I'm doing this thing where I sit and imagine clicking on my grades four months later and see four beaming sixes, whereby I'll shriek in response and call my mother immediately to have her say she is so proud of me. I think it's called visualisation. Actually, I do that every semester but it's never happened. But I'm not about to let that deter me because maturity has to slap me in the face sometime soon, so that glorious moment will have to come someday, right? Right.

Speaking of maturity slapping me in the face, the ways of a godly woman as taught in the Bible have been haunting me of late.

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight."
1 Peter 3:3-4

What does it mean to have a gentle and quiet spirit?? And the more I look at myself of late, I couldn't be further from possessing a gentle and quiet spirit. My feathers are so easily ruffled, I'm disposed to bouts of jealousy, I am too concerned with outward appearances... and that's merely skimming the top of an entire boiling pot of faults and shortcomings! I can't help envisioning a glowingly serene madonna radiating bursts of white light and gossamer, ethereal and untouchable. And it's discouraging, stabs of woe in my delicate bubble of an ego.

The image drawn is quite laughable, because it is this very image that shows me how little and immature I am, struggling to find slivers of satisfaction in myself by standards of the world. And perhaps, even worse, plucking out bits of what the Bible says and distorting it to the narrow worldview. Because when I first read those words, I thought, Oh God, I am neither quiet nor gentle! I talk and laugh too loud and crack stupid jokes and make stupid faces and punch people in the arm!

It's really humbling knowing that I am far from the woman God has prepared me to be (and that I do not know what it means exactly to possess a gentle and quiet spirit!), but so reassuring to know that He is grooming and growing me each day to be that very woman (and will teach me in time what that means!). So in the meantime, I would really like to know what it means to possess a gentle and quiet spirit because I can't help but feel that me being easily swayed by her emotions, is like a tornado on the inside.

On a complete off-tangent, I really miss playing squash and being part of a team. I think the entire 'visualisation' exercise sparked it off.