Update on Easter Week

geez. i tried the pastor prince-y advice about "do wrong thing already then just STOP, give thanks to His Providence, accept there is no more condemnation in Him and go sin no more."

i have to say, that really is good advice. Had plenty of tiny everyday opportunity today to be reminded of my need for His grace and how much hope and joy that brings to my heart and feet.

Stupid little things like :
- cursing under my breath at slow moving people as I was rushing from place to place
- the countless 'teacher...i finish oredi what to do now....teacher i wanna go toilet....teacher he throw things at me" refrain of 'toot' students who could not see I was trying to coach a particularly slow and naughty classmate.
-my careless haphazard planning that led to compromise in amount of time i had to teach my 2 tuition kids.

All these instances that would have generated the usual guilt in my heart instead became points of strength and buoyancy when I remembered to just STOP, restrain and THANK GOD (literally) for the fact that He died for all our iniquities and rose again to bring us new hope and Life! wahhhhhhh much better feeling after that.

interesting side story:
my above 'toot' students are 12 year old EM3 (aka not too academically inclined) students from a neighbourhood school that I am teaching creative writing to. So today I made kids create characters with strengths and weaknesses and got them to create stories based on these traits. Many of the Muslim kids somehow made their characters God-fearing but had inconsistent plots where their characters ran around doing random silly things. I was explaining concept of "short stories usually have Character making turn-around in their lives". I said something like, "Your naughty character suddenly become so likeable. Why? Did he pray to God and God changed him?"

puzzled little Malay Muslim kids said,"'Cher, cannot. No prayer mat."
I told them something vaguely politically correct like, " You can pray to God in your hearts right? Like now in class also can pray what."
Cute Malay Muslim boy promptly clasps his hands in imitation of Christian prayer and beams beatifically, "Ya of course can lah."

Then they sucker-punch me with, "'Cher, you Christian ah?" I had forgotten I was wearing my cross today ( as part of the 'try to have good easter week' reminder)

ohhhhhhh BOY was I GLAD I did not cave into irritation today at their incessant noise, monkeying around and chaos. At times, I really have to bite down the typical flustered teacher scream of non-control, "get out of the class now!" coupled with dirty look at offending student. Have caved into temptation a couple of times in my neighbourhood teaching career.

So I said, "Ya. I am christian" and smiled at them, more in relief and thankfulness at having presented a semblance of decency to them for at least that day itself.......(thanks to reminder from church which i was tempted to pontang no less!)

:) God is Good. HIs mercy thankfully endures forever.
Me is fickle rotten banana but a heckuva Saved rotter at least!