grace
Yesterday I went fishing with two very good friends. Since they know that I am still a "poor student", they basically paid all the expenses of the trip and all I needed to do was to sit on a boat and fish. I didn't even need to drive. What an awesome treat!!! =) Fishing trips are so awesome. I love the scenery we get to enjoy during our ride to and from the lake. I enjoy the serenity and calmness while fishing on the lake. I love the quality time I can spend with my friends on the trip. I love the feeling of catching a fish, no matter how small it is. I love the sunset, love the breeze and water splashes coming from the lake while the boat is moving across the water...it's all the more fun when you are fishing with people who know how to fish, and funny people who always look at things on the positive side of the coin.
Lately I have been very blessed to have wonderful friends around me who are always happy to treat me. However, I often feel bad after being treated, and this destroys the treat. The meaning of the treat is for me to feel happy, but I often feel bad, and that I don't "deserve" to have so many treats showered on me.
No wonder it was so hard for Peter to let Jesus wash his feet. I find it harder to let people wash my feet than to wash other people's feet. Why is it so hard? I think it's because accepting grace requires a certain amount of humility. You have too feel that you "need" the grace in order to receive it. In a way you are in a "lower" position for you to be treated. Receiving God's grace requires a certain amount of humility as well. Grace is given, not earned. In other words you may not deserve it, but it's still given. We need to acknowledge our "neediness" before we are ready to accept grace from God, grace from others.
Unforgetable wedding, forgotten actions
I went to an awesome wedding today. It is the 2nd wedding that I've gone to this year and the bride is a friend of mine who lived in the same residence with me at U of T. It's kinda scary to see a friend my age getting married...but I was so happy for her today. The couple is so in love with each other, so in love with God, and they are so committed to following God's will all the days of their lives. I can see God's love shining through their relationship, their testimony touching many hearts who has joined their wedding celebration today. I saw many friends whom I haven't seen for a very long time, and two sisters and I actually had a chance during the banquet to pray for each other. I missed that community of prayer so much...I haven't prayed with someone for a very very long time...and I have almost forgotten the power of communal prayer.
I have forgotten about many things recently. I have forgotten how to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. I have forgotten the feeling of being close and in sync with God. I have forgotten the feeling of relief from emotional burdens. I have forgotten to keep in touch with friends because I have been so entrenched within my own problems.
It's time for me to remember what I have forgotten.
Freeeeeeedom
4 months of data gone from the computers at the clinic I work at...more than 400 patient records gone...everything is chaotic at the office, which adds stress and more work to everyone who works at the clinic. The office manager was very upset and worried about the operation of the clinic, I tried my best to give her support...but what can you really say to her to make her feel better when everything is in such a chaotic state?
Chaotic state in the office, chaotic state of mind at home. No matter how much patience I try to squeeze out, it's just very difficult to withstand the constant nagging and complaints from my parents. They seem to have a way to "comment" on every single thing that you do "wrong" (or not in their "best" way)...and the reason why they keep telling you the same thing a hundred times is because you are not doing the "right" thing.
I am only asking for a day of freedom. Freedom from nagging, freedom from chaos, freedom from exhaustion...I want to be freeeeeeeeee.
Endless chatting
I was supposed to have gone bowling with some friends tonight but didn't feel like going afterall, so I stayed home instead. I planned to do some leisure reading, but ended up going online for 3 hours! Argh! ICQ and MSN are big time wasters...but at the same time I feel blessed that I had an endless stream of people chatting with me. =) It took me close to an hour to say goodbye. It's such a wonderful feeling to know that when I am "online", people take the initiative to drop me a message and say hi. Even though I don't get to see them face to face, their hi's are like pats on my shoulder, telling me that I am loved. =)
What a great thought to end a weekend...to know that people love me. =) Jesus loves me too!
Still joyful
I think I have lost much of my joy lately. I remember a friend of mine used to call me the "Happy Nut", in Chinese is "Hoi-sum-gwoh", but it seems like my past several entries or even my mood in general has been a little gloomy lately. I didn't have to work today and was talking to a friend...then something he said triggered me to be a little upset. I know he didn't say that intentionally...it was meant to be a joke...something that would not bother me normally bothered me today.
Then I was trying to clean my room (still!) and I was organizing my letters and cards that people had given me. I was very much uplifted by the affection and care that people had shown me for the past 11 years since I came to Canada. These letters and cards brought me laughter and a fuzzy warm feeling, and I noticed that there are notably several people who wrote me the biggest pile of letters and cards...thank you thank you!!! It's always a blessing to realize how many people actually care about me and love me for who I am....and most importantly, I can see and taste God's love from these people. We all have the magic to touch the people around us. Today I was touched. I hope I can touch you with this blog, with my letters, cards, gifts, e-mails, or even personally someday. =)
My love and blessing goes to all my dear friends...that's YOU!!!! =)
And especially Gillian, Cat, Derek, Nicole, Edward, Fong Fong, Anlian, Gloria H, Kai-An, Claudia, Carmen, Anny & Kevin. =)
Some light from Yancey
This excerpt from Philip Yancey's
Disappointment with God has shed some light to my unfairness questions lately. Hope you'll enjoy reading it! =)
"...I believe there is no other answer to the question of unfairness. No matter how we rationalize, God will sometimes seem unfair from the perspective of a person trapped in time. Only at the end of time, after we have attained God's level of viewing, after every evil has been punished or forgiven, every illness healed, and the entire universe restored--only then will fairness reign. Then we will understand what role is played by evil, and by the Fall, and by natural law, in an "unfair" event like the death of a child. Until then, we will not know, and can only trust in a God who does know.
We remain ignorant of many details, not because God enjoys keeping us in the dark, but because we have not the faculties to absorb so much light. At a single glance God knows what the world is about and how history will end. But we time-bound creatures have only the most primitive manner of understanding: we can let time pass. Not until history has run its course will we understand how "all things work together for good." Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse."
I will find no fairness...until that day
I've been back to Toronto for more than a week now. It seems like I've been back for a long time already...I don't know where this feeling came from. I am slowly cleaning up my room, but it's still not as clean as I want it to be. My summer part-time job is going well, and God is using this job to train up my patience again. Yesterday I was kinda upset by a patient who was very rude and wrongly accused me of something that I thought was very unreasonable. The joy of being a receptionist...you always take the blame...the patients are never rude to the doctors.
The issue of "fairness" in this world is still on my mind...even though my family is recovering from the break-in, there has been a disruption in our lives that none of us wanted. However, I don't consider myself to be the "unlucky" one, coz we were actually quite fortunate and blessed when we think about what could have happened. Something at work yesterday triggered me to do more thinking in terms of fairness in this world. I met a patient yesterday, 12 years of age who lost his father just because someone was randomly firing bullets around the area where the patient lived. The bullet went straight into his father's heart...the child actually did CPR on his dad, and witnessed the death of his own dad whom he tried to save...I can't even imagine how tough it has been for this child to go through all these...
I understand that everything happens for a reason, and I still believe that. However I am only seeing a little side of this world and I am discouraged by the things that happen in this world and the people who live in it. I am looking forward to a day when there is no sadness, no tears but with love and fairness abounding everywhere.
When someone intrudes into your life
I still remember learning in social psychology about a belief that a majority of people holds. Most people don't believe that something "bad" would happen to them until it happens. This theory applies to everyone who believes that others can die from smoking, but "not me".
Today something that I would never imagine happening to me and my family happened. My house was broken in when the house was empty. Thank God that my dad didn't come back too early to meet the thief, or he would have been in danger. I am angry that someone out there is selfish enough to break into other people's homes, take what they want and go on with their own business. They have no idea how this act has affected us as a family. I am angry that there are people out there who steals, murders, abuses, rapes..you name it, thinking that it's OK to intrude and harm people's lives like this. What right do they have to intrude and mess up people's lives this way?
It's one thing to feel sad about something bad that has happened, but it's another thing to feel guilty, stupid, regret and anger about something bad that has happened, but also something that you could have easily prevented.
I can't help but to think about Job. How on earth can he say something like this when all his children died and all his possessions were gone in one day???
"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
and naked I will depart.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised."
-Job 1:21
