Instead of being cliché and writing my end-of-the-year blogpost for the last day of the year, I’m going to write this on the last Sunday of 2014. Because Sundays are always more special than other days of the week, and also because life is too metaphorical to not make into a cheesy opening of a blogpost:
It’s about a week before my mid-sessional examinations, and I have a bad habit of making perfectionist notes. If there is one word spelt wrong, or a line drawn slightly crooked, there are several ways in which I fix the mistake:
- If it was on the backside of another finished piece of notes, I stick two pages together to cover up a whole page of mistakes.
- I use whiteout
- If all else fails, the whole page is ripped out and re-written.
White out. I’m writing this in the middle of studying the autonomic nervous system, because I just whited out about 5 words, and waiting for it to dry. But what came into my mind was the fact that what could’ve been 1 whited out word turned into 5 because I had tried to write more to fix the mistake.
There are so many times in life when I know that I’m already making a mistake, yet I continue down that path hoping to fix that mistake. Instead, it backfires and in the end, the whole mess is bigger than what it needed to be before. However, unlike the piece of paper that I have before me, that can be fixed, or simply scrapped and thrown away, my life is un-white-out-able.
Genesis 50:20
“You intended to harm me, but God had intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.”
Maybe one day I would be able to save the lives of many people, by at least mastering the skills of understanding the renal system (I’m also drowning in information regarding the proximal convoluted tubule and it’s reabsorption mechanisms). But until then, here’s my translation of that:
“[Someone did something really bad to] me, but God had intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could [see and respond in a way that glorifies God].”
One of the most common questions people ask to question my faith would be:
“If God loves us, then why does He let bad things happen to us?”
This bible verse came from the story of Joseph. The one who was his father’s favourite, but the hated amongst his brothers. The one who had a beautiful coloured coat, but was sold of to slavery, his colourful coat torn and covered in blood. The one who had been chosen as a faithful servant, but was seduced by his master’s wife and sent to jail. The one who had been able to correctly interpret the dreams of the pharaoh’s servant, but was forgotten for another 2 years.
From what I can see, Joseph didn’t really make many mistakes, in fact, besides maybe rubbing it in his brothers’ faces that they would one day bow down to him (which they did in the end), Joseph was one of those people who you couldn’t really criticise. Yet so many ‘bad things’ had happened to him.
If I can’t even stay awake from mistakes writing out notes that aren’t of life-or-death importance (or maybe just a little), then how am I supposed to guarantee that ‘bad things’ won’t happen to me?
In the year of 2014, my biggest ‘mistake’ was to choose to enter a broken-and-doomed-from-the-start relationship, and trust all the wrong people with my deepest thoughts and feelings. This had lead to many nights sobbing into my pillow, and a very tall wall around my heart that reminds me of the maze that surrounds those poor children in the movie ‘The Maze Runner’.
Though what gives me comfort at the end of this year isn’t knowing that these mistakes are ‘white-out-able’, but rather, although they may seem like ‘mistakes’ during that time. But ‘God had intended it all for good’. I think directly or indirectly, that relationship had led to many of the following blessings I got in the end:
- A realisation of who my true friends really are
- An understanding of how important it was to listen to your parents (yes, they said ‘I told you so’)
- A deeper and more truthful relationship with my parents
- Higher IB grades (he was DEFINITELY a distraction)
- Medical school
- London (I know it’s really far, but maybe just a tiny bit influenced by this)
- A new found understanding of who I really am.
There are so many instances in the year of 2014 where I had taken up the burdens onto my own shoulders, saying to myself ‘you can do this’, but instead, I should’ve just given it all up to God, and said ‘I can’t do this alone, but with God I can do this’.
God’s sovereignty is higher than all of us could ever possibly imagine. His wonderful plan is like a beautifully drawn, detailed, perfectly laid-out blueprint (which are very unlike my notes). Those times of clouded skies and rainy days, when things just seem to be falling apart, those are the moments when some part of you, even if you don’t know it yet, is growing stronger.
Joseph took 22 years of being a slave before finally documenting his ‘sudden realisation’ of God’s wonderful plan, and another 7 years, and his father’s death to come up with Genesis 50:20. Realisation of God’s sovereignty takes time, especially when your vision and thoughts are clouded by all those unhappy feelings. All I know, is that no matter what, i’ll hang in there.
Year 2014, there are quite a lot of moments where I wish I had white out, or that I could’ve hidden it by sticking two pages together, or even ripped out the page itself and start over, but instead, I’ll look at the page, with all it’s mistakes, and appreciate the beauty of the organised plan that is my life.
And continue whiting out the mistakes on my notes to keep them neat and readable.
HKGirl In London 