Sherly’s Place

It’s been almost five months since my last blog. Still in the midst of my ‘dormant’ time, I’m dropping by here, just to leave some words, and reconsidering whether I should resume this blog.

As the beginning of my long absence, I want to share what happened to us lately. First of all, we actually had no plan where to go after going back to Jakarta, but He brought us back here again in Kuala Lumpur. Some people said that it must be God’s way that we went back here (and we are sure of that). There must be a purpose why He let us back here again, and it’s our homework to try understand and follow His way. It won’t be easy and comfortable, but it will strengthen us. As normal human beings, there’s no doubt that we always want to have comfortable lives. However, in some cases, living the comfortable lives might lead us merely to existence. Is it all we want? Just to be exist, not to live a life?

Hence, the 3rd chapter has begun…. with further consideration.

This solitariness has been sweeping me away. Thank God we’ll be coming home next Saturday. I really need to work with my verbal communication, I rarely talked to anyone verbally since we’ve arrived in Kuala Lumpur. I’ve just been spending my social time using my fingers on the notebook, besides the writing and expressing my thoughts activities. I thought I was strong enough not to be overwhelmed with my so-called solitude attitude, luckily I was absolutely wrong. When most people take time to reflect their lives in the end of year, I’ve got almost the whole year to experience it. Anyway, this post’s going to close my life’s journey in 2008. Hope and keep the faith that 2009 is going to be full of “love, hope & peace” for you and me!

God, please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
The courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
To live one day at a time, to enjoy one moment at a time.
To accept hardship as the pathway to peace.
To take the sinful world as it is not as I would have it.
To trust that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will.
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
and supremely happy with You forever in the rest.
In the strong name of Jesus Christ, I pray.
Amen.

2008 is quite a tiring year for me, a battle and also a surrender, an adventure and also a stillness. In the last month of this exhausting year, we’re going to close this one chapter of our faith journey, and must be heading for another bewilderment. As the first year of our marriage was spent mostly for our love celebration, the second one was occupied in Malaysia, starting with Penang and ended with Kuala Lumpur.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe what I’ve been going through. Indescribably amazing life… Now I know the meaning of when you let something go, you’ll be receiving more. It’s hard to believe the when you are weak, you are strong, but as I’ve experienced it, I’m getting the understanding and be honoured to face this life’s stage.

What will happen to our marriage life in 2009 is still a mystery, but be sure it will be started in Jakarta. Time to say good bye to Kuala Lumpur. A new phase of life is going to begin, another lesson to mold our life. Scary? Yes, but it’s time to hold God’s hand tightly to enjoy the new ride of faith.

There were times when I didn’t know what to say or how to describe it properly. They were times when I hid in my cave. A friend of mine once advised me to share and tell her about my problems. She saw me as a person who took the weight all by myself. I am thankful for her concern, but I wasn’t intend to keep my mouth shut. What would I say? It’s just an ordinary problem for ordinary people like me. I am grateful that I’m not as famous as the Hollywood celebrity or as rich as Warren Buffet.

Lately I read a blog post about a perfect crime scenario of  a mongolian girl, Altantuya Shaariibuu in Malaysia. Though the truth’s still questioned, but after reading it, I felt blessed that I wasn’t an extraordinary beautiful girl. On the other hand, I tried to be in the murderer(s)’ shoes, and somehow I could empathize for the vigorous problems they’ve been facing. I don’t mean that I am agree to all the crimes, but I can see the suffering. It’s a silent secret that everyone’s in the world is suffering. The difference is in its proportion. Be sure that greater power needs greater responsibility, and the stronger you are, the stronger temptations will be.

It isn’t our but Your will be done. It used to be our family prayer and still always be. Our journey to Malaysia was started with this one.

It began on February 2008 when my husband had a job offer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Whereas it seemed like the answer to the ‘buy a house or move out to other country’ question, we didn’t rush into it and kept on praying. When we intended to tell my parents about our possibility of moving to Malaysia, I was shocked by the news that my father was diagnosed for having bladder carcinoma. The urologist said that he had to remove his bladder – called radical cystectomy in medical term and for the rest of his life he would be using a stoma as his bladder. Since we’d found some of his treatment proposal and diagnosis quite strange, so we decided to bring him to our friend’s oncologist in Penang, Malaysia

The journey of my father’s fight was – and is – a long story. Lot of tears, prayer, and emotion were involved. Started with reading some literature of bladder carcinoma, deciding to resign from my job, leaving the colportage and pre-marrital service, and at last left my husband in order to accompany my father for his four month treatment in Penang. The next month my husband accepted the job in Kuala Lumpur which he refused before because of my father’s health condition. They happened just in a glance.

It’s only by grace that I did things I couldn’t believe I’ve done it before (even when I look back to that hard times again). Only by grace that I could understand how God prepared every single little thing in our past failure for our own good, and at last some mysteries of my puzzled life were unfold.

If only I didn’t “obey” my parents on taking my current degrees, I wouldn’t have met my husband and got married. Still until now it has been my hard times to fight for my passion. If only we didn’t have this relationship, he wouldn’t have got his first job which would take my father to know this oncologist, and made us moving out to Malaysia. Hence, the story of my husband career journey has also showed me how God can work our life out in a way we’ve never imagined before. I am amazed on this path He has given us.

I am grateful that today my father condition is still good, while I haven’t told him and don’t know what to say about his only 40% five-year life survival. We can still be here in Kuala Lumpur abundantly regarding of our loss. If you ask me what things I love from Malaysia, I definitely say: “Malaysia has been a witness of my faith journey”. But still It isn’t our but Your will be done, if our granted time in Kuala Lumpur is overed, then it’s time to fulfill the “calling” again.