Stop for a moment

It’s been really hectic lately.

Fewh,.. yet I just realized that I had to stop from all these stupid day-and-night studying-rituals. I pushed myself too much, I reckon.

Sorry, it is actually not stupid, yet I am a little bit obsessed. I want to finish my study as soon as possible. It is crazy, though. When I wake up in the morning, I read my bible (thank God I can still really commit to do this), have my breakfast and spend my day studying – reading books, researching, googling – and, of course, go to school. I just (like 5-10 minutes ago) realized that I haven’t got a ‘proper’ social life lately.

Um, that’s bad, I think! I don’t wanna be overstressed because of my study and get ill. Maybe it is nice to share some things happened during my summer holiday (and mission trip) in Indonesia.

Let me start something about Bang Tepy (again). Sorry if you got bored from this sort of story. Hehehe,.. it’s still been a month that we were separated from each other :P (ups, since when Nia became so romantic).

Maybe this story is not literally related to him; yet I’d learned and found out during my mission trip. It was when our team had to share something about sexuality. Joost, my Dutch friend, spoke in front of the Jakarta students. He preached about love and sexuality in Christianity: it is not about wanting and asking, in contrast, it is about giving. “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4)

Magg, another Dutch friend, gave a really great illustration about the difference between men and women. Men’s life is like pizza: it can be separated into pieces/slices, thus if one ‘slice’ is affected, for instance, broken heart, other ‘slices’ won’t be easily affected. In contrast, women’s life is like spaghetti: it can hardly be separated, thus if something bad happens, other, and maybe all, areas will be affected. For girls, be aware of it, because I find it really true.

I am really impressed with Dutch friends’ testimonies, because they are western people, but they have strong Christian principles. I have learned a lot from them. Thanks guys,..!

Back to the moment in Jakarta, when the sharing time came, the group was separated into boys and girls group. In girls group, other Dutch girl friends and I have shared a lot of things about sexuality, love, relationship and how to live as a Christian. Wow! It was so wonderful!

I was so thankful that God has used my life to be an example for others. I could share how I’ve struggled with my love life – about jealousy (hehe,.. Nia is used to be really jealous :P), physical contacts, going out, dating and also long distance relationship. It was amazing when a girl came to me and she said that she has just been through long distance relationship. We shared a lot of things and prayed for each other.

God is wonderful. He arranged the meeting and brought that girl to the meeting, so that she could hear my story about long distance relationship.

I, myself, have learned a big lesson during the sexuality seminar. There was a material about boundaries in relating to the opposite sex that we should go through. During my four-year relationship with Bang Tepy, I hadn’t really thought about it. I just knew that I must not go too far with physical contact, that’s all! I knew Christians principles about purity and sexuality; yet talking about this was quite awkward, at least for me.

In that study, we were advised to discuss some topics with our partners, such as time (when we meet, which time is the best for both), place (where we can/can’t meet), activities (what we can do together, what activities we must avoid, etc.), and of course physical contacts (what kind of physical contact we may have, what kind of touching will build one another up). Wow! I was stunned. I’d never thought about these, especially the last one.

To be honest, after the mission trip, I haven’t gone deeper about this (because we had more important problem to discuss), yet I thank God that I asked about this topic just before I went to mission trip. It wasn’t a long discussion, yet I did ask something about this. It is, indeed, good to know his opinion about physical contact.

Thus, my advice, be clear with your relationship: with your status, with Christian principles and also your belief. Ask God for the right person to come into your life. If the one not yet comes, just be patient and pray. “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21). According to this verse, I am sure if you are close to Him and listening to Him, He will say to you, “this is the one,..” Yet, be aware, he is sometimes not ‘shouting’, but he whispers (meaning: sometimes His voice is not clear enough because He might use implicit way to show His plan, thus be sensitive to His voice.)

p.s. wanna talk about this post? Or need a prayer? Just send me e-mail.

(for my secret reader in Ressud 44, thanks for reading my blog and also for everything that we’ve learned together during our journey. Miz ya!)