Redemption shouldn't always be associated with religion only.

Redemption is the self-liberating actualization I get with my children at work/school. Redemption is when someone journeys the distance with you. Redemption occurs when you're at your lowest peak (ha, the irony) and kind souls telepathically appear. Redemption is in realizing how fortunate you are, with family and meals taken care of. Redemption is in loved ones' recoveries.

So you see, redemption arrives in many forms.

However dark this night may be, I am fighting, albeit with cans of beer to ease the incessant fears. God is somewhere out there, waiting for me to run into his solace, the only solace that is assured and guaranteed. My mind moves at lightning systematically and rationally, like a metronome, and every reason has fallen in its place, right into my fingers.

I never imagined myself to be anticipating baptism this way. After all, it has been an arduous 5 years until today, the wanting to be close to God, closer than ever.

So God, do not desert me. I do pray. I pray all the time. Lord, be here to comfort me when all else fails. Keep me away from harm and keep harmful thoughts away from me. I've come too far in improvement to sit right here, wondering where on earth you are. It's 2 days to baptism but it seems darker than it's ever been in 3 years. Dear Lord, love has to be shown. If you love me, I wouldn't be here right now, broken and torn. Love me more than the rest, for once. Love me, and show me. I'm so tired of unspoken love and love that isn't expressed. I am torn.

Why didn't you just take me away? She had a great life ahead of her.

I've been spending some time reading archives of old blogs, mine or not, and here I am penning down thoughts of the aftermath of that. I began browsing through writings of 2008, while my heart very much belonged to a girl whom I believed to be the love of my life. In fact, I've been consuming myself with my love for being in love that it clouded my judgment towards many of the people I have thought myself to 'love'.

It has been 3 years since I walked the path of being straight. I won't facade the truth and deny that it wasn't hard turning straight. It was lonely and bittersweet. Friends were scarce because we didn't share that common sexuality preference. I walked into heterosexuality practically naked, figuratively. I grazed my days working away from home just to steer clear of comfort; that familiarity of my old life.

Re-visiting all those years of my life via blog posts gave me a deeper closure in many ways. And believe me, even after years of being a stranger to homosexuality and my ex-girlfriend, I am thoroughly guilty of having done the worst things in my life. One of the largest misdeeds in this 24 years of my life, is to have hurt a girl in such a way that I am still responsible for the inflictions I caused. That, is a baggage I'll always carry under my belt. And if she ever reads this, I hope she knows that I am sorry, so very sorry, and that I seek forgiveness.

Looking at the way things are now, I can safely and confidently proclaim to myself that I am contented, no matter how rough things may get. I am 24, earning my own keep, paying the bills at home, partially supporting my mother, grateful for my job of 2 years, blessed with an old new Godfamily, and sharing a blissful imperfect perfect relationship with a very beautiful man.

When I trace back and reminisce about my past relationships, I am strickened with a heavy heart. This heart fills with regret, guilt, sadness, pain, anger, bittersweetness, angst, and even hate, whenever it is mentioned alongside past relationships. When I think of what I have with Ben right now, what comes to mind is an imperfect perfect relationship. But for what it's worth, I believe I have found the only guy in this world, who'll always run back to me. In my books, it's not in the unforgiveness of walking away, it's the walking back that counts; it's not about the fights, it's the making up; it's not about the winning, it's about returning into each others' arms and feeling grateful to the heavens that there is still fight for love.

I no longer thrive on that darkness which felt so good, so comfortable. Gone are the days when I doubt more than I believe. I have Ben, and he is my pillar. And I hope to be his too. For the rest of our lives. No regrets. And I'm happy with my lot.

This dark night, has descended upon me like a filthy plague. It is wretching my thoughts blackened, yet baking me with a sickless fever. This night, I've realised how much solace I've been seeking in God, and in mindless club beats.

I'm experiencing an all new low with the emulsion of everything. The debris wouldn't budge and it spins in a clogged circulation of unpleasant emotions. My stomach is churning up a vomit but my throat is tightening to stop it.

A mind can only think so far. A heart can only feel so deep. And alas, a human can only undergo this much.

I don't know how else to do anything and everything. No longer.

It's not like you wish to die, but sometimes living when you know most of you inside has already perished. And sometimes, when your heart and beliefs have fully numbed from everyone else's consumption, God sifts a certain kind of unseen hope back in. By the grace and love of God, I've taken a larger appreciation for the subtlest things in life, my life in specifics.

You see, this is how I live it - with the little hope I breathe in, I have the strength and courage to have faith, and when faith kicks in, I am able to love the way love is meant to be given. And freely it should be.

For the past couple of years, or for as long as I can trace back in memory of recent years, I have been praying for my parents; not for their reonciliation (I let go of that hope nearly a decade ago. I told you, I've lost track of the years.), but for them to be able to move on and forward with wisdom, happiness and reflection. And that made me at peace, knowing that I am no longer oblivious to the concept of the non-dramatics of indifference.

Today, I am pricked with a shock from my conscience. A jolt of suddenness kicked in as I realised I may have been praying wrongly. Which child prays for their parents' divorce? God gave me the wisdom of seeking for what's best mapped out to them by Him, and not by my worldly knowledge of what's ideal.

My internal self is no longer as dark as it used to be. And this thriving fact brings me peace; a kind of comfort I don't think anyone else but me would understand. And this, I assume, is my relationship with God.

More than often, God sends people, and in my case a particular person, to help the unbelievers. He sent me Ben, and He sent me these wonderful 12 months of my kind of perfect. Don't get me wrong, I've never wanted something perfect. I've always wanted something rough and trying, so that someone imperfectly perfect would journey this arduous years with me, in complete harmony of the ups and downs. And Ben is "that one". Everyday that I am sane, I remind myself how fortunate and blessed I truly am, and how grateful I ought to be everytime I begin feeling stray inside.

Sure, the future doesn't look certain or sketched in details, but today's indefinitely a better future of the many yesterdays I endured and got through.

So thank you God, and thank you mum, and thank you Ben, for being floats when I was sinking, for being wings when I free-fell, for saving me from who I was.

You make me feel proud, of every side and part of you. It's a slightly invincible and awe-striking kind of unexplainable pride. I can't remember a happier moment, apart from the ones I've had since you've been around.

It's been perfect having you around these past 10 months. And with 9 months of your love, I couldn't be happier. Thank you, for the best memories of my life.

Alas, an afternoon with a break from the hustle and bustle from work that is not plagued with fatigue of the mental department. The light of day seems to be crystallising every strand of thought of what has happened, what could happen and what is happening now. It is with sheer pride and joy and gratitude that I'm able to say that Benjamin and I have braved through nearly 9 months of wonderful and imperfectly perfect love, and this song seemingly and aptly metaphorises how much we love to be able to have what we have today. When the days and nights dull with thin fragility and affirmative love, I have Ben to cushion the cynic in me. I could have been worse or in worse state than I ever was, but God's love of sending a wonderful man to love me has made life worth journeying.

So much has been detered (referring to the supposed baptism earlier this year) and so much has been lifting up (referring to my third and determined attempt at attaining baptism next year, with Ben consistently urging me with every sense of encouragement). This try at reaching baptism is one that has provided me with optimal motivation, because I know that Ben is right by me to take on this embarkment with me.

The afternoon in solitude has rushed feelings and thankfulness and reflections within me, and shifted me closer to these sensations that I have so long forgotten. I enjoy emotions and I like feeling gratefully fortunate.

This relationship is the first and only that I am lacking the insecurity of being left and abandoned. It almost feels like a solemnisation of an eternity together in love. This feels like a lifetime in its in best perspective.

So this song clearly describes us in tough times, and this song is for you Ben. I love you always and if God permits, I'd love you in heaven when we perish from our bodies.


Errant heat to the star
and the rain let in
the hawser rolls, the vessel’s whole and Christ, it’s thin

Well Iʼd know that you’d offer
would reveal it, though it’s soft and flat
won’t repeat it, cull and coffer’s that
for the soffit, hang this homeward
pry it open with your love
sending lost and alone standing offers

It is steep / it is stone
such recovery
from the daily press, the deepest nest, in keeper’s keep

All the news at the door
such a revelry
well, it’s hocked inside of everything you said to me

It was found what we orphaned
didn’t mention it would serve us picked
said your love is known
I’m standing up on it

aren’t we married?!
I ainʼt living in the dark no more
It’s not a promise, Iʼm just gonna call it

Heavy mitted love

Our love is a star
sure some hazardry
for the light before and after most indefinitely

Danger has been stole away
…
This is us

Perfect this way. No other way. (:

Re-watching Nowhere Boy this evening, heavily reminded me of the fondest first date I've ever had. Almost ten months ago, I saw it through my (literal) eyes and wondered why your eyes glistened with intrigue at anything The Beatles, but today I saw it through yours and a whole new universe unravelled before me. Much has changed, very much for the better. The world turned a three-sixty when I began loving you, but my heart has not an utter of complaint.

Life becomes worthwhile when you've found your soulmate, and I have you. You are God's way of assuring me that I will never have to look at life as death again.

You should've known when I was thinner than your sight. You should've known the way I was holding that kitchen knife, and the way I was fallen to the ground. You found out when you heard that ugly sound, that ugly sound. Have I loved enough? Have I loved too much? Am I about as heart for hire, no pitting polish scrub.

Maybe Justin Vernon from Bon Iver lives and breathes the way I do.

To truly love and bare your heart into the loving, is to be unconditionally susceptible to getting hurt. Not in a form of being let down, but of being entirely prepared that feelings that you own not being reciprocated. You had no say in it as much as you had no choice. It just happens, just like breathing in every ounce of inhalation. It's so challenging, living every year knowing that yours is a heart that forgives, for love.

And I'm starting to get sick of the way I lament with theories and philosophies of my youth. I miss the summers.

I'll cradle your face and gently sashay from side to side when this song plays.

"I love you forever". Utterings of a heartfelt whisper took effects in more than loud thumpings of a heart. For once in this whole life of mine, I believe these words.

Forever once carried a staunch and impoverished impression, that it is a term used and meant only aligned alongside cynicism. How a heart could ever feel this magnificently at home nearly escaped from all remembrances of possibilities, yet here I have a home in our hearts. Subtlety of happiness at its simplest holds immaculate power, ironically. Love, finally found and nurtured, feels assured with both intangible and tangible perpetuity - is almost materially and literally ascertained, with trust I have never harboured thought to believe in giving. In this love, sorrow never surpassses sadness, and joy is very often the first words we have to portray us (as a matter of factly). I'd run back to you and you'd be running back to me at the same time; unconditionally and by fate, we'd always run to meet halfway. That, love, is my greatest assurance from and to you.

As long as our hearts are intertwined and with one another, that's where my home is. These are the words I believe we'd grow old together enough to live to witness through our own love and not through any other.

There will be no "I love you forever too", or "I love you forever back" or "I loved you forever first". We will grow old and grow up together, throughout every phase of our lives hence forth.

"And I love you forever" is what I say to you.

Because it's true. I'm nothing without you.

I've just had the happiest 6 months of my life, and every single memory of that has you in it. You are the motivation that sustained me these 6 months. I'm excited for the rest of our lives together. Arent you? (:

I feel so alone in this world, in my world. I feel like a freak of my thoughts.

Solo hours attempting at deriving an outcome from thinking, many stubborn questions but only a bouldered heart drags inside this well-fatigued frame. As I cushion myself on physical comfort, my neck chokes with irreversible regret. My forecasts of a silently delirious breakdown does not actualize, but I am still feeling. The years has licked me by and there are stains of chase. Evidences of the chase leave me exasperated, but it is all well-known that the chase is involuntarily infinite. Infinity. Such a sacred word to be married to a jading source. The irony of it all, mocks my every futile effort.

God, I am lost. I have stopped being hopeful of a tomorrow. Today is the furthest I can go, or so I tell myself. But every today manages to survive to another tomorrow. And merely surviving makes me no happier than the thought of re-staging out another tomorrow purely on the basis of only pulling through.

I want certainty. I want consiatency. I want both, in the happiness that lives too short to comprehend.

Noone has made me quite as happy the way you do. Thank you, for almost 6 months of faithfulness, patience, kindness, understanding and love.

Nothing compares. Everything else pales when it comes to you.

Being the anal perfectionist that I am, I baked Ben's birthday cake 2 days in advance, to ensure flawlessness and to ascertain that the cake is sufficiently firm/chilled for neat cutting. I made a smaller portion since there were extra batter and crust. It's been a knock-out so far. I just hope Ben, his family and his friends enjoy it as much as my family did.

Recipe from Bakerella.

Birthday boy-to-be makes me happy in ways that even he himself cannot count. But before that, beautiful boy and I will be hitting 5 months old together. Sooner than we could snap our fingers to realise, he would be stepping into the world of university. We're both growing older quicker (in more ways than literally) than we imagined dating to feel like, but we do have a common vision of an unseparated future.

And it's everything that we are, that holds all meaning to this little world of mine. (:

Narrator:

(So apropos:

Saw death on a sunny snow)


Him:

"For every life..."


Her:

"Forgoe the parable."


Him:

"Seek the light."


Her:

"...My knees are cold."


(Running home, running home, running home, running home...)


Her:

"Go find another lover;

To bring a... to string along!"


"With all your lies,

You're still very lovable."


"I toured the light; so many foreign roads for Emma, forever ago."


Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago


Bon Iver must have loved her very deeply, who ever she was.

You are the one, who made changed my perspectives. You are the one, who makes every single detailed difference to what I thought was true to believe. I'd probably lose my world and all heart to love another, if I ever lost you.

Thank you for never thinking of walking out. Thank you for the unwavering faith you have, and for the faith you instill in me. Thank you, for being my perfect kind of different. Thank you, for restoring this lost heart of mine.

UO stuff are so yummy for the eyes. Rough idea for friends for my turning 24 birthday.

Oh, you may click on names of items to view pictures.

1. Deena and Ozzy Foldover Boot (Size 6, Brown)
2. Chelsea Crew Savoy Wedge Boot (Size 6, Black)
3. Wood Wood Tote Bag (Brown)

Or should I just stop considering and buy it already?

Hurt, please go away. Misery, please don't overwhelm me. Because old habits die hard, so hard.

God, please hear me tonight. God, I have noone. God, I feel miserable. God, all I can think of is letting me die.

It saddens me to the core of my soul, that you chose to be complacent on the little faith and trust I was left with for our relationship. It was a great blood-tied love that I held priceless as a promise to God. But you have mercilessly disregarded the pains you have caused to the many hearts that make this home. And it's this very you that has evolved over the many years, that caused three women to be labelled with a 'broken home'.

With the series of pitfalls in fate that has been a constant in this family, I can no longer bring myself to love and view you the way I could, because all you are to me comprises of multitudes of pasts involving unimaginable hurt. You used to be a figure of respect and adoration to me. You used to be the protector of the world that I yearned and battled to remember, but you have shirked those roles and have compelled me to inherit them.

All my heart wants to do now, is to stop beating.

You feel like sunrise every morning. You feel like pleasant dreams every night. You feel like the best moment of my life, every second in between.

Perhaps it's true, I fell in love at hello with you.

Alas, in the finest and simplest luxury of slinking my aching mind back in my resting arena of a couch. All kinds of thoughts and intentions have belted at me this week, yet there is not one that is recollected to be prominent enough to be executed. My mind seems adrift, nearly blank, but surely there are thousands of these matters that totter at the back of this thinking space. There is just too much love lost this year, so much loss that tragedy appears eminent.

Here in the well of my heart, I wish I could be the best of everything that I am - first and most formally, a daughter; an other half to the man who loves me certainly as much as I do him; a best friend to the strangers God have sent to be inclined to feel as near as family. These people, are the closest I have to family.

Hope as a position, is devlishly interpreted as vacant, but I am no fool to the marvels of hope, and there is hope everywhere. There is love every corner we turn, and my corner of this fundamental of hope is within you.

I love you.

There is a life ahead, that's made for me and you together.

Maybe you will be the one who shows me what forever is.

I made a promise to you long ago, that I’d do anything to keep this home.

We met at ButterFactory. I (, who had a drink too much,) picked him up without agenda with a "hi what's your name?", made him sit and listen to my ramblings in my drunkard stupor, persuaded him into our first and last (to date) dance with him, gentlemanly walked him to his taxi, and our first song refuses to get less radical than Frozen Creek. Everything reads trashy and seems to be interpretated not to endure, but this is the most beautiful relationship I've ever had.

Your family welcomed and accepted me with so much love and acceptance that the night leaves me overwhelmed. There is nothing in this memory capacity of mine that recalls being sincerely loved, until now. And with this gratitude and appreciation for the immaterially superior insertion, feelings deepen and fasten themselves secure - assurance of safety and a future together.

With this ascertained affinity on my part, comes the perfect knowledge of the fact that there is a world of what we have built to be lost. I am afraid, of facing the admittance of truly being happy, for fear that it may be taken away. Above fearing the thieves of joy, I fear that someday this imperfect perfection may transition into a translation of you walking away. Ultimately, I am scared, of losing you. These words do not manifest the distrust I have in you; complete trust is something rare and seldom, that has been naturally and thoroughly entrusted to you. I just plainly and simply, am inconfident of myself of being able to retain any good love. You are entirely different from every other guy I've ever known, and I know that well. You hold me and without a word uttered, I am safe. Your heart has become my home.

It is crucially important that you read this (or at least this portion of my long-winded muse). Despite the rough night of our second month of getting together, I still believe in a future with you. I still want to love you for as long as our lives prolong. I still want to be dreaming of multitudes of things with you even after fulfilling what we deem as dreams now. We share beautiful dreams. We share great dreams. We dream of things that this world wouldn't ever understand. And we share these dreams together. You're so special. We're so special.

Frozen Creek. Despite its lyrics and intentions, this tune will always reverbrate the best reminisce of the first day I was over at your place.

I love you, till it never ends, my Goldfish.

- Be prayerful, thankful and always keep God close
- Get baptised and confirmed on Easter Day
- Approach Michael's parents to be my godparents at baptism and beyond
- Work hard for the 3 confirmed contracts I clinched with Town4Kids
- Be the best damn teacher I can ever be
- Be filial to my parents and godparents
- Be a loving girlfriend to Benjamin and love his family as my own, to my utmost
- Give mum $200 every month
- Give dad $100 every month
- Save at least $500 every month
- Save at least $5,000 by the end of the year
- Bring mum for a sponsored trip (which I intend to make an annual tradition)
- Go on a short trip with Benjamin and my best friends (maybe this could be combined with the one sponsored for mum.)
- Quarterly treat my best friends to meals
- Visit the dentist for scaling
- Get my Panasonic Lumix LX3
- Quit smoking

My sister made an entry, in sepia-toned retrospect and with fond nostalgia. She writes so beautifully and so exquisitely, that her narrations drive me back to the days, where love was openly abundant, under this roof we now can only bittersweetly address as Home. I was transported to the various scenarios as her prose flowed, word after word. It was then, that I was faced with the appalling realisation of how much I had made myself forget. Here and now, I attempt at digging up the archaelogy of memories beginning from way back.

He took me to the Yamaha music learning school and instructed me to make a life-changing decision, at four. He squatted down to the height of my little frame and his exact words were,"if you go right, you'll learn piano. If you go left, you'll learn ballet." Right I turned towards, and Right was the direction that would discern the many years of how I grew up and it would eventually carve a career out for me. Tough love, but surely, Daddy loves me very deeply.

There were the Saturday supper nights, many hours after spending evenings at grandma's. A family in sleepwear, adjourning to various locations to have our weekend night-time supper eat-outs. At times it would be Macdonalds at Kallang, other nights he'd just drive us alongside big and luxurious private landed estates. June and I would vie for the front seat, and Mummy would always let us have it when it rightfully belonged to her. I would carry my colourful soft toy of a caterpillar lovingly mentioned as Dardar where ever I went. I remember us sisters intentionally feigning deep sleep in the car, so that both parents would carry us, one child for one parent, back home and have us tucked into bed.

A birthday. Mummy's birthday. The only birthday of hers that Daddy ever bought her a gift for. Birthdays always ring bells of familiarity. He had gotten her Gucci's Envy. And it was the sweetest gesture I had ever witnessed from them. Second to that would be us siblings discovering that they were holding hands, hidden under an umbrella in the rain. The other moments of saccharine were occasional and indirect. But these two, I would never forget the precision and vividness of these memories.

The night, that night, one that they finally spent a night sleeping in the same room, after 6 years of sleeping apart as husband and wife. The night of hope for us both. The night I deemed was going to save any broken relationship around here. The way my mum spoke with so much hope and heart, about them rekindling their ties as a married couple, as man and woman blessed by God to always stay as One, provided me with pure and undeterred hope.

The fateful mishap, when he collapsed in the toilet, when we had to literally carry a grown man to the hospital, when I thought I was going to lose my father of this world to an accident. The three of us stayed nearly throughout the night. Mummy had work the following day and I had school. When I had reached the hospital to join my parents, Mummy was holding onto his hands while he was slightly delirious from post-surgery and morphine. Although deeply moved, I was old and jaded enough an age, to know that this mortality-threatening incident wouldn't be sufficiently awakening to patch things up between them. I had wished that his recuperation would require the hospital staying him in for a longer period of time, so that their lovingness would last a little longer.

These are meerly snippets of what can be surfaced by recollection. The things remembered are minimal, but they shall always be profoundly etched in hearts that they matter to.

I could have never clicked the link leading to my sister's blog, but I did anyhow. I could have never thoroughly read through her post, but I did anyhow. I could have been misled into believing that my sister never cared as much as I did, but God showed me, in littlest ways of the unexpectation, and through this entry, that my sister hasn't desserted me to deal with this familial ordeal alone.

I have a man, though by age still a boy, who treats me and my family with sincere love. For certain, I know that he is going to stand by me through these upcoming trying periods of my life. He is finally the one, who is willing to stay and rough it out. He loves me genuinely. He has so much kindness and compassion and empathy in his heart, that it is hard for anyone not to love him. And how fortunate and blessed can I be, that I'm the only girl who gets his undivided love and concern. I am whole-heartedly thankful for Ben, every conscious moment of every day. Ben happened to me, out of the oddest of scenarios and unpredicted circumstances. Ben happened to me, when love was not part of my plan. God let Ben happen to me. And that day Ben happened to me, was the luckiest day of my life.

Things could have been better. They always could have been. But I am contented with my fill and what blessings I have been given. My life may not read perfect, but love is already perfecting it. Everything happens for reasons. God intends it that way, for the growth of our maturity. These hardships and these endless suffering, has made us nurture into strong and good people. God does love us so much, we just have to grow up someday to see it. And as long as I love, I know I will grow to become a better person, each day as it passes. I'll just have to leave what I am unable to control, in His hands. He will show me the way.

Could you possibly understand where this is coming from?


"certain ideas flash to our minds with a smell, a sight, or thought of something that triggers the memory. always and every time, my mind returns to 10 years ago when we first bought the guitar the the abba cd. we were in my room, listening to fernadez when my dad struck a pose across the doorway with the guitar slung over his chest... then, he strummed to an improvised version of abba with lyrics of having picked me up from the garbage and how my mom smelt like that. my mom then boast that my dad could play the drums too. all in good humour. the light was dimmed that evening and the air was cool and fresh in the room - a mid year christmas. i laughed my ass off so badly in that phase that the term st.smiley stuck on quickly to my uproarious laughter as i rang the kangaroo bell through the house at 8am most mornings going "wakey wakey, rise and shine sleeping beauty". a nuisance, but always most determine to turn every wrong side of the bed right with a beam. some times, i wonder where i went to.

the time my sister had septic artheristis, i slept in my favourite corner of my dad's room convinced that his worldly pressence would chase the night ghosts casts by the looming cast iron piece over the masterbedroom. i was convinced my sis would die and made an errornous call one day to woodbridge instead of kk and was scared stiff by the old man that greeted me on the other line. we - my dad and i - made many circles around the florists and ate our daily most delicious wanton mee before buying a lettuce pie up (vegetables never appealed to me but i remembered that being exceptionally delicious).

i remember the drama that ensued from a late night hospitalisation which i thought was the end of many bad things with the love it brought forth, but tender things like love fade as quickly as recovery gained speed. i sat by the hospital bed reading great expectations and could not help but feel so blessed with this tragic but blissful moment.

then, the last of the things i remember. a birthday. a dinner. and the one moment my tongue went backwards - i had no words, only sadness. i remember all as if from a past life because i can hardly comprehend them now. love, i don't know how else to say this but love has no way to die. like energy, it can be converted to other forms but has no death incapacitated by time or space.

love, is such a strong feeling in our hearts.

memories - to forget them would be impossible with the intricacies in which they are intertwined with our personalities. i keep recalling for i fear forgetting. however, with each recollection, the memory is less of its own character and more of the additions your creative mind takes to invent."

I'll never ever forget, how Your love took over. I'll never forget, how afraid and fearless I was, at the same time, to let You in. I'll never ever forget, how You freed my troubles and burdens. I'll never forget, that total release of my heart and soul. I'll never forget, the whispers You brushed against my worries, telling me to let the world go, assuring me that You will hold my fragile self and take the weight from me and upon Your shoulders. That was the point, I stopped giving up on myself, because You never forsaked me. That was the point, I stopped feeling unworthy of living. That was the point, I was light and lifted of my pain.

I am worthy of this life. I want to live it right. I want to be a better person. I want to make You proud.



Left my fear by the side of the road
Hear You speak
Won't let go
Fall to my knees as I lift my hands to pray

Got every reason to be here again
Father's love that draws me in
And all my eyes wanna see is a glimpse of You

One more day and it's not the same
Your spirit calls my heart to sing
Drawn to the voice of my Saviour once again
Where would my soul be without Your Son
Gave His life to save the earth
Rest in the thought that You're watching over me

You hold the universe
You hold everyone on earth
You hold the universe
You hold

All I need is You
All I need is You Lord
Is You Lord

This sums up 2010 for me. Rediscovering love and familial affinity in the people whom which may not be blood-related. These people are everything to me.












I met a boy. We met under unorthodoxical circumstances. We began dating. We fell in love. Now, I'm starting to believe that I have found my soulmate.

These people, are my world. These people, make my family.








It was all I could ever ask for, while it lasted. My childhood was picture perfect.

God has blessed me abundantly. I do not lack. Contentment is all there is to it. One of my biggest blessings, is my love. This boy, is the one who stole my grey skies and adorned them with flowery rainbows.

And I could not ask for more.

No stranger has loved me, more than you do and have been. My heart is inclined alongside yours, and abandonment shall and will never pose as an option towards you. You are my imperfect, perfect beautiful man.

Hear me out and believe me, because my faith in us is sturdy as a fortress. Sailing towards a lifetime, we are. Lock this promise up with me with the intertwined affinity we share.

"Always" is not a term in the list of vocabulary that is utilised and implemented very frequently by me, but be my "always". What we have is nothing short of magnificently breathtaking. Every bone and ounce of me, just wants to make you happy and wishes intently to be the cause of your smiles.

There is nothing to look back at, because all that my being wants to do is to immerse in this Present and that Future, with you.

I love you, Benjamin Tay Aik Joo.

Father Goh told us that we have given Jesus the best birthday present, by being convinced of love, but on the other hand, Jesus has given me the greatest Christmas present I could have ever received - His love and his forgiveness.

This Christmas, my intentions of rave parties and feasts have simmered to a simple desire, to celebrate the birth of Christ and to be brimmed with contentment with loved ones around me.

I want to write. I want so much to literate and have these memories of my experience with God inscripted onto a tangible vice, so that I would never forget what it felt and feels like being completely protected by Him. I want to be able to read back what amazing feels like in this breathing spirit of mine during doubtingly trying days. I want to forevermore be in this state of body mind soul and spirit. I want to remain this free. I want to be this child of God, vulerable yet unafraid. I want to always feel this love that I know would never be taken away from me, regardless of trials and tribulations my journeys may bring.

Forgiveness from the heart, is breathtakingly beautiful. The act, the notion, the genuity and the truth of forgiveness, has liberated every aspect of me - my body, my mind, my soul, my spirit. I am freed of grudges long borne toward people who caused me harm or hurt. As much as my conscious lip had me fooled into believing that I was nobody in position to grant forgiveness, I was weighed with tremendous unforgiveness towards certain people in my life. For the first time in my life, I fully comprehended and understood the meticulous sacrifice made by my Lord Jesus. A Father's love, is great and immeasurable. My Father's love, is that love. I could never view love the way I grew up generalising it as. I could never put myself through believing that love is weak. I could never tell myself, that love would depart.

Dear Jesus, thank you, for freeing me, for holding me in your warm embrace when all I reeked of were inhibitions, for touching my heart and spirit, for showing me what love is all about. My faith has been renewed, my hopes have been lifted up high, and love will carry me through this life. Teach me and guide me, to pray true and deep. I never want to lose the feeling of being close to You as I did the past 4 days. I want to relive it every day for the rest of my life. I believe I have never ever said this to You, Father, so I will start right now. I love you Jesus. I love you, like a child loves her Father and like a soul loves its Saviour.

Faith, hope, love - God, I am here believing, because I've got You.

This brokenness wouldn't leave.

The division of the flat is finalised and concluded. Less than two weeks before Christmas, yet God couldn't try His best to be more tactful towards my feelings. Perhaps it is the closure my mum needs. But right now, I'm in such a delirious state that the pain feels so surreal. There are shattered pieces of glass across the hall. I am holding onto my dog because she is the only one in this family that is still remotely fondly famliar. She is the only one at this very moment that offers and provides me comfort. She is the only one who feels humane. She is the only one that feels a better emotion called Love. There is more to fear than yet another round of physical violence and anticipation of departures. I don't want to step out and witness once more, how ugly my parents are.

You both, have broken my heart, inside out. You have mercilessly bled my soul dry. You have made me unbelonged. You have made me into a monster without control tonight.

I am human. I, too, can fall too hard. I am breakable, and I have died, again. I wish I literally could, right now.

Faith, Hope, Love, stay close. God, I need You now. Keep me sane. Keep me wanting to stay sane, because all I want now is to be taken away. I don't want to stay here. I don't want to be in this God-forsaken house. I want to ruin myself. But above all, I need to reserve control against what I feel now. So God, where are you now?

I am but a piece of shattered glass on that floor.

I want to share a kiss with you under the mistletoe. I want to cook for you. I want to bake for you. I want to say silly things to cause your laughters. I want to learn the guitar from you. I want to defend you, under any circumstance. I want to be the reason of your smiles and the cure to your pains. I want to do so much with and for you, to add on to our happy memories together.

I need to. I love you so very dearly, Benjamin Tay. You hear me?

The Saturday night of the forth of December this year, my love for you collided into its revelation and snapped into maturity. From the cautious and guarded 'love' it once was, it has transcended into an unfathomable force of blind power - one so impaired to implement forceful control. Today is the day, of the commence of the bearing of that invincible love, a love that would never be retracted come what may. I'd never feel whole or complete without you from here on, and from here on, I'd be lost and distraught if you would ever forsake me. This day is one, that you would forever more note and remember having concrete access to the deepest recesses of my soul - the best of me, and what used to be the handicapped giver in me that was thought to be lost. Every guarded fortress met their respective exhaustion. Admittingly, I am weary from resisting and distrusting you for no rhyme or reason.

Damage now poses as the biggest danger you could ever put me through, but I'd still choose to love you all over again.

Ben, you are my good karma. You are that good karma that I've been dumped so many times for so that I could meet you someday. You are the good karma I have earned, after paying back for the many hearts I have broken. You are the one who unexpectedly, walked right into my life to heal me. You are the only one I wouldn't plunge into loving, but would be the only one that I'd wind up loving for a lifetime. You are the only one, who would undoubtingly protect me with every ounce of your might and will. You are the one, who would never intentionally hurt me with your lips and your bare hands. You are the only one, after unpredictable twists of fate all this while, who would fight for me and share the fight for love with me.

Perhaps it's as true as it feels deep, that my exception has finally knocked my door.



You happened, to me. Happy first monthsary love. (:

Cheryl Deliah Lio | 30051987 | cheryl.lio@gmail.com
"The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.”

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