It was an usual night out for dinner at United Square one weekday. My mama was busy chasing after me as I was roaming around the mall after dinner and Papa was running some errands elsewhere.
As my heavily pregnant mama was chasing me, she accidentally kicked on something. It gave a "ling ling" sound, and so she looked down to see what it was. A gold ring.
To be more specific, it's a yellow gold ring, with a big diamond on top of it, surrounded with little diamond stubs. She surveyed it briefly and thought, "It looked like glass." Not diamond, was her first analysis because, the yellow gold was a little tarnished, one little diamond stub was missing and the "diamond" didn't have that sparkle and shine.
And at split second, she had to recollect her senses because I was running away to nowhere! So she quickly held her "loot" higher and thought to herself, "Better lift this ring higher so the owner cannot claim that I'm a thief or something. I'm ready to return it." And so she did for about a few seconds, eyes darting at my direction. But no one came towards her.
Without another moment to waste, she threw the ring back into her handbag and continue her FBI chase. She showed Papa the ring when we got back to the car. Papa gave that looks-worse-than-my-proposal-ring-for-you-though-this-is-much-bigger look. And claimed that the diamond and all must be fake. No shine, no clarity, no nothing.
Then on mother's day lunch with my poh poh and gong gong, she took it out from her pouch and showed it to poh poh. Why poh poh?! Because poh poh seems to have "luck" at picking up jewelleries on the street too! Ring and bracelet, mainly yellow gold. And so mama thought she must be an expert at verifying jewelleries. Does this kinda "luck" runs in the family?!?!? HAhhahaaa....hopefully, why not! I should be the 3rd generation to inherit such "asset" if so!
Anyways, after surveying the ring, gong gong, poh poh, kow fu and kow mo's verdict was---it seemed fake. Too fake to be real. Then mama concluded in her heart that she had picked up a fake ring. But was nonchalant about it. No lost, no gain, waste of her time. So that ring was thrown from bag to bag, table to table and pouch to pouch for about 1 month plus. Forgotten for awhile. A part of her felt she shouldn't just THROW it away, at least give that ring a true "identity."
So on one of her leave days to run some errands with papa, she brought that ring along. She was at Lee Hwa, doing cleaning of her jewelleries. She hesitated to bring that ring out to be verified. "What if the sales promoter think I stole it?" "She must be thinking if the ring is mine, why do I need her to verify?" And it was kinda Ah Soh lor! So she was trying hard rehearsing how to play down the Ah Sohness. She even wanted papa to do it, who blatantly rejected even after tempting him with sharing part of the "price" if the ring was real didn't work!
Alas, she mustered up enough courage to ask the sales promoter to verify the ring's status. She politely took out a diamond tester kit and pointed on the diamond and a loud "Deee" sound was heard. Mama almost wanted to hide her face and Papa looked away as if he didn't know mama (so much for "for better or for worse", right?!). The sound sounded so negative that both thought it meant, "It's fake!" And the promoter had a frown on her face. She repeatedly tested the diamond like 3 to 4 times. Mama already had her hands on her face; she was imagining herself climbing over the counter, grabbing the tester kit from the promoter and begged her to stop!!!
But her next words stunned my parents, "Yup, it's real. And it's about 0.8 to 1.1karat." My mama's jaw dropped, but managed to hold it back to avoid any detection of thrill. After the promoter left the counter to check on the cleaning of her jewelleries, papa whispered to mama, "You can now wipe that smug smile off your face!"
They left the place and went to search around for pawn shops to determine the worthiness of the ring. One quoted $5k, the other $4.5k, and another who wanted to buy it, offered only $1k. Needless to say, Mama decided to go with the $5k because she didn't want to go through the hassle of walking on anymore just to get a better deal than that. She felt it was God's blessing that she picked this ring and she shouldn't be too greedy about it by spending too much time and effort.
So papa was sent to process the pawning of the ring as by then, mama was zapped out of her energy to walk. So mama waited in the car, in the carpark just opposite the shop. Poor Papa, he got mistaken by the boss that he had to pawn his girlfriend's ring to finance his unborn child and girlfriend!! wahahahaha...a compliment to mama I think! But mama just couldn't help laughing after he got back into the car complaining how poor thing he was being mistaken as a bastard! hahahaha...Guess this was how he got mama to give him a token from that sum as a compensation!??!?!?kekekeke...
Back to seriousness, after the whole woo hah, Mama gave thanks to God. She felt God had heard her heart's desires and provided. She had wanted to get a confinement nanny, get a new infant carrier (for safety when travelling in a car), do her post natal massage, go for short family getaway and replace her mobile phone that hung up on her every now and then.
But Papa said, "I think it's God's way of telling us"--"I know you'll be out of a job for a longer time, so give you extra $5k as a baffle." Mama upon hearing that felt her thanksgiving-ness melted away slowly. He might be right.
But mama quickly corrected him as her past experiences told her that God is not a cruel God. God is not out to make fools out of His children too. He loves and it hurts Him as much as He sees how much His children are in need. Even some of our own earthly fathers will not give a stone to his own children when they are hungry, why would our heavenly Father be so wicked to give empty blessings?
It was not a matter of what the extra money was for, mama felt it was how they should react as children of God that would matter. So mama chose to give thanks. Mama chose to believe God cares and He is still faithful to provide. She knew deep down God was trying to say, "Look here, you two guys panicking over money. If I can drop a $5k right under your smelly feet over all your 'wants". Shall I not also provide all your needs?!"
Papa has learnt a lesson too--in everything, give thanks! Have faith to know God is good all the time even if our situation seems otherwise or He doesn't answer our prayer needs like the way we wanted it.
Mama has her faith in God's providence rebuilt. She has grown to understand that, like parents, all God wants to do was to help us know Him better--what kinda God is He. It'll be sad if they as parents are misunderstood by muimui and me, isn't it?!
As my heavily pregnant mama was chasing me, she accidentally kicked on something. It gave a "ling ling" sound, and so she looked down to see what it was. A gold ring.
To be more specific, it's a yellow gold ring, with a big diamond on top of it, surrounded with little diamond stubs. She surveyed it briefly and thought, "It looked like glass." Not diamond, was her first analysis because, the yellow gold was a little tarnished, one little diamond stub was missing and the "diamond" didn't have that sparkle and shine.
And at split second, she had to recollect her senses because I was running away to nowhere! So she quickly held her "loot" higher and thought to herself, "Better lift this ring higher so the owner cannot claim that I'm a thief or something. I'm ready to return it." And so she did for about a few seconds, eyes darting at my direction. But no one came towards her.
Without another moment to waste, she threw the ring back into her handbag and continue her FBI chase. She showed Papa the ring when we got back to the car. Papa gave that looks-worse-than-my-proposal-ring-for-you-though-this-is-much-bigger look. And claimed that the diamond and all must be fake. No shine, no clarity, no nothing.
Then on mother's day lunch with my poh poh and gong gong, she took it out from her pouch and showed it to poh poh. Why poh poh?! Because poh poh seems to have "luck" at picking up jewelleries on the street too! Ring and bracelet, mainly yellow gold. And so mama thought she must be an expert at verifying jewelleries. Does this kinda "luck" runs in the family?!?!? HAhhahaaa....hopefully, why not! I should be the 3rd generation to inherit such "asset" if so!
Anyways, after surveying the ring, gong gong, poh poh, kow fu and kow mo's verdict was---it seemed fake. Too fake to be real. Then mama concluded in her heart that she had picked up a fake ring. But was nonchalant about it. No lost, no gain, waste of her time. So that ring was thrown from bag to bag, table to table and pouch to pouch for about 1 month plus. Forgotten for awhile. A part of her felt she shouldn't just THROW it away, at least give that ring a true "identity."
So on one of her leave days to run some errands with papa, she brought that ring along. She was at Lee Hwa, doing cleaning of her jewelleries. She hesitated to bring that ring out to be verified. "What if the sales promoter think I stole it?" "She must be thinking if the ring is mine, why do I need her to verify?" And it was kinda Ah Soh lor! So she was trying hard rehearsing how to play down the Ah Sohness. She even wanted papa to do it, who blatantly rejected even after tempting him with sharing part of the "price" if the ring was real didn't work!
Alas, she mustered up enough courage to ask the sales promoter to verify the ring's status. She politely took out a diamond tester kit and pointed on the diamond and a loud "Deee" sound was heard. Mama almost wanted to hide her face and Papa looked away as if he didn't know mama (so much for "for better or for worse", right?!). The sound sounded so negative that both thought it meant, "It's fake!" And the promoter had a frown on her face. She repeatedly tested the diamond like 3 to 4 times. Mama already had her hands on her face; she was imagining herself climbing over the counter, grabbing the tester kit from the promoter and begged her to stop!!!
But her next words stunned my parents, "Yup, it's real. And it's about 0.8 to 1.1karat." My mama's jaw dropped, but managed to hold it back to avoid any detection of thrill. After the promoter left the counter to check on the cleaning of her jewelleries, papa whispered to mama, "You can now wipe that smug smile off your face!"
They left the place and went to search around for pawn shops to determine the worthiness of the ring. One quoted $5k, the other $4.5k, and another who wanted to buy it, offered only $1k. Needless to say, Mama decided to go with the $5k because she didn't want to go through the hassle of walking on anymore just to get a better deal than that. She felt it was God's blessing that she picked this ring and she shouldn't be too greedy about it by spending too much time and effort.
So papa was sent to process the pawning of the ring as by then, mama was zapped out of her energy to walk. So mama waited in the car, in the carpark just opposite the shop. Poor Papa, he got mistaken by the boss that he had to pawn his girlfriend's ring to finance his unborn child and girlfriend!! wahahahaha...a compliment to mama I think! But mama just couldn't help laughing after he got back into the car complaining how poor thing he was being mistaken as a bastard! hahahaha...Guess this was how he got mama to give him a token from that sum as a compensation!??!?!?kekekeke...
Back to seriousness, after the whole woo hah, Mama gave thanks to God. She felt God had heard her heart's desires and provided. She had wanted to get a confinement nanny, get a new infant carrier (for safety when travelling in a car), do her post natal massage, go for short family getaway and replace her mobile phone that hung up on her every now and then.
But Papa said, "I think it's God's way of telling us"--"I know you'll be out of a job for a longer time, so give you extra $5k as a baffle." Mama upon hearing that felt her thanksgiving-ness melted away slowly. He might be right.
But mama quickly corrected him as her past experiences told her that God is not a cruel God. God is not out to make fools out of His children too. He loves and it hurts Him as much as He sees how much His children are in need. Even some of our own earthly fathers will not give a stone to his own children when they are hungry, why would our heavenly Father be so wicked to give empty blessings?
It was not a matter of what the extra money was for, mama felt it was how they should react as children of God that would matter. So mama chose to give thanks. Mama chose to believe God cares and He is still faithful to provide. She knew deep down God was trying to say, "Look here, you two guys panicking over money. If I can drop a $5k right under your smelly feet over all your 'wants". Shall I not also provide all your needs?!"
Papa has learnt a lesson too--in everything, give thanks! Have faith to know God is good all the time even if our situation seems otherwise or He doesn't answer our prayer needs like the way we wanted it.
Mama has her faith in God's providence rebuilt. She has grown to understand that, like parents, all God wants to do was to help us know Him better--what kinda God is He. It'll be sad if they as parents are misunderstood by muimui and me, isn't it?!
My parents are still unsure when God will provide papa with a job. But they know God will not abandon us, He WILL provide, in His time, in His ways......
So, was the ring God's blessing or baffle? It's only a matter of how much you know your God. :)
Mama used to get dislike Don Moen's vocal cos she thinks he sounds very "Uncle-ish." But she knows he's an anointed composer. Another ageless song, listen to his words in the middle of the song. Be ministered! (Papa, this is for you too!)
