Dear Future Valentine.

I know that it's wayyyy past the date and season, but I've just looked at some old posts on my facebook notes and found this note that I wrote on Valentine's day about a year ago, it reminded me of my prayers for my future husband that I haven't been praying for, for quite a long time :')

** just for the sake of the season lemme be cheesy for a while :p

Dear Future Valentine,

well, i have no idea yet who are you or where are you now. yet, one thing i'm sure of is that God has His perfect moment for us. i fancy no idea of finding you actually because i would love to be found instead, i want you to fight for me and love me in the way i deserve to be loved. thus, turn on your gps darling and find me through Him :)

i pray that God will make you strong through every time of your life, when storm comes and things are heavy to bear. i pray that you will never trade your vision and dream from God in your life, i pray that you will never lose the passion and keep on going even when things get tough. hang in there, i'll be there beside you soon and we will walk the tough times together. you, me and of course God. 

i pray that i might become the right woman for you. may God help me to become a stronger and better person so i can always support you, love you and cherish you. 

i pray that within the time, we will never stop growing in God, we will love Him deeper each day and we will have the strength and will to be a blessing for other people as well. i pray that we would learn how to love and also be loved. i pray that when the time comes, we would love God even more for He has brought us into the moment.  

i pray for your family and mine, i pray that God will also work on both our families so when the time comes, everything will collide into a beautiful moment as our families give us their blessings. 

i don't ask for perfection, but i ask for character and by all means, i pray that God will get me into process to be the right woman for you as He is going to get you into process to be the right man for me. i pray that both of us will only be satisfied by God's love alone and that what we will have would be a bonus to that :)

i pray that within the time, we would both living the life to the fullest, chasing our calling in God and focus in what we need to do in life. that we would make our lives as singles to the max until we're ready to enter the next season together. 

i pray that both of us will have the grace to accept each other with all the past, scars and weaknesses as strong as we accept each other's strengths. i pray that we won't have a future determined by what has happened in the past but by what we have in the present. i pray for healing for our past wounds so nothing will haunt our future.

i pray that God will always take care of you and guide you in every step that you take including finding the way for you to find me :)

until then, my dear future valentine, whoever and wherever you are, i will try to guard my heart well and keep myself only for you. happy valentine's day!

The Yoke.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”- (Matthew 11:28-30)

Tonight, I had the privilege to learn from Dr. AR Bernard during the Sunday Night Service at my church. There were a lot of insights and wisdom. One of those enlightenments that I got was about the above verse.

It was a common verse. A verse that I have heard for so many times but tonight was the night where I can finally fully grab the meaning of it and I just so excited to share it to you. Okay, let's start.

What is a yoke? A yoke is a wooden beam, normally used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do; some yokes are fitted to individual animal. (taken from wikipedia.com) - which means the use of yoke is always intended to be used for a pair of animals in order for them to move together.

The verse in Matthew 11:28-29 was actually an invitation from Jesus to be yoked together with Him. That is why in the next verse it was said that His yoke is easy and the burden is light. WHY? because when we are yoked together with Jesus, every time we feel tired and weary, Jesus would be there with us too and with His strength He will help to sustain us. Just like when one of the yoked animals feel tired of the work, it's pair would feel it too and would sustain and help the tired one to keep on moving to the right direction and carry the burden. 

When we are yoked with Jesus, our business, our care, our needs and our problems...all will become His as well, just like when two animals being yoked together they would carry the same burden. What concerns us would also concerns Jesus.

A yoke is also made in a way that would fit the animals who will carry it. It is made in a way that would not harm the animals while they are using the yoke. It is designed specifically for the animals. It's also applies in the spiritual yoke that we're talking about. Jesus' yoke is specifically designed for us in a way that would fit us well. Jesus knows about our past experiences, about how we feel and what we've been through, thus He fashioned the yoke to fit us in a way that would not harm us but enabling us to carry the burden together with Him because Jesus longs to have a relationship, fellowship and do service with us. 

When we are yoked with Jesus, we are ready to work together with Him because it's impossible to be yoked while each has their own direction to go. 

The idea of being yoked together is applicable the most in the marriage life, a husband and a wife need to be yoked in a marriage to work on it together. Now, I understand even more why the Bible told us not to unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14) because it would be very difficult for someone to be yoked together with someone else who has a different subset of values in life. I thought it was more about being with someone who's not a Christian, but more, it still applies even when your partner is already a Christian -- you need to know if your partner values the same values in life as you. It's more than just about a different belief but it's about the compatibility that you have as partners so that you will be able to move together.

It's so impossible to be yoked with someone who doesn't have the same direction because we would then fight along the way, moving nowhere and eventually get tired. Thus, we need really pay attention during our relationship stages. We need to see and to know if there is any burden that our partner is carrying because we would carry it too in the future, so we can measure ourselves if we would able and willing to carry the burden together with our partner.

This yoke concept also applies in the area of business because in business partnership we would also need to work together. It is important to know our business partners that well to see if he/she has an issue or burden that he/she needs to take care of and thus, will help us to give sound judgment if we should trust he/she to become our partner or not. 

It was so awesome to get that new insight. To know that being yoked with Jesus is the ultimate thing that we can enjoy during our journey back home, He will help us get through everything. When we feel that He's away, just remember that when we are yoked with Jesus, He will always be there beside us, walking the steps together with us and all our business will become His business too :)

All The New Things.

Latelty has been a super awesome time for me. I got to experience a lot of new things


First, I got to learn Aikido, the japanese martial art , a very beautiful and artistic martial art (although I would love to learn Muay Thai but Aikido works well for me) XD

Second, after waiting for almost 15 years, my favourite Japanese rock band, L’Arc~En~Ciel had their first concert ever in Jakarta and I got to see them LIVE before my eyes only 6 meters away from the stage. That was AWESOME. It was my first outdoor concert experience, I’m super happy that everyone felt like a big family and no chaos at all :’)

Third, I got to learn HOW TO DIVE! Woohooo! and not only that, in the end of the course I would get a certificate as an open water diver from PADI plus I’ll get to dive in the open sea – super yaaay! :D

Fourth, I am happy to inform that one of my writings might be on it’s way to get published (this is sooo exciting and I hope everything would go well)

Fifth, I am given a chance to help a friend to desain something for tshirt/bag to support a save the ocean campaign, superrrrr glad for the chance so I can make my design known :)

Sixth, the office photography club will be having a gun fire and photo shooting event next month, with real guns! can you believe it?!

I’m super excited to experience all those new things and there’s nothing that I can say except that everything is because of God’s favor. He’s given me so much unexpected things and all of them are super awesome. I DO LIVE AN EXCITING LIFE! Weeeeoooooo! :D – can’t wait for what’s coming next!

Fear.

Earlier this morning I was thinking about fear. The trigger was because I was listening to some random conversation in the radio about ghosts and other mystical beings. They mentioned that the form of the ghosts are varies depending on their origins. For example, in Indonesia we have ghosts called Pocong (a ghost that looks like a bolster and travelling by hopping), Kuntilanak (a ghost in form of a beautiful woman with long hair and creppy laughter), and many more, we also have other traditional mystical being like Leak from Bali, Bagaspati from Java and so on. In the western countries the ghosts usually come in form of the existence of a paranormal activity like poltergeist or an appearance of unknown image of someone that repeatedly visiting a certain place or doing a certain activity, they also have mystical beings like vampire or werewolf and many more.

It’s very intriguing for me to know that each country has different ghost from other countries. It made me think that FEAR is actually the product of our own assumptions and perceptions towards a certain thing / condition, thus, it can be varies, because each person has their own fear. How can ghost stories lead me to this Fear theory? Well, a ghost or any other mystical being is somehow scary for us, the idea of something that comes from the dark place or from the dead (the unknown factor of life and the mystery we are yet to experience) somehow gives us the fear. Then how can the form of ghosts varies? Because the local people have a different idea of what is scary for them. The local tales encourage the perception that a certain image or certain creature is scary although the people might have not encountered with the mystical being.

It reminded me of an episode from BBC’s Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of The Baskerville. In the episode Sherlock and Watson dealt with an experiment of a chemical weapon using a gas that will trigger certain paranoia. In this episode, a big hound with red eyes was the image that’s been haunting the client and then Sherlock. To prove his theory that it was only an imagination, Sherlock played a trick on Watson, he told Watson certain criteria of the hound that he made up and then when Watson was exposed to the gas and triggered by a certain condition, he immediately saw the image of the hound exactly as Sherlock wanted him to see. So, basically, Watson’s fear was obviously based on what he expected to see, because in reality, there’s no hound at all.

That concludes that FEAR is the result of our assumptions about something, we “see” what
we “expect to see” from something in a negative way when in reality it might not be like that at all.

We see what we want to see, that’s the thing that people fail to understand. I understand that sometimes, fear makes us be a little more careful and aware but fear should not paralyzed us. I read somewhere in an article that 90% of our fears never really happen that should explain that fear is just a product of our feeling towards something that is uncommon and uncertain for us because we have no idea yet how should we respond to that thing or how should we deal with it. Mostly, once we have dealt with our fears, we will then see that in the end, it's just nothing and we can actually overcome it :)

L'Arc~En~Ciel World Tour 2012: Jakarta.

After a long 15 years of waiting for their concert in Indonesia. Finally, L’Arc~en~ciel or Laruku (Raruku in Japanese spelling) had their first concert ever in Jakarta, Indonesia. It was a dream come true for me.

The ticket sales was opened since January 2012 and instantly sold out to the die hard fans of Laruku. Even the VIP ticket that cost 1.2 million rupiahs were sold out in two days. It’s been a long wait for the Laruku fans in Indonesia to be able to watch their beloved Japanese rock band performing live, so it wasn’t a big surprise.

I’ve been a fan of Laruku since junior high, Blurry Eyes was the first song that captured my heart and made me fall in love with Laruku (unfortunately they didn't put this song in the list :')). Their epic video clip of Stay Away has always been my lifetime favourite and I’ve been following their journey ever since, including each of their solo projects.

Although a fan, I don’t join any fansclub or forum. It’s just not my thing :p

Anyway, back to the concert. It was a super fantastic one. Around 10.000 people gathered around and sang along with Laruku in every song. It was such a heartwarming moment. There was no chaos, everything was in order and everyone felt like family.

The weather was a bit cloudy and there was drizzle right when the song Anata was sang by the fans as a prelude to the encore part of the concert. It was such an emotional moment after hyde shed his tears when he sang Forbidden Lovers earlier, several people even shed a tear while singing Anata.

During the concert, Laruku was trying hard to communicate with the fans in Indonesian. Sometimes, hyde, ken or tetsu laughed at their own effort in saying the words but they continued to do it. Ken even said several lines in Indonesia with a help of a note, joking with hyde by giving him Wayang (Indonesian traditional puppet) and a traditional flute. Hyde tried to blow the flute but he couldn’t figure out the way and finally giving up trying.

Before the last song, Hyde asked the fans if they felt happy, the crowd replied with a loud yes and Hyde then said that he also felt happy and promised that they would come again to Jakarta which then responded with a loud cheering from the crowd. 

Then they played the last song, NIJI and ended the concert. Hyde, Ken, Tetsu and Yukihiro took some time to thank the crowd and listened to the cheering crowd. After that, they went backstage and Tetsu suddenly got back to the stage with a basket of bananas and lollipops. As he often did in their other concert, he would throw the bananas and lollipops to the crowd after kissing it first.

That act, officially ended the concert.They had accomplished their 19 songs set brilliantly.

It was one of the historical moments in my life and I never regretted being a Laruku fans. It was a lifetime experience and would always be remembered. 

Thank you Laruku, hope to see you again in the future.