Living Creatively Ever After

Music: Better Together, Jack Johnson

After a great Father’s Day Weekend Service, we all headed down to Clarke Quay to grab a quick lunch and proceed to the post-Camp Phenomena meeting.

At this point, I’d like to thank BIRDIE, EVANN and NAT for taking care of me when I had to vomit twice during the whole meeting. I know it wasn’t a pretty sight nor was it really appealing to your ears/nose but thanks nonetheless!

And now…pictures!

The 15-second Father’s Day surprise:

 The acceptance pose…the signature Papa pose……THE END!

We woke him up from his peaceful slumber just to wish him a Happy Father’s Day.

Through the years although he has been very far from us, he has provided well for us. He has never really been there through everything and I know that our stay here in Singapore has been the time to make up for all the moments that we missed.

I really thank God for my Dad. For the change that we have seen in him. We used to call him Dick from Dictator, which he was before. He was the type of Dad whose word is law and no one ever dared to break it. Grim-faced and strict that’s how we remembered him before.

Now, our Papa has mellowed down a bit. He likes to joke a lot and talk a lot! Mama always says that the peace of the house is disturbed once Papa is home as he talks and talks and talks! He makes us laugh with his signature moves (shaky leg and the chicken little dance), makes odd but funny quips (the quotable quotes), ends his phone calls with “I love you, anak“, and most importantly he says SORRY and asks for a hug  when he knows he has offended us.

However strict he was then, we could see his spiritual hunger and love for God. Through him and Mama’s lives we saw what it meant to walk by faith, to put God first in everything and to trust God no matter what.

Because to me, the most powerful moments that I have seen him in were the moments that…

he would never hesitate to humble himself and kneel before God…

he would lift his hands and really cry before God, tears streaming down his face…

he knelt before me and asked for my forgiveness, when I was born my Dad couldn’t accept the fact that his firstborn was a girl. He thought that God told him that his firstborn will be a son, and since I came out, he interpreted my birth as the retribution for his past sins. When I was born, he was in Saudi Arabia, when he got the call about my gender, his first response wasn’t of joy but, “Why is it a GIRL?”. Although they told me about this when I was reaching puberty, I had always felt that I wasn’t accepted by my father by the way he treated me compared to my other siblings. Learning of the reaction he had of my birth deeply hurt me. It will be a few years before he would kneel before me and ask me for forgiveness.

God has worked great changes in my Dad and I know I am who I am today, my faith is what it is today through the example that my Dad has shown me.

They say that earthly fathers reflect how our Heavenly Father, and it has been easier for me to view God as a loving Father who is good all the time because of how my Dad treats me.