Fleur De La Lune

Fellowshipping in the Workplace!

I am so happy today.

Just received an email from a colleague from sales and marketing dept. She forwarded me an email that was written by another colleague from IT dept about prayers in the workplace.

And later she mentioned that they will have a short fellowship during lunch and discuss about the book written by Rick Warren - "Purpose Driven Life" and I was invited!

This is really a season of Christians shining for God in the marketplace.

Pastor Kong is so wise.

Labels: Marketplace Salt and Light

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 1:39 pm 3 Comments

Time is so precious

Our time is so precious.
Let's always cherish the time God has placed into our hands and
be faithful with time.

Time - once spend, never recover....


Proverbs 19:15
Laziness casts one into a deep sleep, And an idle person will suffer hunger.

Proverbs 24:27
Prepare your outside work, Make it fit for yourself in the field;
And afterward build your house.

Labels: Feelings and Thoughts

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 8:44 pm 3 Comments

Medical facts about watching TV

The nearest analogy to the addictive power of television and the transformation of values that is wrought in the life of the heavy user is probably heroin.~~ Terence McKenna, Food of the Gods
There's a tumor in the TV mouthBurn it out before it grows.~~ Marilyn Manson, Little Horn
Aright junkies, I know you don't like staring at long strands of motionless text, and I know it's a struggle for you to analyze and comprehend the meaning of complex sequences of words.

But if you give me just a few minutes, I will let you in on a little secret that marketers and governments have been relying on for decades. That television you watch every day, your secret best friend, is an addictive opiate, and not only that, it's one of the most potent mind control devices ever produced. And I'm not just basing this on intuition. I have the neurological evidence to prove it.

Although the definitions are vague and somewhat misleading, the word "addiction" usually refers to a psychological or physical dependence on a particular experience that must be repeated in order for a person to be comfortable. Usually, we think about this in terms of chemical addiction, which occurs when the addict's chemical of choice reorganizes the nervous system so that it requires the presence of that chemical to operate smoothly.

Of course, not all addictions are chemical. Any behavior that leads to a pleasurable experience will be repeated, especially if that behavior requires little work. Psychologists call this pattern "positive reinforcement". This is what we mean, technically speaking, by addiction. In this sense, television certainly fits into the category of an addictive agent.

When you watch TV, brain activity switches from the left to the right hemisphere. In fact, experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman showed that while viewers are watching television, the right hemisphere is twice as active as the left, a neurological anomaly. The crossover from left to right releases a surge of the body's natural opiates: endorphins, which include beta-endorphins and enkephalins. Endorphins are structurally identical to opium and its derivatives (morphine, codeine, heroin, etc.). Activities that release endorphins (also called opioid peptides) are usually habit-forming (we rarely call them addictive). These include cracking knuckles, strenuous exercise, and orgasm. External opiates act on the same receptor sites (opioid receptors) as endorphins, so there is little difference between the two.

In fact, strenuous exercise, which produces the nominal "runner's high"- a release of endorphins that flood the system, can be highly addictive, to the point where "addicts" who abruptly stop exercising experience opiate-withdrawal symptoms, namely migraine headaches. These migraines are caused by a dysfunction in opioid receptors, which are accustomed to the steady influx of endorphins.

Indeed, even casual television viewers experience such opiate-withdrawal symptoms if they stop watching TV for a prolonged period of time. An article from South Africa's Eastern Province Herald (October 1975) described two experiments in which people from various socio-economic milieus were asked to stop watching television. In one experiment, several families volunteered to turn off their TV's for just one month. The poorest family gave in after one week, and the others suffered from depression, saying they felt as though they had "lost a friend." In the other experiment, 182 West Germans agreed to kick their television viewing habit for a year, with the added bonus of payment. None could resist the urge longer than six months, and over time all of the participants showed the symptoms of opiate-withdrawal: increased anxiety, frustration, and depression.

The signs of addiction are all around us. The average American watches over four hours of television every day, and 49% of those continue to watch despite admitting to doing it excessively. These are the classic indicators of an addict in denial: addicts know they're doing harm to themselves, but continue to use the drug regardless.

Recent studies on laboratory rats show that opioid-receptor stimulants induce addictive behaviors. The evidence is conclusive: all opioids are addictive! Even the ones your body produces naturally. The television set works as a high-tech drug delivery system, and we all feel its effects. The question is, can an addiction to television be destructive? The answer we receive from modern science is a resounding "Yes!"

First of all, when you're watching television the higher brain regions (like the midbrain and the neo-cortex) are shut down, and most activity shifts to the lower brain regions (like the limbic system). The neurological processes that take place in these regions cannot accurately be called "cognitive." The lower or reptile brain simply stands poised to react to the environment using deeply embedded "fight or flight" response programs. Moreover, these lower brain regions cannot distinguish reality from fabricated images (a job performed by the neo-cortex), so they react to television content as though it were real, releasing appropriate hormones and so on. Studies have proven that, in the long run, too much activity in the lower brain leads to atrophy in the higher brain regions.

It is interesting to note that the lower/reptile/limbic brain correlates to the bio-survival circuit of the Leary/Wilson 8 Circuit Model of Consciousness. This is our primal circuit, the base "presence" that we normally associate with consciousness. This is the circuit where we receive our first neurological imprint (the oral imprint), which conditions us to advance toward anything warm, pleasurable and/or protective in the environment. The bio-survival circuit is our most infantile, our most primal way of dealing with reality.

A person obsessed with the pursuit of physical pleasure is probably fixated on this circuit; in fact the Freudians believed an opium addiction was an attempt to return to the womb. We could logically deduce that such addictions occur when higher brain functions are anesthetized and the newly dominant lower brain seeks out pleasure at any cost. Taking this into account, television is like a double edged sword: not only does it cause the endocrine system to release the body's natural opiates (endorphins), but it also concentrates neurological activity in the lower brain regions where we are motivated by nothing but the pursuit of pleasure. Television produces highly functional, mobile "bio-survival robots."

Herbert Krugman's research proved that watching television numbs the left brain and leaves the right brain to perform all cognitive duties. This has some harrowing implications for the effects of television on brain development and health. For one, the left hemisphere is the critical region for organizing, analyzing, and judging incoming data. The right brain treats incoming data uncritically, and it does not decode or divide information into its component parts.

The right brain processes information in wholes, leading to emotional rather than intelligent responses. We cannot rationally attend to the content presented on television because that part of our brain is not in operation. It is therefore unsurprising that people rarely comprehend what they see on television, as was shown by a study conducted by researcher Jacob Jacoby. Jacoby found that, out of 2,700 people tested, 90% misunderstood what they watched on television only minutes before.

As yet there is no explanation as to why we switch to the right brain while viewing television, but we do know this phenomenon is immune to content.

For a brain to comprehend and communicate complex meaning, it must be in a state of "chaotic disequilibrium." This means that there must be a dynamic flow of communication between all of the regions of the brain, which facilitates the comprehension of higher levels of order (breaking conceptual thresholds), and leads to the formation of complex ideas. High levels of chaotic brain activity are present during challenging tasks like reading, writing, and working mathematical equations in your head. They are not present while watching TV.

Levels of brain activity are measured by an electroencenograph (EEG) machine. While watching television, the brain appears to slow to a halt, registering low alpha wave readings on the EEG. This is caused by the radiant light produced by cathode ray technology within the television set. Even if you're reading text on a television screen the brain registers low levels of activity. Once again, regardless of the content being presented, television essentially turns off your nervous system.

In addition to its devastating neurological effects, television can be harmful to your sense of self-worth, your perception of your environment, and your physical health. Recent surveys have shown that 75% of American women think they are overweight, likely the result of watching chronically thin actresses and models four hours a day.

Television has also spawned a "culture of fear" in the U.S. and beyond, with its focus on the limbic brain-friendly sensationalism of violent programming. Studies have shown that people of all generations greatly overestimate the threat of violence in real life. This is no shock because their brains cannot discern reality from fiction while watching TV.

Television is bad for your body as well. Obesity, sleep deprivation, and stunted sensory development are all common among television addicts.

So I hope we've firmly established that television is an addictive drug, one that is no better than opium, heroin, or any other opiate. Television is just as (and possibly even more) harmful to the body-brain as every other drug. But there's one big difference. All other drugs apparently pose a threat to the established social order. Television, however, is a drug that is actually essential to maintaining the social infrastructure. Why? Because it brainwashes consumers to throw money at the gaping void of their meaningless, terror-filled lives. And by brainwashed, I mean they've been hypnotized using very subtle and established techniques which, when coupled with television's natural effects on brain waves, make for the most ambitious psychological engineering ruse ever concocted.

Psychophysiologist Thomas Mulholland found that after just 30 seconds of watching television the brain begins to produce alpha waves, which indicates torpid (almost comatose) rates of activity. Alpha brain waves are associated with unfocused, overly receptive states of consciousness. A high frequency alpha waves does not occur normally when the eyes are open. In fact, Mulholland's research implies that watching television is neurologically analogous to staring at a blank wall.

I should note that the goal of hypnotists is to induce slow brain wave states. Alpha waves are present during the "light hypnotic" state used by hypno-therapists for suggestion therapy. When Mulholland's research was published it greatly impacted the television industry, at least in the marketing and advertising sector. Realizing viewers automatically enter a trance state while watching television, marketers began designing commercials that produce unconscious emotional states or moods within the viewer. The aim of commercials is not to appeal to the rational or conscious mind (which usually dismisses advertisements) but rather to implant moods that the consumer will associate with the product when it is encountered in real life. When we see product displays at a store, for instance, those positive emotions are triggered. Endorsements from beloved athletes and other celebrities evoke the same associations. If you've ever doubted the power of television advertising, bear this in mind: commercials work better if you're not paying attention to them!

An addictive mind control device . . . what more could a government or profit-driven corporation ask for? But the really sad thing about television is that it turns everyone into a zombie, no one is immune. There is no higher order of super-intelligent, nefarious beings behind this. It's the product of our very human desire to alter our state of consciousness and escape the hardships of reality.
While AdBusters has their highly ineffectual TV Turnoff Week, I'd like to announce a campaign of my own. Starting next week, we will celebrate what I like to call TV Pawn-Off Week. I encourage you all to sell your televisions, and use the money to buy some books.
We're living in a Brave New World, only it's not so brave, or even that new. In fact, it's starting to look more and more like the Dark Ages, with the preliterate zombie masses obeying the authority of the new clergy: Regis Philbin and Jerry Springer.

Labels: Facts

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 8:21 pm 5 Comments

Are you addicted to TV?

Are you addicted to TV?
by Katherine WestphalTrash Your TV!

It is 2AM and you are blankly staring at a rerun of "Columbo". You meant to go to bed hours ago, but the time has somehow managed to slip through your fingers. Your hand reaches for the remote. It's Saturday afternoon and your best friend since kindergarten calls and asks to meet with you over coffee. She has some exciting news, and she can't wait to share it. "Wait until "Friends" is over," you reply.Sound familiar? If so, you may be addicted to your TV.

TV has some funny effects on the brain. Most people are not aware of these effects. However, the effects of TV on the brain are similar to the effects of addictive drugs. The good news is, once you become aware of these effects, you can begin to reduce TV's addictive hold.

TV = Relaxation

Everyone knows TV can be very relaxing. TV has the ability to completely shut out the rest of our crazy world. All the world's problems vanish as you are wrapped in a cozy TV Neverland. The relaxation is almost instantaneous. The quickness of the relaxation conditions you to associate TV with relaxation. As long as you are watching TV, you feel relaxed.

Unfortunately, this sense of relaxation ends as soon as the TV is turned off. The cozy little Neverland disappears. You don't even get the benefit of a gradual withdrawal. Poof! Neverland is gone. With drugs, the faster a drug leaves the body, the more addictive it is.

The Scientific American researchers, Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, who explored TV's addictive qualities, explain:"A tranquilizer that leaves the body rapidly is much more likely to cause dependence than one that leaves the body slowly, precisely because the user is more aware that the drug's effects are wearing off. Similarly, viewers' vague learned sense that they will feel less relaxed if they stop viewing may be a significant factor in not turning the set off."

After the set is turned off you will feel either worse or the same as you did before watching TV. If you were trying to avoid painful feelings, those feelings will surge back when you reenter the real world. Worse, if you have acclimated to TV's forced relaxation by watching too much, you may become dependent on the TV to relax. TV "Grabs" and "Holds" your attentionTV shows use cinematic tricks to "grab" and "hold" the viewers attention.

Humans brains are hard-wired to turn their attention to things that suddenly change in the environment. This is an evolutionary benefit for noticing potential threats. The body relaxes while the brain gathers information. The technical term is the "orienting response". Sudden changes is volume, cuts, zooms, scene changes, or sudden movements on the TV cause you to look at the TV.

Repeated changes have the effect of "holding" your attention. Commercials, action movies, and music videos are notorious for containing large numbers of these sudden changes that "grab" and "hold" your attention.Test it for yourself. Watch your own responses the next time you watch TV. For a fun experiment, turn on a TV in a room full of people to watch how the orienting response works. It is pretty amazing to watch, if you can keep from getting sucked in. The next time the TV is playing see how many cuts, zooms, loud noises, and scene changes you can count.

What are the major symptoms of TV addiction?
*You want to watch less, but find it difficult to turn off the TV.
*You tried in the past to limit your TV watching--but failed.
*You feel anxious when the TV is not on.
*You think about TV when you are not watching it.
*TV replaces other meaningful activities, like spending time with family and friends.

Television has become so common in our society that it may be difficult to recognize a TV addiction. When everyone at the office is discussing the latest show, it may be difficult to see that an unhealthy addiction is at work.

Labels: Facts

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 6:33 pm 0 Comments

The Truth About TV

Alcohol

...alcohol is the most consumed beverage on prime time television shows. Television characters drink alcohol twice as often as they drink tea or coffee, 14 times as frequently as soft drinks, and 15 times more often than water.

Each year, students spend $5.5 billion on alcohol - more than they spend on soft-drinks, tea, milk, juice, coffee, and books combined. Alcohol is implicated in more than 40% of all academic problems and 28% of all dropouts.

On a typical weekend in America, an average of one teenager dies every two hours in a car crash involving alcohol.

Violence

In 1993, the average child living in the United States watched 10,000 murders, assaults, and other violent acts on television, and 1997 that number climbed to 12,000 and is still rising.
The Surgeon General's 2001 report cited statistical links between television watching and violent behavior similar in strength to the evidence linking smoking and lung cancer.

Achievement and Intelligence

Japanese researchers conducted some of the earliest research on the relationship between television and impaired academic achievement. In 1962, they published findings that reading skills declined among Japanese fifth to seventh graders as soon as their family acquired a television set.

Two years later, the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare conducted the first large-scale American study. The survey, covering 650,000 students in 4,000 U.S. schools, included a handful of questions about television viewing patterns. Government officials were surprised to discover that the more television students watched, the lower their achievement scores.

Five Paths to Cognitive Damage

Since our children sit passively while the television dances, their ability to become deeply involved with books, school teachers, and other less frenetic sources of wisdom -- their ability to think -- atrophies. It should be no wonder that they abandon books, manifest lower intelligence quotients, fail to achieve academically, and have depressed professional aspirations.

A study of gifted fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, included in the Surgeon General's report, shows that watching a range of television shows - from cartoons to "educational television" -- depresses the students' subsequent creativity scores.

A fifth explanation emerged from the work of Harvard University Professor T. Berry Brazelton. Brazelton hooked newborn babies up to electroencephalographs and then exposed them to a flickering light source similar to a television but with no images. Fifteen minutes into their exposure, the babies stopped crying and produced sleep patterns on the EEG, even though their eyes were still open and observing the light. Brazelton's experiment revealed that the medium itself, with no content, acts directly on the brain to suppress mental activity. The Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry confirmed Brazelton's finding in 1982. They reported that the brain waves generated while watching even the most exciting shows were those of low attention states. The researchers found that while subjects viewed television, "output of alpha rhythms increased, indicating they were in a passive state, as if they were just sitting in the dark."
Social InteractionPsychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim suggests that television retards social skills not just by depriving children of playtime, but also by accustoming them to unrealistically stimulating characters:Children who have been taught, or conditioned, to listen passively most of the day to the warm verbal communications coming from the TV screen, to the deep emotional appeal of the so-called TV personality, are often unable to respond to real persons because they arouse so much less feeling than the skilled actor.

Obesity

Television makes children fat. Harvard University researchers discovered that the odds of a child becoming obese rise 12 to 20% for each daily hour of television he watches. Epidemiologists also agree that watching two or more hours of television daily is a global marker for high risk of pediatric hypercholesterolemia.
...the snacks children consume while watching television are overwhelmingly high in fat, cholesterol, salt, and sugar, and low in vitamins, minerals, and fiber. The U.S. Surgeon General attributes these unhealthful snacking habits to the success of television advertising. He writes that the average American child sees 2,500 commercials a year for "high-calorie, high-sugar, low nutrition products." He also reveals that 70% of food advertisements are for foods high in fat, cholesterol, sugar, and salt, while only 3% are for fruits and vegetables.Consistent with the Surgeon General's theory, epidemiologists at the University of Minnesota surveying children's Saturday morning television recently discovered that 56.5% of all commercials on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and Nickelodeon advertised food products, and the most frequently advertised product was high-sugar cereal. Comparing the food products advertised on TV with the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommendations for pediatric diet, the researchers found that "the diet depicted in Saturday morning television programming is the antithesis of what is recommended for healthful eating for children." They further observed that children see a food commercial about every five minutes on Saturday morning TV, and that the main explicit messages used to sell food products are taste and the promise of a free toy.

Labels: Facts

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 6:19 pm 0 Comments

TV Addiction - part 1

Addiction

"Television Addiction is No Mere Metaphor"headline of a Scientific American magazine article
The February 2002 of Scientific American featured a cover story on television addiction (you have to pay to read the whole thing). And the more recent Scientific American Mind (volume 14, #1) featured the same story.

Excerpts from the article:

"Most of the criteria of substance dependence can apply to people who watch a lot of TV."
"...University of British Columbia studied a mountain community that had no television until cable finally arrived. Over time, both adults and children in the town became less creative in problem solving, less able to persevere at tasks, and less tolerant of unstructured time."

"To some researchers, the most convincing parallel between TV and addictive drugs is that people experience withdrawal symptoms when they cut back on viewing."

There's also evidence that watching television lowers metabolism. That means you could end up burning fewer calories sitting on the couch watching television than simply sitting on the couch, doing nothing, with the television off.

At least that's an implication. And of course there are a lot of studies linking television watching with obesity in both kids and adults.

[Note: while these things could happen even if you got rid of television but ended up watching six hours a day of rental or downloaded movies]

Labels: Facts

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 6:12 pm 0 Comments

TV and children

TV rots the senses in the head!
It kills the imagination dead!
It clogs and clutters up the mind!
It makes a child so dull and blind.
He can no longer understand a fantasy, a fairyland!
His brain becomes as soft as cheese!
His powers of thinking rust and freeze!

An excerpt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,By Roald Dahl, 1964


As a mother and a pediatrician who completed both a three-year residency in Pediatrics and a three-year subspecialty fellowship in Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics, I started to wonder: "What are we doing to our children's growth and learning potential by allowing them to watch television and videos as well as spend endless hours playing computer games?"

I practiced seven years as the Physician Consultant at the School Health Center in San Francisco, performing comprehensive assessments on children, ages 4-12, who were having learning and behavioral difficulties in school. I saw hundreds of children who were having difficulties paying attention, focusing on their work, and performing fine and gross motor tasks.

Many of these children had a poor self-image and problems relating to adults and peers. As a pediatrician, I had always discouraged television viewing, because of the often violent nature of its content (especially cartoons) and because of all the commercials aimed at children.

However, it wasn't until the birth of my own child, 6 years ago, that I came face to face with the real impact of television. It wasn't just the content, for I had carefully screened the programs my child watched. It was the change in my child's behavior (his mood, his motor movements, his play) before, during and after watching TV that truly frightened me.

Before watching TV, he would be outside in nature, content to look at bugs, make things with sticks and rocks, and play in the water and sand. He seemed at peace with himself, his body, and his environment.

When watching TV, he was so unresponsive to me and to what was happening around him, that he seemed glued to the television set. When I turned off the TV he became anxious, nervous, and irritable and usually cried (or screamed) for the TV to be turned back on. His play was erratic, his movements impulsive and uncoordinated. His play lacked his own imaginative input. Instead of creating his own play themes, he was simply re-enacting what he had just seen on TV in a very repetitive, uncreative and stilted way.........

http://home.datacomm.ch/rezamusic/tv_johnson.html

Labels: Facts

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 6:06 pm 0 Comments

TV is a curse to your life (if u cannot control your addiction)

Recently felt so stirred up by the people around me that I decided to go into this TV research and find some proof to help them overcome their addiction for TV.


Sitting too close to the TV makes you blind ...
... to the real world

-- Melissa Hiebert, Staff

I stopped watching TV for about a year, and it was great. I suddenly had so much more free time to read, paint, go for walks; all of those little things that I had always wanted to do, but felt I never had the time for. My mind suddenly felt clearer and my concentration and energy levels skyrocketed.

Sure, when people sat around in class and talked about last night’s episode of the OC, I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, (I had no idea they made some kind of reality series about the bar on Pembina) but at least I was out there living life instead of watching it.

However, after watching two made-for-TV movies and a half-dozen other shows in the past 48 hours, I now sit here desperately trying to concentrate on writing — checking my e-mail every 10 seconds and rapidly clicking on minesweeper just for something to keep my short attention span occupied. What happened?

I cracked. I relapsed back into the out of control spiral of television watching. I became re-addicted to that little box that magically replaces our drab and mundane world with one that is funnier, more interesting and filled with better looking people. Actually, if you replace “funny” with “stupid,” “interesting” with “violent,” and “better looking” with “more plastic surgery,” it might begin to describe my viewing experiences a little more accurately. What’s on television at the moment (and I’m letting you in on a big secret here) closely resembles the little presents that my dog leaves on my front lawn.

But that isn’t a secret, is it? Maybe it was Who Wants to Marry a Multi Millionaire?, or maybe it was MXC. Somewhere along the line people will realize that television has become tackier and filled with more cheap thrills than ever, yet TV viewing is still at an all-time high.

Why do we knowingly and willingly fill our minds with a poisonous combination of mindless drivel and advertisements?

One theory is that TV is literally addictive. In one study conducted in the 1970s, 182 German families were asked to give up TV for a year. None of them lasted longer than six months, and upon close observation, many of the participants showed symptoms of anxiety, depression, frustration and denial that they watched too much TV or that watching a lot of TV is a bad thing. These are all classic symptoms of a drug addict going through withdrawal.

Watching television has some serious physical effects on the brain as well. A psycho-physiologist named Thomas Mulholland found that when you watch television, your brain produces alpha waves — waves that indicate a low rate of brain activity and are usually associated with sleep. In fact, this is the same brain state that many hypno-therapists try to invoke for the purpose of suggestion therapy. Unfortunately, the alpha waves that we experience when watching TV leave us more prone to influence from advertisements, as well as leaving us more susceptible to the various messages transmitted to us by means of “quality” programming.

TV is a constant major stimulus; it works to essentially shock our brains into submission. We see so many “jolts” on television (an editing cut, a loud noise) that our senses become overloaded and eventually shut down for a period of time. This is partially what can cause hyperactivity and restlessness, especially in young children. The brain is so used to constant stimulation that when it tries to focus on something continuous and non-changing, it has problems . . . err . . . um . . . well, you get the idea.

So, for all of those TV-riddled brains that had trouble getting to this point in the article and want it to end as fast as possible, in short, TV is bad for you. I for one vow to kick my TV habit and start paying more attention to the finer things in life, such as human interaction, creative and intellectual fulfillment, and the beautiful world around me.

Melissa Hiebert is a second-year philosophy student and the Manitoban’s Life and Culture Reporter.

Labels: Facts

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 5:51 pm 1 Comments

NEVER GIVE UP

Realise why no matter how much you have tried, you always have this feeling that you feel like giving up in certain aspects of your life?

This is how I feel when I go dancing, or work, or studying.... i just feel that how come it always seems that the difficulties i met are never ending?

But today i've a very very strong revelation when i was at dance class today. I realise that though difficulties may come our way, they are DIFFERENT LEVEL of difficulties. When i overcome one level of difficulty, i go to the next level of difficulty, usually stronger and higher, thus its never ending! i feel the same goes for the testing of our faith as well!

So sometimes i may feel how come i always have to keep trying, its BECAUSE i've already OVERCOME my past level of comfort zone and on my way to the next level of challenges.

When we face such situations, its very important to keep telling ourselves :
"NEVER GIVE UP NO MATTER WHAT !!!!"

Hebrews 10:36 (NIV)
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.

Labels: Feelings and Thoughts

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 11:25 pm 0 Comments

Be careful of Steroform!!!

Please don't ever eat food packed from Stereoform!

I've just listened to a professional on Fm93.8 and he mentioned the following:

1) Steroform contains poisonous chemicals that will seep into the food that is contained in it.
2) Stereoform when thrown away and buried in the dumping ground, will produce poisonous chemicals that will harm our earth.

God said we'll be faithful in the little things. Let's be faithful in this as well, loving the beautiful earth that God has created for us :o)

Labels: Facts

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 11:20 pm 3 Comments

Bible Study

Of all the bible study I have, the most enjoyable one is the my bible study with Xiangcen. I will look forward to this bible study every sat.

Seems like she has a kind of charisma, when she speaks, I will pay attention, and she's able to answer my questions in such a precise and clear manner. And she's a very good listener.

Praise God for such a wonderful sister! :o)

Labels: Friends

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 3:54 pm 1 Comments

COVENANT

Galatians :

"Though it is only a man's covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it."

"For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise."

"For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman.

But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise."

"Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise."


Hebrew 8

"For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second."

"He takes away the first that He may establish the second."

"A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete.


La Terre Promise

Over sighting the rail,
A glimpse of the Holy works,
A patch of blue on a canvas,
And traces of green along the coast.

The Master of the skilled,
Sustains the beauty of the altarpiece,
The picturesque rainfall,
And the inclement atmosphere,
Agreeing with the rays of grey.

The Altar and the Darkness,
The genesis of indifference,
To the warring in a heart,
And the fear of relinquishing.

The path in the Highway,
The silence of knowing,
The strength of Joy,
The malaise of Hope,
A preparation to the Kingdom.

Labels: Poetry and Inspiration

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 12:35 pm 0 Comments

MAMA & SISTER's gift

Labels: Family

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 10:11 pm 0 Comments

Father's Pear

One minute ago, my father walked into my room. He gave me a small bowl, inside there is a pear, fresh and white in colour. I look at him, I give thanks to God. And I will pray, that no one will take away my dearest father from me - my father belongs to God.

Dear God, please protect this family. Let the presence of God fill the whole of this house. You are the Lord of this house and your angels will be my father, my mother and my brother's best friends. They will watch over my precious family.

Labels: Family

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 8:15 pm 0 Comments

Casper's pictures!

Thank you Calista for these photos!

Labels: Mr Bean and Captain Jack Sparrow

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 5:20 pm 0 Comments

FIRST THING in the morning

Once i read an article, that the christian koreans always pray for God's protection over their lives before they go to work.

And i will also pray, because its so important to talk to God every morning.

3 prayers i'll always pray:

1) Godly wisdom in every aspect of my life
2) Fear of man to be taken away from me
3) Greater capacity to Truly love.

Prayers can be so powerful.

And Eileen, boss of 77th street fashion wear said that one of her secret of success is that "she pray, pray and pray!"

Labels: Feelings and Thoughts

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 11:32 pm 2 Comments

Singing Competition

Today me, Huiling, bro Ziwei, Xiangcen, Steve, Jinghong and June's family went to Party world to support June in her singing competition. Throughout the whole competition, I have a very heart warming conversation with Huiling and Xiangcen.

When June came on stage, we shouted "June! Jia you!". It was so fun. Thank you God for this opportunity that we have to support June.

She has made a difference in this world of music.

Labels: Friends

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 11:24 pm 3 Comments

Karaoke :o)

Labels: Friends

posted by Fleur De La Lune @ 10:23 pm 0 Comments