About Christianity

'i dont want to be like that, i want to be different from others,' i remembered telling my parents that when i was a child. ever since i had memory, kokutou azaka loves the word 'unique'. although there is no difference from being bound, i cannot bring myself not to like that word. i don't know why, i just don't want to be like the others, living a normal life. waking up naturally, going through life naturally, going to sleep naturally, i despised all these. i am the only me, so i must be different from others.

the child harboring this thought in her heart, because she has no idea what is special, so she always thought being special means being better than everyone else. i kept as secret those knowledge i forced myself to learn, and through that, became more special than my peers. i don't want to be a genius, nor do i want to be taken as a good student, because that is not special at all. what i must achieve, is a kind of 'difference' even words cannot describe. it did not matter if i am not the first, nor did it matter if i am the weakest.

i just wanted to be a special being. because of that, i threw away many things, and slowly detached myself from the surroundings. i used the knowledge i got to harm, to detach and to scare those who came near me. the results satisfied me, so i began to throw away even more things, and other than the teachers and friends, even my parents got distant from me. i finally achieved solitariness.

still being a child, i could not tell that was a mistake. because that made me comfortable, whether it was good or bad, i never thought about it. if i continued this, i would become a different person, different from others, unable to live with them...a person who exist to hurt others.

but i realized, that was something that made me lose out. not because some righteous partner or prince charming came to persuade me, it is unwittingly, naturally, i began to regret missing out the more interesting things.

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the above is an exerpt (i had taken out the less important parts) from a story book. it told of the history of a teenager when she was a child, how she tried too quickly to be special, to mature and to grow up. sorry though, if i put in the whole excerpt so you get the whole story, this post will be too long.

in a way, that is sad right? trying too hard to be different, and giving up the more important things, things that only children of her age could enjoy, things that she could never enjoy again. time could not turn back, and she could only regret them from the present.

are we like that? this post might be a little similar with the previous post i made about 'sacrifice'. how many times did we rush forwards in life, trying so hard to be someone we are not, trying so hard to be someone we will be if we wait, only to realize too late that we had missed out the more important things?

have anyone of you neglected your family? maybe your relationship with God? maybe the time when you can enjoy the peak of your youth? or maybe the innocence of a child you once were entitled to enjoy? or maybe, the stupidity of a teenager which we were all privileged.

'our life is not like a story you said.' maybe that's what you want to say to me. bills to pay, family to support, loans to pay off....everything needs money. if you don't work hard, maybe you would end up being in a bad situation. a little advice though, there are things that are luxury goods that you don't need to spend on.

anyway, back to the main point. we only live life once, and every stage of our lives is meaningful. being normal is not a sin. being special is not a must-achieve-goal. if we use this current stage of our lives to do something not of our age range, in the end, we might end up like kokutou azaka, regretting what cannot be undone.

again, i say these things on the blog, and yet i do something that does not fit my age range. talk about being stupid, just after making a post about stupidity.

well i guess most of you would more or less have learnt something from the above story, and would not need to read this post. but since i like to write, i shall cook up more advices that i myself don't do.

what azaka missed out was not only the life of a child, and the innoncence of a child. it was friends. deliberately harming people, pushing people away, she became alone, just like what she wanted. but what is life without friends? i might have said before, humans can live without friends, but you would have no joy, and no sadness. because there is nothing for you to be happy about, and nothing for you to be sad about. although, that is in itself a form of sadness.

in our walk of life, how many friends did we sacrificed? how many people had we harmed? maybe we don't need these people. maybe we can survive without them. but, is that really a good thing? like azaka, using the knowledge you get to harm people, is that really a good thing? like azaka, being a person who exists to harm people, if that is the case, then your life is really sadder than those whom you have harmed.

like azaka, often we do things that we think is comfortable for us, and did not consider whether it is right or wrong. like azaka, one day, we will regret if we continue to do this. like her, we will regret yet unable to do anything. we cannot turn back time. we cannot undo the things we did. like azaka, you can only dream about it. you had that feeling before? i am sure you have. that is the kind of feeling that can sink you into mild depression, that can make your eyes seemed tired, that can make your heart feel as if nothing else mattered anymore.

what i want to say today is actually simply this - in your rush or your goal to get things done, to achieve the state you want, be it riches or social status, enjoy this life God gives you. there is a time for everything. if today you missed this time, it will be tomorrow soon. you will never get back today. so, as you rush through your life, do take time to stop and enjoy life. enjoy the friends and people around you. enjoy nature. enjoy your relationship with God.

and now, after all this, i have to rush off. you see, i never do what i said....

whatever you do, don't be like kokutou azaka...

i just learnt a lesson on the last day of my exams. not exactly learn, maybe reminded and having the idea knocked into my head.

so this is what happened. i had my exams, and just finished it. i had 4 modules, and so had to take 4 papers. the last paper was supposed to be the easiest paper, and the paper i had the most confident in. the thing is, i did not aim to score, i only aimed to pass. call me unambitious, whatever. i do not have the habit of studying way before the main exams and always had to cramp everything in at the last minute. and naturally what people would do is to - ? spot topics. of course.

so i spotted topics. my friends too. we were part time students. we work in the day and study in the night. we had no time like the full time students to study whole day. when we had free time we want to rest, we do not want to study, which explains why we cramp everything in at the last minute. this is not an excuse. i admit i am lazy.

so we spot topics. it was risky. i remember my friend telling me not to study a certain topic because she could not do it. she told me if i were to understand it it would be very easy. but she could not understand it, and she told me not to study. that was the day before the exams. to be more specific, the time which she told me that was less than 24 hours before the exam start. and can you believe it, we were still spotting and deciding which topic to study as backup. we had prepared that in the event the topics we predicted did not come out we need to have a backup plan. but the problem is, i had heard her wrongly. i heard it as - study that topic because it is easy.

on that day of exam, i got a shock when i see the paper. the questions i predicted did not come out as many as i expected. note that i had aimed to pass, not to score. which means if i spot wrong topics there is a high chance i would fail. i spot 4 topics, it came out only 1. the other 1 was a backup topic i had prepared but i was not confident in. and you know what? the only topic i spotted correctly, i forgot how to do it!!!! that exact question appeared in the prelims, with only the numbers changed. this was a question where everything else is the same except for the numbers and the 'situation' given in the question. and this was the topic i had prepared for. and i could not do it. can you imagine how i felt?

i turned on to the last page to look at the question. there it was, the easiest question of the paper. and you know what? a second shock. this was the topic my friend told me not to study because it was hard. i had heard wrongly and studied it. and for the topic i spent less than a day preparing for, it was really a miracle i could do ALL the sub-questions in that topic.

before the exam, i had slacked a bit. i was really in no mood to study. i had stayed at home and studied every free time i got. why? because of last minute cramping. that happened for about 3 months. work, study, work, study. i got sick of it and did not want to study for the last paper which was my most confident paper. i knew i could not be complacent. i tried to force myself to study, telling myself to be humble. sometimes i did manage to study sometimes i don't. be humble, i tell myself. the body do not follow the mind. is that an excuse? i don't know.

and on that day, it further knocked into me the need to be humble. the question i did in prelims, the question i spot for, i had forgot how to do. the question my friend asked me not to do and which i heard wrong, i could do it. now, is there such a co-incidence? i believe it is a lesson God gave me. a lesson which i do not need to learn the hard way. i think i should be able to pass. but... be humble. i hope to pass.

moral of the story? even in the confident situations, there are things that could go wrong. unexpected help could also come. never be complacent. be humble always. i used to pray that God would help me pass my exams. but from 3 years ago, i had started praying that God will give me the results He deemed fit, but i added that i hope to pass, if it is not against His will. but in actual fact, what i think i should do is to study hard and get everything in, and then let Him decide to let me pass or not, instead of being on the verge of failing and then letting Him decide. haix, but i am lazy. will i change? i don't know. if you read all the way to here and still do not understand what i am talking about, then remember this one thing - be humble at all times. you won't want to regret.

if you have lived for a certain number of years, you will have things that you regret. generally regret is separated into 2 categories, regret that you did something, or regret you did not do anything. a regret, i would take it as something which had already happened and that which cannot be turned back. example, hurting a person, not studying hard, commit a crime, did not appreciate someone.

me too, have my own regrets. i have already told myself that i will not do things that will make me regret. of course that is a near impossible achievement. well maybe at least i can try. what regrets do i have? quite a few. i made stupid mistakes, and did stupid things. well things a usual teenager would do. i was an idiot last time. i guess everybody is at one point of time or another.

luckily, many of our regrets are quite 'little'. as in, nobody really died, there are no long-term effects that will result in a dramatic turnover of our life for most of us. yes, it did affect us, maybe for a short while, maybe for a long while, maybe forever. maybe it is a big impact. but most of it, well i take it as decisions made up to the point of age 21, since i am 21 this year, most of it do not have that big of an impact to completely change us. meaning? life goes on, maybe with a few hurts here and there. no big deal. i dealt with it, at the expense of many sleepless nights and many moody days.

so i can say our regrets up to age 21 for most of us do not significantly affect us once a few years passed by. maybe we became more mellow, more cheerful, more able to hide and handle pain, whatever. everyone got changed, a little i guess. but there is another kind of regret that will happen to many of us, a regret that will affect us forever, one that we can never get over with, and that will happen when we die, or after we die. i'm sure you guessed it. this is a christian blog, you should know what to expect.

yes, if we end up in hell, there will be regret forever. reason 1, eternal pain and suffering. not 1 year, 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years. forever. no end to time. no limit. imagine being burn by fire forever. no rest, no peace, no relief. regret forever. what can we do then? nothing. you are dead, and you are gone, if you end up in hell. i dont know if you believe in the concept of hell. i do not have proof. but religion is about faith. i have not seen hell, not felt it, not heard it. but i believe it. i believe it exist and believe that i am not insane enough to want to go there.

i dont want to regret. do you? if you dont, be a good christian. as in, follow the way of Christ Jesus. do what He tell you to. repent of your sins, every single one of them. if you are not a christian, be a christian. i know it is weird to just join any religion. try to talk to your christian friends about it. dont regret forever because of the few years you spend here. instead, celebrate forever because of the life you spend here. it is only a short while. dont regret.

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.