nbn – not being nice

Do you have any prayer requests today? – “I want internet…”

I cringed the second I muttered those three words, it was the epitome of a first world trivial issue, in a time where people are dying from a respiratory disease and trying to keep their jobs. But I was 3 seconds too deep into this prayer request in a 12 person zoom life group (which I was lurking back and forth via Internet and Dial-up), to retract this prayer request would be equally as embarrassing as mentioning in the first place. It’s like letting people open up to a “Message Deleted” on WhatsApp group chat, but already seeing the message preview on their notifications. LOL.

nbn is The Australian Gov’s way of over-complicating the internet service for all ordinary Australians, allowing to more public servants to receive extra commissions in the name of “serving”. Yes, this is coming from another public servant. I’ve never known the true meaning behind this acronym for our Gov’s fancy new service and I can’t be bothered finding out, because plainly, it’s just not being nice – to me. We’ve moved into a nice brand new build-home, just in time to be locked down in it, with no internet. My neighbour in this duplex has it and I’ve been rotating through all the call-centres in the Philippines for an ISP that can provide me a decent internet/nbn technician appointment, explaining to them the geography of my location because, they truly, do not know. This is a product of globalisation, asking third-worlds to solve a first-world problem. I’ve been sending my mobile phones to the freezer to survive their overheating episodes while I do video-conferencing for work, getting redirected to the Philippines again via a Sydney number and hot-spotting for my desktop. Again, a first-world nightmare.

I have gone cold-turkey on Youtube and Netflix over the past week, as someone who survived the Victorian Stage 4 lockdown solely on those two services, I am distraught, given that we are in this 3rd lockdown. This probably explains my second day of consecutive blogging because clearly, texts take up less data that videos…

But yes, amongst this “distressing” trivial issues which a 6-month younger self would roll her eyes upon, I am extremely grateful for an otherwise smooth transition to this house. Any move would not be a move without a hiccup, something is surely bound to happen and what is a God journey without its challenges. No one, including a pastor’s wife, is spared.

My heart dropped when we heard one of the pastor’s wives at church got cancer 2 days ago, she was one of the few individuals who stepped up and prayed so fervently when my own dad was going through cancer himself (still is, but more stable now Hallelujah). Her faith and her kindness was so beyond what I could ever imagine, she was smart and she was goals. What awed me the most was when she said, that she was “at peace”, despite being scheduled in for an emergency procedure in 2 days time.

I was pretty sure my friend who asked me for any prayer requests was probably looking in for an update about my dad. I’ve been so grateful and blessed to be placed in a diverse group of people (many not that connected to church so I know they won’t be victims of Chinese Whispers), who pray for each other, regardless of circumstance or closeness in our friendships/relationships.

Although, I don’t what half of these people are going through, but they all know so much about what I went through last year that I feel borderline selfish in hogging prayers (now about my internet, omg! the audacity!) Yes I am a bit self-critical with my prayer-requests, don’t @ me, it’s a first world church-goer problem.

While I’m here analysing the trivialisation of prayers, God’s probably laughing at me (or not, maybe borderline confused/annoyed). I do know that He is sovereign and there is no problem that is too big or too small for Him to handle. Yes, a bit of youth leader/Sunday school talk right here. I just needed to take this whole round with myself because, I was not being nice to myself. I gave this exact talk to my youth group when they asked me what they can request in prayers. When I said “anything”, I ended up praying for the girls to get “bigger boobs”, because it was 80% of the prayer requests, from a demographic of 16-17 year old high school girls.

While there is no such thing as an absurd prayer, I have also learnt over the years that not ALL prayers necessarily get answered (or probably just extremely delayed) because God has His own timings. I’ve learned to revolve my prayers around God’s plan and His timing, to help me learn to accomodate and accept His ways and plans for my life, to guide me through the journey that He has laid out for me. I’ve learnt to surrender my issues, my father’s health and life, my plans, into His hands. We would never have that blueprint to that plan for our lives and it’s that blind-faith and peace I really aspire to have just like our pastors wife.

I have no nice conclusion to this piece but… please leave a comment if you actually know me, because I just realised I have far more real-life lurkers than I thought (I forget, I’m sorry). This whole time I always thought I’m talking to myself and a bunch of virtual Russian/US readers or potentially bots…. (it’s what the stats tell me).

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