Dear God,

I have been always asking you to bless with the gift of encouragement. I want to be like Barnabas, encouraging people in their faith and their walk with you. I have done my best to do so. But there seems to be no Barnabas for me, even though I tried to play Barnabas to others.

Was I too ambitious to ask to be Barnabas? Did I think that I was the perfect person to encourage? Have I over-estimate my own capacity to carry the burdens of others, and in the end, they become too heavy to bear?

Perhaps so.. I mean, I've seen enough to know that I should never never expect people to pay me back whatever I offer to them. I've told myself many many times that there is no way to measure what I have done to other to what I expect as rewards. I've readied myself to receive what is to come, constantly reminding myself that it will turn out to be really bad.

But it's beyond my imagination that things turn UGLY.

Maybe I have not get ready enough. Maybe to me, I still have this nice nice fluffy feelings about what a church is like...

I guess being a late bloomer is always subjected to these things. I always come to know about this thing later than others...

I do think that it's unfair that I am always on the receiving end.

Argh.

I am as helpless as I am now. Argh.

amen.