of tears and rainbows (my 8th mth in Brisbane)

Hi friends

hope this finds you well...

the past month, as some of you who read my facebook posts know, has been one of the most emotional months so far since I got here.

I think I cried more in the past few weeks than I have in a really long time...

Just had a thought, since the Bible says that God keeps our tears in a bottle (psalm 56:8) He would be able to tell if the statement above was true... haha *wry smile.

Why did I cry?

it was not only because my maternal grandma was unwell and at the brink of death. She has dementia and has been bedridden for two years after a stroke. Most recently she had pneumonia and doctors were saying to prepare for the worse. I flew back home for few days and got to pray for her in person. My sister and I also sang for her in harmony. Thank God, at the time of writing, she has stabilised (see pic below)

my grandma can't talk or eat on her own. her hands have to be tied to the bed frame when people are not watching her so that she does not pull out the feeding tube, which is very painful to reinsert. Much as I hate to think of her tied up, I accept that it's the lesser of the two evils. This pic was taken right before I left. Her hands are no longer swollen from poor blood circulation and she can breathe on her own, miracles considering her age and condition. Her countenance has also improved a lot since she was moved back to my uncle's home (she had been put in a nursing home when she had a huge bed sore more than a year ago). While I continue to ask God to help me believe Him for grandma to regain her functions, I have also made my peace and had closure with this trip back. Whatever happens, I am thankful.

That was the last week of Jan.

A week into Feb, there was news of my paternal aunt's sudden passing, and how my dad didn't get to see her before she died (she had been on dialysis but we were all surprised that she went so quickly).

To be honest, when I first heard the news from my sister about my aunt, I didn't feel anything. Maybe my heart had just been through an intense period with my grandma, and it's just "recovering".

Only when I heard that my dad had rushed back to Ipoh but didn't to see my aunt because he left his wallet in a taxi and was spending time looking for it, did my heart feel for him and I started crying.

Later when I spoke to dad and he said he already knew my aunty was in very bad shape...so I think he was trying to say he was prepared. Although I am thankful that he seemed okay, I know he will take some time to process the suddenness of it all. Although he has been living in Singapore all this while, he does regularly call back to his siblings in Ipoh, Malaysia, and I know he prays for them.

So, please pray for my dad as he stays with my late aunt's husband and tries to support him. He plans to encourage him to go to church, so please pray for an openness to God even in this time of grief.

My aunt loved children but never had any of her own. She helped to babysit my cousins from another uncle living near her... in this Chinese New Year period, I know their hearts will be heavy from this loss. Again, prayers are appreciated.

These are only two of the more recent things that I have cried about...earlier last month I cried intensely over a relationship matter.

It was a really difficult time, only by God's grace did He see me through. I am thankful that He gave me strength to turn to Him, to cry out to Him in my personal time of worship... before this I had not experienced worship where I was literally bawling out the words as I played the song on my guitar.... but now I have. The song was Blessed Be Your Name, for those of you who know it.

I am also grateful that He gave me people around me to support me...my church group and also the people I live with and my friends in school.

Over the past few weeks I have noticed more rainbows around me... I have a rainbow coloured banner and also a rainbow-butterfly decoration that I hang up plus I wear a rainbow bracelet (see pic) but God has given me rainbows elsewhere too :) have a look at the following pictures

got this from Ekka a few years back, it is my favourite wall hanging of all time :)  combines two of the things I love rainbow and butterfly (In mid Jan, I successfully raised a caterpillar into a butterfly :) see this Facebook album https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152127738796953.442729.544591952&type=1&l=5837b33fa3)

Sorry to those who may have spider phobia, but what I want to show is the lovely rainbow colour that comes through each silken strand (best example is the strand in the top left quadrant of picture). I just happened to be out at the right time for the sun to be shining through and create this beautiful picture of God's promises clinging to me and holding me up like a spider's web. Indeed, I am learning to trust more and strive less, because as the song says "All Your promises won't let go of me".

I was at Officeworks getting something for my campus organisation part-time job on Tue (5/2/13) when I saw this gorgeous rainbow. if you zoom into the picture, you will see that the different colours were quite distinct. I have not seen a rainbow this clear in a long time. I happened to be at the bus stop but the bus didn't come (for the second time, same service, on the same day), so maybe this was God's way of cheering me up :)

This made it to me in the mail just a couple days back, it's something I ordered for myself from Threadless :) Just glad about the timing of the delivery :)

So as I look back, I know the hand of God is upon me. My emotions are still sorting themselves out...my advisor has given me a few days off since hearing about my aunt... for that I am thankful. Maybe tomorrow I will look for an old photo of her and give thanks for her life...and commit myself again to praying for my relatives who do not yet know Jesus.

I am grateful for all that the past month has brought me, tears and all...did you know that when you look up at the sun with half-closed half-focused eyes that have tears in them, your eye lashes will actually break up the light so that it appears as if rainbow-coloured lines are reaching out to you from above? 

I hope you can understand what I am describing :) best thing to do is to try it out, next time you yawn, or maybe just dab some water in your eyes :) Do be careful not to stare directly at the sun, of course :)

I am not sure if it works with other light sources, you can try and let me know :)

I discovered this "instant micro-rainbow method" a few years back and it has often brought comfort to me because the rainbow represents God's promise (Genesis 9:12-15)  reaching out to me :)

let me end with a passage from Philippians 4 in the bible that my mentor in church shared with me and it has really been a blessing to me.

⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 

⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. 

The Lord is near. (this short phrase speaks volumes to me)

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

amen. Thank you for reading. Thank you for your prayers for me in the past month. God has heard you and I pray you will also experience His rainbows through any tears that come your way.

Learning to follow (my 7th month in Brisbane)

This month's blog will be very short because I am behind on some school work that I had neglected a bit too much during the Dec holidays.

(If you are wondering, I had a great Christmas and New Year - spending it with Australian families such as my home owners, the Lanes, as well as friends both local and international. Getting back to the rhythm of school work is a tad difficult, but I shall prevail :).

One big idea from the past month is how well do I follow in the footsteps of Jesus in loving people.

Like really truly loving them, despite disappointment, disillusionment, discouragement (any other dis-ses one can think of)

Is it possible to love when we are so imperfect?

Because of the perfect God who first loved us, the answer is Yes.

Because of the perfect God who dwells in us, the answer is Yes.

Because of the perfect God who makes us more than conquerors through His love, the answer is Yes.

I got a picture of following when I was looking at the back "legs" of a caterpillar that I recently adopted.

(haha, so my last blog post was about feet, now it's about legs - you can't say I don't have continuity :)

If you look at the video, the back legs follow where the front "real" legs go... if the back legs tried to go the opposite direction, that would be mighty painful for the caterpillar.

In the same way, I want to follow Jesus... I'm just the back legs (in scientific terms, I'm the proto-legs) and He is the real deal.

I just read online that the protolegs will be absorbed during metamorphosis - I think that's fascinating because an analogy for how we will become fully like Christ when this life is over and we have completely transformed into His likeness.

Don't think it's a coincidence that this verse was used in church yesterday :)

Colossians 3:4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

my 6th month! many things afoot :)

The idea for this month's theme "Many things afoot" comes from my foot problem...
As you can see in this picture my feet (clad in the grey/pink sneakers) often gets sore and needs stretching :)
Here are two lovely sisters from my church lifegroup who are helping me to do just that :)

Yvonne (left), who will soon be my housemate :) and Shannon, my mentor

Sometime mid-Nov, the pain finally got too intense and I decided to go to a podiatry clinic

thank God it wasn't expensive because it was staffed by students - after a few appointments, I got myself a new pair of shoes (christmas present from my sisters and bro-in-law - thank you Dajie, Khim cc, and Benson kk :) and adjusted insoles that have helped relieve the pain greatly :)

Picture of my happy shiny shoes and the insoles (back and side view) here:

So now that my feet are not worrying me that much, let me tell you about other things that are afoot :)

1. Applications 

- Ethics application: I am ready to start my pilot project, but I need ethics clearance from the university. I will be working with vulnerable population (people with depression who have seen a doctor in the past 12 months) so there will be a lot of ethical issues to consider. Please pray for  wisdom for me as I finish the application (the instructions is 18 pages long...) and also favour for the application to be approved ASAP.

- Grant application: There is a chance that I may get a few thousand dollars for my research, please pray that I get the grant application in by this Sat. The proposal that I'm submitting to get this grant is from the course that I took this past semester, which received positive feedback from the course instructor (I scored high distinction for the course, praise God ;) so I am thankful and hopeful! I have finished the draft, but it needs polishing. Also pray for God's provision through this grant, if that is His will :)

2. Surprises!
haha, so I planned a few surprises this past month...one of it was for my dear ex-housie Ally, on our last full day together as housemates. She is moving closer to school and staying with her sister, will miss her! So for her surprise, I got some neighbours to come for tea and a few of us got her a bright yellow ukulele :) Here she is holding it :)

Back row from left: Michael, Dot, Peter and Ben

Ally and I also planned a surprise for our neighbour Ben, whose birthday was on Dec 8. She had a cool idea to write out bible verses onto arrows that would lead from his house to our place, where we sang him Happy bday on the guitar and ukulele (it needed more rehearsing, but Ben was very gracious to appreciate it :)

Pictures here:

awesome lemon-coconutty dessert. After we ate, we made an impromptu decision to go watch Rise of the Guardians, animated movie about Jack Frost - it was really GOOD!

And just to end off this section on surprises, here is the cheesecake that surprised me!

the idea was to make it for a friend's 30th bday. it was my first time baking a cheesecake and I had made the mistake of not reading the ENTIRE recipe (i have a bad habit of stopping after reading the ingredients :P ). I thought I could make it in 2 hours, so I left it until the morning of the surprise to make it....i get to the end of the recipe and it says the cake has to cool in the oven for TWO hours and then chill in the fridge for FOUR more hours! haha, no chance of that, the cake was still warm by the time we sang the bday song...so much so that the candles melted a bit! Hilarious I tell you :)

my friend was very gracious to still eat it, saying "what harm can a bit of wax do?" and the plate was empty by the end of the day, so THANK GOD! I resolve to read recipes COMPLETELY from now on ;)

3. setting foot on Tangalooma (AGAIN!)

yes, i know I wrote about tangalooma in my last post, but with my good friend Fuzz visiting me with his family all the way from Singapore, there was no way I could miss bringing them to my favourite place :) so here are photos from there...3D2N with them, I think I laughed more than what I laugh in a month :) Thanks for the lovely memories, guys :) you are the most FuNN (FUzz Nina Naddie) family I know :)

 4. God's word - a lamp unto my feet

While I was in tanga, God spoke to me about a situation in my life that I had been praying about. I just woke up one morning and this passage from Habakkuk 3 came to mind.
   
¹⁷ 17 Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.


I won't go into details here, you can ask me via email if you want more details :) But it has really made such a difference - it illuminated how I was seeing things...much like the moon at night :)

yes the picture below is indeed the moon (taken at about 4.20am) zooming in + different exposure shows the same moon in the next picture :)

5. Mysterious feet :)

I shall end this post with this unusual creature that I met in Tangalooma...at first I thought it was a caterpillar, but upon closer inspection, I saw the feet sticking out. Click on the video and you will see that this is no caterpillar :)

I end with this little critter because I always believe in nurturing a sense of wonder about the world :) Much as we humans know, we don't know everything, and there is always something new we can learn if we keep our eyes open :)

Have a wonderful last month of 2012 and see you in the next year!!

my fifth month - 'twas a beautiful month...

Hello friends and family...

how are you?

I've just had my 12th advisor meeting and again, I am amazed that the way God is leading me through this phd - i woke up early this morning and found that the many things floating in my head in the weeks/months before this has sort of gelled together with some coherence.

The epiphany was actually understood by my advisor and in fact, she was very happy with it. PRAISE THE LORD!

So am going to take a bit of a break now and share about my previous month...my fifth one since I got here :)

The theme will be BEAUTY ... because one of the chief highlights was a trip to the beauty-full moreton island, where i camped with friends for a couple nights.

here are some pictures...the whole album is on Facebook, for those who have more time :) Tanga Tango album on Facebook

we camped at this place called the tangalooma wrecks - ships that were intentionally sunk to create a marine nursery, good for snorkelling :)

one of the many beautiful scenes you see while walking on the beach (photo by my friend Gleny)

a very helpful and photogenic cormorant which did the right thing at the right time while we were seated at the jetty watching the sunset :)

We = (from left) Gleny, me, Stu

goodbye sun!

hello moon!

GIANT SEA JELLY!! haha, just joking, it was about the size of my two hands put together :)

It was just like old times back in california, sleeping by the ocean, watching the stars, marvelling at the colours of the sky in the morning AND getting to see bioluminescence in the water etc...

the only thing different was that i didn't go swimming at night in the midst of the planktonic light - which, in my younger days, I did...still remember the first time I encountered bioluminescence...

see this email that i sent way back in Sep 1999 to my friends over email (didn't have a blog back then :) you could FEEL the youthful exuberance...haha :) I promise you I was not taking anything to get high...it was just being high on life :)

• i've had the most amazing experience!‏

26/9/1999

Reply  ▼

 tehjenlee

To 

From:	Jen Lee Teh (tehjenlee@hotmail.com)
Sent:	26 September 1999 00: 00AM

Hey guys! 

the memory of this AWESOME AWESOME field trip i had to a beach north of Berkeley is still glowing after three weeks! 

I just HAD to share this with you!

I SWAM IN THE OCEAN AT MIDNIGHT! in the midst of noctiluca, a dinoflagelate (microorganism that gets around through the use
of a whip-like structures) that BIOLUMISNESCE!!! (i.e they give off the
light of LIFE(=bio) 

 because the newmoon occurred just two days ago, it was very dark so what I
thought at first to be just white waves breaking as they came to the shore
(like white-maned horses racing) were actually millions of noctilucas (each
the size of a fleck of pepper) being agitated by the movement of the water
and giving off a psychedelic, out-of this world glow that is phosphorescent,
gold, green, fiery and sparkling all at once...

oh how words fail to describe
what I saw...

like sirens of old drawing sailors to them...the ethereal noctilucas lured
me, my "bro" Andrew, his brother Peter (who's now also my brother :) and
Trevor ( a guy from my Bio Intertidal Plankton field group) to take a
midnight hike to the beach... 

at first, me and peter just tripped on how sea
water scooped up with our hands was like a little piece of the night sky
with tiny glowing stars as the noctilucas were stimulated by our touch...
Andrew, inspired by us, could not resist jumping into the ocean to
experience the noctilucas himself...eventually peter, trevor and I joined
him (with a sweatshirt on, I was the most clothed)...

iT WAS PURE MAGIC!
every movement was LIT UP! you could go into self-hypnosis by swirling
your hands in circles in the water...scooping water with your hands and
letting it run down your arm was like a wonderful kind of Midas
touch...

here's a poem that came to me: 

 Noctiluca, Noctiluca, how you glow...
Noctiluca, Noctiluca, my mind you blow!

 it was really really great...no questions of immodesty because we were just
there purely enjoying the ocean...the ocean is so wonderful, no matter how
much we misunderstand and overexploit it, it always finds a way to give
back...

THANK YOU GOD for covering the earth with this water of life!!! 

 more ideas we had... 

- the sky was overcast, so no stars, but u had them in your very own hands
with Noctilucas :)
- if u wash your clothes with Noctiluca they become SPARKLING clean (i
thought of this when i was wringing out my clothes and seeing tiny
Noctiluca "stars" falling to my feet!) 

- Noctiluca glowing on your hand is more precious than any stone because
it happens only for a tiny fraction of a second...so if i ever propose to
anyone, it will be with Noctilucas in my hand...I'll say : just like these
lights that gleam for just that one moment, life is short, but i will love
and cherish you as much as i can just as i do for fleeting biolumisnescing
Noctilucas in my hand... 

 at the end of this marvellous experience that I cannot stop thanking God
for...this is what Peter said, and i agree with him wholeheartedly: After
this, I'm going to have trouble being the same person I was before. 

Indeed I
will never forget this marvellous connection i made with the ocean...it will
always be special to me...i just have to close my eyes to see the stars on
my hands and to hear the ocean's voice again...it was crazy cold, but the
experience kept my heart warm and proceeded to warm my body (with a little
help from some red wine :) 

As we went to sleep, i recited this haiku (japanese poem with 5-7-5
syllables) I wrote:

The sound of the surf
Breaking is a lullabye
Singing me to sleep.

thank you all for letting me share this with you. 

Love,
Jen Lee

TO BE CONTINUED...


So I am finishing this blog post a day later.. was tempted to just have a short post, but then i knew i was being lazy and not doing enough reflecting and appreciating of the past month...

some more things to share around the theme of beauty....

- the beauty of free food :)
I was at the farmers' market without much money but one particular store was selling bunches of stuff for cheap. Best of all, this guy was gathering all the loose leaves that had broken off from the cos lettuces and when I asked him "what are you doing with those?" (thinking he might sell it cheap), he offered to give them to me! For free!
this shoper lady next to him said: "oh yes, you have a guinea pig?" I pointed to myself and said: ME! :)

She later gave me a few more leaves saying that they had broken off from hers (maybe she felt a bit embarrassed by what she said, but really, it was fine :) The loose leaves, being on the outer parts of the lettuce are actually the greener ones, therefore they have more nutrients :) Look at how much I got!

- A Beautiful Mind. 

watched the movie again with my housemate Ally. I think we happened to watch it in the same week as World Mental Health Day, which falls on 10 Oct (hands up those of you who didn't know there was such a day :) haha, it's ok, we can still be friends :) haha). the movie made me think of my bipolar diagnosis, which happened after a breakdown I experienced in early 2008.

(the story of how this happened and a peek into my journey since has been published as a chapter in a book that can be bought electronically, if you want to support, here's the link http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/151925 :) Sorry couldn't resist the opportunity to plug the book :P )

Watching the movie again, I was struck this time with how it was for the people around John Nash when he had his breakdown. I have often wondered myself, what it was like for people around me when i went off the rails so to speak... Couple days after the movie, I had reason to think about this again because I happened to look up some old email for something, and came across a few emails that I wrote around the time of my "mini" relapse in early 2009.

I had been too eager to get off the medication, the doctor had approved for me to cut down on the mood stabiliser medication but it coincided with an upswing in my mood that made it hard to sleep etc.
The email was about some article that I wrote about a prayer meeting and the first draft was sent to a close friend in church and a couple other people - it was quite sobering to read it. Quite simply, it was hard to understand some parts, especially when I would bold certain words/capitalise certain letters etc - it was all supposed to make sense (i actually put that into my original emails), but there was no way other people could have understood, even I can't fully explain it now, looking back at it.

But after reading those emails, I went for prayer meeting that night and I had a thought from God that some of these "lost" meanings will someday be redeemed. That though I may not make sense to myself or others, God is the ONE person who will ALWAYS understand me and know where I am at. It was a hugely comforting thought -- you could say it was a beautiful thought from the One who promises in His Word to make all things beautiful in His time :)


Will end off with this picture that I took yesterday as it was raining and I was using my rainbow coloured umbrella :)

Rainbow = promise = His Promise covers me = I will always be somewhere under the rainbow :)