Yesterday I went to a friend’s house for fellowship and prayer. Regular church prayer meeting had been cancelled due to holidays but Jon opened up his place so we had an impromptu one there instead.
Aw man, I bought ingredients I wanted to eat and they cooked up this FEAST. My photo doesn’t do it justice but man every dish was bursting with flavour. I am salivating just thinking back.
Thank you, Trader Joe’s, for providing a nutritious and delicious meal for a small army for <$20 (omg). And thanks to Jon and Ak for actually cooking it, of course. I have a new found respect for Jon’s cooking now. Don’t tell him. Out of all the many meals he’s cooked (seriously many), this is probably my favourite.
For the superstitious, Friday the 13th is an unlucky day. For my mum, the number 13 is lucky. In my case, it happened to be one of the most blessed days I’ve had so far this year. I love that my previous post documented my anxiety during this job hunt and the importance of not losing faith. That was a short week and a half ago, and in the following 7 days of that post, miracles have happened.
The picture above was my celebratory dinner on Friday the 13th, because in those 7 days from 6th – 13th Jan, I was blessed with not one but two very attractive job offers, both at impressive companies, and finally accepted an offer with one of them. I’ve signed the contract and start a week on Monday.
It also happened to be my mum’s birthday (happy birthday, mummy!) and she was thrilled at the offer I’d ended up accepting, saying that was the best birthday gift ever (I feel sorry I couldn’t be there to celebrate with her, but I did work hard to show her daughter was worth 2 offers and felt fuzzy butterflies when she wrote in our family chat that she was proud of me <3)
The crazy thing is, the company I ended up accepting the offer for only got in touch last week, and initially I thought it couldn’t possibly work out because I was pressed for time and at the end stages of interviews with two other companies already, and I’d begged for Him to let me complete the process that week already.
But I should know by now that that’s never the way He works :) And in a way, I love that – the fact that things just worked out so perfectly, so wonderfully, at the very last minute, are a sign to me that miracles still happen on a daily basis. Some people like to call it fate, but as a Christian, I call it grace, not least because I know that it’s not something I could have ever accomplished on my own.
One of the most dangerous things, I’ve realised, at least for me, is to lose faith.
I think at various points in my life, I have felt it. Lost, confused, restless, directionless, even if things are continuing as normal, even if things seem to be fine, there’s an inner numbness that cannot be overcome.
These days, I feel anxious. I’m exhausted; I’m mentally drained, I’m physically tired.
I don’t want to sound negative, but I think I am going through a phase in my life where there are so many uncertainties that are manifesting itself into negative energy and anxiety in my body. I can’t help but be negative, even if I don’t necessarily *feel* negative. Mentally, I am thankful and glad for my situation. I feel blessed. Let me talk about those blessings, to see if it might help:
I had a wonderful Christmas on the whole (although I did need to adjust my mindset for a different way of celebration over here) and an amazing New Year’s celebration (I went for dim sum lunch followed by KTV with Bellman Fellowship, then another brother’s house for a New Year’s party in the evening).
One month ago, on 4/4, I turned 21 for the n-th time. It was truly special; full of joy, laughter and a couple of firsts, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so loved on a birthday before.
What ensued was more or less a week of celebration, with a 3-birthday combined party the night before my birthday and a ridiculously sweet surprise to end my actual birthday. Sorry, all photos taken on iPhone, I got lazy about taking an actual camera around with me, plus so much of it was unexpected.
To start, my dad flew out to LA to visit. He arrived on Thursday 3/31 and stayed for a week, literally just to celebrate my birthday with me and see how my life is in LA. I’d told my family about how much I loved Santa Monica and my CBCWLA family, and naturally my family were relieved albeit curious. He had free time, so came to visit.
Can you believe it? So much time has already passed and we’re already into May. It’s crazy that the last blog post I wrote, even before my site went down, was last year. At that time, I’d just left my London home and moved to LA. Now, I’m writing this from my new room in New York City.
A couple of months ago, my company asked me to relocate to NYC. It’s not a place I’ve ever wanted to be and honestly, I fell in love with my home and church in Santa Monica so I didn’t want to move. However, I know it’s where God is calling me through one miracle after another, and that’s enough for me to follow.
As of Monday I now live in NYC. In my mind, I’ll be here for 6 months and then I’ll return to LA, but my plans often aren’t God’s plans for me, so we will see :) Who knows, I might love it here and never want to return (so far, that’s not the case. It’s pouring outside and the city is as smelly and dirty as I imagined it to be) so there’s always an option to stay.
It really was an awesome 9 months in LA though! I realised I stopped blogging after my break up with Jason – 8 months ago now – because life happened. God led me to the church into which I would eventually settle, surrounded me with brothers and sisters and seekers to love and serve, and meet some of the best friends I’ve ever had. It was a wonderful life… it became a comfortable life… I stopped relying on Him, I became complacent. Thankfully He wasn’t finished with me.
That’s why I’m here today. I hope to find what God wants from me in this city. It’s been an amazing journey thus far. Join me for the next leg?
In the mean time, let me share a few more highlights from my time in LA – or more specifically, my church, CBCWLA.
