Self-responsibility

“2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” - James 1:2-4

When we face new trials, all in God’s perfect timing, He knows we’re ready for our next obstacle to make us perfect in Him.

Read the above from a friend’s blog and it’s really encouraging, especially since school and hostel’s been taking a bit of a toll on me. Today I’ve stayed home the whole day and it is the first Saturday that I’ve stayed home the whole day for in a long time (apart from CNY Eve).

Somehow, I caught the flu virus over the CNY break or maybe even before that, and since Wednesday it has been robbing my voice away from me bit by bit, and today I woke up not even able to utter anything – everything I want to say just comes out as one hoarse croak. And so I had to cancel commitments, skip CNY visits, CNY special in church, not go for the Zoo run (sigh I really looked forward to that), and just simply rest at home.

As I took the opportunity to think today, I realized there’s something for me to learn every time I fall sick – it forces me to reflect about why I ended up this way, and the significance of the repercussions. Basically it’s kind of like a reflection of my life and how I’m handling it.

I’m honestly frustrated with myself that I’m unwell (again), not because it’s uncomfortable to live with but more because it’s affecting the people around me. Because of me losing my voice, I can’t participate in things which I have a responsibility for, and it adds on to my parents’ worries. This comes as a reminder for me to be more self-responsible – a lesson to learn, similar to the blood donation incident last year.

This semester I think I let myself get caught up in a lot of things that I find it hard to balance everything or do things with as much effort as I would like to – and we’re not even two months into the semester. I hope to apply and live out what I’ve learnt from this wake-up call of sorts, as the new week begins and everything picks up from where it left off again.

On a happier note, it was nice seeing some awesome friends again last night, even though I couldn’t contribute much to the conversations except by smiling or nodding my head in agreement, haha!