something for my own keepsake...

so we cover Romans 3:21-26 in bible study last night. 6 verses with so much meaning. so much intent. so much hope.

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." - Romans 3:21-25a

everyone was consumed with the text. the definition of "righteousness"... the definition of "faith"... the definition of "fall short"... the definition of "propitation"... and the definition of "glory of God".

after we concluded the study over an hour, I had to interrupt. I couldn't walk away with everyone thinking, "oh, I understand what the words now mean."

so I asked them if they understood the beauty of what they read. if they saw the heart of the passage behind all the strange words of "redemption" and "justified".

SY asked if it was fair because surely, it would be unfair for a pure and blameless man to be punished on behalf of the rest of the sinful world.

i smiled.

of course not. of course it's not fair. of course it's brutal and unkind to Jesus. he shouldn't have to bear God's anger if he was always obedient.

i then asked if the sacrificial system was fair. if it was fair to the lambs, the ram, the sheep, the pigeons, that were all sacrifice in an attempt to appease God's anger. if that's not fair, what more a man's life for another, and even more, a innocent blameless man?

suddenly people started to look away from me and back at the verses in the bible. I had to push the envelope.

I asked them that if they felt it was unfair for the animals, what more Jesus? So why Jesus? We were the ones who sinned. We were the ones who rejected him. We were the ones to turn away.

I asked them if they saw how utterly useless and helpless and worthless we were in God's eyes. Then I asked them if they saw how much God loved us by not only sending His Son as a teacher, but as a blood sacrifice. I asked if they realized that our state with God was so dire and so hopeless that God had to send his own flesh, Jesus, who was in very nature God himself, to take on our sins and bear God's wrath.

That God provided Himself as a solution to our problem.

There was silence in the room as it slowly sank in.

Then I piped up with one last question.

" No one had a solution and no one deserved a solution. Do you see how absolutely necessary and humbling God's solution for us is?"

People kept their eyes on the passage and honestly, that was all I wanted to see. I didn't want them to look at others and think about how others were. I didn't want them to stare at the sky and only think of what I said. I wanted them to look at the passage and realise that it was not humanly possible to comprehend the power of the gospel.

Later during the application discussions, my group shared our struggles in remembering that we are God's redeemed. we were all broken. we were all in despair. we were all in a rut of helplessness. I overheard another group sharing their struggles with attending our church at the start. how they didn't understand why so much of our sermons evolved around understanding God, Jesus, and the salvation plan, and not around what we should do because we are Christians.

different people with different struggles. but all with one conclusion. whether broken or succeeding in a million and one things, all we need to stand in front of God to call ourselves His is simply knowing that He had sent his Son to shed blood on our behalf and to take our place in facing God's wrath. not our works. not our achievements. not the numerous things that fill up our career resume or church resume.

as I mentioned to C after that, it's really not easy and yet so easy to be a Christian. all I can do is to keep praying that I hold fast to this assurance I have.

really not needed anymore. inputs are invaluable. contributions not required.

just do what I have left to do and then it's time to stop wasting resources.

"you're a victim. they are the bad people. hurt them."

"don't hurt them. be a bigger person."

"you're so fucked up that you think you're the victim. how dare you accuse someone's blameless character for your flaws"

"you deserve all this. all the treatment. all the disregard. you deserve them all."

"you actually put someone down and use your condition as an excuse. you're worthless."

"since you're so fucked up, why do you care?"

"are you pretending to be care? why so self-righteous?"

"you don't deserve anything. not even grace."

"the only thing you deserve is failure and defeat and all the bad things that are happening to you."

"remember what she said? you are to be blamed for how you turned out."

"why do I even waste all this time talking to you?"



i no longer know if i want to shut the voices in my head out. perhaps. perhaps, they are reality. perhaps the situation not as distorted as L made them out to be.

if i'm the only one who can't communicate with anyone else...

if i'm the only one being excluded...

if i'm the only one being ignored...

if i'm the only one not being called to be part of something...

maybe i need to realize that i'm useless and worthless in contributing anything. such a failure. such a waste of space and oxygen.


please let me keep clinging to God and doing things only to please Him and to find peace with Him. let me keep holding my tongue and withholding my emotions and realize that i'm the only one to be blamed for how every thing turned out. to realize that i'm the only one makes mistakes.

shall stop being a burden soon.


- inner conflicts of the mentally defective

Wednesday was yet another crazy tiring day of talking and crying. and I am so grateful for L. though I'm starting to suspect that she's psychic. After her usual diagnose and identification of certain traits which I'm struggling with, she paused and smiled at me.

Then she told me she knew I didn't believe that my thoughts were distorted. That I didn't believe that I wasn't a failure. That I probably was still struggling to admit that I had a condition and it's not just that I suck at everything in life.

I could only smile back at her weakly as I hugged the cushion closer to me.

I decided that I had to update my boss on the progress of my treatment so she could decide if I still had a place in a team. It wasn't fair to her or to anyone at work if I were to continue down the path of constant failure and self-destruction if it makes me a liability to the team.

After our chat yesterday, I decided that even if I were to be horrible at dealing with life and an absolute worthless wreck, I had to recover for the people who have been nothing but supportive. I had to recover to at least not disappoint them in this aspect of my life.

let this be my prayer. that I will recover for the sake of those I care for.

mini rant.

feels like the salem witch trials here where every little thing I do gets scrutinise for the purposes of finding ways to burn me at stake. and of which, none of my actions are clarified with me but through whispers among people who don't want to talk to me.

i understand scepticism and i respect it in a professional manner. i know the need of it to ensure accuracy.

but when it is abused just to satisfy a person's need to prove that someone else is wrong, to prove that someone else has screwed up, to affirm your own belief that the other person will never ever be right in anything and everything he or she does...

to me, that's not professional. to me, that's not where I want to be in. i know i'm careless. i know i make mistakes. but to want to show that everything i'm doing is wrong is just...

makes me not want to try anymore. makes me not want to do anymore. makes me not want to be part of anything.


perhaps, that's what they wanted all along.

a little psa to my readers...

I still don't know who has this link and who still reads this. Chances are, you have this link because at one point of time, I trusted you and cared enough about you to allow you to see my inner thoughts and vulnerable self. Hopefully most of my readers are still in that category... If not, sorry.

But while others probably see that 5% of me on a day to day basis, having access to my blog is having the other 95% of the unadulterated part of me.

So my request is that if you do actually know me personally, don't circulate my url. Don't share my posts. You have been lucky/unlucky enough to see this side of me. But no one else knows as much as you do when you read all this. Until I'm ready to clean out the skeletons in my closet, please please please don't share all this.



In other news, I've come to terms with my dependence on alcohol. Sunday was especially bad for me so I did everything I could to distract myself. I watched stupid shows. I read. I worked out until I was completely aching. I had dark chocolate. Still, my thoughts were just on one thing. It was only until I had half a bottle of beer then I felt better. And it just hit me so hard that I am not able to function or I can't find a better distraction other than alcohol. While I don't drink that much, this dependence really isn't healthy.

Time to start coming to terms with this stupid struggle of mine and to stop reaching for the bottle just for relief. sigh. not going to be easy.



may this keep me a little more alcohol free during the weekdays.

To the big guy up there, You've seen me through all this time. You've seen my conduct and You know my breakdowns. You know the unspoken words and thoughts.

I can only hope that end of the day when I finally meet You, You will look at me and say:

"I know you never wanted anything more but to just do your work to the best of your ability. Career progression, being in the 'right' crowd, being popular, being liked for being part of the world were never things that you wanted."

"It wasn't easy to live the life you did and you weren't always perfect. But you tried. Because you knew that there was nothing you could do to be called mine. And everything you did was because I had already known you. So now you are here and you are still Mine because I made you Mine. "

May I keep this as my one prayer until the day I meet You. Thank you for always being so good to little worthless me.

i don't know why my brain is wired to torture myself.

that the smallest things get blown out of proportion.

that i drag people into the fray and implicate them or put them in awkward situations where they have to explain themselves.

that i can't sit still and suffer the consequences of my stupidity and uselessness alone.



that i can't silence the voices to tell me to hurt myself instead of hurting others.


sigh. frustrating.

How do you know that you are beyond hope?

When even your apology gets shared and mocked at with no reply to you.

Things would really be a lot better for everyone if I didn't exist. If my family didn't have to deal with my mental disorder. If my friends didn't have to put up with my bothersome whines and rants. If my therapist doesn't have to waste anymore time on me. If my colleagues didn't have to bother cleaning up all my fucking mess all the fucking time because I'm just an incompetent shithead.


Yea. Things would really be better if I weren't around at all. So tired of trying... So maybe it's time to stop trying.

Probably the moment of revelation everyone has been waiting for. Not too late to stop trying.

no need to try so hard to be part of something when no one wants you to be part of anything

so many times... so many times I find myself teetering on the edge and turning back to want to ask, "why do you hate me? why do you cut me out, second-guess me, doubt me, think so little of me?"

then I bite my tongue and stare straight ahead into the nothingness.

because my mind replies for you, "why shouldn't they hate me? I've screwed it up. I deserve nothing, not even grace."

teach me how to escape. teach me how to get away from all this and yet to also walk away from the edge.