incoherent prayers to you…

It’s a new week again, Lord.