You see my victory

Miss you, my dear Andy. How was your weekend?

Continue to be melted by the hot weather (haha), I went to church and then Chinese doctor today. I mainly visit this Chinese doctor because I have been having back and shoulder pain on the left side for a very long time, and my vocal teacher recommended him to me. But since I am still coughing from covid, I asked him to look at it as well.

I feel a bit blue today, I guess partly because tomorrow is Monday and I have a lot to sort out at work the coming week. This weekend felt relatively pleasant for me because I could finally go out and I threw behind anything related to work, including the Paris trip. But I guess I can’t run away from it forever. In fact, I had a few dreams about being in Paris in the last few days even when I told myself not to think about it.

I guess most people won’t understand or empathise about this. Paris, Disneyland, even get to have the company to “sponsor” me to visit my parents and my house — sounds like the most fun and worthwhile work trip one can ever think of.

There’re a lot of small and big reasons to why I “don’t want” to go, most of them are mental related. That makes it very hard for me to explain why I don’t want to go, and makes me feel very hesitant to share with anyone why this feels like a challenging, lonely mission for me.

But today when I was at church, we sang a song that started with these lyrics:

When all I see is the battle

You see my victory

My tears immediately fell out (luckily I went there alone this week) at that moment. Since I knew about this Paris trip, I’ve actually felt quite baffled by God. I felt like I have whined to him so much about how exhausted I feel about travelling after the last trip and almost being “traumatised” by this most recent experience of being sick (twice) whilst travelling. Then the next thing I know before I even fully recover is that I have to go again. And I just can’t help but ask God why, don’t you see how “incapable” I am?

But I felt God responded to me today through that song. It is as if he looks at me with the most confident and loving eyes and tells me:

I believe in you even when you don’t believe in yourself. You are going to get well very soon, you’ll be strong enough to get through what’s ahead for you because I have already prepared you for it.

I can’t imagine any words of encouragement more comforting that I can receive than that. Even though I don’t know what’s ahead for me and everyday all I feel is that I am being weighed down by depression, stress, or whatever it is that makes me feel like I am constantly in a battle in life, perhaps knowing that God believes that I am going to win this fight is all I need to pluck up my courage to keep trying.

So Andy, I am just telling you tonight that Hannah will keep trying even though starting a new week always feels scary and overwhelming to her, and even though she might feel anxious when she doesn’t see where life is taking her to.

And I hope to tell you too my dearest lovable Andy: I believe in you even if you may not believe in yourself. Yes, I still do after two years. 🤍

(Bloated look)