Ah.. the sweet joy of waking up late once again.. :) What a good start to my 1 week break.

Work to do, text to read, but I guess that can wait. For a while. For now it's time to soak up the sun and relax.


Once again I ask myself what am I doing with my life? Last night over dinner my mum was telling me about this book she read and this pastor was relating real life accounts of Christians who were being persecuted, including himself. And also stories of God Himself appearing to people. Story after story I can't imagine myself going through any of that. I felt sad, scared, inspired and yet disappointed at myself all at once.

There were so many stories but the one that stirred up the most emotions in me was this one that happened in Indonesia. (note: all in my own words, according to what my mum told me)

There was this family with 8 kids. One day while the 8 of them were playing outside, a policeman went up to them knowing they were all Christians. So he pulled the 3 youngest kids out.
Starting with the youngest he asked the boy to deny Christ but the boy said he won't because he loves Christ. The policeman then told the boy the same thing again, except that this time he would chop off his arm if he didn't deny. The boy didn't budge. So the policeman chopped off one arm.
He asked the boy again to deny Christ and if he didn't he'd chop off the other arm. With tears flowing out from his eyes, he said no because Christ has done so much for him and he loves Him. With that, his other arm was chopped off.
Once again the policeman said to him, deny Christ or I'll cut your stomach. And once again, he said He loves Christ. The policeman then cuts his stomach and the boy dies.
The other 2 younger kids went through the same thing as well and all 3 of them died in front of their other 5 siblings. The other 5 were then brought back to this place underground and locked up. They were told that the next day they had to deny Christ or all of them will die. But they knew no matter what they would still be killed because they were not going to revert back to Islam. So they tried means and ways to escape, and all 5 of them made it.

And you know what? when the 3 boys were asked to deny Christ, although they cried, their face didn't show any pain.

Can you imagine living in a place where you couldn't practise Christianity freely? And even if you didn't you still got persecuted just because you believed in God. Scary isn't it? Would you fight for your faith like the kids above? To be honest, I don't know if I would be able to hold on so tightly to my faith. But I shall work towards that.

God please strengthen me and help me grow in you till I have that unshakeable faith.

Seriously, what are you doing? And what are you going to do?

Tash @ 3:16 PM