4 Roles to play

2 days before I was admitted to hospital for labour, I drew a quadrant on my personal planner. In each box I wrote down the titles.....

Wife..... Mother..... Daughter...... Sister......

These will be the 4 Roles I need to play well in my lifetime. 

I sat back, looked at the quadrant and decided that I need to expect one thing - Responsibilities are just going to increase, the days ahead will just get busier, all I need is to see my capacities enlarged, in order to allow myself a little bit of breathers in between. :)  If I expect the wrong thing i.e. nothing can get worse than my current responsibilities, then I set a trap for myself to disappointment and depression.... :P

At the start of this year, I wrote down one thing in my to-do list for the year - bring my mum and sister for full body medical check up. It's now September, and this item is still not striked off yet. Of course I can say pregnancy happened and so I switched my focus to myself & Jasmine, but deep down in my heart I know, if I want to do it, it can still happen. My mum has just visited my uncle in the San Francisco and again, he sent email to us, expressing his concerns over her health.... I instantly felt guilty, because I know I could've done much more for her this year... if only I stay focused.. if only I'm less self-centred...

It's very easy to fall back to my own zone - having my own problems and issues to deal with, keeping myself busy with Jasmine's arrival or giving excuses that I need to rest more or that I have a challenging time at work etc etc.. And all these to a certain extent makes perfect sense...... However, I woke up one morning with a strong voice in my head - I need to own up these responsibilities in a brand new way. It was so strong until I immediately took action. Before going to work that morning, I managed to find a nice notebook. During my free time at work, I started the notebook or logbook, to record all the to-do list related to my mum - be it her health, or her office, or her properties or her money. As a daughter, this is what I'm going to do for her. I want her to know I can take care of her and things that matter 

to her. I pray that God gives me the anointing to encourage her to improve her lifestyle to less late night movies and more eating-at-home and more work-outs. And of course, my daily prayer is that God bless her and protect her. 

I cannot neglect my role as Joshua's wife too. :) I need to consciously know what's happening in the house and with Joshua's life including his work. He's recently facing quite some obstacles at work, dealing with difficult client and service provider, so I try my best to pray for him every morning.. I encourage and assure him that "Everything is going to be ok" and "God loves you, god blessed you"  I don't know how much help I can extend but I know emotional support is the least I can offer.  

I don't do cooking & cleaning as frequent as before pregnancy but I made sure the house is tidy and laundry gets done every week. Sometimes I throw tantrums at him because he doesnt throw the rubbish or created mess around the house, but still, is still aligned with my mission to maintain a tidy house, right? :P

Recently I added a little something onto my plate - print family photos. :) I realized the last photos we printed were back in 2011-our wedding! Now that we have a little one, we must print more photos as keep sakes. Soft copies can never replace hard copies. So I worked with more than 1000 photos on my small & slow blacky and have finally printed a photobook for 2012. But am facing some quality issues, now the complaint I raised is still not resolved yet. They are offering a reprint but I have some work to do at my end.... Anyway, I went on to arrange for 2013 photos and managed to put in photos up to 31st Aug 2013 before Jasmine came. That means I cleared my backlog, now I just have to commit to do monthly update to the photobook. Though I tried to cover all photos but certain ones still get missed out like photos taken by my brother or Anne... Is hard to compile pictures from every iPhone, iPad and dslr in the house! Haha... Lets see if I can improve on this in 2014. ;) 

Speaking about my brother, I have a sister role to play too. I am sister to my big brother and younger sister. That doesn't mean that I don't have to take care of them. :) I admit I had neglected my brother for the longest time due to some misunderstandings or dissatisfactions... But now I am convinced to change. I want to be there for him when he needs support. I pray for his marriage & salvation and I just want to be his friend. :)  

My little sister Anne, she is so independent that I can easily ignore too. We stay together, attend the same church and have the same friends. We sometimes know each other so well we tend to argue or play cold war. I pray for her exams, I tried to encourage her to study with an effective method, I give suggestions to the way she should dress and I enjoyed designing her room, changing things around (exploring the vertical) to increase storage space for her mountain of clothes!  We have our differences and I admit I complain about her weaknesses or procrastination attitude which annoys me, but at the end of the day, I thank god for a great sister. I want to be a good sister to her too, I guess I really need to improve on listening when she shares her passion in music with me, or stories about her friends or her worries about the future...... :) and hope as a big sister I can help her see things in a better perspective. :)

Just slightly more than 2 weeks ago, I became a mother to a cute baby girl Jasmine. It's a whole bunch of new responsibilities!  Even now in my maternity leave, breastfeeding & bathing Jasmine daily, we are also looking for a good baby sitter to care for her when I go back to work. We also keep a notebook to record her daily diaper change, colour of her stool etc and soon by full moon another check up with paedetrician. After full moon we need to start learning to bring Jasmine to church and more outdoor hang outs. It's not going to be easy, but I read somewhere - a mother can do anything and everything! :D

May God help me to play these 4 roles with his anointing... :) all other things will come secondary and I need to program hmyself to this concept. Joshua's first test came when he told me that the Actstream ministry didn't seem happy about his decision to serve only once or twice in in the month Jasmine and I are going back to church...when I heard that I immediately link to the quadrant - as parents to Jasmine that decision is essential and so I don't bother how people question about our commitment serving in church. Yes that's right! Moving forward, this is how we are going to guard our hearts from the unnecessary worries & distractions ! :D