In my bid to be kinder and braver, I realised that kindness and bravery might just go in hand; they just aren't as different as I once thought they were.

I went to the tailor to get my skirt today and I was absolutely positive that I would grab my skirt and be on my way in a matter of minutes since I'd sent my skirt to be hemmed up 5 days ago. I had my route for the day planned out in detail, and the time I would take to get to town estimated with the practiced air of a pro at arriving 'just-on-time'. So I was flabbergasted when I confidently swung into the shop and she told me nonchalantly, "come back in 30 minutes, I haven't hemmed the skirt yet."

Honestly, I was furious, but I couldn't be rude. 5 whole days and my skirt was to be hemmed up in half an hour! And 5 days ago, to justify the cost, she'd told me that it was difficult, delicate work. So I believed her, I paid even though a tiny voice told me that the cost of hemming up the skirt was more than the price of the skirt itself. I spent the next few days trying to justify what I'd just done, the embarrassment of paying more than I needed to when I knew that finances were kinda tight in the family. I told myself that the difficult, delicate hemming would add value to a skirt, that it would be golden and magical, the hem would never come off in the wash, it would look like a piece from a glossy magazine, I would be satisfied with the impeccable sewing that took 5 days to be finished. I was wrong. So I stormed off to church to wait out the 30 minutes and spent the first few minutes in the adoration room being angry and feeling cheated and ashamed.

Okay, so my prayer life is crazy irregular. You would think that with all the reassuring messages and love lavishly poured upon me in my encounters with the Blessed Sacrament that I would pray more and love God harder and all the madder. But something stops me. There's another part of me that whispers, maan, Hail Marys are boring. It's no fun to pray cause praying for other people gets me all worked up and almost despair at the way it seems like troubles will never be settled. There came a point when I just told the Lord, "Oh my God, I don't want to go through this again, like you know our worries and our troubles, and your will be done, please take them away, but I'm tired of being overwhelmed by being sad for other people. Just you know what to do." And that eventually got shortened to "Lord, you know what to do." And then it got shortened to a break down in conversation= no prayer.

Anyway, to get on with the story, there's a lady who wanders around church and the nearby coffee shops, and from hearsay, she's not mentally well. She tries to evangelise to people, but she says strange things and scares people off. She entered the ado room as I was trying to pray and I was like "omg shit, please don't let her approach me, I don't know what to say to her leh," and I was scared and it shocked me that I was scared of her. I used to think that I was pretty cool with all kinds of people. Heh apparently not! And I screwed my eyes shut tight and pretended to pray. Totally not my proudest moment.

I heard her pottering about the room. I heard the clunk of pencils (for petition writing) and the rifling of paper. It went on for quite some time. "Be still my heart" I admonished, cause seriously my heart was beating very fast- I was so scared she would talk to me and I'd like provoke her into a rage or make her cry or something (I'm damn bad at unpredictability and people relations lah). When suddenly, there was silence. I opened my eyes and peeked, she was kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament on the opposite side of the room, and I was sitting down. And I sighed in relief at the distance between us.

I bent my head and scrutinised the bible trying to see if any word or phrase struck me and reaally tried to concentrate. Then a voice said, "hello, sorry to disturb, but got free book here, you want?" I froze. Then I forced myself to look up, and she was holding out the Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. Lol. Succour as in help as in the word I was screaming in my head. Lol. But I took it anyway, because hey, free what :p And then she talked to me some more.

But the thing was, the moment she talked to me, I was wary, but I wasn't frightened. I thought she'd spout weird, blasphemy things, and I'd have to try to dissuade her from that kind of thinking, but she didn't. Instead, she reminded me of God's love. Granted, some things were kinda strange, like her declaring she was the Lord's prophet, but that's acceptable cause we all are working for the Lord right, making straight the pathways of our (crooked) hearts and trying to spread this message of indescribable peace (and the longing for it which sometimes torments) and pure, giving love. But it struck me, as I listened and really listened, that she had such a kindness to her, and how difficult it must be to be ostracised and cast aside because people thought she wasn't right in the head. How to describe the plaintiveness with which she talked, the child-likeness.

She said, "God has blessed me, sometimes people say 'hi', and he tells me that to keep away from the devil, I must come to the Blessed Sacrament more often. He tells me that I can flee to the Blessed Sacrament." And she also said, "I try to be good. I helped the old lady carry her shopping, tie up the bag and everything, and carry to her home. I help escort the blind person. Sometimes at night I see young girls, and I tell them 'better call your parents to come fetch you, make sure you go home safely you know.'"

And I could see the kindness in her, the concern which however misguided it might have seemed to the people she talked to, stemming from sincerity. And I just knew that the Lord loved her so very much as his child. For FOC, my group was Pure-hearted, and for the longest time, I've been trying to understand what it means. There's some kind of humility involved, but the closest understanding I've come to, is that it has something to do with a purity of intention, to want to do what you think is the best for the other person, even if you're not necessarily right. And there's a bravery in that too. I thought to myself, "woahh, like I wouldn't have had the guts to escort a blind person anywhere," but she did because she knew it was goodness to do so.

I wouldn't say I was humbled by this experience, I was actually kinda dazed, but looking back on it, boy does God work in surprising ways and in the most surprising people. And it taught me that I was far from kind or brave, that these ideals I talked myself into wanting, they aren't just ideals, they're real and you can see it in the people who have them, and you love them for it, because they try so hard.