remember

Chinese New Year started off with a bang! ...then it went downhill from there.
This year I didn't feel like being here at all.
I think I've given up on many things.
Like how my own strength will never be enough and no matter how much I plan, some things are just not meant to be.
Like how I come across to many people as an open book but here I am, still desperately screaming with a dry tongue and exhausted voice to be understood and heard.

I've never been very good at expressing myself verbally.
I take so much time to piece my words together.
People tell me I present so well but they don't really know what's going on inside.
I am a heap of jumbled words, tangled and twisted so badly that it scares me.
I can't ever grasp any understanding of my bloody self but perhaps someone else can.

But do you know what the worst thing is?
It's when you've finally found that one person whose fingers were God-given to unravel this knot of a heart but just when you're just about to entrust it to their hands that you so readily assumed could hold you together, they drop everything completely.

And the pain creeps on you subtly. It doesn't hit you the way pot does - it's a process you go through every single day and you find that even your own faith turns against you because you start blaming God.
You wonder why didn't He ever let things happen the way you've always imagined it to be - because you've been giving people what they want but never having achieved anything YOU ever wanted.
Then they tell you "it's because you do not have the faith to believe in what He can do so you do not grow hands after they have been chopped off" but Proverbs 16:9 says "in their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes (determines) his steps".
Now there is no such thing as free will, is there?

But then again you trust God - you have to, because you know He loves you and knows what is best for you.
And blessings in disguise come along but you will never forget the 'if' and the way you were so in love and intrigued by the agenda of the night.
It's a paradox.
To have hopes but to be proved wrong in the end.
But as the persistent pessimist in me types these thoughts down, the idealist in me is far more determined to find answers.

Then I think about the philosophy of faith and it asks "why don't you just trust it?"
Revelation: I see fiery Pride lashing out its tongues of flames at me, burning my eyes, causing me to go blind.
I hear the aesthetes and the agnostics shout and urge, "Come! You rebels! Come!"
It is a thunderous roar that strikes the hearts of the faithless, of those whose questioning has let Pride itself get a foothold on them; it causes their blood to race because it is "the carpe diem religion" - they do not see beyond this temporariness or "focus their eyes on the immortal rose that Dante saw".

And here I am, staring at a pair of the most beautiful feet I have ever seen.
These feet, however, are not flawless. Blood of the darkest crimson trickle down their ankles and onto the toes.
Placed just a few inches in front of them is a pile of gunk with spit, poisoned black blood, rough stones and surprisingly, many individual drops of tears that shine like diamonds.
I see the devil crying out in disbelief as a pair of invisible hands scoop the gunk up and cover the feet.
His feet.

I surrender all.