Above all else

If you were a teenager in the 80s, you might, like me, have read the massively popular Dragonlance series, which you may recall, included the anti-hero Raistlin.  This tragic character was described as having hourglass eyes, which constantly see the wearing effects of time on others, which must have been a serious bummer.  I don't know about hourglass eyes, but "lao hua" eyes was definitely a thing for me this year.  I've been frustrated by how, if I hold the mobile phone too near the text gets all blurry, but if I hold it further away, the text is then too small! Hourglass eyes or not, another year has passed.  It has been a Good Year.  I am grateful!  As many of my friends know, each year I write down a list of life goals centred around 3 main themes - myself, my family, and my work/ministry.  I'm happy I managed to hit the target of 25 blogs (in fact, with this entry, I reach 30 :)), do my daily devotionals, run 4 half-marathons, that my kids ...

I am blessed to have a good partnership with my wife.  She takes care of the finances and makes sure the bills get paid.  She plans the schedule for each day - who needs to be where at what time, and how to get there.  I sort of just follow the schedule, go to work, and play with the kids at home :D  On holidays, we swop roles.  I plan where we go, what we do, and how to get there, and she gets to sit back and follow along! I have friends and colleagues who do everything themselves, or independently of their spouses, and I sometimes wonder - how do they do that?!  Or perhaps more pertinently, why would they?!  But to be fair, my wife and I place a huge premium on living efficiently, and minimising overlap in our responsibilities.  Not everyone needs to choose to live this way, and there can be very good reasons why some things are done independently. But make no mistake, life can be overwhelming.  Work, stress, finances, kids, parents...

This is the story of how God used a chicken suit to teach and humble my family.  The story begins a few years ago, when my daughter came back from her PSLE examination, and shared with us that the picture for composition was a guy in a chicken suit - you know, those furry, humid-looking mascot costumes.  My son, who was then in primary four, remarked that he would have have been stumped by how to write a "chicken suit" composition and would certainly have flopped that examination.  So over the next couple of years, "chicken suit" became a inside reference for "examination question that is impossible to answer" i.e. "that's just a chicken suit question"! The years passed, and this year, it was time for my boy's PSLE examinations.  We knew he was good at English, Science and especially Maths.  But despite all his hard work, his Chinese was still really, Really, REALLY staggeringly poor - so we knew that PSLE results would be a chall...

With the end of primary school, Sunday school also comes to an end, and now both kids attend their own teens' service. So yesterday, I brought the younger one around and told him where to meet the sister after service and their respective cell groups to take the bus home. Along the way, the older one asked me how conflicts with schoolfriends should be handled, and what to do in a situation where you don't know anyone (she was heading to a prayer meeting but both her leaders were not around).  After sharing my views, she turned to her brother, without a hint of sarcasm, and said, "Daddy's always so inspirational".  Ah, the words that a father of a 14/15 year old longs to hear :D With the kids settled down at service, I went back home for my afternoon nap!  After a good zzz, I hopped over for a quick dinner at my mum's place, then walked to church for evening service. From a distance of about 50m, I saw, in the twilight, two figures walking towards me ...

In a week's time, the primary school journey will be over!  Well, it's really felt like that since the PSLE ended more than a month ago, but it's only today that I thought to write about it... It's a healthy practice to give thanks after every journey.  Gratefulness is an under-appreciated virtue, and the pilgrims got it right when they celebrated the first Thanksgiving after arriving on American shores in 1621.  According to wikipedia, there were just 53 pilgrims in attendance that first Thanksgiving, along with 90 native guests.  Small beginnings for what is now a huge American national holiday, but perhaps the gratefulness was more genuine then! I am thankful for both my kids coming through primary school healthy in body.  Some weird accidents along the way - strangely, it was my older, more careful daughter who (a) tripped and scraped her face (what a frightening scab that was when we picked her up from the general office!); (b) tripped and literally...

I just got back from a holiday to China, and one of the most amusing things I saw was the counterfeit goods!  At a bag shop, I saw Miu Miu's twin Min Min.  And Kate Spade's best friend Kete.  On an escalator in a shopping mall, I saw the guy standing in front of me wearing New Balance's Chinese cousin New Balun.  I wanted to take a picture, but thought better of it in case, you know, I get beat up by the guy.  Then of course there was the Star Wars extended family of Space Wars, Star Wart (yes really), and Star Wnrs - as the internet meme says, truly, a winner is you :D What puzzles me is this - the counterfeits are actually pretty realistic.  To my untrained eye, I can't tell the difference between the real thing and the fake.  Since the manufacturers have gone to all that trouble to make the bag or shoe or lego sets look real, why do they bother coming up with a brand name that's just a little different?   Why not go all the way and...

As readers of this blog know, my friends and I distribute bread every month to the residents in a rental block.   We know the residents reasonably well by now, as we have doing this for several years.  About two years ago,  I visited one of the residents and found a stranger sitting in his house.  It turned out to be his sister, and she told me that he had suffered a stroke and was in hospital.   As I chatted with her, it dawned upon me that I knew so much about this uncle.  That he loved to eat pork knuckles.  That his cure for everything was garlic boiled in rice.  That he loved visitors and had, just recently, generously opened his tiny home to host a dozen relatives who had come from Indonesia to Singapore on holiday.  That he had one son in Singapore and another in Melbourne.  I even knew about this sister, on whom he had spent his little savings to visit in Sydney, when her husband passed away.  In short, Uncle and I had b...

Several weeks ago, several colleagues and I were waiting for a meeting to start, and one of them asked me, "Hey Glenn, why do you smile so much?" I thought for a second or two, and replied, "Because I know I am where I am supposed to be.  I follow God, and where He leads me is always the best place I can be.  I am held in the palm of His hand.  Sometimes it rains, sometimes it shines, but safe in His hands I am." That colleague then remarked, "Ah you've found inner peace.  Like Kungfu Panda." :) To which I replied, "Well, it's more like this.  Late one night, I saw my daughter sitting at her desk and reading.  At first I thought she was studying, and I felt happy, because of course studying hard helps her to do well.  Then I walked closer and realised she was reading her Bible.  And then I felt even happier, because when she follows after God, then whatever the result, she is always in the best place she can be." Anothe...