Mysterious...

April has been a month of ups and downs and many of you whom are close to my heart will know the downs. Ups, there have been plentiful too despite the downs. Went to Spain and Portugal with my husband and had a really splendid vacation (as do all our vacations except I didn't enjoyed HK too much the other time cos I went there half recovering from a flu and I simply cannot order food from solely mandarin menus with no pictures in a typical cantonese joint). I figure HK folks must have a very vivid imagination to be able to know what it taste or looks like just by looking at a bunch of mandarin words. OR they really know the menus at the back of their minds!

Now on the title mysterious. I was just uploading my pictures from my Europe vacation onto FB and just relooking at past albums from previous trips with Oonie. Was looking through the Taiwan album on FB in particular and stumbled upon 2 captions that I wrote on 2 different photos.

One of which I said something along the lines of "Yeah, the food and shopping's great but heard its better in Seoul, Korea. But I wouldn't know cos I've never been there". And lo and behold, our next trip was to Seoul. The other caption from also from the Taiwan photo album and went like "Oh look, it feels like we're in Europe and it looks like Spain or something". And yeah.. you got it... I just came back from Spain. TOTALLY not realising or not remembering what I said in my photo captions at all until I was glancing them through a year later. How uncanny is that? And mind you our travel destinations are seldom planned. What I mean when I said plan is that we're not the kind that will go "ok, let's go to XXXX in November, let's start saving from now on and book our tickets by latest dd/mm". We belong to the "shall we go somewhere this quarter? ok how about this? or how about that place? or this place? Mmm... shall we set aside a budget? but where shall we go then?" and it takes awhile for us to decide on a destination but once that's settled, usually the rest of the "planning" is relatively fast from there (maybe also cos my husband like to research on everything and he does the accommodation booking, etc very well).

I told my husband of the mysterious factor and he said "Quick, now say you wanna go to Vienna, Austria, Prague, etc". It kindda stirred my senses to realise how sometimes one can "self-prophesy" or proclaim certain things out of say fun or something and without realising the power behind what we say or proclaim. I suppose that's why there are many bible verses about the tongue:-

Proverbs 12:18, "Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing."
Ephesians 4:29, "29Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."
Psalm 141:3, "Set a guard over my mouth O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips."
Proverbs 15:1-4, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly, but the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness. The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. A wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit."
Matthew 12:37, "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."

I think the last verse is a good reminder to myself that sometimes certain things are better left unsaid if I don't want to be condemned. And whoever said "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me" oughtta think twice and carefully if words can never hurt people. On contrary, words pierce deeper than the physical hurt from sticks and stones. At least, this is how I feel.