Courage to be Authentic

On By IreneIn Coaching, Courage, Faith, Grace, Healing, Hope, Journey, JumpStart, Kingdom Lifestyle, Live the CallLeave a comment

The theme of courage has been filling my heart lately partly due to recent events. When asked how would he liked to be remembered, Charlie Kirk answered with conviction that he would like to be remembered for the courage of his faith. That got me to ask myself: “Am I living courageously for my faith?”. The experience of the love of God compel us to change our way, to repent from our sins and return to the heart of the Father. From the Sacred Heart of Jesus flows the wellspring of life for each one of us, which brings us to live a purpose filled life.

It has certainly been an adventure for me; from the excitement of love to the enduring choice to keep on loving. Almost exactly like my marriage, which by the way was today seven years ago. We began with the experience of love and the commitment to love brought us to where we are today – more resilient and more in love. And as I reflect on my journey of faith, I see a pattern of how it grew and still growing. From the “feeling” of love, I made the commitment to give my life to Jesus and started discovering more about God and myself. The more I see myself from the lens of the Father, the more I heal from my wounds that has manifested in forms like self doubt, severe self judgment and fear of all sort. Fear was (still sometimes is if unchecked) my biggest reason that I held back from being authentic. I feared judgment from others, I feared that others would not want to be my friend if they know what my opinions are, I fear losing my job for my principles and the list goes on.

The remedy of it all is to have courage to live authentically. How can we do that if we do not know who we are? What would happened to how we show up if we believe that we are a horrible person? I’d imagine that we would not be a pleasant company and the outcome would be disastrous. Therefore our courage has to come from the victory of the Cross. I used to be a person who wouldn’t care less of what others would say about me, I thought I was being me because I did not want to suppress how I really feel. So sometimes words that came out of my mouth were sarcastic and unkind. Now being a more mature Christian, I come to appreciate the value of being form more and more into the likeness of Christ, the value to go through sufferings that smoothen out my rough edges. And I praise God that He gave me the time, space and the right appointments that helped to change. It is indeed humbling to think about this gift of grace that has been given to repent and return to His heart.

My right appointments that has helped me in my journey were effective faith programmes and right people on my path. And it began with two amazing programmes that I’d like to encourage us to consider. First one is ‘Who Am I?”, my biggest takeaway was learning about my inner creed. I learnt that what I believed affected how I live my life. Or rather it was the vice verse way of discovering, how I live my life is the reflection of what I really believe internally. For example, if I am always suspicion of people’s motive of helping me, I probably believed that people are generally untrustworthy.

Discovering and healing the image of God and self through “Who Am I?” would prepare a person well for the next programme, JumpStart because now that part of the “baggage” is unloaded, we are ready for more. From JumpStart we will find out more about our passion and what makes us alive. We will also be given the tools to make it our lifestyle. The journey doesn’t end there, in fact that’s the beginning towards a more fulfilling life. From there, I would recommend that we go on a coaching journey. Through coaching whether it is personal or group, we can find strength to overcome obstacles on our way. We find ourselves more inclined to spend time with people who celebrates our growth and our lives will be lived out more authentically.

My life journey has been blessed (still being blessed) with all these right appointments along my way. Dear friends, would you like to explore the possibilities of these right appointments? Connect with us today and may you be blessed abundantly.

With lots of love,
Irene

*This article is also published in livethecall.live

What Does It Mean To Be Fully Alive?

On By IreneIn Affirmation, Celebration, Coaching, Dreams, Faith, Grace, Journey, JumpStart, Kingdom LifestyleLeave a comment

When I came to the Catholic faith, the scripture from John 10: 10 seized my heart. It was a promise from Jesus that He came to give me life, life in abundance. Just a year after my baptism, I had the privilege to discover what being fully alive means. It has been an adventure with my Lord; one that taught me the deep meaning of my faith. As I reflect on my years living life in abundance; the meaning of it is deeply rooted in me living out my purpose in life.

As a young woman freshly out of university, I had no clue what purpose meant. It wasn’t until I embraced my Catholic faith did the discovery began. One of the most impactful workshop that helped me in the process of discovery and systematically planning my life is JumpStart. The experience was like looking into the deep well of richness in my life through the lens of Father that ignited a boldness to dream and to plan toward making those God given dream a reality. Even through sickness, my mission never change, in fact God refined and clarified my dreams through the crosses I carried. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to bring about a meaningful difference in the lives I encountered through JumpStart. Having JumpStart tools has indeed helped me to live my life to the full. How can JumpStart change your life? Find out more here.

As we discover and live out our mission, may the word of St. Irenaeus of Lyons encourages us;

With lots of love,
Irene

*This article is also published in livethecall.live

The Fruit of Myasthenia Gravis is Priceless!

On By IreneIn Affirmation, Celebration, Coaching, Courage, Faith, Grace, Healing, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Mental Fitness, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Season of Life, Suffering, The Beloved Who Suffers WellLeave a comment

Growing up things has not been that hard for me. I also have the tendency to take the easy way out. Seemingly blessed with good brain, being born in relatively stable home and having the privilege of being native of the land has also given me easier opportunities. I get into uni with my native quota and upon graduation it was relatively easy to get a job. Then changing job gave me a huge leap in my paycheck. Being a driven person, hitting target was my aim because earning a bigger paycheck was of utmost importance. It was not too hard but it was not too easy either. Being raised by my strict father, it was in my system to make things work for me. Even when I cried over my decision, I have to try to make things work and not giving up too easily. Those foundation has given me a good starting point.

Despite all the worldly successes that I experienced in the past, my heart was never satisfied. I was yearning for something more and that yearning eventually led me to quit my job and be in mission fully covered by God. Boy the lesson was tough. I grumble often and still did not learn my lesson of trust until Myasthenia Gravis (MG) made an entrance to my life. In the first few years of living with MG, I still did not grasp the real value of patience. Only after the crisis in 2023 did I finally grasp the meaning of patient suffering.

My desire for complete healing, I mean complete healing was and still is strong. I am only settling for the best and so I set myself to a heck of a journey. I know for a fact that allopathic medicine can only bring me to the point of monthly maintenance subscription. The management protocols are not designed for healing, only for control. But control is necessary to buy me time and give me clarity on what needs to be done.

In my quest of reversing MG, I learnt patience. At first rather reluctantly but eventually I understood the value of my suffering. God the Father invited me to live a life as the beloved who suffers well. I said yes though I did not know what does that entail. I was still restless and eager in an impatient (or lack of trust) way to get rid of the modern medication I was on. When I woke up in the ICU room realising that the cup of suffering was not to pass me, that was my moment of victorious surrender. I began learning patience as I was well aware I needed time to heal. I needed to be patient with myself and trust the process. I made a remarkable recovery journey. Got us a new off roader to serve us for our land that I signed the S&P of a week prior to ICU admission; travelled to the neigbouring country for a friend’s wedding – all within 6 months post ICU.

However, I was still a slow learner of patience even through the physical need to suffer. My life was still chaotic and God came to bring order to the chaos. I restarted scripture reading discipline which I thought was too hard after having my child. It was not the easiest restart as my nervous system was still on a high alert. I literally fought with my four year old back then to secure my sacred hour in the morning. Even though I knew I needed to be patient, my disposition was still an impatient one – deep in I did not give myself the space to really be. I still did not know how to properly allow myself to feel, I was swinging the pendulum between hope and despair. But I also noticed the time of recovery becomes faster and faster.

Then came the minor flare end of 2024, it was not too bad, even turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I know now that all my physical actions worked to heal my thymus and shrink the thymoma. That flare became the turning point of helping me to realize I have allowed stress to consume my being. Stress that resulted in a flare. It took me quite a long time to stabilize again. Through that I learnt the value of patient bearing of suffering. I also learnt that I had heaps of unprocessed and hidden fear. Those fear were false evidence appearing real. When I decided to face them, they came out bigger and scarier! Faith and techniques I learnt through the years was my remedy of these fears. My faith was put to test and I was willing to walk the rugged terrain of suffering to get to the side of victory. This victory was also fueled by our dire financial situation which I will share adventure of it in my next post.

Months after months of practicing simple breathing exercise has helped me to calm down relatively faster. I first learnt of pursed lips breathing after my ICU stay. It was a necessary part of my lungs healing. Till today I am still struggling with phlegm built up two years post extubation. I came to realize that I am only affected at a certain time of the day, most likely coinciding with the trauma of the time of reintubation. That helped me to learn about the power of mind body connection in healing. I started making it a point to build a stronger mindset that serves me using all sort of hacks from dopamine hacks to positive self talk to applying scriptures in my specific situation. The stronger mindset resulted in me being able to handle difficult things much better. For example, I used to think that exercise was too hard for me. What actually happened was the underlying fear of triggering MG with exercise. But I had a lung condition that took too long to heal, so I started walking on the treadmill for cardio exercise. It was initially hard but as I kept telling myself I was doing hard work, my brain kept rewarding me with quality dopamine. It gets easier and I even expanded to the bicycle as well as weight exercises.

As I keep expanding my mindset to one that is ordered towards the Word of God using physical and tangible techniques, I found myself more and more able to handle stress and challenges. I just show up in life together with MG. Knowing my limit and keep expanding it as well. My nervous system has become more regulated and calmed down. This greatly helped with healing. Not only that, the pages of the scripture jumps out in real life for me. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” – Philippians 4: 13; became my theme of this season. Truly I can only do all things because of the strength I received from Christ. His strength helped me to patiently bear my suffering, learnt from it, grew in endurance and that endurance produces hope that does not disappoint.

Dear friends, what sufferings are you carrying? How would you like to grow in the virtue of patience and perseverance? What are your hope for the suffering you are carrying? Let’s connect to share more about this.

With lots of love,
Irene

Lifestyle Modification for Healing

On By IreneIn Commitment, Faith, Grace, Healing, Hope, Journey, Myasthenia Gravis Healing JourneyLeave a comment

I was at my routine acupuncture appointment when another patient asked me to help with translation. At the end of it, I was amazed that she refused acupuncture when that treatment was likely to help her heal the pain she was experiencing way more effectively. When I talked about it with my TCM physician, he made a comment that the pain was not enough for her to take up the treatment. It made me realized my motivation to change my lifestyle was mainly driven by pain of Myasthenia Gravis (MG). I don’t actually live with physical pain but MG gave me different kind of pain. I used to be active, fun, talkative (still is although limited) and adventurous. With MG, I learnt (or rather I have to) to ration my energy usage as my muscles gets tired easily. So I cannot be as active and as I used to be. I love going on hikes and quite an outdoor person; with MG even that has to be rationed. I’ve always imagined myself being a fun mom, one who would bring her children out often and play with them; with MG I have to ration that (and it breaks my heart).

Talking about children, we’ve always wanted a bigger family; with MG or rather with the immunosuppressant I am on, we are forced to avoid pregnancy. That really breaks my heart (and my husband’s too). I am a person who enjoys my independence, hence the pain of not being able to drive confidently due to double vision was such a great motivation to change and find my remedy. Pain is indeed a great motivator but we need to take action in order to move away from the pain towards our goal of healing. I am grateful that I had some training on what to do when faced with sickness. When I married my husband I took over the role of nourishing him with food that heals. He lives with ulcerative colitis and I learnt first hand how lifestyle modification has helped him to be in remission. So the first thing I did was to look into my diet.

Diet Adjustment
It takes some trial and error to find what’s most suitable. I started with cutting off gluten, progressed to cutting off carbs and after being in the ICU, I cut off store bought broccoli and severely cut down my plants intake. That’s when things started looking much better. When I ran a research on diet for MG, there were several testimonies that said plant based diet worked for them. So I gave it a try and it did not go well with me. The vegetarian diet is not suitable for me. Switching to meat based ketogenic diet has helped me. I still have my herbs and spices because I love the flavor in my food. My diet still consist of some carbs and I also find that I can handle “these”troublesome” food much better now than when I was sicker.

We have an amazing eating out culture here and I enjoy our local food a lot. So when my husband’s income shrunk, the first thing we do to cut down our expenses was to not eat out. Just three months after that, I started driving confidently. It was so amazing that now I would think a few times before deciding to eat out. The problem with eating out lies not just in the carbs, I suspect carbs is the least of the problem. My biggest issue may be the additives in food which are mostly chemical. Well, I am grateful that the fruit of our financial crisis is improved body health.

Reducing Toxic Load
The second action I took in my effort to heal was to reduce my toxic load. I changed all my cleaning agents to natural based agents. Chemical absorbs through the skin and inhalation, so my thought is that reducing the toxic load at home would be helpful. I’ve also been replacing my plasticware to glass or stainless steel. This is to reduce the potential of hormone disruption from plastic. Glass or stainless steel ware are also easier to clean. I am aware that it is challenging to completely get rid of the use of plastic at home, so minimizing my exposure is the best that I can do.

Managing EMF Exposure
We discovered the detrimental effect of EMF exposure by accident. My husband has been on the sensitive side with food due to ulcerative colitis, so his list of avoidance was pretty long to begin with. When we first got married, the avoidance list was not good but also not too bad. He could handle tomatoes better back then but after a few years of moving to my homeland, he started getting more autoimmune reaction with the sensitive ingredients like tomatoes. It got so bad that I completely cut off tomatoes. It was frustrating because tomatoes makes food delicious. On the other hand, the restrictions made me creative with the way I cook. I make sweet and sour dishes without tomatoes or pineapple and it’s still delicious. The frustration however, got us to start looking back at what changed. We discovered that 5G was rolled out in 2021, it was not long after that my husband started getting more and more reaction. That realization led us to action. We know that EMF does not cause disease but it certainly hinders our body’s ability to heal.

We quickly got a new grounding mat as the old one does not work that well anymore. The EMF guarding is especially crucial for sleep, because that’s the time our body recover and heal. Sleeping with grounding mat has helped my husband in reducing the pain that resulted from autoimmune reaction. I still remember when I was in a serious MG flare back in Dec 2022, grounding helped me to manage the symptoms. I could sleep better and the attacks were not as bad. This is because grounding help our bodies to discharge to the earth. With the free radicals discharged from our bodies, inflammation is reduced. The other thing was sewing EMF blocker sheet on our curtain. It is very effective to block out EMF wave coming from 5G towers. There are so many of them in the cities. Ugly but serving an important function. Who doesn’t like good cellphone reception? I certainly appreciate that. So the best we can do is to manage our exposure.

As we’ve discovered, we cannot completely get rid of unhealthy food, plastic and EMF exposure, so periodically we do need to detoxify. In my next post, I am going to share my detoxification protocol over the years. Hope you are blessed and encouraged by what I’ve shared. Do share it with someone who may benefit from this.

With lots of love,
Irene

mindset matters thymoma healing myasthenia gravis

Mindset Matters In Healing Journey

On By IreneIn Faith, Grace, Healing, Mental Fitness, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Season of Life, Suffering, The Beloved Who Suffers Well, WorthLeave a comment

The difference between a strong mindset day and a weak day can be felt in my body. On days I feel strong and possible, it normally go that way – strong and possible, symptoms at bay. When my mind are being cluttered with objections to what’s possible, my body gets the bashing – symptoms flare. After years of living with Myasthenia Gravis (MG), my observation is that it is way better to have a strong mindset. It takes time to build up those mental muscles and the good news is that our brain is pretty dynamic to serve us better.

Mindset in the context of healing basically covers how strong or how deep is our belief that our body has the capacity to heal. Do we believe that healing is possible? Knowing the answer to this will help us to see how far we will go. If our belief in healing is not that deep, we can change that because again our brain is dynamic and those mental muscles can be retrain towards serving us better. The next question to ponder is; are we willing to do what it takes to get to our desired bodily healing?

I sure am willing but I was also painfully aware of my own limiting beliefs. It was like a tug of war in my head; I really desire and believe that healing is possible for me and at the same time there’s an opposing voice throwing doubts. My prayer at times like that mimics the father from Mark 9: 24 – Lord, I do believe, help my unbelief. His grace indeed does not disappoint as He continued to help me to strengthen my belief.

During the early days of diagnosis, things can be overwhelming and I was not spared of that. I remember hearing so many noises and I did not know which one to believe. All I knew at that time was that the journey of healing is going to be grace-filled for me. I started learning about more about MG just to gain better understanding on what’s going on with me. The things I learnt did not always sit well with me; in fact some of the information or medical labels was personally quite discouraging. One example is the definition of autoimmunity. It is commonly expressed as your body fighting against you. That did not sit well with me because I believe in a God who made all things well and that includes my body. Our body is made to fight for us, not against us. It is made to protect us but why autoimmune happened then?. That question led me to dig deeper into the health rabbit hole that I got into and I found a definition that resonates better with me. 

What causes disease is first of all a weak body as a result of toxin accumulation. The accumulated poison in our body can then confused our immune system. Therefore my body needed of help and time to detoxify, and then heal itself. With a picture like this, I felt at peace with my body. Knowing full well that my body is not at war gave me confidence and even built up my endurance in the healing journey. Just the change of view or label if you’d like that; change my whole perspective which in turn change my belief system to a more life giving one.

The opposite of life giving is life taking and what often caused that is FEAR. Fear is an integral part of life, necessary for survival but there is also fear created by our hypervigilant mind. These fears are often a result of a traumatic experience. For those of us who live with a chronic condition, it is a traumatic experience to be diagnosed with something that change our lives forever. For me I can no longer be that energizer bunny I used to be; my level of efficiency dropped and it takes me way longer to complete a task that used to be easy for me; at the peak of the symptoms I cannot even tie my own hair. There was a period of time when driving was so hard that I gave up for safety reason. It was hard and it can be scary. So I recognized how my hypervigilant mind would “warn” me about dangers that were often irrational. If not properly addressed, these fears can cripple us to the point of not living well.

Just a few weeks ago, I went for a walk on a lonely road surrounded by beautiful forest accompanied by the sound of the river. On the side of the road were lands owned by independent farmers, so on one of side of the road, I spotted a few empty chemical barrels. Immediately fear kicked in; my heart rate went up and I started to feel symptoms rising. In Apr 2023, I had a myasthenic crisis requiring ventilation that was caused by chemical induced pneumonia. Long story short, I was exposed to pesticides while walking at a park. The memory of the ICU stay came rushing in and it was not pleasant. My survival mind said: I do not want that again. Thanks be to God I became aware of what’s going on in my mind, it was my hypervigilant mind going on high alert and it was irrational. I started doing pursed lips breathing to calm myself. As I calmed down, I started thinking more clearly: I was in a way better state than I was in 2023. I’ve done a lot of work on my body, so my body has way better ability to detox, plus the thymoma shrunk by 50% and scripture said that no poison shall prevail against me (Mark 16: 18)!. I said a prayer and told myself that it is safe, that I am strong enough for this and that if any chemical has been sprayed, it would have been some time ago as evidenced by the appearance of the grass.

Regulating back to safety reinforces in my mind that the irrational fear can be overcome. I finished that walk feeling stronger, climbed about 800m of distance in a 200m ascend without the need of mestinon (the anticholinerase drug I used to help manage symptoms). 

Stronger mindset is a life time of work. As we build our mental muscles, we will also grow more resilient and will be able to do things that was seemingly impossible when we were not living with chronic illness.  Do you find this helpful in your journey? Let me know in the comment what helps you to build a stronger mindset. Let’s connect to support each other in our journey of building stronger mental muscles.

Our being is body, mind and soul. To achieve bodily healing, actions need to be taken to give our body the best chance. I will share more in depth in my next post.

With lots of love,
Irene

Healing is Possible – Thymoma 50% Shrunk!

On By IreneIn Healing, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Suffering, The Beloved Who Suffers WellLeave a comment

So I had a flare early Dec 2024 which took a worse turn after 2 sleepless nights. With the symptoms of Myasthenia Gravis (MG) not stabilizing well enough by my routine appointment in early Jan, I caved in to 2 doses IV immunoglobulin which required hospitalization. Since I was warded, my neurologist asked if I’d like a chest CT scan done. It has been almost 2 years since my last scan, so I thought why not (even though it was not exactly pleasant). And that turned out to be such a blessing because the scan showed a 50% reduction in size of the thymoma! What a great sign and sight of healing!

What my neurologist said when he showed me the scan report was even more remarkable. He said: “Irene, your prayer works!”. I was so in awe of the scan report that it took me a bit of time to take in what he said. That was a testament of my faith and this faith comes with work (James 2: 17). When I was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis (thymoma present), we were getting ready for me to have the thymectomy surgery done once I was stable enough. However, God has a different plan.

As I was preparing myself mentally for the open chest surgery, I told everyone in my family that was the plan. My mother was devastated considering the nature of the surgery which was pretty major. She asked me to reconsider and look for alternative. But at that time, there was no alternative presented to us. MG was really new to us and it doesn’t help that it is also a rare condition with a vast variability. Looking back I understand now that we were responding to a crisis situation that was pretty traumatic. Our lives changed overnight and we were faced with the unknown. In that situation, we just jumped in to whatever that was available.

As I stabilized, the Cardiothoracic (CT) surgeon was not available. That was on top of the lockdown chaos where everything was in disarray. A year later, I started wondering if God was inviting us to see another way. So I prayed for clarity. The blessing that came out of being sick with MG was my openness to learning (and unlearning). I ended up in the rabbit hole of health and discovered so many things that was shocking to me. Shocking because I have been accustomed to a certain way of living, a certain way of “intelligence” and a certain way of processing information. In the midst of the rabbit hole adventure, I discovered that the thymus still has important functions and roles for our immune system. What a shocking discovery! I was told the thymus is basically useless in adulthood but that is far from truth. So I started to lean on the direction of foregoing the surgery.

Part of the learning process also brought me to the knowledge that Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) modality of acupuncture is helpful for MG. So there I was, praying for a good one and God did not disappoint. I met my TCM Physician who has a Masters in autoimmunity, not only that, he also has someone dear to him that is in remission of MG. What a blessing! Through them, I discovered that it is possible to shrink the thymoma naturally with herbs. So that sealed our decision to go the natural way.

The thymoma diagnosis also made it possible for me to do this. It is well encapsulated and not pressing on any of my organs, so it’s actually pretty stable. With almost zero information (or evidence) on natural shrinking of thymoma, we entered our journey with faith (2 Corinthians 5: 7). At that time, we did not know if anything was going to work. The encouragement I got from people were generally to do the surgery while I still can. And after the MG crisis in 2023, I even told my husband if nothing change in my thymus, perhaps it’s time to reconsider the surgery. Right actions after that led me to feeling better and I sort of forgot about surgery. In the midst of that, we discovered ONE documented case of thymoma shrinking. That was giving me hope. And that hope and faith was rewarded with sight on Jan 2025.

I was overcome by joy and was really in awe of my Good God who sees, known and loved me. Filled with hope, I’d like to share this hope with you. In my subsequent posts, I will be sharing more of what I’ve done and changes that has contributed to the physical healing of my thymus. Do share with me your thoughts on this miracle I am experiencing and if you are in similar situation, do connect with me and let’s help each other in our journey of healing.

With lots of love,
Irene

Remembering Dad

On By IreneIn Faith, Family, Fatherhood, Grief, Healing, Hope, Journey, LoveLeave a comment

It’s been 11 years since I said goodbye to my father. The memory of him losing consciousness when the stroke took a sharp turn; of us offering him the gift of salvation through the little means we had at that time and then the memory of that fateful morning 11 years ago when the young medical officer who was almost in tears breaking the news of my father’s passing to us. We took turn to say our final goodbye and I still remember telling him to hold on to Jesus and follow Him. Just 2 days prior to that, I was telling my dad to not leave us, telling him that he still have to see me getting married and to hold my children. But it was his time to go and when his heart stopped the second time that day, we decided to let go.

Death is never an easy topic to speak about or think about. But death is the only sure thing in life and whether we like it or not, it will sure come. If we are willing, death has a lot to teach us about life. In reality, we are never too ready to let our parents go, no matter what our age are. It is a sad separation from someone who is so important to us. Therefore it is important to grieve well, to grieve with gratitude. When my father passed away, that was the first lesson I learnt – grieving with gratitude.

Shortly after that, I left home for a year of community experience in New Zealand. Some thought I was crazy to leave so soon and some even thought I was selfish to leave my mother in that state. It was super hard for me to leave but the invitation from the Lord to trust Him in His plan was stronger than what my logical mind can conceive. So in obedience, I left home for mission. That year was the year I felt like my smile was not as bright, I easily tear up, missed my dad every day. There were tears and unspeakable pain in that time of grief and through that God spoke the loudest. Never once had I suppress my sadness and pain, but every time I’m done crying, I proactively seek gratitude of my father. I thank God for the time I had with him, the privilege of being his daughter and the traits I inherited from my father. With that practice of gratitude in grieving, my episode of crying was slowly contained to shorter duration as time passed.

My father was far from perfect and I recognized that he and my mother did their best with the knowledge and resources they had. Lessons that he taught me became precious and I was able to see my father for who he really was. That time of grief also clarified what’s important in life – relationship. The petty bickering amongst family became something unnecessary. But it was not always easy to talk in peace without yelling at each other, especially when it is not our family culture. For my part, I learnt to prioritize the relationship over being right. It took me some perseverance (and the grace that comes with sickness) to work on my part of communication with my family till this day.

The beautiful miracle that I experienced from that time of grief was the softening of my heart. Through the loss of my father (and the subsequent loss of my younger brother), I see myself allowing God to turn my heart of stone into a heart of flesh. I became more compassionate and a little more patient with people. Through that time of grieving, I never stop living. I kept moving with the pain and at the ripe time, I was able to bring a close to the grief. Today I cherish the fond memory of my father and also cherish those of us who is alive. We live life to the fullest and we learn to live with grief. When grief is done healthily, it is life giving and it helps us to put things in the right perspective.

Have you been grieving the loss of someone significant? If yes, how was the experience? Would you like to make sense of the experience? Let’s connect!

With lots of love,
Irene

This Is My Body

On By IreneIn Faith, Grace, Healing, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Love, Sacrament, Season of Life, SufferingLeave a comment

What do you do when you cannot understand the priest at mass?

My response was to pray that God speak to me directly. I read this sometime ago that not being able to understand the language fully (in this context, Latin), the grace to enter more deeply into the mystery becomes present. That has certainly been my experience while attending mass in Latin. The beauty of Christ is veiled in the Latin language, I found myself free to just be and connect to the mystery of my salvation in an inexpressible way. But when it is in English, a language I am familiar with, it feels really hard when I cannot understand the priest. This can happen when the priest speaks in a thick foreign accent.

God is still present nevertheless. My difficulty in understanding the priest does not undermine God’s grace. I can still “hear” him and I find this very interesting every time I have difficulty connecting to the priest. So in this particular mass, God spoke to me when communion was distributed. I was looking straight ahead at the priest distributing communion and this came to me. The Body of Christ was broken and distributed to each communicant, as we each receive His Broken Body, Christ gather us into One Body – His Body. Then this scripture came alive in me;

“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.”
><> 1 Corinthians 12: 26 <><

My years of living with Myasthenia Gravis sure connects to this scripture. April of 2023 marks a deeply traumatic event in my journey; I had a myasthenic crisis that led to respiratory failure. The grace of God that overwhelmed me at that time also provided the space for me to connect the dot as to what may be the cause of the disease for me. Just a disclaimer, my view of the body is a whole, not fragmented into multi discipline of medicine branches. I am a whole person with different parts and each part is connected to the other. I felt strongly at that time that heavy metal poisoning was a plausible cause. The Holy Spirit confirmed this through my husband and my Integrative Medicine doctor; as both of them said the same thing to me. With that, we decided to move in that direction of removing all the mercury almagam filling while going on a heavy metal detox protocol. Praise be to God that I started getting better with each dental filling removal and replacement.

You see the poisonous mercury filling were all in my dental cavity but the poisoning affected my whole body resulting in a chronic illness. What does a chronic illness looks like? Imagine this; you have a cold and it lasted for a week, your body recover and you breath normally again. For a person with chronic illness, that one week last for years. It takes a split second for the onset of disease and it takes a much longer time to reverse it. We catch a cold just like that and it takes a week to reverse it. As for chronic illness, the disease may have been brewing through our toxic environment and when it reaches it’s peak, our body are not be able to hold it any longer, that’s when we are forced to stop and pay attention.

Similar to the Body of Christ, when one part is hurting the whole body hurts. When someone in the Body committed mortal sin, the whole Body hurt. We cannot ignore it. We need to nurse that part of the Body to health again. Question is how do we do that? In our highly snowflake and sensitive world, it felt out of place to point out sin. I have that difficulty because I feel that we should mind our own business. So what would be the most plausible way to nurse the wounded part of the Body of Christ back to health?

Personally I think the first step is to be aware that I am also a sinner and to remember what brought me to repentance in the first place. It is this living relationship with God that brought me back to the arms of the One who first loved me. Love stronger than death, most definitely stronger than my sins; touched my heart deeply. Ultimately our deepest desire is union with God for His love is sweet and life giving. Making amends to turn our life towards God is worth it. Repentance is sweet when we are in love and hence I believe the remedy is LOVE.

For someone to commit a mortal sin and not able to repent, it is very likely that this person does not have a living relationship with Christ. In our world where quick fix is glorified, it is so tempting to also do that to our brothers or sisters who is suffering the effect of mortal sin. But in reality, we are human. I started to grasp the reality of not quick fixing the others after becoming chronically ill. Not many people can grasp the fact that my condition cannot be fixed overnight, it’s not just a cold. I had to suffer through unrealistic expectation of others that I should be fine after some short period of time. Some still could not accept that I am no longer able to take too much rice (and carbohydrate in general), that choosing a different lifestyle supports my healing. Whenever I had a worsening, the frown on their faces was distressing to me. For this season of healing, I am also experiencing healing on a much deeper level. Those were moments of grace that taught me that my healing is not overnight. The “ah-hah” connections helped me to see that grace works in time. When the time is right, God revealed His message. So it is the same with the Body of Christ. The part that needed nursing back to health requires heaps of patience from the whole Body. We cannot rush the process!

The journey back to the heart of Christ is perhaps complex or in another way of looking at it, it is super adventurous. The result of our experience depended upon the choice of our view. Plain language may express it as being complex and when we choose to see it as an adventure, we yield our life to trust deeper. An adventure is both fun and stretching. In our journey of repentance, the joy and meaning that awaits us are enormous and it is possible through us saying yes to do the heart stretching work. May we find divine strength in our own journey of repentance and may we find compassion in accompanying the rest of the Body to wholeness.

With lots of love,
Irene

Digitalization can be DEHUMANIZING!

On By IreneIn Digital World, Grace, Hope, Season of LifeLeave a comment

Today I get a taste of 3 different types of experience in 3 different government offices. Who likes going to government offices? I think I can safely say; most people find government offices dealing a little (or very) apprehensive. My first dealing of the day at the High Court of Kota Kinabalu was like paradise. I was greeted with a “Good morning, how can I help you today?”. We even joked a bit with me singing a little line from a Raya song: setahun hanya sekali. Both me and the counter officer had a pleasant exchange and I got my declaration done rather smoothly.

Next stop was my hell experience at the Inland Revenue office (LHDN). Just to compare with last year what digitalization did to some of the staffs at LHDN left me pretty saddened. Last year when I needed to get my stamp duty done, the LHDN office was undergoing renovation, so you can imagine the chaos. All the customers related counters were moved to their hall. In the midst of that, transaction was efficient and people were helpful. Very human; there were smile and courtesy among the staff with the customers. Today it was hellish, the only person who treated me with a smile and courtesy was the guy at the information counter. In my opinion, he is one of the only relevant staff in that office. Due to the migration of their system, they no longer provide any service pertaining stamp duty. I learnt today I can get everything done at home which is great for people with access to the internet and internet banking. The dehumanizing part was how rude the floating staffs were to me. Without explaining that I have to do everything myself as the migration to fully digital system has happened, she commanded me to take out my phone and google stamp. I found that rather intrusive. So my natural question was: what if I don’t have my phone with me? In a defensive tone, she argued that I must have my phone with me. What she did was taking power away from me. So reluctantly I took out my phone, and then guess what? That’s all the help she can afford, can’t even stay there for a bit to see if I need further help. To make matter worst, internet connection was not the best. I was already annoyed with her intrusive behavior and then she walked off to sit down and chat with another floating staff. So I went to another staff with a rather annoyed face and he sent me to a counter. The guy at the counter “helped” me reluctantly even talked about me in front of me with a customer he was attending to, semi making fun at how annoyed I was. The guy at the counter was rude, sarcastic and made it clear that I have to bow down to him if I want this done. I have a big problem with this kind of attitude. After getting things done, I still apologize for my stern voice but I told him almost directly that his job is on the line with rapid digitalization. There will be less need of manpower and guess who should go first? The two floating and very unhelpful ladies should also be the first in line to go because they are redundant. Why should taxpayers money be wasted on people who are not contributing to the organization? 

If the lady had explained it to me in the first place that everything has migrated to an online system and asked me politely if I am comfortable, she could guide me through it using my phone; I would happily say yes and would appreciate the courtesy. But I was treated with a tone of “no choice here, you either bow down or I am not going to help you attitude”; I have a huge issue with that. If all she did was floating around doing no customer service, the explanation and perhaps a printed guidelines can already be given out by the man at the information counter. The renovation at LHDN basically made it like a mall atrium, not an office to serve people.

Then came my third experience at the National Registration Department (JPN) in UTC. The number of people was at least 10 times more. Thanks to the encouragement to walk, I took the stairs up two storeys. Unsurprisingly as I arrived, I was gasping for air. I got myself confused and went to the wrong counter. The officer at the counter greeted me with a smile and directed me to the right counter to get my number. As I took my number I was greeted with a smile as well and a short chat to ask me to breath slowly. What a difference already! I felt I was treated with more humanity and not as a mechanized machine that only need to follow instruction. The queue was pretty long in JPN and then by the grace of God I spotted a special assistant counter for the elderly, pregnant women and the disabled. So I waited until it was empty and asked the officer to help me (I have a disability pass). He was courteous and polite, very helpful although it was almost lunchtime for him. I am really grateful for the human treatment at JPN, which was way more chaotic if we were to compare the level of busyness. 

As I reflect on the difference of treatment, I came to an observation that the difference came in the one factor: digitalization. When human service was expected of LHDN, they acted more humanly and it is different now. They probably are not aware of this reality because typical government department rigidity can become a norm that shapes the culture. I also notice there is no need for good service in LHDN as customers do not have any immediate way of assessing the level of satisfaction. Perhaps they thought that gave them the license to act like jerk. In JPN, each counter has a satisfaction rating; perhaps that was a small gesture that goes a long way for the staffs. In the high court, people dealing is their daily business and it probably doesn’t make sense to digitalize our judiciary system. 

Digitalization can indeed streamline a lot of things. In my case, I wish immigration processes can be streamlined more efficiently through digital aids. Year in year out, I did the same statutory declaration, same duty stamping, fill in the same forms, certified true copies of the same documents and going through the same processes every year. The JPN system should be linked to the immigration system. If I am renewing my husband’s pass, then JPN should have the information that I am still married to him. My ID card remain the same; so doing the same thing every year can certainly be streamlined. I can understand the longer process the first time round but after so many years, it is still the same. And this repetitive and time wasting procedure also applies to our countrymen from the other states who wants to stay here long term. So in a sense, there’s not much of a difference between a foreigner and a non Sabahan Malaysian. 

When things taken to the extreme, it becomes bad. It is the same with digitalization. In my opinion, even with digitalization of processes, service counter that provide help physically should still exist. We encountered a man in Centre Point at the parking payment. It was his first time using the machine and I am grateful that cash payment still exist. This man, not too young in age, was having much trouble with the payment system which was too confusing for him. He managed to get it done but was doubtful if he has done it. We happened to be there and helped him a bit. I believe we are born with our freedom to choose to not own a smart phone or even a bank account or an online banking facility. For a person who chose to live differently – no digital access to their money (like my mother who doesn’t know how to use internet banking) or someone who only wants a basic phone; these will be the “marginalized” of the society. In LHDN stamping system, you MUST have internet access and internet banking, there’s no other way. What kind of messaging is this sending to us? 

Learning from the recent CrowdStrike incident, do we really want to go fully digital? Can you imagine a fully digitalized world? I think we need to balance between enjoying the benefit and convenience of digitalization and the consciousness of remaining human. I read a story of elderly gentleman who was introduced to internet banking by his son. His son totally sold him the convenience of internet banking and how he gets to skip the queue. The elderly gentleman answered his son with such wisdom that sort of slap me on the face. He said this: “Son, I am a retired man with time in my hand. Skipping the queue is great but I don’t need it. What going to the bank physically does to me was something that internet banking cannot replace. I get to interact with another human being. I get to catch up with the neighbor and sometimes get coffee afterwards. Internet banking involves no human but I am a human being who appreciates other human”.

Being a people person, I appreciate being around people. And being a person who has worked in a service line with difficult customers, I appreciate good customer service. It makes a lot of difference to a fellow human being treated as one created in the image and likeness of God. What can we do in this age and time to humanize our digitalized world? The teaching from St. Paul came to mind as an encouragement for us;

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” – Romans 12: 2

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.” – Romans 12: 9-13

These are words that serve as a reminder for me, that goodness starts from me; that my experiences can be turned into an opportunity to glorify God. May you find balance, blessings and may we continue to consciously bring out the best in humanity.

With lots of love,
Irene

Why Pursuing Our Passion is Crucial for Our Children

On By IreneIn Celebration, Commitment, Courage, Creativity, Dreams, Faith, Grace, Healing, Homemaker, Homeschooling, Hope, Journey, JumpStart, Kingdom Lifestyle, Motherhood, Season of Life, WorthLeave a comment

What legacy do you want leave? How would you like your children to remember you? These are questions that I asked myself often. I aspire to be a mother who inspires my children to rise higher and that involves some sacrifice from me. In my current triple-H reality of Homemaking, Homeschooling and Health Healing, wanting to rise higher myself can feel like an impossible task. Parenting is energy intensive and it can drain us at the end of the day. Some days I feel like I don’t even like my child due to the drained energy. And those are the days that I easily fell into the trap of blaming her for not being able to live my life fully. By the grace of God, I am aware this is not to be. My child is my reason to rise higher not my stumbling block.

After days and months and years of reflection and evaluation, I came to see some light. I want to pursue my passion and dreams as my means of living fully. That in turn will fill my tank and that tank overflows to my child. But I also need to be realistic; what works and what does not. How do I move in the ever changing rhythm? What becomes important in this journey? I am going to share practicals in three areas that would hopefully help us to move forward in our journey of pursuing our dreams.

Stress Management
This is an inevitable part of our modern life. Stress is also a nasty cause of diseases, hence it is so important to possess the skills to manage our stress. In my current reality, my days are pretty full as I am the kitchen ministry, cleaning ministry, children ministry, health ministry, purchasing officer etc. I cook most of our meals at home due to our health condition. My child is involved in cleaning, cooking and housework as this is part of homeschooling. This does not make my task faster but it does make our lives more pleasant and fun. Living with Myasthenia Gravis has limited me in a big way and to add that on, being a supporting wife of a struggling entrepreneur added a good amount of stress in my life.

So what works best when life gets overwhelming? Before the downward spiral spins out of control; STOP, PAUSE and BE PRESENT. This helps with emotion regulation. Simply by noticing your breathing or any one sense at a time helps us to relax. Just doing it for 5 minutes can free our body from the grip of stress. Once we are calm, we can acknowledge what happened in a neutral way and then let the grip go. This is helpful on a daily basis and when practiced intentionally, we trained ourselves to relax and let go of stress whenever we need to.

Staying Focused on Your Dreams
What are your passions and dreams? What makes you alive? Are you working on it? These are questions that would give us a clue where we are at with our dreams. If you can name your dreams, write them down and have it in a prominent place. Take encouragement from this scripture;

This serves as a good reminder of what is in your heart and what you are working towards. If you are unsure of your passions and dreams, I’d like to invite you to connect with us at JumpStart. JumpStart is a programme that will help you to discover what’s in your heart and you’ll also receive the tools to plan towards them. Engaging with a coach or someone to accompany you in your journey of the pursuit of your dreams and passions is a good idea regardless of where you are at.

Incorporating Your Dreams in Your Daily Life
Pursuing our dreams as parents is a delicate balancing act. First thing to evaluate is our daily and weekly rhythm. What does your typical day look like? What time do you wake up and then what follows? Are there time in my day that I wasted? I surely have that, I sometime waste my time on the internet doing things like scrolling videos that did not help me to further my dreams. Including time wasting activities in our evaluation will help us to clearly make a decision of what work best for us.

Making pursuing our dreams part of our lifestyle IS going to cost us. Be prepared to make sacrifices for our children and also be gracious towards ourselves from time to time. I am a typical go getter hyper achiever type of person. When I am focused on something, it is not easy to slack that off. So for me, growth is to be able to slow down, enjoy the learning from parenthood, soaked in the love of the Father in my season and be gracious to myself when I did not achieve what I aimed to do. It will take longer for me to pursue my dreams but what’s important is that I am on the track.

These practicals becomes easier when it is lived with great intention. I highly encourage having someone to journey alongside you as you pursue your dreams. Our children are precious and they deserve to have great role models in us, their parents. May you find great fulfillment as you pursue your dreams precisely because of your children.

With lots of love,
Irene