Thursday, February 08, 2007
2:58 AM
i've finally decided to start blogging again since I have so much free time thanks to my jolly, all expenses paid, long break from the army. I guess its most appropriate that the first thing i talk about is my knee.
On hindsight, its really amazing how much a torn ligament can alter your life, and serve as divine revelation to the plans that God has for you. Either that or you can just view it as "Right ACL tear + torn meniscus = long break from NS hoohahooray". Whatever way you choose to look at it, it's still undoubtedly a good conversation topic ("yeah they took this muscle out to replace that torn part..amazing right"), a convenient method of bringing out the motherly instincts of females ("ohh poor you, you can't walk! i'll visit you sometime with lots of goodies don't worry!") as well a +10 boost to your hero status ("wow you must have gone through so much pain! so brave!") At this point I have to stress how much I love all the people who made me feel like a king over the last month, you have no idea how grateful I am to all of you :)
So anyway, how on earth does any good come out of torn ligament, when I'm unable to get into OCS and become a pilot and all the jazz. That ran through my head about a million times when they declared me to be unfit to carry on with bmt. From soccer captain to lame soldier, quite big difference you know. It took me a whole afternoon to come to terms with it, and finally i remember making a declaration: "whatever happens from now God, I know you're behind it all." And it was done. It was a crucial turning point, cos it made me aware of what God was doing around me, how he was using my lameness to his glory. Its the beauty of prayer: you claim something in your life and you see how whatever unfolds is aligned to God's perfect plan.
So anyway, God showed me that I wasn't going to disintegrate and become a worthless, forgettable figure in the army. For starters, I was able to be a source of encouragement and a beacon of God's truth and light to the guys around me. I observed that God gave me more opportunities to talk to more pre-believers about him than I ever had while I was in JC. All in the span of on month. Abbas, my bunkmates, dickson, jingwen, jaimes, my fellow OOTs, it was amazing how God crafted a situation where I was able to meet and interact with these great people.
You can call it sheer dumb luck, uh ok so mike just happens to be my friend and church mate for the last 2 years and ends up in my company and ya jingwen just happens to have an injury which forces him out of bmt and gets posted to the same place as I. Plus ronald and chris my best friends in jc both get injured with me and again, posted to the same place. I call this divine intervention, and a clear sign that God can shape things in a way that gives you what you need, whether it be friends or whatever.
So anyway i get posted to oeti, and into the same course as a whole bunch of great guys, i'd name all but i'm lazy haha. Once again, I could see how my knee injury had landed me in the scenario that i was in, and how God had moulded that scenario into a beautiful one that reflected his greatness. There are countless examples that serve as proof of the great fellowship that I had with most of the guys at oeti, and all i can say is that i thank God for all of that. Ok well, there are still some who'll say that all this was luck at work again. Right. So, as luck would have it, i suddenly got foot and hand rot for honestly-i-dunno-what-reason and it was followed by another recurrance of my knee injury. No luck la maybe. It caused a surprising load of trouble, to cut everything short I was re-vocated to a desk job which first seemed like an utter bore cos I was literally alone in an office for the whole day without any of my oeti friends boohoo. You realise how despondent I sound cos I haven't used the big G in this situation yet. Yes, God.
So I pray again, and soon I notice the utter brilliance of my new life. A typical day in December: My office resounds with the music of my ipod as I draft christmas cards and await my early 12pm fall-out cos I'm clearing my annual leave in the form of half-days. Yes you will say, you didn't need to pray to find out your current life was obviously some wicked good stuff. Truth though, is that I did. I realized that when I hadn't yet committed the situation to God I was focussing more on how I was surrounded by people who weren't on the same wavelength as me i.e. officers and how I was pretty much alone in my new job. Even more so about how I was definitely impacting more people when i was around the oeti guys, while now I was jvery much a loner. You see, when you look at your life through your own 2 eyes, you're only given a limited perspective of goodness, such that when it's taken away from you, you feel empty and yearn for past glories. I'm not saying all of us are like that, but I know that when you look at life through God's eyes, you can definitely see goodness streaming out from every facet of your existance, because you know that he is the author and perfector of your faith, and ulitmately, your life.
So as you can see, one small muscle tear really changed alot of things in my life over the last year, and I didn't even focus on the immediate effects of it, like not being able to play football as freely as I would like to. In summary, I finally felt God's calling to go ahead with the knee operation and I'm currently witnessing a phenomenal recovery. To anyone who has any physical injury: lookie here, God heals. To those who feel disillusioned with life and have lost hope: God promises great things always, just ask for it. To everyone who's read this entry: every problem in your life is like a torn ligament, amazing things can come out of it.
