The Newest Chapter of Life

This post is finally breaking the ice. I feel like having ignored this space for ages. Now I make a new commitment to take more time on writing my life journal here in this blog. 

Many things have happened during the silence and absence on this page. I have to start a new page of the chapter in my life. The new chapter is all about how Covid-19 has surely changed everything; study plan and the way I see death. 

I started 2021 with a big hope that I could fly overseas and commenced my study in ANU on February 2021. Yet, reality was not as beautiful as the future plan I made on LPDP Life Grandmap. After getting the scholarhip, I went through several preparations on my study. IELTS preparation, official IELTS test, and university application went perfectly smooth as planned. Even the complicated study permission from my institution went quite well despite the fact that I had to go through level by level procedures. all was OK. However, the pandemic was getting worse, resulting in online delivered courses offered by universities as Australia  (my destination country) applied border restriction. I was not confident with that plan. Zoom classes might be super tired and full of losing internet connection drama, I used to think. So, I decided to defer my study to February 2022 by making a promise to myself that I will face whatever to come in the next year, even the worst is having online class from Indonesia. 

But life did not have its resolution right there. It created another gloomy yet glorious story I have ever had in my life. Losing both of my parents, seeing how God had an absolute authority towards His beautiful souls. My mother was in severe condition early January. It was the most different situation we had. She had suffered a complication quite long but it was the worst condition she had ever experienced. I got a phone call in the morning a day before she died. My sister told me that we had to be ready for the worst. Then, it happened. I witnessed how my mom took her last breath before going to her Saviour. We praised the Lord for the loss yet still needed time to heal. Even writing this blog is a kind of healing process I have to take. 

Did it end like that?

No. It continued with another depressing moment when my dad's health was deteriorated and then he was diagnosed with Covid-19. He passed away less than a month after mom's funeral. We did not have chance to make a funeral ceremony for him because he was burried under Covid protocol. Everything happened very fast, as fast as the wind blows. We were weeping for the loss. It surely was the hardest moment in our lives as for the first time in our lives we officially become orphans. Losing parents in the near time was not that easy as we haven't healed with the first wound, but another came to open it widely. At that time I lost my words. I did not know how to pray until my sister's pastor reminded us of the very beautiful prayer that our father had taught us since childhood. The Lord's Prayer. I never knew that the prayer could become the best healing for my soul. The pastor said, "everytime you pray this prayer, you call God as your own Father as He indeed has replaced your parents position to look after you". I bursted into crying but not for the loss. It was a thankful cry because I have got more than what I need. My Father in Heaven has now become so real to me. 

I did not anticipate that 2021 would be full of surprises. The changed plan and loss painted the days with their colour. Despite the sorrow it has brought, I am thankful for this life as I surely believe that I am loved by My Heavenly Father. Death is not that scary. It's real and around us. We are just waiting on the line until our time has come. While waiting for our turn, we should be ready for so many unexpected realities. Don't they make this life a real one? For it is not a life if it's not filled by unexpected surprises. 

2021, what else would you surprise me? I lean on the Lord for the rest of the days. Yes. I surrender to God for the rest.