Finding The Happy

I've decided that I'm too disorganised to write an autobiography for my kids. Here's yet another small attempt at documenting the tastes and smells of my history. What is a Singaporean if not a lover of good hawker fare.

Dearest Fruit of my Loins, According to Google Maps, it’d take us 12 hours to get from Canberra International Airport to within whiffing distance of the hawker centre that nourished me through my growing years and beyond. It remains the nearest hawker centre to my childhood home. In its bosom, I learnt how to cross a street all on my own and order takeaway for my mum and I. I learnt how to use…

We're in lockdown and I know these are comparatively early days. Even thinking about this post feels like I'm holding up a papercut to an amputee. This isn't meant to be a list of complaints. I just miss some things.

At the time of starting this post, I’m in Week 4, Day 3 of Lockdown 2. We’re well, in good health overall, and the full bite of cabin fever hasn’t set in and festered because we’re only in Week 4, Day 3 of Lockdown 2. We’re pottering along just fine. And I know it’s largely because there’s a confluence of privileges working in our favour — things like our education, location, white-collar jobs…

Growing up CofC had meant eschewing major traditional Christian events like Christmas and Easter on account of them both being pagan festivals, rebranded and rebadged. So for 40 years, I didn’t have a particularly churchy Christmas or observe Holy Week. The CofC in Canberra didn’t ever plan a shindig on Good Friday, while the church I grew up with in Singapore used to spend that public holiday…

On Your 8th Anniversary

I don’t write about you much. I think about you every day. You’re never really far, anyway. You shadow every waking thought, lace every decision I make like a fragrance I’ll never want to forget, except I’ve already forgotten your smell. They say it’s always the first thing that goes. All I know is that you smelled like Comfort. And Home. And Unconditional Love. Big, fierce, protective,…

It’s the first day of Winter and Reconciliation Day. Yesterday, the children had bible class online and talked about Sorry Day and what reconciliation means and looks like. Out of the mouth of one babe (not mine — a much better taught one), a little boy gave the perfect stock answer: it’s about making an effort to fix a broken relationship.

(Or something very close to that. I didn’t have pen…

One of the main things I am hugely thankful for in the midst of this pandemic is technology — specifically our ability to afford it, understand it, and be in community with others who enjoy such privilege and access.

This afternoon, I got to catch up with Audrey — one of my sisters from another mother. Audrey’s family and mine are linked in many ways — primarily through church but also…

It has been a time of massive adjustment for our household. It’s time to take a breath. Let’s recap.

Thanks to the Sunday of Tumult (22 March) wherein the east coast of Australia speedily jumped within the day from “self-isolate as far as possible but SCHOOLS ARE DEFINITELY STAYING OPEN” to “Wait… we’re closing the schools like everyone else! Except for those in ‘essential services’, whatever…

I’m just closing in on Week 2 of our self-isolation. The children have been learning at home with me full-time for almost all of this period, and even though I’m still experimenting how to manage 2-3 part-time gigs alongside the usual housework and teaching Kindy and Year 3, I’m finally settling into some semblance of normalcy.

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged regularly, and though I…

Our sky is orange, our sun is red

For those in my community who live and breathe outside of Australia, I thought I’d let you know how we’re holding up as news of our bushfires light up media outlets around the world.

We’re fine for now. My little fambam lives in Canberra and although the nearest out-of-control bushfire is 86km away from our house and presently 27% of Singapore in size, current modelling indicates we’re not in…

Unpacking righteousness and our individual versions of morality

Recently, I had the pleasure of a long-overdue coffee with a sister in Christ and she mentioned how churches need both “progressives” and “conservatives” in order to thrive. “Too many Progressives”, goes the theory, “and we’re always changing and moving but sacrifice tradition.” Too many Conservatives, it goes to follow, “and we’re set in our ways and never make good changes.”

I listened and…

He must increase, but I must decrease

Someone in my online community is thinking of writing a post about witnessing. In a biblical culture that relegates women to nothing more than chattel and twice as dispensable, it’s a curious and wonderful thing that Jesus chose women to be his first witnesses of his resurrection.

I mean, what a crazy, counter-intuitive, inefficient way of getting something as earth-and-heaven-shattering as…

Gold, frankincense, and myrrh

“When the wise men saw the star, they were filled with joy. They came to the house where the child was and saw him with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. They opened their gifts and gave him treasures of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

Until the sermon on Sunday, I’d never really wondered about the significance of the gifts that the Wise Men brought.

(Growing up in…

The Lord says, “Forget what happened before, and do not think about the past. Look at the new thing I am going to do. It is already happening. Don’t you see it?”

An impromptu date night with the hubbs.

And framing matters. There’s a lot of sound and fury lately in Australia about Same-Sex Marriage, Safe Schools, and gender education. On a personal front, it’s been an especially sobering year as I reflect on my own relationship with God, and contemplate deeply how God designed humankind and what that means for me, a woman made in His image. I took a deep dive into Genesis and I’m still…