Last week's Easter sermon 2008

Because He Lives.. (Revelation 1:4-18 / 1 Peter 1:3-9)

There was a story in Japan quite a while back, where a car accident occured, resulting in the car and the victim becoming so disfigured, he could not be identified. However, a policeman on arrival at the scene recognised the car as belonging to the chief builder of the city, who turns out to be an influential figure. He contacted the builder's brother-in-law, who arrived at the scene and confirmed, "Yes, this is my brother-in-law's car." So he went back home and broke the bad news. Later in the evening, as friends and relatives gathered to show their support and console the spouse and immediate family of the chief builder, the front door opened, and the person turned out to be none other than the chief builder himself! Everybody was shocked, and it was as if he came back from the dead. However, what was to be joy for one family, will turn out to be sadness and mourning for the family of the person who died. But in the death and resurrection of Jesus, it turned out to be a different story altogether.

1. ..I have the courage to overcome myself
Like it or not, we are the biggest enemies in many things we want to try and conquer.
Matthew 12:34 - You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.
Certain groups of people in the early ages try to keep themselves pure by refraining from certain food, but Jesus told them there is no point doing so, because what comes out from their mouths is even worse.

Many of us enjoy pointing out other people's wrongs (we find it easy to do so), but many times we dare not reveal our own weaknesses, probably due to insufficient courage to face our fears. Deep down within us, we know that there are many things we should not have done. Despite feeling ashamed, yet we returned to it (eg visited X shop while a student, smoking, watching certain shows, uttering obscenities etc). Unless someone reaches down to help us, we can be likened to be on sinking sand.

One way to start overcoming ourselves is to 1st acknowledge that we have this problem. When asked why do they believe in God, some people fear that if they don't, God will punish them. Fearing God is one thing, but what is more important is to know how much God loves you.

Ongoingly, the struggle continues, but know that no matter how tough it is, Jesus is always there - the grace of God will always be with us (1 Corinthians 15:10)

2. ..I have the courage to face tomorrow
Proverbs 27:1 - Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.w
There was another story about a couple who underwent a lot of hardship, and looking at the situation around them, they could not bear the thought of giving birth to their child, only for him to come into this world and suffer. But no matter what happens around us, God will bring out good things because all things work together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).

We do have a tendency of being frustrated at "Why so many things happen to me?", but the best thing is that no matter how challenging / hopeless your tomorrow may seem, God will be there to encourage, look after, intercede for us.
Hebrews 13:5 - .."Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
He brings out His purpose in every experience we go through.

3. ..I have the courage to overcome death (1 Corinthians 15:16)
Most successful people can get many things, but fail to overcome the ultimate problem that all of us will face. Death is the last enemy that Jesus overcame for us. For some of us, death is just like moving from one phase to another. Imagine waving goodbye to a ship that has left port, and seeing it disappearing in the horizon. The ship may have been gone, but gone where? We may bid farewell on one side, like the ship going further and further away, but on the other side, it is a different story, as the ship approaches the port to a joyous reception.

There is a story about an old lady who went to her doctor and found out that she had terminal cancer, and was about to die soon. So she contacted her pastor, and told him about it. The pastor said that he was sorry to hear that, and asked what can he do for her. As they discussed plans for the funeral (which of her favourite Hillsongs should be played, which of the bible verses that mean the most for her should be read out etc), she asked the pastor, "When you put me in the coffin, can you put a bible on my right hand, and a fork on my left?" The pastor looked puzzled and asked, "Why a fork?" In Western countries, they used to say after a meal, "Keep your fork for the upcoming dessert (can be Secret Recipe cake :p)." The old lady said, "When people come and asked why, I want you to tell them this - 'The best is yet to come'." In other words, there is something greater we can look forward to.

Bulgarian Idol funny stuff

Yes, in times of stress, this is a major relief :p lolz

Morbid

It was just another one of those weeks. Clinic on Tuesday was supposed to be from 2-4pm. Our doctor stretched it to 6.30pm. And I felt so stupid stupid for saying, "Dr, we make a move 1st ar..", coz he gave me a weird look and asked me "What was wrong with the patient just now?" That night I was tired, so I forced myself to take a 1 hour nap. My brain refuses to go to sleep, so I forced myself and slept all the way from 9pm until 7am.. Woke up with severe muscle aches. And my tutorial homework was left undone.

But one thing we saw was a 22 year old (my age) female clerk who came in with her mother, presenting with primary amenorrhoea (ie no periods all along), and absent secondary sexual characteristics. Symptoms were consistent with her not having any ovaries and uterus, and she had surgery to remove her dysfunctional testes while young. She came in for a check-up, since she has osteoporosis. The thing is, it turned out that she was probably 46XY, suffering from testicular feminisation syndrome. In other words, she was born as a boy, but brought up as a girl, and now one treatment method is to give her hormones to enhance her female sexual characteristics. The doctor asked her, "Nanti saya kasi ubat bagi itu *pointing at the breast* besar, mau tak?" She didn't look too enthusiastic. Identity crisis? I guess only she will know what it feels like..

I'm super tired from the past few nights lacking sleep doing my PBL. Super blur lor walking into tutorial today, but I'm glad I survived a week of grilling on the wards, and the tute, despite putting together a last minute presentation for my homework.

Was at the wards today, everybody seem to be getting sick - from my group members to the ward staff, and there was one corner of the wards from which you can just hear moans and agonic groans of chronically sick people. And remember the Indian guy whom we talked to? He still said 'Hi' to me on my ward rounds. He got 1 leg amputated because of gangrene, but still wasn't getting any better. Today didn't see him in the wards. Weird for some fellow with an amputated leg to walk off just like that. Then, found out that apparently they were attempting another amputation (maybe something was left behind in the 1st one, or it was for his other leg lar), and he died during the surgery due to complications.

For most of today, it was pouring down heavily; from the heavens above.

The past week..

The past week was of mixed feelings..

Good side:
I finally baked chocolate brownies for a pot luck dinner with my classmate neighbours.

Bad side:
Wasted 3 hours doing so. Thanks to my mood swing, the brownies turned out to be abit.. hard crust floating on top, and fluidish like an ocean below (more like pudding rather than cake-like). Reminds me of molten rock you see in volcanoes (rock on top, lava below) you know? and some joker commented in medical terms that it's black, so looks like melaena.. So guess what? I named my new creation volcanic melaena. haha.. (though much to the displeasure of those who were eating) but its actually delicious (sorry, forgot to take photo).

Good side:
Because of the birthday celebrations and my tendency to procrastinate and leave things til the last minute, I did not really have the time to do a homework read-up assignment for ECG and long case. I was like.. "Ok, sure going to get scolded badly by my tutor for not knowing stuff.." But instead our long case tutor happened to be in a pretty good mood on that day, so ya.. thank God. Of course, there were a few cynical remarks when he grilled me with questions, "Mr Leong, the girls are doing better than the boys. Please do something to save the male race from extinction.." Don't get me wrong, he is a very good tutor. He forwarded an invitation email to a medical education talk at the Hyatt. It was a good talk on COPD, can correlate to our PBL - we learnt about the unexpected benefit of an old drug. But I want to show the food we had, my goodness.. hotel buffet style lar :-)



Bad side:
I won't mention what situations, but was (or had a feeling of) being labelled (directly or indirectly) all sorts of things, ranging from forgetful to incompetent to childish.. but I guess there are 2 things which I will still need to work on..

1. Security in God.
2. "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission." -Eleanor Roosevelt-

1 Timothy 4:12 - Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

2 birthdays

What we've been doing for the past week or so? Celebrating birthdays (that explained the undone homework and scoldings from the tutors) but nevertheless, some snippets of what went on:

Ji Keon's birthday splash:



*upload error, come back later for more photos and videos*

I'm supposed to bake tonight..

..but I don't feel in the mood to make brownies. I was emo, so I went and printed out 18 pages of journal articles which I probably wouldn't read at all.

I think I shall read up more next time before I walk into a PBL.

Today I was supposed to clerk and examine a patient for tomorrow's bedside teaching. Last week a patient thought I was Japanese. Today, the patient thought I was Pakistani (what the??). And being a diabetic who had a below knee amputation of his right leg, he clearly was not happy with the doctor for not saving his leg, coz he heard that some. His daughter, who is a pharmacist understood that the doctor back then would have explained the need for the procedure. But he started rambling about irrelevant stuff which I don't really wanted or needed to hear, analogies like how doctors are more concerned with buying a new car (ie amputation) rather than repairing the old one (conservative treatment). So I wasted 20 minutes entertaining him, and missed witnessing a lumbar puncture, coz a bit not nice lar if you leave all of a sudden, his family is there.

And I guess I just have quite a bit of questions runing through my mind at the moment..

Post-mamak mumblings past midnight

Me, Ben, Chris and Anna tried studying at the mamak beside our apartment. IMHO, didn't work out very well for me (unless you can see Ben enthusiastically doing his homework). It's ok, we'll probably try the Hyatt hotel tea house next time (apparently the cakes are quite nice). Ben quoted that too bad there's no Starbucks nearby.

I guess some things are best left unsaid, but rather penned down and chucked away somewhere far away, where you'll probably never see it ever again until you decide to reflect upon it sometime in the future.. Aren't they? (no, I'm not referring to the 'H' or 'D' words.. ) as in; some things which you already know the answer, and there is no need to talk much over them, but you still choose to blurt them out - and its effect has evaporated upon repetition. not sure why.. or maybe even other matters which technically have already been resolved, but brought back to the surface. Duno lar..

I'm tired, and sleepy, and I didn't really prepare much for the PBL tutorial tomorrow (I will admit that I hate walking into PBLs not knowing what in the world I'm talking about - at times it gives me a sense of insecurity) I had a fall yesterday and bruised my left knee (ie now I'm limping in a crepe bandage for 3 days). I have trouble walking up and down the stairs, as well as getting into a car (Why in the world is Monash located at the top of a hill?). And I'm supposed to somehow make my way to the wards to find 3 patients by tomorrow, and also finish reading basic ECG? You kidding me?

I'm thankful I'm not doing surgery posting 1st. Although it's less taxing in terms of exam material, apparently surgeons (especially Malaysian surgeons are crazy). They call you in the middle of your dinner at 7.30 pm, or while you were sleeping at 5.30 am, and tell you, "You have 15 minutes to gather everyone in your group and come to my Operating Theatre / Clinic, I want to show / teach you something." and if 1 team member cannot make it, apparently it is an insult to them, and the whole group can forget it.

It's only the 3rd week.. there's already silent ramblings on not wanting to repeat 3rd year. Stress levels are up. And here I am, sitting here, looking up and wondering. Just..wondering. Wondering what can be done and what will You do.. And sometimes even zoning out.

On a different note, was wondering how does one practise 'The Celebration Principle'? ie John Maxwell - 'The true test of relationships is not only how loyal we are when our friends fail, but how thrilled we are when they succeed.'

Light of the world