The Soundtrack of GuardiAngel's Journey

GuardiAngel is back from India... but not all of him. A part of my heart will always be in India… And well… I lost my pride there too. A realization took place there… one so major that the entire existence of GuardiAngel was threatened…


So much happened in this 40-day trip that I filled up a 140-page diary there. So I'll summarize the main events through the songs God spoke to me with, and let you have a glimpse of my trip through…
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The Soundtrack of GuardiAngel's Journey


I don’t know
Where your journey goes,
Or how long it will take to unfold.
But as long
As we keep this moment shining in the dark,
I will be watching over
Every beat of your heart.


On the 3rd of Jan I left Singapore to the tunes of Corrinne May’s Every Beat of My Heart. The sendoff was amazing and had the guard commenting on the large number of friends I had. Hugged every one of them before leaving. All but one actually…


I had tied up most of the loose ends with the people I was taking care of so I could go without looking back and prayed that God would take care of the rest of them as I leave. So armed with a single piece of paper with the name of the person I was to meet on the other side (whom I didn’t know), I boarded my plane. My return ticket would bring me back only after 40 days, and I needed to learn to not just survive there, but live victoriously till then.


You’re on fire when he’s near you
You’re on fire when he speaks
You’re on fire burning at these mysteries


I didn’t find my host upon arrival on foreign soil, but the peace of God was with me. Someone eventually came up to me; he was holding a piece of paper with my name spelt so badly that it appeared as a different name- that was why I didn’t notice him before. So I arrived with the peace and presence of God, and Switchfoot’s On Fire sounded my anthem as I settled in.


[ On day 7 of my stay, the song Forrest Meets Forrest by Alan Silvesti for the movie Forrest Gump transported me back to a moment during one of my prayer walks in the park back home, listening to the same song and looking up at the sun shining through the canopy. ]


I’ve know sorrow
I have known pain
But there’s one thing
That I’ll cling to
You are faithful
Jesus you’re true


Just a week after landing, Tim Hughes’ When The Tears Fall was my song. Now cut off from my support back at home… I could not stand any more. I also didn’t see God working much here and felt very much alone. Something was taken away from me… and I was surprised how quickly I fell. I thought I’d just depend on God and it’ll all be fine… but I was not used to depending on him… not to this extent of every moment of my time. I was wearing out, and I was in tears. But the very absurd Juxtaposition of this song… praising God in tears of sorrow… was realized in that moment of crying out to him, in desperation and surrender.


Mighty, awesome, wonderful
Is the holy cross
Where the lamb laid down his life
To lift us from the fall
Mighty is
The power of
The cross


God spoke in undeniable ways that I only just began noticing. On Day 14 I was watching a caesarian section delivery. It was quick, it was bloody, and it was a life and death situation. When the baby was pulled out, I was just praying for it to cry, for it to scream, for it to live because if it didn’t make it through these few minutes… it would not make it. Then… It cried. And I cried. Tears of joy came running down my surgical mask covered cheeks. And Chris Tomlin’s song, Mighty is the Power of the Cross, began playing in my head. That song was God sent- who thinks about death on a cross when seeing the birth of a child? Thinking of how God was absolutely humble and humbled to enter the world in this bloody and humble way, I wept all the more. It was too much to fathom… too much to handle… The great and powerful came through the weak and meek to die for the evil and unrighteous. It’s a miracle indeed; still a mystery.


Stir it up in our hearts
A passion for your name


On the morning of Day 15 I listened to Tim Hughes’ Consuming Fire, my anthem of the year 2005 in preparation for leading Devotion. Filled once again, I walked into devotion.


Heart of my own heart
Whatever befall
Still be my vision
O ruler of all


I used the hymn Be Thou My Vision to lead devotion. I talked about heart and about mind, about passion and about direction. I felt it was something very relevant, and also something they could understand because it was such a common and famous song. And after I finished, I invited everyone to stand and sing the hymn. They began looking at each other and I figured they were not used to standing for songs, so I encouraged them again. Then I began singing the song and found out the original reason for their hesitation was not standing. They did not know the song. The closing song ended up being my very first solo.


I want to live like there’s no tomorrow
I want to dance like no one’s around
I want to sing like nobody’s listening
Before I lay my body down
I want to give like I have plenty
I want to love like I’m not afraid
I want to be the man I was meant to be
I want to be the way I was made


Day 21 was an important day for me. I was lying down on the 3rd level bunk on a train during a 7-hour journey back to the hospital from a medical camp in a rural area. I updated my diary and listened to my music to pass the time after I had slept enough. God sometimes isolates us by taking away things to do so we can’t ignore him any further. And this was one such day.


Chris Tomlin’s The Way I Was Made played and I enjoyed the music greatly. This was my theme song of the year 2007, because it sounded out exactly what I was and wanted to be. Then I was struck with the question… Why is it I only felt that way back home, and not here? Before I could ponder over that question, other emotions began coming my way. Songs like Corrinne May’s Fly Away and Everything In It’s Time made me think of home and basically brought out all the emotions that had been plaguing me all this while that I could not control. I could not want to stay any longer; I could not will myself to go on smiling when I really want to be home. I did not want to go back to the hospital for a long and tough week of teaching and video editing and mainly meaningless jobs. They needed doctors and I was not one, so I basically did odd jobs that they could find for me. But at the same time I did not want to listen to my heart and go back home now, for I would have nothing to say to all my supporters, both financial and emotional. I’d have to press on no matter how much I hated it. Emotions will come. Negative emotions will come, but that does not make you a bad person. Anyone in such a situation would naturally feel this way. The deciding factor is how you respond. But to tell you honestly about how I responded… I failed. At this very moment in time, I realized, that deep down inside, I did not want to save the world.


I think we’ve been here before
I recognize this place
I’ve seen the mark of confusion
Wipe out a single sign of grace


It was at this time that Corrinne May’s Let It Go played


So before we circle
Round once more
I’m gonna lay down
Lay down my pride


And God allowed me to finally realize what was wrong. My heart was still back home. It was not here with me in all that I was doing. I was hesitant to put my heart into anything I did here; hesitant to form friendships, hesitant to start working on the computer, hesitant even to teach English to the nurses, something I knew I could do. And so… in recognizing the pathetic way things turned out when I did them my way, I gave my heart to the Lord and asked him to talk over for the final week that I was in the hospital and just help me clear this mess that I began.


Praise you God of earth and sky,
How beautiful is your unfailing love


The 29th Night in India was my second last night at the hospital, and the first time I fully enjoyed the view from outside my room. I had never been busier here, needing to tie up the loose ends of my work, pack my bags, prepare for tomorrow’s final devotion sharing and also write to my support back home. But I stopped to enjoy the view, to fill myself before going for the longest day in my life, and to appreciate something that deserves to be appreciated. The rain had just fallen, the sun had set, and the cold winds blew at my face. From my room on top of the hill I overlooked the huge farm plain. Though there was not a single lamp in the field, I could see everything clearly through the moonlight. The rain had just flooded several fields and they were of a different shade than the rest. The cool winds continued to sweep by me and I took off my jacket to fully enjoy their embrace. Standing before such an awesome scene, God put the chorus of Chris Tomlin’s Unfailing Love in my head that caused me to worship him and pray for 2 of my un-reached friends back home. It was at this time, that one of them got saved. Wow. But I didn’t know till I returned.


Your mercy found me
Upon a broken road
Lifted me beyond my failing


The next morning I plugged in my mp3 as I took breakfast alone. The doctor was still asleep and Hillsong’s Where The Love Lasts Forever began playing. I had always liked this song. It spoke of being picked up by a loving God from a useless state and situation we were in. But today… it meant more. Tears began to flow as I realized how much more this song means to me now that I failed here and needed to be picked up from my pathetic state by a merciful and loving Father, who used me in my weakness to show his glory. That set the stage for my final sharing and I ended my devotional with an intentional solo- strumming off to the tunes of Chris Tomlin’s How Great is Our God. It no longer mattered to me that I projects here were still incomplete. I was doing it for God, and I was already feeling the satisfaction for my work. So I left the hospital with their blessings, and a victorious spirit.

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Amazing grace! how sweet the sound
That saved a wreck like me!
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.


Day 38 and I was still in India. The hospital projects were done, the medical camps were over, and the spiritual lessons were already learnt long ago. Why then did God make me spend the last 4 days of my trip in the city people call The Black Hole!?


’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!


Indeed true. Yes I know. I know. He helped me through when I was weak and I was now spiritually victorious, but can we please get on with our life now! I have many people waiting for me back home and these last few days here are killing me with anticipation. And not just that, I don’t feel as comfortable here, I’m just passing through and really, it’s draining me to meet up and talk to people here whom I’ll really not see for the rest of my life.


Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace have brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.


YES! This is where I have come, and this is where I stand. I’ve been through a lot, and I really want to go home. But why am I feeling so uncomfortable? Why am I feeling so queasy? Why do I want to go home so badly that I can’t bear to live hear any longer? And why was John Newton’s Amazing Grace appearing so very often in this visit?


When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.


Because I’m not at perfection yet; God was not finished with me. And the final thing he wanted for me to learn on this trip, was not something I had to get into my system, but out of. I was proud. Of what I had done here, of the fact that I have had an experience that no one else I knew enjoyed, of the fact that people were actually waiting for me to return, and of the fact that I felt necessary. If I had gone straight home from victory, I would have stepped on so many while my head was in the clouds. So for the second time this trip, I came crashing down, crying and broken, before the Lord. I had failed. Again. And as I muttered repentance before a cross stitched picture showing the hymn Amazing Grace, I noticed next to it was a heart shaped cushion on the wall, on which the word “Peace” was written. And indeed… I felt it at long last.


She’s watched me as I crawled and stumbled
As a child she was my world
And now to let me go I know she bleeds


Emotionally charged, I went to take a bath and began thinking of many people at home. And when I imagined losing them, I began crying again. I had thought of the 2 whom I was praying for on the 29th night and was heartbroken at the idea of losing them before they were saved, and I cried all the more. Then I thought of my parents. It was almost 40 days away from home, and I sang 2 songs in my bathroom in tribute to them; 2 songs that I felt were absolutely fitting for who they were to me. As I sang Corrinne May’s Fly Away and Dan Fogelberg’s Leader of the Band, I began weeping, just at the mere thought of losing either of them. I love my mom and dad, and I missed them. I wanted to make sure that I showed that more when I returned, and make those final lines of Leader of the Band be proven wrong:


Thank you for the music
And stories of the road
I thank you for the freedom
When it came my time to go,
I thank you for the kindness
And the times when you got tough
“And Papa, I don’t think,” I said,
“I love you near enough”

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Honestly speaking, my homecoming was a non-event. I arrived in the wee hours of the morning and life went on the way it did. People were asking about the trip at church, and many were glad that I made it back, but no one got emotional seeing me. The ones who had depended on me before had found alternative sources of help and one of the 2 whom I was so concerned about had accepted Christ during my trip. But though the re-entry was tough, God had prepared me for it by breaking me during the stopover in the black hole, and with a humbled spirit I was not disappointed at the insignificance of my return. And he closed this very personal chapter of my life with a song too, one that summed up my trip, my emotions, and my current thoughts. On the night of Day 40 I was back on home ground, at a Cliff Richard concert, and moved to tears by God- through the song Faithful One.


I find no hope within to call my own
For I am frail of heart, my strength is gone
But deep within my soul is rising up a song
Here in the comfort of the faithful one


I walk a narrow road through valley deep
In search of higher ground on mountain steep
And though with feet unsure, I still keep pressing on
For I am guided by the faithful one


I see your wounded hands, I touch your side
With thorns upon your brow, you bled and died
But there’s an empty tomb and love for all who come
And give their hearts to you- the faithful one


Faithful, faithful to the end
My true and precious friend
You have been faithful, faithful
So faithful… to me


And from the starry sky there shines on me
An everlasting hope of liberty
And when the day is done, and when the race is won
I will bow down before God’s only son


And I will lift my hands
In praise of all you’ve done
And I will worship you
The faithful one


Faithful one