About Christianity

i am going to say something very simple today. but i think everyone of us have heard the moral of the story, so i guess it might be pretty boring. hmm, let me see. maybe i should change the story and come up with the same moral of the story? hahax.

everyone of us meet different people at different times. schools, work, social meetings, chance meetings, co-incidence, miracles, saviors, whatever. many people come and many people go. some stay with us longer and some not. some give us good memories and some not. familiar? yea, i guess i am repeating what the others before me had said so far.

i had good friends, and still do. you know, the thing with good friends is that when you are with them, whether man or woman, you think we will always be good friends. because the current friendship is so sweet, so stable. but after a while, as in many years, and experiences, i came to realized that good friends can be split into 2 categories - permanent good friends and temporary good friends. regarding the permanent good friends, i guess there is no need to say anything more.

temporary good friends. i had temporary good friends, both male and female. there were things you would talk to a boy and not to a girl, and things you would talk to a girl and not to a boy. the thing about temporary good friends is that after some time, the relationship falls apart, or got distant. no, there need not neccessary be conflict or strife. it just happens as surely as ice melts and as the sun sets. maybe the setting sun would be a good example. it happens. when you look at it and observe it by the seconds you would not notice the difference. the sun looked as if it is not setting. it looked as if it would always be there. turn your back, go into the toilet and come out in say, 2 minutes? the sky darkened. it is fast. same as temporary friends, before you know it, they are gone.

maybe not gone. maybe not a total breakdown. but surely, the relationship is not as close as before. is there anything you can do? sometimes. sometimes not. i tried to save it sometimes, sometimes i don't. so far, none of them worked. if it did, it would not be called a temporary friendship. the old saying goes, it takes 2 hands to clap. builidng a relationship is like buiding bridges. you build, and the other side at least need to connect it to his/her side, even if he/she does not want to build it.

a relationship, i take it as building and connecting bridges. building bridges can be done by either 2 or 1 person. certainly it is harder for one person to build. but the fact is it can be done. the thing that cannot be done is the connecting part. you may build the best bridge, but ultimately the act of connecting to the other side, the heart of the person, lies with the person's decision. you may persuade, talk, scold, cry, whatever. you can influence, but not make the decision. if the other side do not even bother to connect it, there is nothing you can do, as far as my limited experiences tell me. sometimes you try too hard, and people think you are irritating. that is when you know you have to give up. at least it is for me.

why am i writing this? because i have lost another temporary good friend. so maybe when i am writing a blog i thought of this. of course, this is not to say that if your friendship is going to be temporary, you will not give your best. you never know if that good relationship will turn permanent or not. even if it does not, a relationship should require that both parties give their best. of course, i am saying this as a close relationship between 2 parties, not just aquaintances. sometimes we touch people's lives, sometimes they touch our lives. if we can make a positive impact on others, even if it is temporary, does it really matter? maybe, God put you there temporary to make an impact on that person's life. and when your job is done, you will need to go to another person. maybe that is the whole plan. of course, it is a pity to see a good relationship gone like that. it just break down. suddenly, you might not feel close at all. but, maybe out there, there is another person waiting for you.

if you want a good friend, the moral of the story i want to say is, Jesus is your permanent Friend. actually, does my moral of the story fit the story itself?

roughly 9 or 10 years ago, when i was a little kid, i made a friend. she was one year younger than me. we were from different schools, we had met at the playground below my house. i was living in a high rise building... well not actually high rise, 8 storeys only. she lived in another block of flats. below and near our block of flats was a playground. we went there to play often. badminton, catching, blind mice, whatever. games usually kids would play. we were in primary school, or what the americans would call a elementary school.

so we played. because i was a person with no life, i looked forward each day that i can go down to play. you know kids, we can never stay at home. my parents were strict. i dont want to stay at home. sometimes they banned me from going down. but when i did go down, i would play with her. it was fun. maybe because she was the only friend i had outside of school and sunday school.

so we played. we continued that way till secondary school, or what you would call a high school. gradually more people join us. life became better, for a while. there were boys and girls. we became really good friends. at least, i treated her as my good friend, maybe my best friend. during teenage, it was a time when normal girls and normal boys started having feelings for the opposite sex. me too. maybe she too.

ok i will skip the details. but we ended up having a very strained relationship. she wanted to severe all ties with me. it was no fun at all. i remembered it was one of the most painful period of my life. maybe i will sound like a hypocrite, but i really did tried to repair our friendship with her. no use. she refused. she still had me on msn, me too. but we didnt really talk. when i talked to her, she refused to answer. and then she blocked me. i kept her in my list, as a memory of my dear friend. i moved house. i have no idea what had happened to her then, dont know what happened to the group of friends. but i remembered hating someone. that time, i had thought it was gone, that she had blocked and deleted me on msn.

i gave up. i had tried for around 1 year plus. maybe a year and a half. i was too tired. i had tried my best. after i moved house, i did still think about her. i still had her in my msn list, the very top. it was just a memory. who knows, one day, years later, i saw her name appearing online on my msn list. i did not receive a request to add her on my msn, which means all these years she only blocked me and not delete me. we talked for a while.

the thing is, after so long, after such a strained relationship, we can only get past the formalities such as how do you do. we used to talk a lot, talk about everything and anything. we joked a lot. we teased each other. but now, we have problems talking. now and then, me or her would try to communicate with each other. but it was always like this, after a while, it became a Q&A session. for some reason, we cannot talk normally anymore. even though she had finally agreed to make peace, the hurt was still too great. i had given up hating the person whom i thought had caused my treasured and precious friendship to break down. i had hated because maybe i can say it is not my fault. maybe i dont want to admit i did something wrong, that i screwed up somewhere. and then, i found it very tiring to keep hating a person. i had no choice, i had to accept the result of it is the combined mistake of all of us.

so now what? i have no idea. i only know, our friendship is so broken it is almost impossible to repair. i heard on tv, and saw in movies, that when friends quarrel, they became better friends after they patch. why then, is mine so different? instead of being stronger than before, it was so much weaker. it is as if both of us are trying to hold on to that line connecting both of us. i can sense the awkwardness. i did not know what to say to her, and i guess the same for her too. i got my wish, that my dear friend restored the bond, but why is it that weak? what can i do? i have no idea. i already tried my best. maybe she too. i dont know.

what would i give to go back to the past? many things. friendship (relationship) is one of the top priorities i have set in my life. the bond is priceless. and yet, this is one of the biggest regret in my life. how long have we known each other now? 10 years maybe. or 9 years. isnt it sad?

do you have a similar situation? maybe you have. what can you do? i have no idea. i myself if i know what to do this blog post will be 'my restored friendship' instead of 'my broken friendship'. i only have one way out, that is to pray. years ago, when i gave up, i had stopped praying for the restoration. years later, our friendship got restored. maybe not the way i want it. but it did. God did answered my prayers. but this few years, i had not prayed for our relationship to go back to as it were. i dont know why i didnt do it. but i know, if i want it to happen, i have to pray. i had been praying for her all these years, but not for the strengthening of our bond. am i scared of something? maybe not. i just didnt think of it. maybe, if you have an experience similar to me, you can try praying. the answer may come many years later, but i guess it will come through. afterall, God do want us to restore our relationship. maybe the time is not right. pray, will you?

i guess, maybe starting from today, i will pray. and years later i will look back and not regret i prayed, just like how 6 years ago, i did not regret that i prayed for our bond to connect back.

i love to watch anime and read (and write) stories. for some reason, they appeal to me. not only because you can escape from reality and go into a world of excitement, but because in anime i see the relationship of other people being very close. in anime (especially those where there are tons of fighting like bleach and naruto), usually we see a group of people who are very close and bonded together.

as i watch the anime, i kind of admire that, and wish i could be like that too. friends that are always there for you, to help you when you are in need, to laugh with you and to cry with you (of course i don't cry in front of others). friends that will risk their life for you. of course in our world, we don't really need friends to risk their lives for us. but what i mean is, do we have friends that are that close to us? we are not talking about the kind of sudden situation where either you save someone or let him die such as a near-accident on the road. i am talking about stepping into a situation willingly to help your friend. do we have friends like that?

unlike anime, our friends don't usually walk the same path as us, and as such we lost contact slowly. we made new friends and forgot old friends, and when we go to the next stage of our life we do the same thing again. are our friendship so weak? i myself don't know how long can the bond of me and my closest friends last. one by one all of my closest friends are going overseas for studies, and finally after around 8 years or so together we will be separated for prolonged periods of time. this then, will the friendship fail?

stories, and anime tend to have a happy ending. you get your friends back, the bond is not broken, one friend goes all out to maintain the relationship. but in real life, it is hard. friendship requires the effort of 2. if 1 is not keen, the bond is weaken and finally breaks, because we don't only have friendship to maintain. we have to work, study and maintain other bonds. usually, we see people giving up because it is simply too troublesome, or simply because the other side has no initiatve to communicate. but if this happens all the time, will we have a fairytale-like relationship? i myself wish i can have bonds that strong like those in anime. i have close friends here and there as i move on each stage of my life, but they are always gone at the end of that stage. in the end, only 3 friends remain from way back when i was still a kid. and now i am seeing them off one by one at the airport as they pursue their life overseas. the bonds between the 4 of us are the closest to a story-like situation, but not that close. this is afterall a reality. and i am going to try and keep it.

what about you? do you wish to have strong bonds with your friends like that in fairytale, anime, or stories? or do you already have them? it stirs my heart everytime i see that kind of situation, myself wishing that i can be like them too. there are more important things in this world other than money, romance, computer games, career, the strive to be the top. these are all important, and i myself will chase after this things too. but more importantly, is the bonds. money can be earned back, career can be rebuilt, there will always be someone above you, but you don't get a story-like bond everyday. maybe once you missed it, you may never have the chance again. don't sacrifice something important to chase after the not so important things. i am not saying money and career is not important, but bonds are more important. so i hope that those who read this will get your own fairytale-like bond and keep it that way.