Hospitalisation Leaves – 3 Poignant Thoughts on My Recent Drama

Some two weeks ago when I was writing this post, I had a hospitalisation episode. This resulted in a three weeks hospitalisation leaves from which came this blog and other stuff. Because I had to spend so much time at home, I decided to be productive about my own personal life. Therefore, I started going into Udemy and learn all that I can. 

As I was penning down this post, I am coming to the end of my hospitalisation leaves. I have a few thoughts that I will want to share here. 

1. This hospitalisation leaves period is a time of enforced rest for my body

When I announced my hospitalisation and the leaves to my colleagues in my prayer group, one of the prayers that came forth was to pray that I will take advantage of this ‘enforced rest.’ It helped me to realise that perhaps this is true. God is bringing me to a period of enforced rest for my body. 

Reflecting on this, I think I have had a hectic schedule in the month of September and October. During this period, I was at least having two nights out for ministry on my weekdays per week. This means teaching one HopeSem class on Monday and attending one regular night class with Acts on Wednesday. I was a student in the latter. To top it off, my work can be hectic and mind draining some times. I was, in short, dying to go for my short holiday in Bali after October. 

And so having this three weeks hospitalisation leaves is akin to having a prolonged Sabbath break. This is good as I realised that I could intentionally spend this time doing productive stuff. This brings me to my next point.

2. I was able to seek God for further direction for my future

After coming back from the hospital and realising that I had to ground myself at home for the next three weeks, I decided that I cannot let the weeks fly past without being productive. Of course, at points, I was still playing my games, watching anime and reading manga. These are some of the ways that I spend my time entertaining myself. However, the weeks would have gone to waste if I spent my days like that. 

As mentioned in the beginning and my earlier posts, I went into Udemy to start learning new stuff. One of the new skills that I learned is how to create a blog with my own domain. This leads me to create this current website that you are seeing. I am learning other skills as well, such as cybersecurity and ethical hacking. This will help me to diversify my skillsets in preparation for the future. 

This period of time has also allowed me to seek God for further direction for the future. Learning new skills is one thing, but I was also asking God what will happen next. I heard some prompting from God which I have to verify. Nevertheless, I can ascertain that 2018 might be another year of preparation for me. I still do not know what I am preparing for. Maybe fatherhood? But there’s certainly more. 

3. I had to go back to work and not stay at home

I also realised that going back to work is compulsory. It sounds obvious enough but if I were to rest at home for much longer, I think I will become lazy and inactive. The past three weeks of resting has resulted in an inactive life. I was literally resting on the bed and sofa most of the time. The symptoms which resulted in this episode have improved. And at the point of penning this blog, I was mentally preparing myself back to work.

This is the correct thing to do. At some point when I was learning new things on Udemy, I was asking myself if I want to become a freelancer. This will of course give me more freedom. But God also reminded me that He gave me my current job for a reason. I must not find myself in a state of idleness. The key thing is to steward what He has given me so far and leave it to Him to lay out the path straight. As I typed this, the warning from Paul rings: not to be idle and find myself becoming disruptive to those around me (2 Thessalonians 3:6, NIV).

It really takes a lot of trust

As I walk out of this hospitalisation episode, I find it really takes a lot of trust in God to do a few things:

• Heal me of the symptoms
• Set future directions for life
• Work on my ministries
• Be productive etc

And as I was typing this post, the wisdom from Proverbs 3:5-6 came to my mind:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart 

and lean not on your own understanding; 

in all your ways submit to him, 

and he will make your paths straight. 

In a time of enforced rest, it really takes a lot of grit to trust God to do His work in my life. So let’s continue to trust in Him.