Christmas...

It's been 2 crazily hectic weeks for me, till now - and tomorrow, I will leave for a church camp at Genting for 8 days. This means that I will be posting my next post earliest by next Sunday if not later :). I am quite eager to just getaway from the city and the hectic lifestyle of KL residents. To take a deep breath and just relax...it's been such a long time since I went on a trip - too long, in my opinion.

The past 2 weeks have been spent tutoring the girl I spoke about in my 2 previous posts as well as going to and from church and cramming my Christmas shopping into 2 days. I didn't get much shopping done though - barely managed to buy a gift for each of my family members (i.e. mom, dad, brothers etc) and here I am, leaving till Christmas Eve! I hope the 24th of Dec will not be too crazy a time to do last minute shopping. I can only cross my fingers!

I visited a community centre during these two weeks and my mind still reels from just knowing how truly blessed I am. These children, who are so close to my home (geographically), have such different demographics than I do...even as Christmas is approaching so soon, I can't help feeling that I just have not helped enough.

It's so easy to complain, to speak of injustice and just whine sometimes that I forget about those who are happy just to be able to buy textbooks and go to school...and those who don't even make it to college not because they aren't smart or hardworking enough, but because of the environment and family condition they live in. This is when I feel it really is unfair - unfair that they pull through circumstances that come their way - happily and not acting like a child about the whole thing. They do it because they don't have a choice which sometimes makes me question if choice itself is a blessing or a curse.

Love. That's what Christmas means to me.

Mother Teresa says it in one sentence when she stated, "We can do no great things, only small things with great love" and also, "Intense love does not measure, it just gives.”

I find it a struggle sometimes to just give the best part of me to someone who does not want it or even care - but that's love, isn't it? When the only thing that matters is to give. I look up to Mother Teresa so much - she's not perfect, far from it, but she loved - with all 50 years of her life in India. That's beauty, that's what love is.

I sometimes find it so hard to tie together the idea of romantic love to simply loving because, to me, the difference should not be that extreme. If love is about giving, why do some guys choose to simply take from their girlfriends or vise versa? Why crush one another when love should build a person up and not tear him or her down? Why choose to be selfish and to just get what you want and leave scars, and cuts, and bruises that will always be on the person you once proclaimed undying love for?...and if so...why say it's love anyway? Why lie about an emotion that is so profound?

There are times I feel that the word 'Love' - a feeling so intense, pure, and almost sacred - has become tainted and overused to a point that it has come to mean too little to so many people. To me:

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end. Love never dies. (Taken from1 Corinthians 13:4-8, The Message)

You don't have to agree with me but this is what I think is the perfect definition of love. The sentence that struck me the most is that Love 'always looks for the best' - and I see that in my parents - towards each other and towards my two brothers and me. They never fail to be our biggest 'cheerleaders' in the sense that they cheer us on - when we sometimes just lose the strength to get going :).

Love doesn't limit itself to an individual - but extends to all that the person holds dear - anyone and anything. It's hard work but at the end of the day, the wrinkles on the face of my parents are because of working so hard to make my life to be easier. It's in the moments that I'm most unaware of (like a late night chat with my mom or dad) that I realize and am reminded that I have hardly ever seen anyone more beautiful than them.