And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13

"I Love You" are three words that are so easy to say but often very hard to act on. Trials and tribulations are therefore set to test us in our understanding of love.

Love is a dependency. When we love, we will always depend on others even as we draw strength from them. It is always easy to say we love God but we often have no time to prove we do. There will always be things that will take us away from simply spending time in His presence. While God does not create trials and tribulations, he allows them to happen so that we will learn to draw strength from Him. Therefore when we are weak, these are the moments when we have to fall to our knees and pray even harder so that His grace and love will surround us and give us strength to see us through our trials and tribulations.

Of a more earthly nature, Gary Chapman talks about five languages of love - words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. For me, while I do show love through all five ways, the main channel is still through acts of service.

To me, God has given me the gift of servant-hood to apply myself in service to others. My life seems to be one of service, be it in the professional and social aspect. Whenever I serve, it is always a sacrifice I make to better the life of another. It can inconvenient me as well as drain me in the physical, emotional and spiritual sense. However, He has never let me down. Whenever, I am discouraged by the trials and tribulations placed in my service to others, He will always bring me down to my knees and teach me to pray even harder to depend of His wisdom and strength. In doing so, I get strength to continue serving people and in doing so, serving God. I never realised it until He slowly reaffirmed this time and time again.

Recently, there have been many trials and tribulations that have weaken me.

Professionally, I don't feel I'm managing so well. I feel like I have lost my internal compass and is not too sure of the direction I should continue to take. The direction which I was very sure to go seems to have done nothing but to add to the stress that has ravaged my poor health. As a result, I seem to be having a declining quality of life. This has left me rather distressed and frustrated because I hate not knowing what I am doing or where I should continue to go.

After endless cries for wisdom and guidance, His answer was to focus and concentrate on what I do best at... teach. I have in no way failed because of a lack of ability. Merely, the want to do well in all things have led to a high level of stress I am subjecting myself to, leading to ravaged health. I believe that for me to focus on merely teaching is not to declare that I have failed. Rather, it is for me to restore and strengthen the foundation of my health and pedagogical skills so that when I do rise again, like a phoenix from the ashes, I will come back stronger and better, able to soar higher than before.

Socially, it was not good news to see Rosy's legs grow weaker day by day till present state. However, God has given her strength and wisdom to face life's everyday challenges. On my part, I am very glad to be of service to the family in anyway I can. For the first time today, I helped to shower Rosy. While she was embarassed by the incident, I am glad that God has placed me there to be of service to her. She was there to guide me when I was at my weakest. This is the little I can do for her to show how much I love and care.

Our prayers have slowly been coming to pass and I believe God's miracles will happen. We just have to wait for His, not our, right moment for them to happen.