I have been having a lot of time to myself, initially was just getting myself used to routines again, adjusting my body clock and my every being to handle people all over again. Work being work is a series of tasks that may seem challenging but in actual fact, it is the actual working with people and the relationships at work that brings the whole challenge of work to another scale.

It started as honestly as just sleeping or resting - not doing much, till finally, I managed to do a nice journal entry today!

The notion whereby your entire mind is emptied, not because you psyched yourself up, but it is just to take myself away from the motions, the worries, the thoughts and to make way for the One, where I can just position myself for Him, as cliche as it is, to just really feel or hear His presence and then I heard this:

"Romans 8:24"

It was kind of fun as I flipped my bible to wonder what He wanted to tell me,

24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?
25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Ya right on the dot and just what I needed, I do lament daily - ahhh just how difficult it is, you wished for an easier route yet knowing if I settled for
anything else, I will not be as fulfilled as I will love to be.

So I suppose I must be this silly muse, as contradicting as it may sound, it is the voices of my heart and mind going through their daily conversations when they don't seem to be in agreement.

My logical mind enjoys saying just how difficult and crazy the things that I am doing or about to do, are.

Given time, another convincing voice of my heart will settle the voices of the brain, saying this, "joyce, there is nowhere else you will love to be or want to be. This is it", and my brain gradually understands and gets what my heart already long understood ages ago and is trying to get Mr Mind to go along with Mr Heart, teaching him the language of my heart and how to see with my heart (since Mr Brain thinks he knows it all), the things that convicts and moves Mr Heart, he wants Mr Brain to understand, be convinced and gradually be convicted about it!

So what I think is this (this is SY's favorite phrase to think of it), that the voice of my heart is actually perhaps and probably what the spirit is saying and doing or thinks. Of course it is a process of getting our heart and His aligned but takes a continual effort to stay in line and online with Him.

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Quiet time should be redefined, that if we have just ruled it to just merely either one or the other, then I think we may have forgotten that we actually do have an honestly, very brilliant God who is also one who is really playful if you like it that way, or the common term they use is, creativity.

Lol, it is all about perspective I suppose, what do you want to see and would like to see?

Quiet time could be a myriad of different things put together, (i wanted to have someone read me Romans 8 on demand, I do have the audio bible but i was a chore to switch on the comp and go through the folders!) that I think the importance wouldn't be focused upon the medium but the whole heart an notion of just emptying ourselves or freeing our every part of our mind, space, time, worries, angst, tiredness, emotions and just laying it aside to just be still and to hear or listen to what comes next or just be fully attentive to the silence that comes thereafter (that can be at times intimidating or scary) but that often will be an immediate reply what our heart is already longing for and feeling, or wants to say or in that sense, is already "praying" to Him while our brains continues to be baffled by our time wasting habits.

I ain't no lunatic who carries 2 voices but just wondering and thinking about just how we were made or wired - perhaps at times we just need to give ourselves more time to better understand ourselves and treat ourselves better :) Being alone needs to be remarketed, or perhaps, not have a tag that it is only for the losers but I believe at times, they are the hidden treasures because they often have perhaps threaded and pondered upon very interesting things that what you think your mind has seen it or know it all, "how cool can this person be?", have your mind blown when you start having common topics with these introverts and see how they unfold and realize we really all have something very interesting up in our brains and within our hearts.

oh and what I realized is that there is something to discover inside of us and I believe more and more convincingly that really, perhaps the answers we want and desire to seek for, lies within the depths in each one of us, if we would listen harder to the voices of our hearts and have it aligned to His.

When it is both aligned, to me it is like some form of perfect symmetry or an orchestra of music going on, beautiful and all magical, and suddenly the beauty of this life becomes clearer, because our paradigm, values, attitudes and mindsets just got blasted and you just discovered what you do want to do, with your days on earth and your life has a whole new focus. So brilliant la.

I have been wanting to write for some time, or rather in weeks, but apparently haven't got down to writing in on journal form and since that is the case, why not do it the keyboard style. Getting down to write often takes quite a lot only because it takes time to gather up your thoughts and for me to take another look at what my thoughts contains.

Perhaps the greatest part of my thoughts often thinks about the feasibility of walking down this path that I have chosen, without much bearings but with one certainty of a promised word and here I am. Processing and journeying again, isn't one easy to do task but I do my best to journey through this. Then again to come to the realization that humans are intriguing creatures only because we tend to always find the grass greener on the other side, regardless of where we are, or if that is a sign of our weak minds that we never seem to be quite contented at where we are huh.

Through the nights of thoughts and emotions that ranges from frustrations to helplessness to an entire sense of despondence that perhaps you should just forget this entire thing and just be another off the mill - where it is easier, get through life the way it should be.

As conflicted as it may sound, however I may feel, I know a part of me refuses to allow my emotions to tell me what to do but I make my stand to persist, and see this through. I do regardless of how I feel, hoping at times the motions will sink in and help you better but I know with assurance that His grace is always sufficient for me daily and I am tiding through and making it through with Him.

I thank God daily for these kids that I meet, to ruffle their hair and to guide them along, hug them whenever they come towards you and whenever they call your name or my favorite part of holding their hands and just walking wherever they feel like, just watching them, reminds me constantly that trust and obedience is honestly all you ever need, as you look into the eyes of a child, who is constantly in awe and in wonder of all things, I know why He takes such an attraction for these little ones, who really are "small but mighty".

Always reminded to stop for the one and many a times, right now at the kindergarten, brings so much memories of the time in Timor, a portion that reminds me to not forget the lessons learnt and taught but yet at the same time, the value of these little ones and how they hold so much in each of them. It is my favorite age where I connect to, these 5 years old that brings me back to a lot of my memories that I can remember so fondly, of myself when I was 5. Kids these days are honestly so brilliant :)