Into the bottleneck

The month of September is truly one that has been filled with all bad news to so many of my loved ones. And it happened one after another and another and another...

First was my g/f's family feud (but that's slowly turning out into a happy ending. Tomorrow her sister, her fiancee & herself will be sitting together for dinner first time in years. Praise God both parties agreed to it! A sign of reconciliation in deed.)
Next, two of my bros in Christ who has been so broken cos ppl in the past who call themself Christians have hurt them so bad that God is now a very foreign word to them. Then came news of my church split which has really shattered me as well as a lot of the other members. Then there's Chieny's health, Simon nearly losing his hand thanks to the glass that shattered onto him, followed by Kelv's right eye (which was so badly infected that he nearly lost his sight permanently. Praise God it's getting better... ) and finally today, baby Jazica who's nearly 1y.o (my ex-church member), went for her monthly check up only to find out from the doc that she's got a heart murmur which is hereditary (the whole church is now praying that this hereditary illness will be broken in Jesus name!).

September is truly what Melissa calls it 'the bottleneck period' where if or should I say when we come through it, we will in deed be in a place overflowing with milk and honey... The process of going through the bottleneck and then coming out of it would definitely mould us into a stronger & more appreciative person than before. How true in deed.

To some extent, I am grateful for going into this 'bottleneck' as God has really given me the strength to perservere so that I too, am able to give strength & encouragement to others in times of need. The most surprising thing is that, through all this, my 'healing process' has really sped up all b/c I know that there are ppl out there who has it more tough than me and I've learned to appreciate what I had and went through. My past shall now become a distant memory..

On a positive note --> at work, I've been selected as part of the Culture Team (a group of 4 of us). Basically, the culture team is kinda like HR where we are responsible to drive P&G's culture of 'work life balance' to enable every employee in the VIC office (approx 70+ staff) to be productive, to have fun and full of pride in our company. Another words, we are literally in charge of the office's morale. So the fun tasks include organising events in the calendar year (eg. Spring Racing carnival, Christmas, Easter, Valentine' s Day, Chinese New Year etc) and bringing it to life in the office (eg. FOOD/PARTY). The serious side of the role however, we'll be conducting surveys to each employee and assessing how the office culture is every quarter. Then based on the feedback, the culture team is responsible for making a series of recommendations to the Board of Directors who resides in Sydney (P&G H/Q). Should be fun!

The other big news which was a shock to me (as I absolutely did not expect it at all) is that at the All Employee's meeting today (where every single person from P&G must attend/ dial-in to the conference call from every State), there was a section on Recognition & Rewards and apparently I was selected as the 'star performing employee' on my 'outstanding' work on Shopper Based Design at Coles. And apparently, I was awarded $45! (yes, I know what ye thinking! better than nothing I guess =) The reason I say apparently is because I was not even there at the All Employees meeting cos of my Olay Brand Strategy Meeting with Coles! URGH!!

But hey, All Praise & Honour Be Unto God cos without Him I seriously could not have gotten any breakthrough with Coles this year!