Public vs. Private

I always have this inner struggle about my online presence. I have so much to say, so many thoughts, and sometimes it is nice to send them out into the world. I very rarely have any comments, or feedback, on what I share on here. And that is ok with me.

But then there is the flip side: I am super private. I like to keep my family to myself. And I specifically don't like to post many/any photos of my son online.

I was recently asked why, if it was intentional. Yes, of course it is. I used to be an over sharer. At one stage I was posting a new photo album daily (when I first moved to Singapore and I wanted to share my journey with my friends at home).

Even when Levi was first born, I happily posted photos willy nilly.

But then I began to think more deeply about the whole thing. I know that I would not like my online presence to be decided for me. I would not like to have a 'personality' assumed about me based on what people saw of me online. 

I feel a little bit sorry for kids these days. They will grow up 'famous' even if in just a smaller circle. All the adults in their lives will have an opinion about who they are, their character and personhood, sometimes without even having seen them in real life. 

I get the 'proud parent' thing. My word! I am so incredibly proud of my son. I would love to tell the world about his every little milestone, and I would expect you all to be as impressed and enthralled as I am. But at what cost? 

In addition to this, there is the very real risk of online predators. I don't think it is paranoid to be aware of this and to minimise as much potential risk as possible.

And then last of all, as I said in a previous post, I am mindful of what I am modeling to my son. Do I want to lead him to be as addicted as I am, as every adult in his life that he will ever know is? As much as I want to make healthy choices for him in terms of diet, I also want to choose well for him regarding technology.

Christian Business?

For those of you who don't know, I started a small business, Shiloh Handmade, towards the end of last year (2013). I started the business as I believed that God was leading me to do so. I still hold to that conviction, although my year, both personally and to do with my business, has been full of ups and downs. 

I have had few sales, all to supportive friends. I think that my products are more suited to the Australian taste, not so much for the Singaporean market in which I live. 

I feel that now, a year later, is a good time to reassess. I am thinking to change the whole look of Shiloh Handmade, but also to rethink what products to produce. 

In addition, I've been thinking through the question: am I a Christian who has a business, or is it a Christian business? Until now, I have been the former. I acknowledge that I am a Christian on my site, but I have not and do not emphasize it in any way. I am not ashamed of my faith. Not one bit. But it does change the market and tone of the whole thing. It is something to further think and pray on. 

For now I am thinking and praying and planning. Stay tuned for a new look and feel in the coming new year!

Addicted

Yesterday, I was on the train into the city. In each of the sitting sections, there are 18 seats. In my particular one, 17 of those seats were filled. There were 5 men and 12 women. Of those 17, only TWO were NOT on their handphones or mobile devices; myself and an older lady who looked in her mid-60s and who seemed to be dozing. There were an additional 5 people standing in the section, all of whom were also using devices.

Get that? Total 22 people, 20 on devices.

Does that shock you?

I am now 30-years-old. I like to think that my teens were not that long ago. In my teens, this kind of thing wasn't seen. I remember getting my first mobile phone, a study Nokia, somewhere around when I was 17-years-old. It wasn't 'smart' and had only 4 pretty basic games on it. I didn't spend most of my time glued to it. 

How have these tiny pieces of technology become so vital to our existence? 

Looking around the train, I felt so convicted. What am I modeling to my son? What kind of a world will he grow up in? Will there come a day when we forget how to speak, how to relate and to interact to one another?

I wanted to scream, 'EVERYONE PUT DOWN THE DEVICES AND NO ONE WILL GET HURT.'

Obviously, I didn't do that. But I do intend to put down my device a whole lot more often. 

Culture Shock

My family on our wedding day (12 May 2012)

Joel's family on our wedding day 

Joel and my family's are incredibly different. Like... Reeeeaaaally different. Our cultures aren't the only difference; but the character and tone of the family units are poles apart. 

Sometimes I think it's amazing how well Joel and I go together, given the vast contrast between our backgrounds. 

In the past, I truly wondered if his family was from another planet. How on earth could people have a completely opposite way of thinking to what was 'normal' to me? 

Recently, we did the unthinkable. We actually moved into their house. Astounding really. We are in an interim period before our own rental is ready for us. 

For me at least, it has been and is still very tough. Not just learning to live with other people, but also learning how to be a family, within another family. Not as easy as it may sound. How do we keep 'us' and what is unique and special about our little family that I love so much, and yet live in and contribute to a greater family around us? 

I'm very sure culture plays a large role in how I am feeling. Perhaps (or perhaps not?) if we were a local couple moving in with their local inlaws, the challenge and change would not be so great. In Asia, there is a more significant emphasis placed on extended family. We have it in the West also, but there is more autonomy between the smaller family units. 

I'm not saying that either side is better, or 'right'. But I am experiencing the 'other side,' and it's been eye opening. 

I am amused to realise that I, and maybe we are all the same, somehow subconsciously expect that other people run their lives in the same manner as myself. I am very systematic in the way I do almost everything. For example, before I wash dishes, I put all the same items together. This means that when I am washing them and putting them on the drying rack, they stack more neatly and take up less space. Does it really matter? No. But it's still the 'best way' to my own mind and therefore is 'correct.'

My husband's family do things completely differently. Are they wrong? No. It's just different. 

So what I guess I am saying is, I am learning that it's ok. It's ok for some people to be one way, and others to be another. It's unlikely that I will suddenly stop being systematic. It's equally unlikely, that they will be more so. But in learning to appreciate the differences, perhaps I will see and know more of life, be less narrow minded, and may even discover ways of doing things that make more sense to me, ways that I would never have thought of alone. 

God is, Himself, so vast, and while he is constant and unchanging, His very enormity means that there is room for many different facets. Maybe I'll know Him better also after this? 

Free Will

My Nanna (my Mum's mother) passed away a couple of months ago. She was an amazing woman who meant so much to me. It was an honour to know her. 

What started the whole incident, was that my Nanna had a fall. In the fall, she broke her hip and had various other injuries, all of which was the beginning of the end. 

Afterwards, my strongly anti-God cousin made an interesting comment about it. He said: if God is real, He should have stopped her from falling. 

For some reason, this statement has stuck in my mind and caused me to think through the whole issue a lot. 

It seems so... silly, somehow, to think that THAT is the biggest thing to be blaming God for. Surely it would be more profitable to blame God for things like the crusades, child abuse, wars, murder, sex trafficking and other forms of slavery, etc. 

And then I was thinking, if God should step in and stop every wrong thing, that would include my cousin's actions of wrong doing. And I am very sure he wouldn't like that.

Or does God only have to stop certain wrong or bad happenings? And who gets to choose which ones? 

We want to choose for ourselves when it suits us, but blame God for not stopping bad when it doesn't. 

But the world just can't work like that. It has to be one way or the other, and for whatever reason, God chose this way, where we are allowed and able to choose bad things and where bad things happen to us. And it's really not God's fault. 

I have had to come to terms with this in my own life and history. So many of the 'bad things' that have happened to me, I would much rather that they didn't. But I don't blame God, at least, not anymore. I know that I live in a world full of humanity and that includes human error. 

I guess the trick is to learn to trust God through the troubles and to rest in the fact that one day, He is going to make all things right again.