I'm quite a cynic when it comes to the government but I recognise the wisdom in his words in the extract below. It's a tad long but worth reading (words in italics mine, words in bold are what captured me =)

One of the leading members of the government on aging (I'm sure you can guess who):

MY CONCERN today is, what is it I can tell you which can add to your
knowledge about ageing and what ageing societies can do. You know
more about this subject than I do. A lot of it is out in the media,
Internet and books. So I thought the best way would be to take a
personal standpoint and tell you how I approach this question of ageing.

If I cast my mind back, I can see turning points in my physical and
mental health. You know, when you're young, I didn't bother, assumed
good health was God-given and would always be there. When I was about
-'57 that was - I was about 34, we were competing in elections, and I
was really fond of drinking beer and smoking.. And after the election
campaign, in Victoria Memorial Hall - we had won the election, the
City Council election - I couldn't thank the voters because I had
lost my voice. I'd been smoking furiously. I'd take a packet of 10 to
deceive myself, but I'd run through the packet just sitting on the
stage, watching the crowd, getting the feeling, the mood before I
speak. In other words, there were three speeches a night. Three
speeches a night, 30 cigarettes, a lot of beer after that, and the
voice was gone.

I remember I had a case in Kuching, Sarawak. So I took the flight and
I felt awful.. I had to make up my mind whether I was going to be an
effective campaigner and a lawyer, in which case I cannot destroy my
voice, and I can't go on. So I stopped smoking.. It was a tremendous
deprivation because I was addicted to it. And I used to wake up
dreaming...the nightmare was I resumed smoking.

But I made a choice and said, if I continue this, I will not be able
to do my job. I didn't know anything about cancer of the throat or
oesophagus or the lungs, etc. But it turned out it had many other
deleterious effects.
Strangely enough after that, I became very allergic, hyper-allergic
to smoking, so much so that I would plead with my Cabinet ministers
not to smoke in the Cabinet room. You want to smoke, please go out,
because I am allergic.

Then one day I was at the home of my colleague, Mr Rajaratnam,
meeting foreign correspondents including some from the London Times
and they took a picture of me and I had a big belly like that (puts
his hands in front of his belly), a beer belly. I felt no, no, this
will not do. So I started playing more golf, hit hundreds of balls
on the practice tee. But this didn't go down. There was only one way
it could go down: consume less, burn up more.


Another turning point came when - this was 1976, after the general
election - I was feeling tired. I was breathing deeply at the Istana,
on the lawns. My daughter, who at that time just graduating as a
doctor, said: 'What are you trying to do?' I said: 'I feel an effort
to breathe in more oxygen.' She said: 'Don't play golf. Run.
Aerobics.' So she gave me a book, quite a famous book and, then, very
current in America on how you score aerobic points swimming, running,
whatever it is, cycling. I looked at it sceptically. I wasn't very
keen on running. I was keen on golf. So I said, 'Let's try'. So
in-between golf shots while playing on my own, sometimes nine holes
at the Istana, I would try and walk fast between shots.. Then I began
to run between shots. And I felt better. After a while, I said:
'Okay, after my golf, I run.' And after a few years, I said: 'Golf
takes so long. The running takes 15 minutes. Let's cut out the golf
and let's run.'

I think the most important thing in ageing is you got to understand
yourself. And the knowledge now is all there. When I was growing up,
the knowledge wasn't there. I had to get the knowledge from friends,
from doctors. But, perhaps, the most important bit of knowledge that
the doctor gave me was one day, when I said: 'Look, I'm feeling
slower and sluggish.' So he gave me a medical encyclopaedia and he
turned the pages to ageing. I read it up and it was illuminating. A
lot of it was difficult jargon but I just skimmed through to get the
gist of it.

As you grow, you reach 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and then, thereafter,
you are on a gradual slope down physically. (shudder)

Mentally, you carry on and on and on until I don't know what age, but
mathematicians will tell you that they know their best output is when
they're in their 20s and 30s when your mental energy is powerful and
you haven't lost many neurons.. That's what they tell me.

So, as you acquire more knowledge, you then craft a programme for
yourself to maximise what you have.. It's just common sense. I never
planned to live till 85 or 84! I just didn't think about it. I said:
'Well, my mother died when she was 74, she had a stroke. My father
died when he was 94.'

But I saw him, and he lived a long life, well, maybe it was his DNA.
But more than that, he swam every day and he kept himself busy. He
was working for the Shell company. He was in charge, he was a
superintendent of an oil depot. When he retired, he started becoming
a salesman. So people used to tell me: 'Your father is selling
watches at BP de Silva.' My father was then living with me. But it
kept him busy. He had that routine: He meets people, he sells
watches, he buys and sells all kinds of semi-precious stones, he
circulates coins. And he keeps going. But at 87, 88, he fell, going
down the steps from his room to the dining room, broke his arm, three
months incapacitated. Thereafter, he couldn't go back to swimming.
Then he became wheelchair-bound.

Then it became a problem because my house was constructed that way.
So my brother, who's a doctor and had a flat (one-level) house, took
him in. And he lived on till 94. But towards the end, he had gradual
loss of mental powers.

So my calculations, I'm somewhere between 74 and 94. And I've
reached the halfway point now. But have I? Well, 1996 when I was 73,
I was cycling and I felt tightening on the neck. Oh, I must retire
today. So I stopped. Next day, I returned to the bicycle. After five
minutes it became worse.

So I said, no, no, this is something serious, it's got to do
with the blood vessels. Rung up my doctor, who said, 'Come
tomorrow'. Went tomorrow, he checked me, and said: 'Come back
tomorrow for an angiogram.' I said: 'What's that?' He said: 'We'll
pump something in and we'll see whether the coronary arteries are
cleared or blocked.' I was going to go home. But an MP who was a
cardiologist happened to be around, so he came in and said: 'What are
you doing here?' I said: 'I've got this.' He said: 'Don't go home.
You stay here tonight. I've sent patients home and they never came
back. Just stay here. They'll put you on the monitor. They'll watch
your heart. And if anything, an emergency arises, they will take you
straight to the theatre. You go home. You've got no such monitor. You
may never come back.'

So I stayed there. Pumped in the dye, yes it was blocked, the left
circumflex, not the critical, lead one. So that's lucky for me. Two
weeks later, I was walking around, I felt it's coming back. Yes it
has come back, it had occluded. So this time they said: 'We'll put in a stent.'

I'm one of the first few in Singapore to have the stent, so it was a
brand new operation. Fortunately, the man who invented the stent was
out here selling his stent. He was from San Jose, La Jolla something
or the other. So my doctor got hold of him and he supervised the
operation. He said put the stent in. My doctor did the operation, he
just watched it all and then that's that. That was before all this
problem about lining the stent to make sure that it doesn't occlude
and create a disturbance.

So at each stage, I learnt something more about myself and I stored
that. I said: 'Oh, this is now a danger point.' So alright, cut out
fats, change diet, went to see a specialist in Boston, Massachusetts
General Hospital. He said: 'Take statins.' I said: 'What's that?' He
said: '(They) help to reduce your cholesterol.' My doctors were
concerned. They said: 'You don't need it. Your cholesterol levels are
okay.' Two years later, more medical evidence came out. So the
doctors said: 'Take statins.'

Had there been no angioplasty, had I not known that something was up
and I cycled on, I might have gone at 74 like my mother. So I missed
that deadline.

So next deadline: my father's fall at 87.

I'm very careful now because sometimes when I turn around too fast, I
feel as if I'm going to get off balance. So my daughter, a
neurologist, she took me to the NNI, there's this nerve conduction
test, put electrodes here and there. The transmission of the messages
between the feet and the brain has slowed down.

So all the exercise, everything, effort put in, I'm fit, I swim, I
cycle.. But I can't prevent this losing of conductivity of the nerves
and this transmission. So just go slow.

So when I climb up the steps, I have no problem. When I go down the
steps, I need to be sure that I've got something I can hang on to,
just in case. So it's a constant process of adjustment.

But I think the most important single lesson I learnt in life was
that if you isolate yourself, you're done for. The human being is a
social animal - he needs stimuli, he needs to meet people, to catch
up with the world.

I don't much like travel but I travel very frequently despite the jet
lag, because I get to meet people of great interest to me, who will
help me in my work as chairman of our GIC. So I know, I'm on several
*** of banks, international advisory *** of banks, of oil companies
and so on. And I meet them and I get to understand what's happening
in the world, what has changed since I was here one month ago, one
year ago. I go to India, I go to China.

And that stimuli brings me to the world of today. I'm not living in
the world, when I was active, more active 20, 30 years ago. So I tell
my wife. She woke up late today. I said: 'Never mind, you come along
by 12 o'clock. I go first.'

If you sit back - because part of the ending part of the
encyclopaedia which I read was very depressing - as you get old, you
withdraw from everything and then all you will have is your bedroom
and the photographs and the furniture that you know, and that's your
world. So if you've got to go to hospital, the doctor advises you to
bring some photographs so that you'll know you're not lost in a
different world, that this is like your bedroom.

I'm determined that I will not, as long as I can, to be reduced, to
have my horizons closed on me like that. It is the stimuli, it is the
constant interaction with people across the world that keeps me aware
and alive to what's going on and what we can do to adjust to this
different world.

In other words, you must have an interest in life. If you believe
that at 55, you're retiring, you're going to read books, play golf
and drink wine, then I think you're done for. So statistically they
will show you that all the people who retire and lead sedentary
lives, the pensioners die off very quickly.

So we now have a social problem with medical sciences, new
procedures, new drugs, many more people are going to live long lives.
If the mindset is that when I reach retirement age 62, I'm old, I
can't work anymore, I don't have to work, I just sit back, now is the
time I'll enjoy life, I think you're making the biggest mistake of
your life. After one month, or after two months, even if you go
travelling with nothing to do, with no purpose in life, you will
just degrade, you'll go to seed. ("go to seed", how quaint! The need to be purposeful even when having fun is an oxymoronic truth)

The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in
Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge.
If you're not interested in the world and the world is not interested
in you, the biggest punishment a man can receive is total isolation
in a dungeon, black and complete withdrawal of all stimuli, that's
real torture. So when I read that people believe, Singaporeans say:
'Oh, 62 I'm retiring.' I say to them: 'You really want to die
quickly?' If you want to see sunrise tomorrow or sunset, you must
have a reason, you must have the stimuli to keep going'. (Ok, this last sentence ruined the whole piece because it obviously has an agenda e.g "do not retire, continue to work")

Apart from the reminder to exercise, eat right & keep fit, I recognise the need to expand boundaries & be challenged. Recently, a vision was prayed over me of climbing mountains rather than walk the common path because mountain-climbing trains & develops different muscles. I think it's time for me to stop fearing, to stop thinking so much & just climb.

I don't want to have my horizons closed in on me =)

I want to be hands & feet of love, practical love.

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1081/Chicken-a-la-Carte

I was hungry

And you formed a humanities club to discuss my hunger.

I was imprisoned

And you went to your chapel to pray for my release.

I was naked

And you debated the morality of my appearance.

I was sick

And you knelt and thanked God for your health.

I was homeless

And you delivered a sermon on the shelter of God's love.

I was lonely

And you left me alone to attend church.

You seem so close to God but I am still very hungry, lonely, and cold! ~ (Author unknown)

Or to be welcomed into heaven:

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Matthew 25:34-40

To be like Jesus & do as He would.

Touched by words...

The little boy who built a boat
For hours he worked, whittling and carving, until it was exactly as he had dreamed it would be. After sanding and painting the small boat, the little boy raced outside to the nearby river where the launch of his cherished creation would take place. It was beautiful. Every day, the young captain sailed his boat up and down the lazy river, his active imagination weaving tales of pirates and treasures, mermaids and sea monsters, every story ending with the return of his seaworthy vessel. Then one day, after a torrential rain, the little boy sailed his boat on the burgeoning stream. Too late, he realized that the swift current was taking his boat out of reach. He frantically tried to retrieve the boat, but it was moving too fast and he ran out of shoreline. The boat was lost. Brokenhearted, he stood on the bank of the river, staring into the fading light as his precious boat sailed away from him. When darkness came, the brokenhearted boy turned and slowly walked away.

Several days later, he was on his way home from school when he passed the toy store. There in the window was his boat! Someone had found it! Dropping his backpack, the boy slammed through the door of the toy store and with an anxious heart, the little boy told the owner that the boat in the window belonged to him. But the owner was not convinced and told the boy he would have to pay for the boat. "Can you please, please hold it for me?" the little boy begged. "Just until the store closes today," the owner replied. Frantic, but determined to have his boat, the little boy ran home, grabbed his piggy bank and bolted back to the store. Minutes later, he walked out of the toy store, the boat securely in his hands. "You are twice mine, little boat," the boy whispered, "once because I made you and once because I bought you."

A month into the new year & already, the winds of change have started to blow.

I think this is probably one of the toughest seasons of my life because I'm learning how to yield, submit & surrender. Completely. And it all starts with a decision that begins in the mind. I'm learning to fill my mind with God's truth & to think about all that "true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent & praise-worthy".

There's nothing radical happening in my life but I can say honestly that all I'm thinking, feeling & doing is in the centre of God's will. And this obedience brings a joy like none other. A joy that is free from fear & a joy that stems from liberty. The same joy that a missionary would feel, the same joy a full-time mom would feel, the same joy a nurse in the Gaza strip would feel, the prevailing joy, no matter how dark the circumstances, of being where God wants them to be & doing what God wants them to do. It's not about the radical-ness but the obedience & willingness to go & to be. And the obedience naturally brings about the radical-ness.

Been feeling relatively "speechless" nowadays with plenty of thoughts mulling but no words to make concrete these thoughts.

Been reading quite a bit & here's an excerpt from an online article:

Years ago, in a large southeastern city, the great pianist, Paderewski, was scheduled to perform. The city was alive with excitement and the day finally came. In the crowd at the concert was a young mother clutching the hand of her small son. Hoping to inspire him to practice, she had brought him to hear the master perform. As they sat and waited for the concert to begin, she turned her head to look at the people as they filled the auditorium. The little boy saw his chance to escape. He quietly slipped from his seat, walking down the aisle toward the stage. Just as he reached the orchestra pit, a spotlight hit the grand piano and he gasped at the beauty of the instrument. No one noticed the little boy as he slipped up the side stairs to the stage and climbed up on the piano stool. No one noticed him at all, until he began to play "Chopsticks". The concert hall fell silent. Then people began to shout. "Get him away from that piano!" Backstage, the Master heard the crowd and grabbing his coat, rushed to the little boy's side. Without a word, he bent down and, placing his hands on either side of the boy's, began to compose a beautiful counter melody to "Chopsticks". As they played together, he whispered in the little boy's ear, "Don't stop! Keep on! Don't quit!"

Right now, right where you are, understand that your Father is standing beside you, with His arms wrapped around you. Listen as He gently speaks, "Don't stop! Keep on! Don't quit!"

So, I shall continue to play my broken song & let the Master fill in the blanks & make a melody of my life. If my song were full, loud & perfect, His song wouldn't be heard at all.

Regardless of where the song is to be played-- in personal interactions, a school of 8000 orphans or a foreign land. As long as I'm led to the piano & drawn to play with the Master beside me, I will.

I'm back to work & am going to live each day to the fullest!

My goal for 2009 is simple, to do my best in everything for Jesus. I've recognised that everything in my life, from work to leisure should reflect Jesus & how else but to do my best with diligence & enthusiasm.

My days are now packed with activity, signed up for a few courses that I've always been interested in but never pursued & am chasing long-lost but now restored dreams.

I think a song quite aptly describes how I'm going to live this year.

"Today is the day" Lincoln Brewster

I`m casting my cares aside
I`m leaving my past behind
I`m setting my heart and mind on You
Jesus

I`m reaching my hand to Yours
Believing there`s so much more
Knowing that all You have in store for me is good
Is good

Today is the day You have made
I will rejoice and be glad in it
Today is the day You have made
I will rejoice and be glad in it
And I won`t worry about tomorrow
I`m trusting in what You say
Today is the day
Oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh
Today is the day
Oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh

I will stand upon Your truth.
(I will stand upon Your truth)
And all my days I`ll live for You
(And all my days I`ll live...)

Today is the day You have made
I will rejoice and be glad in it
Today is the day You have made
I will rejoice and be glad in it
And I won`t worry about tomorrow
I`m giving you my fears and sorrows
Where you lead me I will follow
I'm trusting in what you say
Today is the day!

Each day will be an adventure! Of expanding the desires God has placed in me, enlarging my heart for His purposes & extending the same grace & love poured to overflowing in my life. And while all these good stuff are growing & occupying space in my heart, I'm praying the flesh will be surrendered, the selfish shrink & the ugly scorched by the abiding presence of Christ.

My heart is weighed heavy by the burden of my generation and it will continue to broken for the orphans of this generation until they find hope & a name worth believing in. I remember various dreams & visions--Ps Ben's dream of young people burning in hell, Dudley's vision of a train full of the lost on the track to doom & my own vision of being pulled from a deep dark scary pit only to stand at the edge & look down at the arms of those in the pit raised to ask for help. And my dream & desire is to be one of those who would reach into the pit & grab as many hands as I can & pull them to safety, just as I have been saved.

With so much on my platter, I just thank God that His grace is sufficient for His strength is made perfect in my weakness. I just want to do my best for Him in all that He has laid upon my heart & I'm thankful that He will help me every step of the way!

2009 looks set to be exciting!

I'm excited! =)

I'm off for my winter holidays! (This is a lost-and-found entry =)

And I finally packed my luggage last night although the gathering of warm clothes & winter-y items like scarves & gloves started last weekend. In the midst of the frantic running around last night, I'm sooo glad I've my mother (who helps me narrow choices & stuff clothes/gifts for hosts into luggage) & I've a God who answers prayer even for the small mundane things in life.

It started off with a pair of socks I'd planned to wear during the cold winter nights. I couldn't find them in the drawer I'd placed them in even after a thorough search so I ran over to mum's room shrieking that I couldn't find "my socks, my socks" & uttered a quick "God, please help me find them." And when I returned to the drawer to look, there they were, just sitting on top of everything else & staring at me.

The next thing that went missing was my scarf that was found in a most unusual place only after prayer.

And before I went to bed, I tried to find my lip balm & couldn't find it at all! I was really frantic because it's important & I can't imagine it not on my dresser as it usually is. Being wiser (and more trusting of God's power after the first two incidences), I prayed & then looked again. But I still couldn't find it! I was getting very flustered, frustrated & irritated & kept praying but I still couldn't find it. After a futile 20mins, I decided to "na2 de4 qi3, fang4 de2 xia4" & went to sleep praying that I'd find my lip balm. I have to confess that my lip balm was probably the last thought on my mind before I drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, my first thought was "I'll be in Japan this time tomorrow!" & the second was "I need to find my lip balm". And so, I searched & prayed & almost gave up when I found it in a most inconceivable place. I found it! And I was thanking God like mad & really rejoicing!

All thanks to a lost and found lip balm! There was so much joy, relief & jubilation at having my lost lip balm found.


No wonder God rejoices in me! Because I once was lost & now am found. And I'm definitely more precious than lip balm! =)

I'm glad I'll be back in Singapore just in time to celebrate my Saviour's birth.

Stooping to Conquer
LaTan Roland Murphy

Ephesians 5:21 "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."

"Mom, they were whispering to one another about the birthday party. They didn't want me to hear because I am not invited," my daughter said with trembling voice as tears filled her big beautiful eyes.

My heart was breaking in half as I listened to how hurt she was. "They are my best friends at school, Mom. Why would they not invite me?"

I reached out to hug her, our arms wrapping around each other tightly as she turned her soft tear stained face toward my neck. It was a familiar crying spot as she had buried her face there time and time again in the same position since she was a baby. We helped each other without speaking a word for a while. Sometimes there are just no words to make things better, so I cried with her. One week later, while driving our daughter to school, she asked her dad in a quiet voice if he would please stop at the grocery store.

"Why DaNae? Do you need something for school?"

"Well, sort of."

"What do you need, honey, because we are already going to be late."

"I need to buy a balloon for someone who is having a birthday party tonight."

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Do you remember the girl who was whispering about her birthday party in front of me? Well, I want to take a balloon to school for her." I looked over at my husband and he looked at me, each of our hearts melting both with a sense of pride and of sadness. We knew we had to stop even if it meant we would be late. It was worth it!

Da-Nae' walked happily into the grocery store and in a few moments came running out with a huge grin spread across her seventh grade face. Her balloon was flying high in the air with a pack of chewing gum hanging from the bottom, acting as a weight. She was the happiest girl in the world!

My husband and I were so blessed by our daughter's actions that morning. She stooped to conquer feelings that could have been filled with anger and hurt. Some people might ask why she would make a fool of herself after being treated the way she was or how she could lower herself after what her friend had done to her. When Christ is the center of our lives, He empowers us to do things we could never do in our own human nature. Our daughter chose not to be a martyr. She chose to stoop a little so she could rise up on a much higher level. She chose to reject her sadness about not being invited to the party. She reaped the blessings of stooping to conquer her emotions and blessed her friend in spite of how she had been treated.

When was the last time you stooped to conquer?

Learning to Trust the Master
by Max Lucado

A man and his dog are in the same car. The dog howls bright-moon-in-the-middle-of-the-night caterwauling howls. The man pleads, promising a daily delivery of dog biscuit bouquets if only the hound will hush. After all, it's only a car wash.

Never occurred to him--ahem, to me--that the car wash would scare my dog. But it did. Placing myself in her paws, I can see why. A huge, noisy machine presses toward us, pounding our window with water, banging against the door with brushes. Duck! We're under attack.

"Don't panic. The car wash was my idea." "I've done this before." "It's for our own good." Ever tried to explain a car wash to a canine? Dog dictionaries are minus the words brush and detail job. My words fell on fallen flaps. Nothing helped. She just did what dogs do; she wailed.

Actually, she did what we do. Don't we howl? Not at car washes perhaps but at hospital stays and job transfers. Let the economy go south or the kids move north, and we have a wail of a time. And when our Master explains what's happening, we react as if he's speaking Yalunka. We don't understand a word he says.

Is your world wet and wild?

God's greatest blessings often come costumed as disasters. Any doubters need to do nothing more than ascend the hill of Calvary.

Jerusalem's collective opinion that Friday was this: Jesus is finished.

Such is the view of the disciples, the opinion of the friends, and the outlook of the enemies. Label it the dog-in-the-passenger-seat view.

The Master who sits behind the wheel thinks differently. God is not surprised. His plan is right on schedule. Even in--especially in--death, Christ is still the king, the king over his own crucifixion.

Can't he do the same for you? Can't he turn your Friday into a Sunday?

Some of you doubt it. How can God use cancer or death or divorce? Simple.

He's smarter than we are. He is to you what I was to four-year-old Amy. I met her at a bookstore. She asked me if I would sign her children's book. When I asked her name, she watched as I began to write, "To Amy ..."

She stopped me right there. With wide eyes and open mouth, she asked, "How did you know how to spell my name?"

She was awed. You aren't. You know the difference between the knowledge of a child and an adult. Can you imagine the difference between the wisdom of a human and the wisdom of God? What is impossible to us is like spelling "Amy" to him. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:9).

I keep taking Molly to the car wash. She's howling less. I don't think she understands the machinery. She's just learning to trust her master. Maybe we'll learn the same.