Emptied & Broken.

We need to be broken before Him, before He can mend us.
We need to be empty, only so then He can fill us again.

If we're already so full of ourselves, how else do you want Him to fill you? How else do you want Him to move in you? There isn't any more space for Him to do anything. For example, if a glass is half-filled with water, it can still be filled with a little bit more of water. If a glass is empty, it can be filled with even much more! If the glass is already full, how else can it be filled? It is already full!

It is when one is so full of himself, everything will be about that person. There will always be "I" everywhere and how can God be in the picture?

But if only we allow ourselves to be emptied to be filled again (be filled is a continuous action), then the Almighty can do greater things in us and through us!

I need to be emptied, I need to be broken. Holy Spirit, take Your rightful place! :)

He's Changing Me, One Step At A Time.

I was rather troubled just now. I was all alone and this thought came to me and said,

"You're not filled with the Holy Spirit because if you do, why aren't you joyous now and at all time? Why aren't you all loving? You're not showing the fruit of the Spirits and if you have this Holy Spirit with you, you'll automatically show the fruit of the spirit"

To be truthful, I was very convicted. And I started doubting. I'm not sure if its the devil throwing thoughts to me again to shake my faith and doubt and create more inferiority complexes in me, or is it true that I'm not filled with the Holy Spirit? But what were all those promptings? Wasn't it the Holy Spirit who touched me just now when I sung "Here In My Life"? Wasn't He who was so real throughout the whole prayer meeting just now? Wasn't I speaking in tongues? Were all these things coincidences or were they real?

I'm confused, really. I decided to ask Amelia and her reply was that not always the devil and there could be a problem lying somewhere. Frankly speaking, I was yearning for the answer. At least I really wanna know the source and I really hope that she could diagnose me and pull be back to the track, but she said I'll know the best. The answer is, I really don't know. I was really troubled, like really.

Until I mentioned this thing to Whay Ying over the MSN conversation and she asked how would I know and why do I think this way. I wanted to show her what are the fruit of the Spirits to explain why this thought came to me, so I decided to search for the scripture in my bible. I knew it was somewhere in Galatian but not sure which chapter or verse and guess what? The prompting came again and asked me to read Galatian 5 and my eye was shown straight to verse 4 onwards that says,

4. And if you try to please God by obeying the Law, you have cut yourself off from Christ and his wonderful kindness

5. But the Spirit makes us sure that God will accept us because of our faith in Christ

6. If you are a follower of Christ Jesus, it makes no differences whether you are circumcised or not. All that matters is your faith that makes you love others

7. you were doing so well until someone made you turn from the truth

8. and that person was certainly not sent by the one who chose you

9. a little yeast can change a whole batch of dough,

10. but you belong to the Lord. That makes me certain that you will do what i say, instead of what someone else tells you to do. Whoever is causing trouble for you will be punish

12. i wish that everyone who is upsetting you would not only get circumcised, but would be cut off much more!

13. My friends, you were chosen to be free. So dont use your freedom as an excuse to do anything you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love

14. All that the Law says can be summed up in the command to love others as much as you love yourself.

15. But if you keep attacking each other like wild animals, you had better watch out or you will destroy yourself

16. If you are guided by the Spirit, you won't obey your selfish desires.

17. The Spirit and your desires are enemies of each other. They are always fighting each other and keeping you from doing what you feel you should.

18. But if you obey the Spirit, the Law of Moses has no control over you.

19. People's desires make them give in to immoral ways, filthy thoughts and shameful deeds

20. They worship idols, practice witchcraft, hate others, and are hard to get along with. People become jealous, angry and selfish. They not only argue and cause trouble, but they are

21. envious. They get drunk, carry on at wild parties, and do other evil things as well. I told you beforem and I'm telling you again: No one who does these things will share in the blessings of God's kingdom

22. God's Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful,

23. gentle and self-controlled. There is no law against behaving in any of these ways.

24. And because we belong to Christ Jesus, we have killed our selfish feelings and desires,

25. God's Spirit has given us life, and so we should follow the Spirit.

26. But don't be conceited or make others jealous by claiming to be better than they are.

Now, I can really boldly tell that I have the Holy Spirit in me and it speaks to me. It was definitely the devil's job just now for putting thoughts in me. Sorry, you have lost, of Mr S.A. Tan HAHA!

And one thing is, this chapter really speaks and I know what I'm supposed to do now. I'm really far away from what I should be but I believe its not a one-night thing. He's changing me, one step at a time.

Thank You, Lord.

Non-Lactose for Gastritis Patients.

Its common that whenever someone is down with gastritis, one would ask them to consume milk. What a myth!

Do you know that milk would worsen the case instead of relieving it? Okay, not really worsen but its true to a certain extend depending on what milk.

Fact #1. Milk is (slightly) acidic! Most milk has a pH of around 5.5 or 6 which is deemed slightly acidic (neutral = pH 7). So, slightly acidic substance definitely would not aid in relieving the already overproduced (acidic) gastric juice. Unless you can find the alkaline milk (magnesium milk)

Fact #2. Milk = lactose. Lactose, when left reacting with the (overproduction of) gastric juices (HCl), one of the end-products would be CO₂ because fermentation would take place. Do you know that most of the time, these 'gases' are the one that causes your gastric pain? I'm sure your doctor would prescribe you drugs to relieve the wind colic whenever you have this pain. So, that's the point! Why do you want to produce even more gases when we were supposed to take in something to remove the gases?

Fact #3. Non-lactose milk are not milk. Some "brilliant" people would then suggest that one should then take a lactose-free milk. By the way, when its lactose-free, its not called milk anymore (please refer to Fact #2)! No lactose = no milk. Then, stop calling these lactose-free product as milk! They can be called beverages, drinks, consumable products or whatever but not milk!

In conclusion, when you have gastritis attacks, dont take milk! (But no coffee too okay!)

Stye Is Not For Perverts.

This is stye.

You know, whenever one gets a stye, they'd go, "owhh! Did you peep on a girl when she's bathing?" or somewhere along that line. What a myth weyy!

'Cause as far as I can recall, I don't peep on guys/girls when I was younger but I got that before! And I'm not that kind of normal kid who would just accept any facts without any proof. Like, how the stye grow just by looking (at naked people)? And what's the process in getting that stye thingy? And I totally forgotten bout this question ('cause I havent had that for so long!) and finally the answer came to me.

Its a Staph. aureus infection!

Ahah! That explains! That explains the infection caused by this bacteria, a common normal flora on our skin PLUS such infection would cause inflammation and hence the pus! Yes, the yellow thingy that comes out after a while! This answer finally satisfy my 'cravings' for my unanswered question since a kid.

Sports --- Heal or Kill?

"A mysterious death of a 22 y/o sports enthusiastic"

That's quite sudden and something's fishy somewhere. I mean, no one knows whats the cause of death, what had happened in between and how can police consider this case just as "sudden death"?

Though I do not know him personally (he's my friend's friend), the news of his death is quite mind-troubling. This also goes to show that no one is too young to die.

Or the malay phrase that we used to learn in primary school, "Malang tidak berbau..". Condolences to his family.

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Talking bout him being a sports enthusiast, I just remember my conversation with Mun Wah earlier on. I was telling her that I enjoy every jogging sessions I have with Amelia and the satisfaction when we completed the rounds but if I wanna compare, I'll rather play badminton everyday and jog only once a week. That's how much badminton means to me (though I really love jogs too, okay la, not love but enjoy only haha). I mean, the satisfaction and enjoyment during badminton itself cannot be contained.. though I'm not very good in it.

And of course I bet you can guess what was Mun Wah's (genuine) reply la. "I'll rather go shopping everyday and..." (Psst.. talking bout that, omg, she's actually counting down to my pay's day. OMGGG!)

After a long, tiring and sometimes frustrating or down day, even the thought of hitting the shuttles would lift the spirit up a little :) You guys should try and you'd fall in love with it. Guarantee!

I'd say, sports heal.

Effervescence In Stomach.

So last night I was at steamboat buffet with the youth again. Someone mentioned that shells of fried prawns can be eaten. And something came to my mind.

Do you know what will happen if one takes so much of those fried prawns with shells? And why?


Answer is.. bloated feeling. Why? 'Cause the prawn's shell is calcium carbonate (CaCO3). So when they reach your stomach, they will react with the acid of your gastric juice (HCl) and based on stuff that we learned in form 4, carbon dioxide (CO2) should be released. Hence, bloated-ness?

CaCO3 + 2HCl --> CaCl2 + CO2 + H2O

Heh, interesting eh? I'm not a nerd btw.

Just collected my health report

Blood pressure: 105/65 (normal is 120/80)
Pulse: 70 (normal is around 80)
Fasting blood sugar: 4.2 mmol/L (normal is 3.9-5.8 mmol/L)
Total cholesterol: Low (<3.5 mmol/L) (normal <5.2 mmol/L)

Apparently my total cholesterol is immeasurable low. As in, just low. Period. No other digits. The possible digit should be somewhere between 0.01-3.5 mmol/L. Wow, not bad uh? There was once when my heart rate went up to 90+ for the whole night. I was rather paranoid and wonder what's happening to my system. As we all know, heart rate tells alot and when its high, something IS wrong somewhere. Anyway, mom did hers also and all at borderline. Haha! And now she's blaming everything on the durian. Oh well..

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Now I agree that studying while working is not easy. Yeah, you heard me right. I'm actually repeating one the units (Medical Micro) now. I was quite shocked with the results too and went to see the lecturer right away the following day. She said I can review the exam script with her and guess what? I applied THREE freaking times but yet I'm still not allowed to view my scripts and now guess what? She's gone! I mean, she has already left Monash for good. I should have bugged her even more.

So for now, I'm trying to be a 100% good employee and do well in my workplace as well as being a 100% good student, trying to attend as much (or all) classes if possible and do really well in this unit. At least, this is my goal up to end of this year. It's really tiring these days, and my only motivation to look forward to is badminton. I really love this game. And oh, and also to maintain (or improve) my stamina through jogs? I really thank God for Amelia.