The Opera Populaire

Not exactly the best way to start a day. Din sleep enough again. Had a mini misunderstanding with my grandpa due to my tone when speaking. Ruined my beautiful necklace when bending down to help a little boy pick up his school bag in the bus. Then while waiting for the traffic light to turn green, a bird crapped on my shoes.

I dun like myself at this time. I am turning into a dissatisfied, complaining person. I also found out that I have a sizeable amount of pride and selfishness inside me. Or does circumstances merely reveal who I actually am inside? It is easy to be a sweet and nice Godly gal whom everyone likes when everything in your life in nice and rosy. But I guess trials are the true revealer of character. And it just shows that I am not nice. It truly humbles me and makes me aware of the fact that we ought to rely on God and continually refresh ourselves with His Word and love in order to react to circumstances in His loving way.

The various postings on love and marriage by my classmates made me ponder. Yes, feelings are contrary and who is to say when they run their course? Infidelity and divorce hurt everyone directly or indirectly involved. I like Dr. James Dobson, a Christian family counsellor's take on this. What it takes to keep a marriage in this complicated age and where feelings are so unreliable is nothing less than iron-clad determination to stick to it. Love is not simply about feelings. It is primarily a decision. A decision to care and put the needs of the other party above one's own, in spite of the waxing and waning of feelings. I agree that even the most happily married couple does not feel loving towards each other all the time. There will be times of crankiness or even apathy. It may not be wise to act upon feelings, which may be temporary.

Shaoyun's marriage awaken me to the fact the marriage is no longer at some elusive distance for us. Charmaine surprised me when she suddenly turned to ask me when do I want to get married some time ago. Hmm..ideally I suppose is between 26 to 30 years old for me. The problem for all of us, of course, is finding the right person to spend the rest of our lives with. Too often we have given a lot of our hearts to the wrong person and become too wary to open up our hearts anymore when the right person comes along. This is understandable and no one is to be blamed I suppose. But at times, destiny knocks only once, so we should seize it.

Yueheng & Shizhi's posts on love touched me immensely. More than feelings of wellness, I feel that loving someone should make us strive to be a better person for the person's sake. Have you ever experienced the strange sensation when your heart seems to beat together with the other party, when you yearn for the same thing? When you sense what the person is going through and weep together with him/her when he/ her weep and are filled with joy when you know that he/ she is happy? When you always want the best to happen to the person regardless of whether you are doing well yourself? When, though you have seen a less than nice side of the person, you react in an accepting way. When you want to do everything possible within your power to make life better for the other person. When, upon realising that you have hurt him/ her, you hurt even more. I think this is the essence of love: giving. I hope to be able to do that.

Just my 2 cents worth of thought. Now I feel more ready to take on the day's work. Ganbatte to everyone out there!