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Just emerged from a really long, tiring, but utterly meaningful conversation with my dad in the balcony. Both of us lying there on the floor, staring up at the lightning streaking across the reddening sky.. It matched my mood. And I've always felt most stripped bare when talking with daddy - The eighteen-years boyfriend. heheh.
It had been a complete emotionally draining week, either being extremely ecstatic or the other way round. I guess once in awhile I allow myself to indulge in some wallowing moods, and this evening's one of them. The upmost thing that was weighing on my mind, but been pushed aside by me once to often, is Studies.
I know it shouldn't, but it really gets me down to feel like you've placed in a whole lotta effort and just when you couldn't be any prouder of the work you've churned out.. it comes back to you with a grade you suppose you dont deserve. And when the work does get the grade you suppose you deserve, you take a look around at the cohort you're in with their 'A's and their 'Z's abounding, and you feel as if you're barely scraping the bottom of the genius barrel. I felt like the people around me all seem to have their lives in order, if not laid out all perfectly for them. The ones who know exactly what their ambition in future is all the way down to minute detail; the ones who are flunking in everything they do and feel that poly is a complete waste of time, but are secure in the knowledge that their moneyhappy parents are bringing them into the family company first thing they get out of this place. I felt so lazy and disorganized, and unrealistic. Like I've been holding onto some dream and now I'm being forcefully thrown out of the bed. When I first entered the course, I know exactly what I wanted to do when I graduate. I wanted to write and write and write and never stop writing for the love of it, and the sake of the passion I feel when I'm doing it. I didnt gave two hoots about what I'll write for. Columns, or reviews, or articles, or even junk. I just wanted to get pen on paper. But now that reality's slapped me in the face, I feel like perhaps my best's just not good enough.
Think about a kid whose parents are practically beaming with joy when he's able to put 2 + 2 together and he's playing around with the calculator all the time. But then when the kid's very first report card comes back from kindergarden and they see that D under Math, maybe they came to realise that what they may see as fantastic in their kid, is in fact, just mediocre to the world.
I feel like that kid now.
I prayed real hard. I prayed that I'll not steep myself in Satan's lies that I'm not good enough for my God. In all I do, I want to do it for the Lord, not for man. But there's still this dissatisfaction in the route that I'm walking on now. Perhaps I'm unhappy cause this isn't the future that I want to walk into. Recently, I keep wondering that perhaps I dont see media as what I want to further as a longterm career. I've been hovering over the various possibilities expecially now that I've got to select a specialisation for my final year, but I can't seem to pinpoint one that is both realistic and is one that I'll love doing.
daddy said there's alway a light at the end of the tunnel, and I told him that I see many lights at the end of many tunnels - all of them aren't shining very brightly. But the one which is shining brightly to me? The path on that one's narrow and small. And filled with scary parental objections.
The route that I CAN pinpoint is one where I surround myself with youths and talk to them and share with them about how God has been and is working in my life. When I tip my fingers on that thought.. I feel solid and sure. To know that I'm able to be used as an instrument by Him to touch someone's life just makes me feel... happy. The simplest of emotions. But I know I won't be able to devote my time and all if I'm occupied in some far off place called the 'media industry'.
But then I look at the man lying next to me on the balcony floor, and his dream of seeing his daughter go off to university before making her mark in the media industry just gets me all heartbroken and confused. Janice mentioned that obedience is better than sacrifice. But what do you do when obedience and sacrifice gets all muddled in one big mess and you don't know which is which, and who requires which.
I thought of a brother who flunked his O's twice, before going to NS, ended up working in church and now well on his way to being a pastor. When we look back, we nod and see oh, how God has led him to where he is today. But I keep wondering about that boy in his secondary school years and what he must have felt during those two years coping with the failures and the months leading from there. You have no idea what God has in store for you. That perhaps the path you're on isn't the one that he wants you to be on.. and the not knowing is killing me. Shu said that the fact that I got 1 out of the 30 seats availiable for the course meant that God allowed me to be placed there. I thought of 'If He brings me to it, He'll bring me through it'. And that makes it even more confusing.
I feel like I'm heading for a burnout. The stress from studies is turning me into a husk. And to struggle and see your results not exactly Dean's list material is really a blow to your self-esteem, and just plain sucks. The environment is worldly-sin horrible, and the travelling down only to be caught in a jam just plain boggles the mind in the most stale drying way.
William urged me to cling onto God's word instead of my feelings of Him, and I asked him why is it that God doesn't reveal himself to me in the way that I can best relate to - my feelings & emotions. Words are just words sometimes to me.
I prayed and gave it ALL to God. Oh, God.. I dont understand! and I don't want to go through each day feeling this way. Will you show yourself to me in a way that I can comprehend? I just want to give myself the entitlement to wallow. But at the end of the day, I still want to pick myself up and stretch out my arms for You to pick me up off the miry clay.
