When God Provides

Today, I had to drive somewhere I'd never driven by myself.

If it wasn't to fulfil a commitment I'd made, I'm sure I would've found lots of excuses not to go.

So I did what I could: I checked Melway, looked up the Street Directory website to make sure I had the most current map, and prayed a simple prayer as I got behind the wheel.

Whenever I drive someplace new, I always feel like I'm holding my breath the whole way through. That's how anxious I get. I'm also beset by a variety of obstacles: inexperience, poor hand-eye-foot coordination, slow reflexes, slow brain. None are helpful when you need to drive and navigate.

Near Thames Boulevard on Heaths Road, I looked into the rearview mirror and found a white car tailgating me.

There's nothing that makes me more nervous than a car following too closely.

The driver in question was unfortunate to be behind me on a single-lane road. I couldn't pull over to let him overtake, the road was that narrow.

It took me a while to shake off the sense that I was holding him up. I tried accelerating, but ended up going over the 70 kmh mark, so I had to slow down again. I wonder what he must have been thinking while stuck behind me.

As I stressed about road signs and whether I was headed in the right direction, a funny thought came to me. It might have been a way to combat all that stress, but I wondered: what if the driver was a guardian angel sent by God to ensure I got to Manor Lakes?

And you know what was even stranger?

Just as I went through the last section of Ballan Road and approached the entrance to Manor Lakes, I glanced into my rearview mirror and the white car that had tailed me all the way along Heaths Road...was gone.

Something similar happened on the way home.

I'd read the map, knew what landmarks to look out for, but was still nervous about getting home safely.

As I got on to Ballan Road, a blue 4WD tailed me. This time, I wasn't as stressed. I just thought: thanks God, another guardian angel! The blue 4WD followed me all the way along Ballan Road and half of Heaths Road. By this time I'd gotten my bearings and knew I was close to home. I signalled to switch to the left lane, expecting the 4WD to overtake now I was out of his way. The driver chose not to, and maintained his speed so that I was able to see him way behind in the right lane as I prepared to turn into Barber Drive and home.

God had heard and God had answered - in His own special way. Thank you Lord.

A Chance To Choose

During a family funeral this week, my aunt shared about her late mum and how she had come to accept Christ just before she passed away.

What persuaded her to say yes to Christ was the fear that she would otherwise not get to see her late husband again, as he had died a Christian.

My aunt thanked God that her parents had "a chance to choose" salvation, and that phrase stayed in my mind.

You and I have a chance to choose too.

This chance is presented to us every single day that we live and breathe.

Do we use it to say yes to Christ and to eternal life with Him, or do we say "no" or "later" and find out too late that we no longer have the chance to choose, because death or disability have robbed us of our abilities?

Family Ties

On Tue, my family (my cousin, my hubby and Beth) drove from Hoppers Crossing to Moonee Ponds to attend a funeral.

The lady who passed away was my "cheet chim poh" (7th grandaunt), my granddad's half brother's wife.

Our families weren't close.

When I was growing up, we met only once a year during Chinese New Year.

As a child, I remember those occasions as something to dread rather than delight in.

The extended family liked to descend upon my grandma's place on the first day of Chinese New Year.

They would usually come just after lunch in a group of twenty or so, all three generations at the same time. It was like a huge family reunion.

My grandma enjoyed being the hostess and matriarch of the clan (she was the most senior of her generation), but as a child and later a teen, I hated those occasions.

You had to greet all the granduncles and grandaunties (and try not to accidentally call 6th grandaunt 7th/10th grandaunt); uncles and aunts; and figure out who was who amongst the innumerable cousins whose names you couldn't remember afterwards, especially as the number increased over the years.

My job was to serve drinks (Fanta orange, anyone?), and I tell you it's no joke counting the guests and trying to make sure every one has got a drink in the midst of all the noisy greetings.

Especially when you're an introvert and all you want is to hide away somewhere and read a book instead of being subject to adult comments about how tall you've grown and how well (or not) you are doing at school.

I suppose it wasn't easy for the adults either.

They had a customary obligation they couldn't get out of: to hand out red packets to all the children and unmarried adults.

I got a taste of this unique adult responsibility years later when I was married and had to hand out red packets myself. My solution? Stay away from grandma's place on the afternoon of the first day of CNY!

Back to the funeral.

It's been more than two years since I've seen any of the extended family. I was happy to leave it to my mum and aunts and uncles to keep up the tradition of visitations and phone calls.

Then last week, my aunt texted me to say 7th grandaunt had passed away in Melbourne, and could my two cousins and I attend the wake on behalf of our respective families in Singapore.

There's no more powerful reminder of your age than a summons of this nature.

Represent the family? Surely that's for the elders to do? But of course, they're all in Singapore and we're here.

In the end, only one cousin was able to make it. We met outside the funeral home which turned out to be a church. There were fewer than twenty present, just the immediate family and a couple whom I'm guessing were the in-laws of one of my cousins.

But you know what?

Even though I confessed to my aunt that I couldn't remember very much of her mum (I didn't recognize the old lady till I looked at the portrait next to the casket), I'm glad we went.

The older I get, the more I appreciate belonging to a family.

Even if I'm not close to some members, even if my memories are tainted by the prejudices and perceptions of childhood, they are still my aunts and uncles and grandaunts and granduncles.

I'm even starting to feel a certain pride in my place in the extended family. A strong desire to do a good job of representing my elders. Knowing the right things to say. Respecting the old ways. Honouring traditions and customs.

I don't necessarily agree with the thinking behind some customs, but God has opened my eyes to subtlety and discretion. I can honour the person without being a slave to human tradition. I can affirm and empathize despite differences in age and upbringing and the separation of time and distance.

And every opportunity for contact is an opportunity to be an ambassador for Christ.

When I greeted the two granddaughters of 7th grandaunt, I made a conscious and bold decision to hug them instead of shaking hands as I might have done. The older of the granddaughters hugged me back so tightly and for so long that I felt embarrassed. She had been very close to her grandma, and she afterwards gave a beautiful eulogy which told me more about her grandma in ten minutes than I could've ever learnt in thirty CNYs.

I'd brought Beth with me, and my rellies were delighted to see how much she's grown. I think she was just a toddler when we last met. The two granddaughters, one newly married, are therefore aunts to Beth.

As we swapped contacts and returned to our respective cars after the cremation, my aunt reminded us that we should keep in touch, otherwise "our generation" (mine and my cousins') would not know each other.

She has a good point.

We're all grown up and we've moved on from our mischievous, annoying, crazy childhood days. We probably have more in common now. If we continue to keep the family connection alive, who knows what new chapters of family history we can pass on to our own children.

Discovering and Accepting Your Weak Spots

Met a friend at church today and she made a comment that set off an "Aha!" moment in my brain.

"I'm not a playgroup mom. I tried it for a while but found I COULDN"T STAND THE NOISE!"

I thought her remark funny at the time, because she's a mom of three...boys.

But her remark also helped make sense of the conflict going on in my headspace.

For the past 7 months, I've been helping out at Monday playgroup with two other ladies.

We set up the play room, serve tea, coffee and bikkies at 10.30, chat with the moms, organize hands-on activity for the tots, wash the coffee cups and put away the toys.

It's not hard work.

Yet I have to admit, at times it's been a struggle. While it's nice to be doing something useful that meets a real need, I find I'm actually glad when the school hols come around and there's no playgroup.I've been trying to figure out what's behind the sense of low satisfaction.I've narrowed it down to two possibilities.

One, I'm not a natural kids person.Some people are just kid magnets. They know exactly what to say to a child to make her eyes light up or to send her into fits of giggling.

What I've managed to achieve so far - in terms of saying the right sorts of things to littlies so they don't run crying back to Mom - has been a gift from my own parenting experience.

If not for my own two challenging me and forcing me to improvise everyday, I wouldn't have the confidence to approach someone's child or to have him come over on a play date.Conversations with kids are one of the riskier things in life, something you can't properly control.

Have you ever tried to strike up a conversation with a 4 y.o., they answered yes/no, and the conversation just died?

The second reason I think I struggle with Mondays is because I'm not naturally social.

I may manage to make decent conversation on a one-on-one basis, but I tend to shrink into the background and come across as aloof if I encounter a group.

I've discovered that I have a pretty strong need for a sense of belonging, to feel that I'm making a difference, otherwise I get discouraged and feel like my presence is redundant.

When you're in playgroup, you can't just do the wallflower thing and chase your kid all the time. Part of the reason you're there is to mingle.

Things are getting better now that I've got to know a few of the moms better and we're on a come-over-for-coffee basis.

But I can tell you, I felt like a real outsider at the start. Almost an intruder, as most of the moms seemed to have known each other for a long time and their kids played together well.

So maybe what the past 7 months has been about is a process of self-discovery and acceptance.
You have to give something a go to know if it fits you or not.And finding out that something's not for you is never a loss or failure or a waste of time, because you do learn valuable stuff about yourself.

Such as "I'm not a playgroup mum". ;-)

Are you overpaid?

This week, there was a news item about Nicole Kidman being Hollywood's most overpaid actress.

If you were Nicole, how would you feel about being labelled that way?

What about your current work situation?

Do you regard yourself as overpaid or underpaid?

Before you answer, consider these questions:

1. Are you giving at least 100%?
2. Do you actively engage in creative activity to brainstorm exciting and fun new ways to do things at work?
3. Are you constantly thinking of ways to improve your organisation's products and service levels?
4. Do you help your team do its best? Are you a peacemaker or tension maker? A team player or team parasite?
5. Is your daily work about adding value to your organisation, or are you satisfied with just doing the bare minimum to keep your job?

If you've reached the point where

• you're burnt out
• you've lost the zeal and passion you once had for your job
• you feel you're going nowhere in your career and therefore you can't be bothered to do your best,

these are all danger signs that you are an overpaid worker.

Much as we would like the organisation to take more notice of us as individuals, the truth is that there are very few bosses out there who will sit down for a real heart-to-heart with us one on one.

They may be too busy.

Or maybe they aren't the people-oriented type. They don't know how to go about doing something so potentially fraught with emotion, so they avoid it.

These things are outside our control.

What we can control, though, is our attitude and our actions.

We can choose to take ownership of our careers.

We can choose to be active team members in our workplaces.

An active team member is positive and can-do; he doesn't wait to be told what to do.

An active team member has the interests of the organisation in mind at all times. His actions and decisions are geared towards helping the organisation be its best.

An active team member sees himself as having a vested interest in how well the organisation does. He wants the organisation to succeed.

He is concerned about the quality of its products and services.

He constantly thinks of better ways to do things so that the organisation fulfils the reasons for its existence.

He knows that one way to help the organisation excel is by helping his boss do a great job.

So he supports his boss by doing great work himself, by providing useful, honest feedback, and by helping his boss look and feel good.

Obviously, some savvy is required here. We're not talking about playing politics or sucking up to the boss, but of genuinely wanting a win-win-win for the boss, the organisation and for yourself.

We're talking about how you can consistently prove yourself over time to be the Most Valuable Employee your boss has ever had.

When it comes to performance bonus time and appraisal time, you will be confident rather than petrified.

You will be in control, to some extent.

This is because you would have already done such an outstanding job in the past 12 months that there is no question that you deserve to advance.

The only question is how much.

That decision, again, is outside your control.

Your boss has her own set of criteria and a limited pool of resources.

But even if you don't get the promotion or bonus you were expecting, if you're constantly working to be Most Valuable Employee, you can be assured that you're virtually recession-proof.

In a recession, the first workers to go tend to be the lowly skilled ones and those who are considered to be overpaid in relation to the value they actually provide.

If you're highly skilled in what you do and you choose to be an active team member, it's possible you will always be underpaid wherever you go.

But wouldn't you rather that - than the reverse?

Do You Own Your Fear, Or Does It Own You?

I picked up a quote today that really made me think.

It was from a Time mag article on successful professionals and the career choices they make.

Janet Reid is a Chemistry Ph.D. who joined P&G and finally left to start her own management consultancy.

She says her decision to leave P&G is like that of a hermit crab deserting its shell to seek a better one. 

"I was fueled by fear and driven by faith," she says. "I'm scared of drowning, and that's why I scuba dive. You've got to face up to the fear and own it to get to the next level."

I thought that was an incredibly powerful insight.

You can own your fear, and let it take you to greater things.

Or you can let fear own you, and stay stifled, frustrated and paralysed in your comfort zone.

Whether you're deciding to migrate or to change careers, it's always tempting not to make a decision that might rock the boat. 

The safety of the familiar is any time better than the chilling waters of uncharted territory. Especially when you're not sure of your destination.

But what if fear is just the gateway to life's next great adventure?

What would it cost you NOT to rock the boat, make a splash and swim in a different sea?

Pretend it's 30 years down the road and you're looking back on your life.

Will the older and wiser you say, "I'm glad I did that and risked that and experienced that", or will it be "I wish I'd had the guts to try; it's too late now"?