In the Quietness, I am Grateful...

One of the “good” things about having a hectic schedule is that when you finally get a short break, you want to make sure you use the time well.

Simply relaxing on the couch, or waking up from a cozy bed and to a quiet home in which I can rise and decide what I want to do that day—becomes a great blessing. I know that the tests and essay deadlines and concentration on Greek and Hebrew memorization will come again—for that, I need to make goals, lest I let the time dwindle away, and before I know it, I’m back to the hectic schedule again.

I tried getting back to writing my short stories yesterday. I faced great difficulty pushing the story forward, and once again, remember what it felt like to hate everything I write. I have a deadline pressing—and had promised my mentor in October that I would have this story done. I sit in front of the computer screen, and wonder again, whether I have it in me. Doubt takes over, as it often does. Have I forgotten what this story is about?

I had met with my mentor during reading week in the fall. He read my collection of four short stories, and had one general remark to make. To paraphrase him, he had said: “You create characters who want things, but it’s clear to the reader they can’t have it. But you make your characters try anyway. It’s perverse in a way, because they can’t have it, and yet it’s human nature to try and get it… It seems that the writer knows that she is antagonizing the reader, and it’s intriguing the way she tries… You make the characters suffer, but yet are sympathetic to your characters…” Later, my mentor had added, “The characters in your stories are struggling for something… but it seems that beyond the surface, they are struggling for something else, and yet you can’t pinpoint exactly what that is…”

I smile inside when he makes that last statement. Because I can answer that. It’s GOD. Even though I am in seminary, I try to be faithful to the characters—as challenging as it is. They must fail. They must sin. They must say what they need to say—whether the words are evil or good. I hope I don’t shove God in their faces simply because I’m the characters’ creator. But, deep inside the creator is the underlying belief that without God, there is no order, no design, no purpose, no hope. Yes—you live your life struggling, wanting something you don’t know that you want, or need, but it’s missing. I don’t come right out and say it, but that’s how I feel about my own life—and upon hearing my mentor’s statement, it was good that even at the subliminal level, he had felt it too.

So here I am, sitting in front of one of my stories again, which my mentor has encouraged me to take another stab at—and to stay focused on what the characters want and convey that. Maybe I’m suffering writer’s block because I’ve got to know what they want first before I can write it out.

It’s easy and hard to submit your writing time to God. Because you have to believe that when you whisper the prayer, you really are offering that time to God. Everything I do, Lord, is yours—may it bring glory to you. May I do it all for you… thank you for this break… thank you for this time… thank you, thank you, thank you.

The Forgotten Family

It seems like every Puritan and Evangelical Spirituality class I attend inspires me in some way. Last night’s lecture was an introduction to Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). Edwards’ belief was that the heart of society is the family: if the family goes, society goes. Christian piety, then, begins in the home.

The professor went on to scratch the surface of Edwards’ marriage and the upbringing of his children—how his strong and godly wife created an environment in the home that enabled Edwards to spend his life pursuing the activities of God (as we learned earlier from Richard Baxter—marriage was one of the most important aspects of his life, as it was part of the sanctifying process). Samuel Hopkins, who studied under Edwards and also lived with his family for one and a half years (and therefore observed his life through an intimate lens), was the first to write a biography on Edwards; briefly mentioned in lecture was the observation that his children were all very well-behaved.

Looking at the disintegrating values of today’s family can be disheartening at times—even among Christian circles. In the days of the Puritans, spirituality began in the home. In J. I. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness, A Puritan Vision of the Godly Life, he writes about the Lord’s Day from the perspective of the Puritans: “The family must function as a religious unit on the Lord’s Day… The head of the house must conduct family prayers twice a week, take the family to church, and examine and catechize the children and servants afterwards to make sure that they had thoroughly absorbed the sermon. The principle here is that the man of the house has an inalienable responsibility to care for the souls of the household, and that it is on the Lord’s Day supremely that he must exercise it.”

On my wedding day, at the reception, I had delivered a short speech to each of my family members. I had said to my parents, genuinely and with more emotion than they might have witnessed, that their greatest gift to me was my faith in God. The times they had spent nurturing, praying, training, and disciplining me (sometimes, in the early teenage years, against my will) in living out the Word of God has been instrumental to who I am now.

Now that my sister is a mother of two, I see the fruits of our parents’ labour and love passed on to the next generation. I have had the privilege of praying with my sister and her two-year-old before bedtime only a few times, and my heart softens whenever I see this little girl learning from her mom how to thank the Lord for the good things that take place in her life every day. When I had cracked my teeth against the door a couple of weeks ago, upon hearing the news from her mother, my niece, had, for the first time, gone off on her own without the prompting of her mom to pray to God for my healing. How beautiful, how miraculous, how hopeful it is to see the Spirit working in even the little ones. Which calls to mind the verse in Matthew 19:14: “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Yet it takes hard work, perseverance, and godly devotion to raise children in this way. To not merely shelter them from the corruption and suffering of the world, but to teach them about the good—so that, one day, they can go out into the world and share the goodness—just as God has instructed us to do.

My sister, mother of two, is tired much of the time. Sometimes, when I’m exhausted from my constant study and paper-writing, I think of all my mother-friends as a consolation (at least the computer doesn’t scream, cry, or rebel at you). At the same time, I stand back in awe at the immense love and godliness that abounds in my sister’s household. When you speak to her or her family, you realize that they are a family that seeks faithfully not to conform to the ways of this world (how many of us live Christian lives to the extent that the faith benefits us, comforts us, revives us, but not others?). Even with the little time that they have, their door is always open, ready to demonstrate to those in need the saving, sweet reality of Jesus Christ.

And when I begin to witness these values manifested in the lives of their two girls, I think about what Edwards teaches about the values of family and its lasting impact on the world around us, and I have to remind myself what a serious role I have, now that I'm a wife, and in the future, God willing, that I become a mother.

Here are a few more moving snapshots:

My two-year-old niece can now pray the Lord’s Prayer-and can even put her own spin on some of the verses to personalize them.

At dinner last week, my niece was eating a biscuit her mom had given her; then she had asked, “Is there more Mommy?” And my sister had said, “No, you took the only one.” And upon hearing that, she had extended her arm out to my husband, and said, “Yee cheung (uncle), you want it?” Inside me, I saw this in the child: that wanting more and discovering that there was none left, her instinctive action was to give the last of it to someone else.

Yes, piety begins in the home.

C’est la vie…

Exhausted this weekend. Didn’t get much down time.

During worship yesterday, after the sermon, I slipped out of the sanctuary to use the washroom. Afterward, upon opening the doors to return to the sanctuary, a man was coming out of the sanctuary at the same time. As a result, the metal door swung open and slammed into my mouth. The impact caused my upper teeth to cut the inside of my upper lip and one of my bottom teeth was chipped off.

Several people who witnessed the accident rushed to my assistance. I was grateful for the water, napkins, and their concern. I couldn’t speak for the first few moments because of the pain (but seeing the blood on my hands, everyone thought I had broken my nose).

In the midst of pain, however, my main fear was what my teeth looked like. Everyone said it looked fine, until my husband saw me and confirmed the chipped tooth (“You’re still hot, don’t worry,” he assures. “At least your upper lip absorbed most of the impact and you didn’t lose your upper tooth.”).

The rest—I leave to the dentist. Hopefully it can be easily repaired (the exasperating thing is that I have as little time as it is—now I have to allocate time to get my teeth fixed).

C'est la vie. No sense in worrying anymore about it.

Now back to the books...

A Biblical Inspiration for Marriage

This week in my Evangelical Spirituality class, we listened to a lecture on the Puritan’s view of marriage. The past few weeks, we have been following the Puritan model of spirituality (reading intensively J.I. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness, The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life), and in this short time, I already feels its impacts on my own personal spiritual walk with God. This week’s lecture, in particular, in discussing the beauty and sanctifying process of marriage, touched me greatly. So much so that I urged Lee to read the lecture too, which is why the big booklet is presently lying on his nightstand next to the bed.

In shedding light on the Puritan view of marriage, Richard Baxter was our model in the most recent class. The professor presented passages from Baxter’s A Christian Directory [or A Sum of Practical Theology, and Cases of Conscience, The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter (London: James Duncan, 1830), IV, 30]; being married, his words offered me much inspiration regarding me and Lee’s relationship, spiritually. Here were his words regarding the friendship between husband and wife:

“It is a mercy to have a faithful friend, that loveth you entirely, and is as true to you as yourself, to whom you may open your mind and communicate your affairs, and who would be ready to strengthen you, and divide the cares of your affairs and family with you, and help you to bear your burdens, and comfort you in your sorrows, and be the daily companion of your lives, and partaker of your joys and sorrows. And it is a mercy to have so near a friend to be a helper to your soul; to join with you in prayer and other holy exercises; to watch over you and tell you of your sins and dangers, and to stir up in you the grace of God, and remember to you of the life to come, and cheerfully accompany you in the ways of holiness.”

My heart was moved to tears in hearing these words read in lecture (my immediate thought was that this passage should be quoted at all marriage ceremonies!). Much of it owing to the experiences I had with Lee, and how much we have grown in the past two years—day by day, God teaching us more about how to trust in Him and how to live in obedience to Him—using our marriage as a way to give greater glory to His name (we’re still learning). He and I had known each other for almost ten years prior to our marriage, but it wasn’t until we were married, and the various obstacles we’ve had to face in our marriage, that we have truly grown—but how wonderful it is to know that God is gracious, and it is never too late to venture back onto the rightful path of obedience.

How beautifully Baxter portrays marriage: your husband or wife is someone who cares as much about your soul as yourself—who does not allow you to stay on that path of sinfulness, who voices to you, honestly and lovingly, the error of your ways, because it pains him or her to watch you lose yourself in the distorted and crooked ways of the world. And then to “stir up in you the grace of God”—how brilliantly articulated—as if he or she is fanning the flame of grace so that his or her Beloved would return once again to the warmth of being in the holy and forgiving presence of God. How much closer can two lovers be than that?

Before I go off to catch up on my Hermeneutics readings, I can’t help but list the instructions Baxter provides in the same book regarding maintaining love in marriage [IV, 117-119]. Those who are going to get married or are married, I encourage you to reflect deeply on Baxter’s points:

1. Choose one at first that is truly amiable.

2. Marry not till you are sure that you can love entirely.

3. Be not too hasty, but know beforehand all the imperfections, which may tempt you afterwards to loathing.

4. Remember that justice commandeth you to love…until death.

5. Remember that woman are ordinarily affectionate, passionate creatures, and as they love much themselves, so they expect much love from you.

6. Remember that you are under God’s command; and to deny conjugal love to your wives, is to deny a duty which God hath urgently imposed on you.

7. Remember that you are relatively, as it were, one flesh.

8. Take more notice of the good, that is in your wives, than of the evil. Let not the observation of their faults make you forget or overlook their virtues.

9. Make not infirmities to seem odious faults, by considering the frailty of the sex, and of their tempers, and considering also your own infirmities, and how much your wives must bear with you.

10. Stir up that most in them into exercise which is best, and stir not up that which is evil; and then the good will most appear, and the evil will be as buried, and you will easilier maintain your love. There is some uncleanness in the best on earth; yet if you will be daily stirring in the filth, no wonder if you have the annoyance; and for that you may thank yourselves: draw out the fragrancy of that which is good and delectable in them, and do not by your own imprudence or peevishness stirrup the worst, and then you shall find that even your faulty wives will appear more amiable to you.

11. Overcome them with love; and then whatever they are in themselves, they will be loving to you, and consequently lovely. Love will cause love, as fire kindleth fire. A good husband is the best means to make a good and loving wife. Make them not forward by your frorward carriage, and then say, we cannot love them.

12. Give them examples of amiableness in yourselves; set them the pattern of a prudent, lowly, loving, meek, self-denying, patient, harmless, holy, heavenly life. Try this a while, and see whether it will not shame them from their faults, and make them walk more amiably themselves.

Several hundred years later, such teachings on marriage from Baxter are still imperative for a loving, and holy marriage. The Bible is living… and speaks to us even in the present day; and for that, I look at Lee, my husband, and consider all the possible obstacles that shall present themselves in the future, and feel assurance, rest, and hope. For that, I say, Amen.

Persevering in the Midst of Weakness

For one thing, seminary studies has cured my insomnia. I realized that if I don’t spend every waking moment studying (if I’m not cleaning, cooking, tutoring, or in church), I will fall behind. I think about the end of the term in December and have trouble imagining the light at the end of the tunnel. With Hebrew and Greek quizzes/tests every week—I feel like I’m drifting farther and farther into a fog.

It has been a while since I’ve been in this place. I guess when you pick a major in university and when you’re working, you choose to study and work in the settings where you “shine,” or at the least, are somewhat good at. I loved studying English literature at York and the essays demanded a lot of me, but I never felt like I was pushing water uphill or anything (are you loving my clichés?).

Back in high school, however, I fought to do well in certain subjects (in particular, the OAC maths) and I fought just as hard to pass my ARCT piano exam. I was never good at these two areas—but managed to survive them through intense discipline—and prayer. For piano, I was determined to pass, partly to get it over with, partly to please my mom and my piano teacher, and partly because I didn’t want any future child of mine pointing at my past and reserving his/her right to quit something he/she couldn’t do: “Well, Mom, you quit.” I remember that grueling summer when I forced myself to practice the piano for eleven hours a day, for four months. Ultimately I got an Honours in my piano exam; acquaintances who hear about my piano background are impressed (since I barely touch the piano nowadays), and I feel obliged to tell them that I’m not a “good” piano player—just that I had worked very hard to reach the finish line.

My dad, in explaining his success, has said, “I’m not smart, I’m just a very hard worker.” I have to say, this reality must have been passed down to me genetically. I never thought I was a smart person either (I looked at everyone around me and very often felt inferior to them), and when people say this about me, I have to quickly dismiss the remark. In my mind, where I am now, is a product of daily discipline—reading and writing, reading and writing, reading and writing.

So here I am again—these subjects before me that are causing immense frustration—and I can see myself wanting to cry out of fear that I may not be able to obtain a satisfactory mark. In my brighter moments, I pray to God and thank Him for humbling me. As one of our language professors has said—studying the languages can teach us to persevere. The goal, of course, is to be able to read the Bible in both languages, and thereupon unlock the door to understanding and appreciating the Bible more. I am already relishing in tidbits of discoveries that our professors happen to mention in class—for example, the word “repentance” in Greek means doing a 180 degree turn, or that in Greek, unlike in English, the subject, verb and noun can be arranged in different orders in the sentence based on their emphasis.

Lee comes home and sees how tired I am (granted, he’s tired too). Oftentimes he is gracious, telling me I don’t have to cook dinner or offering me a massage—but I am stubborn, and refuse to use the excuse of a heavy workload to abandon my responsibilities in the home. I can pull it all off, I say to myself.

I’ll end this blog by saying that aside from my exhausting schedule, I do anticipate each day. And I must say, if I did not work for four years as a Technical Writer, I would not appreciate these days as much. I do relish in the knowledge that’s passed down in my classes. I even relish the last-minute readings I do on the subway downtown. Above all, when I am sitting in my Spirituality classes, my Hermeneutics classes, or attending chapel service, I feel a sense of renewal—as if I’m being taught how to be a Christian all over again—as if I had forgotten—about its values, its breadth, its life, its glory.

It’s in these moments that I know the decision to go to seminary at this point in my life is the right one. Even if, God willing, I am to start a family afterward, I am thankful that I will have secured this spiritual foundation before becoming a mother. I sometimes picture my becoming a mother being the Christian I was just three weeks ago, prior to seminary training, and I alarm myself. Even having taught Sunday school the past few years—I wish I had had the passion that is stirring in me right now.

Once in a while, I witness a “new Christian” who declares that he/she wants to start everything over and possesses the enthusiasm to engage in projects to do God’s work—I now can empathize.

That’s how God becomes real in the Christian’s life—upon meeting Him—the soul is ignited—and the Christian knows that this fire is not from within him/her because he/she has never felt this way before—it is the Spirit—and this delight in life, this passion to do good work, this eagerness to love—is awakened, heightened.

And that is why, the person who has been a Christian for a long time, who falls into the valley of darkness, who later, through circumstances, feels distant from God, can hang on—because he/she remembers the fire, and is patient—waiting to feel that fire once again. It is in this valley of darkness that God will raise him/her—through humility, through comfort, through guidance—and once he/she emerges from this valley, he/she shall attest to the glory and working power of God to heal and save the suffering.

So here I am. All of me. I offer everything to my God. And therein I shall find my peace.

Seminary: Day 2

I guess, when people at school ask you, “What courses are you taking this term?” and you answer, “Greek, Hebrew…” and immediately their eyes widen and they say “At the same time?” followed by a sympathetic or empathetic offering of their prayers—I should really start to worry.

Yeesh. Cancel out social life and anything else leisure-related for the next four months (thank goodness the Jays aren’t giving me enough motivation to watch them). Honey—I’ll be taking over the living room table, knee-deep in my sea of books; on the bright side, “Go, indulge in your computer games!”

God in the Shadows

I’m blogging at the moment because I’m slacking. Three short stories, totaling 68 pages. Done. But my page requirement is 75 pages before I can start corresponding with a mentor at U of T, so I’ve started something, but can’t bring myself to continue because I know I’m just pathetically trying to meet the quota. What awful, awful writing. When I hand pages of my work to someone, I can’t stand the thought of knowing that the work isn’t my best. It’s like going out knowing you’re wearing socks that don’t match. “I know, I know!” I want to say in my own defense.

I’m about to finish the book my sister recently lent me, Ravi Zacharias’ memoir, “Walking from East to West, God in the Shadows.” His sermons have always been compelling and much needed for my Christian faith, which is so often based on my feelings and imagination more so than logic and reasoning (go to http://www.rzim.org/ to download and listen to free sermons!). C.S. Lewis and Zacharias have probably been the most influential when it comes to concretizing my faith, reinforcing it with their gifted abilities of persuasion. (One of my favourite quotes of Lewis is, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”)

When I listen to someone like Zacharias preach, it’s tempting to overlook the fact that he also has a past. I see his talents, his authority, his reputation—and forget that uncertainty and hopelessness must have also been part of his journey too. After all, God most often shapes us in our weakness and need.

The book was an easy read (I read most of it while doing my running on the treadmill). Starting from the very beginning of his life in India to the end, how he had come to head up such a large organization such as RZIM, I couldn’t help but be moved by his emphasis that every single event in his life, big and small, was a product of God’s design. How it all came to be pieced together, as he writes in the final pages: “I thank the Lord that, even though things were so wrong in my life here, I finally was brought to a realization of what all those struggles were about. There are some wonderful things from your painful past, things with a beauty you may not have realized at the time.”

You have to read the book yourself to feel the awe of the circumstances of his life and how it got him to where he is. Circumstances that included surviving his attempted suicide when he was young, to putting his faith in God and going to the most dangerous parts of the world to preach God’s word, and the sacrifices that he made which affected his family and personal ambitions.

While reading, I started thinking about what a skeptic I have become in the past few years. Even with my love for God and my desire to know Him, I can’t help but think that the circumstances of my own life are more of a product of my own choices and actions than of God’s design.

Zacharias finally uses the phrase “God in the Shadows” at the end of the book, which is also part of the title of the book. And I thought, how fitting. Because I can go through various periods of my life and be thinking that it was me all along, and then suddenly, something happens, and I realize, “No, it wasn’t me. God was in it all this time”—hence, God in the shadows. He’s always there—even when you think He isn’t.

I once wrote in a journal entry that I had felt that my life felt like a book. In it was chapters, and in each of the chapters, or in the book as a whole, there were themes. I thought about God being the author of my life, and I was intrigued and puzzled at the same time: I couldn’t quite put my finger on it—how God managed to give me freedom to make personal choices, but still somehow being part of those choices, bad or good.

A sermon preached by Rev. Charles Price answered that question for me a while back. In Jeremiah 18, it says: "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.” The message he preached from this verse penetrated the deepest part of my soul, where there were demons I was still battling. The lesson was this—that God wants the best of us, will shape us in the best way He can—given the choices that we make, and even when we make the worst of choices, and become the “marred clay” he will make the best of the marred clay. You see what the lesson is here? That as long as we go back to God, as long as we will to, even in spite of our ugly past, there is always, always hope for the better.

What could be more beautiful, more liberating than to know “it’s never too late”?

I can’t go through all the mysterious patterns that have emerged in my life, mainly because I can’t recall most of them unless I read my journal (that’s one thing about journaling—sometimes, it’s the journaling that reveals to you the inexplicable patterns), but also because, human nature has it that we always forget. We live one moment, and once that moment is over, we’re onto the next.

Most resonating to me is the year I had experienced four deaths. Two friends from my youth fellowship that I grew up with, my grandmother, and then our family pet rabbit, Purity (yes, I cried for Purity too). The news of each death came every few months, and it had come to the point where I was afraid of phone calls that rang in my home at unexpected hours. Every time I had received news of a death, it was from that ominous phone call at work, while I was serving at church, or in the late hours of the night.

When I think about it, I remember that it was the deaths, and the reminder that life was short, and too precious—that fed my determination to pick up my writing. That all my life, since childhood, I had dreamt of becoming a writer—but where was the writing to show for the aspiration? Shortly afterward, I enrolled in some workshops. Not too long after, I quit my job, started writing part-time, finally taking my passion seriously.

Fast forward a year later. I’m at the CBA tradeshow. I meet authors. I meet people who have contact with editors and are looking for writers. And whether this will materialize or not, on the last day of my trip to Edmonton, a man, upon hearing that I was working on becoming a published writer, asked me for my business card, said that he knew an editor and could talk to him about reading my work. I couldn’t believe it. I was at the tradeshow for business; meanwhile, God was at work on something else. If this incident had taken place even a couple of months earlier, I would have had no manuscript to show for it.

Add that to the fact that Lee, my loving and supportive husband who has been behind me all this time regarding making my dreams come to fruition (one of the sweetest things he's said to me since we got married: "Priscilla, when I married you, I knew I'd be supporting your dream."), who is much more a skeptic than I am, can’t believe it himself. Come September, we lose half my income, and he will have to bring home most of the butter. It was always at the back of my mind—“Can we do it?” “We’ll have to change our lifestyle a bit.” Then suddenly, weeks ago, we find out that his boss is going to be giving him another raise in September, even though he’s already gotten one this past spring. He had said to me just weeks ago, “The timing of everything is so unusual, it has to be God.”

I can tell you that so many things have happened this past year alone that have told us that God is providing, that God is, indeed, in the shadows.

One last thing before I stop slacking:

The first story in my manuscript, which I began writing last fall, ends with the main character, Eve, searching for her grandmother’s grave. She can’t find it because the heavy snow has covered all the tombstones. She winds up going into the cemetery office to ask a man to help her find her grandmother.

I was reading the last few pages of Zacharias’ memoir today and I couldn’t believe the story he told in the last chapter. The description bore such a similarity to my short story I almost fell out of my chair. He talked about his return to India and going to the Christian cemetery in Delhi to find his grandmother’s grave. He couldn’t find where the grave was, so he went into the cemetery office, gave the name of the grandmother and the year she was born; then when he finally found it, he read the words on the gravestone, “Because I live, ye shall live also. John 14:19."

And this was probably the inspiration for this blog. Little reminders that even in the tiniest of moments, God can reveal himself by emerging from out of the shadows.

The Bigger Picture

Came back from Edmonton at 6 a.m. yesterday. Didn’t sleep much on the plane, but managed to get two hours of shut-eye before having to tutor. I was surprised—the brief nap was enough to charge me for the rest of the day.

You know when you go someplace, meet a few people you never expected to meet, hear stories you never thought you’d have the pleasure of hearing—and in a subtle way, you come back home a little more introspective, as if something’s changed inside of you. You don’t know what it is, but you sense it’s for the better, and you hope to God that the feeling doesn’t go away, or that when it does, you’d remember the feeling.

With seminary studies just around the corner, I can feel the onset of change. I’m wondering, I’m curious, I’m anxious, I’m scared—I’m excited. It’s that glorious state that I never enter into unless my imagination is impressed by the presence of God. That His Hand is in everything. And the beauty that He presents before me, in people and in circumstances, often leaves my soul in tears of thankfulness.

None of this I deserve, yet You have freely given.

At the tradeshow, it was this: the reminder that I am a Christian, and with every Christian stranger I meet, we are connected. Our faith in and love for God connects us. I don’t know you, but you and I, we are seeking the same God, loving the same God. To not know someone, and yet, upon hearing his or her stories, you know what they are all about, and where his or her heart is—this is something so empowering, so uplifting, so divine.

That the mere act of hearing another brother or sister tell his or her story and then be prompted to act accordingly in my own spiritual life—love more, sacrifice more, know Him more—this is Contagious Christianity. God never stops working in my life, regardless of the hundreds of times I’ve ventured off course.

The man I spoke to during the banquet dinner in Edmonton, who spoke of his experiences as a missionary in Africa. “You ask them how many children they have, they don’t know because they have no concept of numbers; there is no ‘stealing’ because there is no concept of ownership… they are the poorest of the poor… and yet there is joy…” and then through all the challenges he has had to face, he said, “I would go back in a heartbeat.”

The testimony of writers who have shared about their journeys through pain and redemption in their books. A husband dying of a heart attack in the middle of a barren camp site, the wife left all alone. A mother who loses her newborn baby, after twenty-nine days. A woman suffering the loss of two husbands and freak accidents that left her two children in comas—the months spent by their side when the doctor told her there was no hope. And in all of it, their faith in God prevailed.

Yes, we are all connected. Our faith grows stronger by hearing each other’s stories and then sharing our own. And for the timid, like me, we witness this courage, and thereupon the Holy Spirit gives us that nudge we need to go forward. In 2 Timothy 1:7, it says: "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. "

So many people out there, the girl or boy next to us, the child in another country, the sick, the widow, who need us to defend them. As it is written in Psalm 68:5: "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, God in his holy dwelling."

I heard this in the sermon preached last week, which was entitled, "A Biblical Response to HIV/AIDS": If our hearts can be broken in witnessing the suffering in the world, how much more is God’s heart breaking. I have, at one time or another, said this statement in my prayers, although it is a frightening one to utter if I truly believe God will answer it: “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.” Pray for the sensitivity.

When God answers this prayer, I have to be prepared. Because with the things that make me happy in my life, the things that I enjoy—from home décor to basking in the complacency of my home in Toronto to seeing my family who are just a phone call away—all of these are hard to let go should one day God ask me to. How much am I willing to sacrifice? Everything around us tells us to hold on tight—fend for ourselves—it’s a tough world out there. And so we live, as the preacher had said last Sunday, in this “piety,” this self-obsessed, self-absorbed Christianity: "Until we help, we have a dysfunctional Christian faith. We live with God in the playpen."

Why am I anxious and scared? Because I am reminded by these strangers with whom I cross paths that Christianity cannot be about staying where you are. For the bold, and for the timid, we must journey into that other place: ‘the safest place to be is where God wants you to be.’

It’s one Kingdom, and it is our Father’s. How tempting it is to be sitting back, relaxing in our own.

Reminders

Just came back from Ancaster. My first tradeshow at the Christian Booksellers Association. My sister and I have been working hard on the Verseries product line (http://www.verseries.com/) the past year, and we were finally able to see its fruits. Many people who walked by our booth were impressed by the art. Five small Christian bookstores have picked up the product to see if it sells. Bigger ones showed interest. All glory goes to God.

Will be in Edmonton this week to do the second tradeshow (already dreading the exhaustion of flying, packing, standing all day, and then unpacking!). This time, however, my dad is not going to be present. As a kid, I watched my dad, the eternal salesman, continually work his magic with clients; it was something I took for granted. Educated as a computer programmer, he’s a salesman at heart.

I was reminded of this again at the Ancaster tradeshow. The way he could stop everyone who walked by and make a conversation that went on for twenty minutes; the way, by the end of the show, everyone seemed to know his name.

When I graduated years ago, my dad had asked me to work for his company. Wanting to prove to myself and others that I could get a job without familial networking, I applied for jobs on my own. Wound up working as a Technical Writer for another company for four years. I realized this year, however, that having been “away” from the family business for so long, I had forgotten what it was like to be “around them.”

But no matter how talented my dad is, or how successful he has been, I was reminded of one thing this weekend, and it took place one hour before the tradeshow began. He had parked the car in the lot, turned to me, and said to me, “Priscilla, let’s pray.” And in his prayer he offered the whole tradeshow to the Lord.

The CBA tradeshow was not just about standing at the booths and showcasing products. There was a devotional breakfast. There was worship. There were music performances. There were Christian authors who shared about their callings. And in witnessing all this— especially Tara (http://www.taradettman.com/) who sang on stage with that angelic voice, her eyes closed while her fingers danced on the keyboard—I felt empowered. It never fails when you are surrounded by others who love and adore God: the energy is contagious.

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them…” Matthew 18:19

Maybe the theme for the coming months is “newness.” I don’t know what surprises are in store in Edmonton. Two weeks after that, I’ll be at a retreat with the students and faculty at TBS, encountering new faces, and hearing other people’s stories. To be honest, in the state I am in right now, when I think about all of it, I feel tired; at the same time, however, I’m eager. God is already revealing his plan, and I don’t know what is at the end of it, but I’m excited.

The thing is, Lee is usually the one who’s “off” to places. With his job, he goes off on training regularly, several times overseas. I’m usually the one who is at home going about my things. It’s odd this month to be the one who’s going off and he’s the one waiting for me to come home. It’s good, of course—nothing like the reversal of roles to develop empathy between husband and wife. And it’s true, absence does make the heart grow fonder. I missed him when he had gone off, and when I’m somewhere else, a lot of times, I’m thinking about how much I’m looking forward to sharing with him all my stories. Look what God is doing in our lives, hon. Isn’t he amazing? Aren’t we so blessed?

Well, I woke up early this Sunday to do some writing, so I better get to it.

The Candle of the Lord

I had to do devotions for this Sunday's softball game. I had been nervous about it since a month ago. Standing in front of a group and having to talk always gets my heartbeat racing. Nonetheless, below is what I shared.

Based on Phillips Brooks’ sermon preached on July 4, 1879 entitled “The Candle of the Lord”

Picture darkness. This candle is sitting in the middle of a dark room. Then someone comes in and lights the candle. You now have a flame; its burning is steady and constant. In a room that was once dark, this candle is now at the center of it—beautifully illuminated—grabbing the attention of everyone.

Note, however, that the candle and the flame were made for each other. The candle, without the flame, is futile. Once the candle is lit, it submits to the fire, allowing the flame to glow.

We are the candle. Do you know someone who is a candle whose flame shines so powerfully that he affects those around him? In your home, in your circle of friends, in your church—do you feel warmth from the fire?

God is the fire of this world. And we are the candle. His warm and pervading presence is everywhere. As the candle, we let ourselves be lighted by the flame of God so that He may be known. The Christian knows that she is being watched—and that she must let the watcher see what God is through the flame that God has lighted in her. The Bible verse I want you to remember today is from Proverbs 20:27 (King James Version), “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.” Short, simple, but strong.

In the game of charades we just played, how easy it is our expressions, body language, and state of mind can be communicated to those who are watching—whether you are conscious of it or not. When we are impatient, overly proud, or arrogant—our character is visible to everyone.

There are people out there, of influence, of fame, of power, of wealth, but no one feels their warmth. And once they pass on, the world isn’t any brighter. These people are unlighted candles; they are sophisticated, educated, successful in the material sense, but they lack the touch of God. They are proud and selfish, wanting their own light to shine. If you wonder why, by being close to a person like this, whom the world calls bright, but you do not get any brightness from him, it is because he has no light to give.

Why do we play softball in CCSA? The primary purpose is to be that candle that shines that light for those who are watching. Many of us feel that warmth in the air—sometimes, it feels mysterious. It is the sense of God—felt, but unseen.

Picture the dark room again. Now imagine, amid the darkness, Christians enter, pure and God-like. In an instant, the room is lighted. God’s presence becomes clear and certain. Then the mystery becomes not of the darkness, but of the light.

If you are a Christian, I pray that you will let God light the flame of your candle so that those who are watching will feel the warmth of your character and your love for them. If you are still seeking: feel the warmth of those around you and pursue it.

When I was a kid, in my parents’ basement hung a picture of a candle with the following quote beside it: “A candle loses nothing of its light by lighting another candle.” How glorious it would be if one person’s flame could be passed on to others so that this warmth could be multiplied, and instead of one, two, or three—hundreds of candles could be lighted.

Marriage Snapshots

Lee and I wake up before 8 on Saturday morning. I’m always surprised when his eyes are open before mine, and this morning, they are wide open. The first thing that comes out of his mouth is his observations of a discrepancy occurring in the last House episode that we watched this week, “If Wilson… then why…” I have no intelligent reply. I’m just baffled that his brain is working so early in the morning.

While I’m brushing my teeth, he’s already downstairs. I’m about to prep for my tutoring and I see him sitting at the computer desk reading a short story. I’m ecstatic. I’ve got three Raymond Carver stories sitting on the desk (for inspiration when I’m doing my own writing): “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” “Fat,” and “They’re Not Your Husband.” By the time I look over his shoulder, he’s finishing up one of them.

A number of thoughts come to me. One: how much I wanted “that.” You have my husband, who isn’t a “short story” reader, who skims the first page of a story that I happen to have lying around, and feels compelled enough by the beginning to have to read to see its end. Now—how do I achieve that for myself? Second: how good it feels to have him take part in this whole process I am engaged in. I can’t help but run over and give him a big hug. He’s somewhat intrigued by Carver’s main character. Of course, every time I thrust a short story on him to read, his reading the last line is typically followed by, “So what…” The quizzical look—all short stories seem to end abruptly to him. I try to explain to him—“that’s why the form is so hard to pull off.” Feel my pain, honey! Because the story he’s just read is about a wife who is fat, he turns to me with that cute, animated look, and says, “Why don’t you write a story about—farting?” I laugh, but I understand where he’s coming from. He got the story—how simple and real it was, but poignant nonetheless.

Of course, at some point, Lee is going to check up on me in this blog and he may want to defend himself. One thing I didn’t realize when I started this blog: so far, I’ve been writing about the things that have moved me in some way; so many of the things I forget or don’t think it necessary to mention to my husband. It never occurred to me that he’d find out about them here.

Like this morning. He’s working at the desk, and I’m on the laptop again—writing. He holds onto the coffee I’ve made for him and says to me, “You like these mornings, don’t you?” And I smile, “Yes, I do.”

The Pursuit of Excellence

It’s August. The month has just begun and I can already see it ticking away. September: full-time seminary begins; the final course for my certificate in creative writing begins (must submit a 75-page manuscript for review—only have 59 pages so far); all my tutoring students, many of them taking a break this summer, all coming back on board; first sermon to be preached in mid-fall imminent… and my anxiety is manifesting itself in my dreams. You know: when you dream that either you’ve forgotten or missed something completely, or when you actually carry out the task but you do an absolute appalling job. I wind up waking up abruptly at 7 a.m. on any given morning, getting a head start on whatever I dreamt about, praying that the dream would not materialize. (Lee often tells me I’m shortening my life span by living this way, but I can’t help it: the habit surges through my veins.)

I’ve never been a very spontaneous person. I’m a planner—whatever situation I know I’ll be in, I spend hours preparing for it. I hate the feeling of being caught off guard—looking foolish because I lacked foresight or wisdom to see what was coming.

Two quotes I came across in high school have always stayed with me; the first quote being, “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity,” the second quote wound up in my yearbook, under the heading, “Words to Live by”: “Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you can see farther.” The first one explains my obsession with productivity; the second one my trust in the promise that God, as long as I’m patient and diligent and faithful, will eventually show the way. Time ripens all things. God hasn’t failed me yet—even though, sometimes, it feels like He takes an awful long time to do the showing.

Complacency doesn’t do any good either. How many times have I, for too long, stayed comfortable, not giving the least thought about going places or accepting responsibilities that make me scared or nervous, and often, downright nuts from the possible failure or humiliation I might face? Yet another battle of life.

A little bit of uneasiness is good for you, of course, as everyone soon discovers. You grow, as a result—in character, in vision, in faith. Above all, faith. Realizing that you can’t do it on your own—you push yourself to climb that cliff, envisioning what is beyond it, believing that after the arduous climb, a reward is waiting. You can’t climb the hill or mountain if you don’t believe that there is something waiting for you at the very top. Even if it isn’t money, or a trophy of some sort, you have to believe nonetheless that there’s something—material or spiritual. Otherwise, you find yourself panting, out of breath, incapable of going on, ultimately giving up entirely.

While working as a teacher assistant back in university, the teacher I was helping gave me a gift that I display on a shelf in my living room; it’s a rock, with the following words engraved on it: “Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.” How sweet it tastes when after months or years of labouring at something, you see its fruits. But to have the endurance to see it through—now that’s the challenge.

As a Christian, I believe that EXCELLENCE is one of God’s directives. If you want to start by being a testimony to others, don’t be lazy, don’t waste time, don’t forsake the respect of those around you. Otherwise, how are you going to win souls?

In Ecclesiastes 9:10, it says: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” In Proverbs 22:29, it says: “Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings.”

At the same time, there’s a fine line between excellence and success. Success is defined for us by the world—you encounter it every day; in one way or another, it seeps into our conversations in which pride surfaces, and in the toys we consciously or unconsciously like to flash before others.

So it’s tough. But as a Christian, God’s congratulation must be enough. To do your absolute best—and whatever the outcome, to accept it, graciously, meekly, joyfully, thankfully. That is the view from the top for one of God’s children. The reward revealed in the smile, the wonder of the miracle, the tears of humility when the moment arrives.

Therein lies the struggle. To not be disheartened by disappointments, to not be slowed down by fear of the unknown, to not allow worldly success to take control of my vision of what my future is to be—that is, as God sees it.


This morning Lee had to drop me off at work at 7 a.m. because he had to go into work early. The building not being open that early, I waited at Tim Horton’s, enjoying a tea biscuit and steeped tea. This week my goal was to revise three of my short stories—two of which have comments on restructuring by my previous writing instructor.

Sitting there, I take a deep breath, reading and rereading her notes—contemplating about how to make the changes—not letting self-doubt overpower me, but to have faith that, with careful molding and discipline, I could do it. There were stories here—worth being told, I hoped.

And this is what keeps me going—that God wants me to do my best—the rest, I leave to Him.

Why I Love Sunday Mornings

It’s 4 a.m. Monday. Lee and I went to bed at midnight, and I have been lying in bed, awake, for the past four hours. The alarm clock is staring me right in the face, and feeling hopeless, I get up. Maybe doing something will get me sleepy again. Monday is my “get things done day,” so it is frustrating to know that I’m going to be tired today—I won’t be as productive as I want to be.

I tap Lee several times on the face, hoping he can’t sleep either. But, no, he’s sound asleep (sometimes, he’ll say to me half-conscious, “Can’t sleep?” And part of me feels better for winning his sympathy. He is, however, incapable of uttering a word tonight). It happened once this past spring: I was having one of my usual insomniac nights, and coincidentally, so was he. At 5 a.m., both of us get up, eat breakfast, brew coffee, and talk until morning—it was beautiful. Marriage and its beautiful snapshots.

When I’m not too tired, I love Sunday mornings. Like yesterday. Lee and I got up before the alarm clock went off—surprisingly, he popped out of bed before I did—at a quarter to nine. Lying in bed, I hear the sound of cereal hitting a bowl, and then typing. A few minutes later, I join him. We accompany each other during these quiet few minutes in our living room—he’s updating the softball website; meanwhile, I have the laptop open and I’m doing my Church History homework (this week’s lecture: The Elizabethan Puritans). I turn to him, “You want coffee?” which I know I don’t have to ask, because his answer will always be “yes.”

I sit there in front of the laptop, realizing how much I love the solitude—with him in the same room as me, both of us silently working away, sipping our coffee. Forty-five minutes later, he tells me he wants to hit the gym before church service begins at 11:30. While he's gone, I complete my history assignment.

11:15 a.m.: Under the scorching sun, we hold hands, walking to church. It’s about a ten-minute walk from where we live—and I consider the walk to the church part of the beauty of it—this companionship, this peace, this sense of rest, this anticipation to be moved by whoever was to be preaching that day.

We sit down. The worship leader sings his solo. We’re sitting on the balcony, so I scan the pews below us. Sometimes, I like watching all the different people that are in the worship—those scattered throughout, with their hands raised, eyes closed. Different races. Different faces. Same God. It’s beautiful.

Reverend Charles Price’s sermon this morning is entitled, “How Jesus Viewed Rest.” Based on Matthew 11:28-30.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

The main point was that we, humans, need rest—first, for the body, and second, for the soul. Often, we make the mistake of thinking that by resting the body, the soul will take care of itself. Not so.

Price tells the story of two woodsmen. Both of them work hard to chop wood. One of them rests continuously. In the end, however, the woodsman who rested finishes his work before the one who did not rest. This latter woodsman therefore asks him: “How did you finish your work so soon?" And the former woodsman answers: “You didn’t know—that while I was resting—I was sharpening my ax.”

How nicely put. How much we need to refresh our body and our souls so that we may proceed in our work all the more prepared, sharp, and eager?

Why is God’s yoke easy and his burden light? The “yoke,” as I learned today, was fastened on oxen so that they could carry a load. An animal could be yoked with another animal so that they could share the load. The yoke could be adjusted so as to distribute the burden of the load. You could yoke a strong oxen with a weak oxen and then adjust the yoke so that the burden could be distributed fairly—the stronger one carrying the heavier part of the load.

God’s burden is light because we are the weak oxen and He is the strong. When we synchronize our life to God, our burden becomes easy to carry. We just have to work hard—but our burden will feel light because the burden is ultimately on God’s shoulders. Look at all the figures in the Bible who have gone beyond their own capabilities. When we take his yoke upon ourselves, the impossible becomes possible. His strength is therefore made perfect in our weakness, as it is stated in the New Testament.

How tempting it is for us humans to carry our own burdens—when resting—in God—is what really matters.

Don’t think of resting as doing nothing. Think of it, as Price paints the picture, of driving down the highway at 100 km/hr, your hands are at the wheel, but you are relying on the engine running under the hood.

Why do I love Sunday’s? Because it is God’s day. I am reminded of beauty on this day because the mornings signal rest—whether I’m consciously or deliberately doing it—I am preparing my heart for worship. Holy expectancy. And today—listening to the sermon, with my husband sitting beside me—I am inspired.

Why Writers Write

How do I know I was born to write? That it’s my passion? Because I’d do it for “nothing.” Because—though I’m envisioning that one day I’d have the validation of publishing a story, I’m not imagining those unknown, imaginary readers. What I’m picturing is my sister and my husband who know when I’m about to finish a story, and I’m telling them, “It’s almost done…you almost get to read it.” And, of course, to have my sister give me her encouragement and enthusiasm, “I can’t wait.”

To spend days writing a single scene—and then to have your instructor or your family member tell you that a certain scene made them feel so much—at last, the work is worth it. The amount of time and energy spent on selecting every word, every image, and then rewriting it, and rewriting it, until you’re happy with the words on the page (“Art is selective,” O’Connor says)—as is the process of writing the story. As Dubus puts it:

An older writer knows what a younger one has not yet learned. What is demanding and fulfilling is writing a single word, trying to write le mot juste, as Flaubert said; writing several of them, which become a sentence. When a writer does that, day after day, working alone with little encouragement, often with discouragement flowing in the writer’s own blood, and with an occasional rush of excitement that empties oneself, so that the self is for minutes longer in harmony with eternal astonishments and visions of truth, right there on the page on the desk, and when a writer does this work steadily enough to complete a manuscript long enough to be a book, the treasure is on the desk.

If the manuscript itself, mailed out to the world, where other truths prevails, is never published, the writer will suffer bitterness, sorrow, anger, and, more dangerously, despair, convinced that the work is not worthy, so not worth those days at the desk.

But the writer who endures and keeps working will finally know that writing the book was something hard and glorious, for at the desk a writer must try to be free of prejudice, meanness of spirit, pettiness, and hatred; strive to be a better human being than the writer normally is, and to do this through concentration on a single word, and then another, and another. This is splendid work. As worthy and demanding as any, and the will and resilience to do it are good for the writer’s soul. If the work is not published, or is published for little money and less public attention, it remains a spiritual, mental, and physical achievement; and if in public, it is the widow’s mite, it is also, like the widow, more blessed.

Andre Dubus, Meditations from a Movable Chair

While writing—there is always the fear that your work will amount to nothing—and as Dubus writes, you tell yourself that even if you do not succeed, you would have written regardless. Sometimes, even that thread of hope is what keeps you going.

My husband jokes about how I should be writing the next Da Vinci Code so he can quit his job and be a bum for the rest of his life (then again, maybe he’s not joking). A book that’s plot-driven, so millions of people will read it. I tell him that it’s against my principles as an aspiring artist to write only for the purpose of entertaining (I read somewhere about the distinction between “Popular Fiction” and “Literary Fiction”; in the former, the writer is writing to please the reader; in the latter, the writer is writing for himself). I tell Lee, however, that if he wants, why doesn’t he write the next bestseller? “You write it, I’ll be happy to edit it for you. Take the next ten years to do it—little by little.” He pauses, as if genuinely considering the idea. “All I need is a good plot—like The Matrix or something.” (He’s so cute when he talks like that.) Then I smile. “You don’t have the discipline and patience to be a writer. Can you even sit at the desk to write a paragraph?” He doesn’t say anything, so I’m guessing he concurs.

Granted, at my Technical Writer job last year, we had a softball forum in which Lee shared about his infamous “crap story” (it’s too awful to include in this blog). It was so disgusting that I showed it to my co-worker, another Tech Writer, so he’d get a laugh out of it (guys like that stuff, right?). I was surprised by my co-worker's reaction. He walked into my office and said, “Lee is a pretty good writer. Did he ever consider writing? He was so detailed, descriptive [in telling the crap story]—he even had suspense…”

I’m going off on a tangent now.

It’s Friday morning. Let the revising begin…

The Coincidences of Miracles

Finished my third short story today—at least the official first draft. The story is entitled, After the Rain, and as I was finishing up the final scenes of the story, I was amazed by the fact that it has been raining since early this morning. I’m at the computer, looking out the window; the tree is swaying back and forth; the raindrops are hitting the terrace; the whole room is dim, so I have to turn on the floor lamp when normally daylight will do; Holly, my husband’s fourteen-year-old cat, is sleeping on the cotton throw on the bench—meanwhile, I’m writing a scene in which rain is the backdrop to the story. God, you’re incredible.

The hardest part is churning out the story—proceeding to the next scene when you’re not entirely satisfied with the quality of the writing of the previous scenes. Move on. Don’t stop. Move on. Don’t stop. Finish the story first before you become the critic of your own work—as writers have advised.

The less agonizing part is the editing. At least, with a foggy formation of a being, you can now begin to mold. The story has presented itself. Now which parts of it have meaning? Which parts of it do you want to have resonated? Why did you have this idea for the story in the first place? Questions that you didn’t know you were asking while writing the story now have to be answered.

I’ve been sitting at this desk since nine this morning: maybe the rain kept me disciplined. There's no desire to be outside when the sun is hiding.

Yesterday, on a Sunday afternoon, my husband and I are slumped on the couch, and he turns to me and says, “I’m tired, you wanna’ take a nap with me?” I shake my head and smile at him. “You know I don’t take naps.” And he says, “What is it like to be you? To always feel like you have to be productive?” And while he sleeps, I begin editing the first part of the story.

God plants the vision. And the child does the work. And as the child is working away—God decides to send the rain.

The Weight of our Past and Present

Encountered a compelling passage in my reading today:

Every one of us here present is now exactly what his past life has made him. Our present thoughts, feelings, mental habits, good and bad, are the effects of what we have done or left undone, of cherished impressions, of passions indulged or repressed, of pursuits vigorously embraced or willingly abandoned. And so our past mental and spritual history has made us what we are, so we are at this very moment making ourselves what we shall be.

Henry Parry Liddon (1829-1890) quoted from his sermon, "The First Five Minutes After Death," from Great Sermons of the World

At the End of the Journey

I’ve been a Christian pretty much all my life. My parents, born and raised in Hong Kong, immigrated here decades ago; while studying at the University of Toronto, they met a group of loving and compassionate spiritual mentors in residence who were key to bringing them to Christianity. Over thirty years later, they have continued to be dedicated, faithful Christians.

My childhood upbringing was typical of the diligent, ambitious Chinese parents—strict and protective. It was important that I achieved the best possible grades; in addition, perform well in extracurricular activities—piano, swimming, Chinese school, etc. Not performing “my best” meant that more discipline needed to be enforced—the removal of TV privileges, more time spent reading books, less time playing outside with the neighbourhood kids (until I finished all my tasks).

On top of that, my parents encouraged my sister, brother, and I to persevere in our Christian life. At an early age, my dad encouraged me to memorize Bible verses. They always supported my enthusiasm to bring my grade school friends to church—and they were happy to pick them up and drive them to church on Sunday’s. During holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter, we had family prayer time—and this family gathering to pray continued well into our twenties whenever one of us in the family faced conflict or we were on vacation and the five of us being in a hotel, were nowhere near a church, so my dad would initiate a time of “worship” with God—by taking out a Bible or singing a popular hymn.

Of course, there were times when I, as a kid, did not enjoy the discipline required of being raised a Christian. Whenever there were birthday parties on Sunday’s, my parents did not allow me to attend—no matter how much I begged. Attending church could not be compromised, they told me. I remember how angry I felt and how resentful I was as I sulked in my room, imagining all my friends who were busy having fun.

My Christian faith was my saving grace when I entered adolescence. Not realizing yet that I had a melancholic temperament (later on, self-awareness also helped me), I fell into multiple depressions in high school and early university. I was never happy with my performance in all areas of my life—be it grades, my looks, my weight, my piano playing, even my driving (had a serious car accident at age 17)—and constantly felt that I was better off not existing. One year I will not forget is when I was in grade 11, my depression lasted about a yearlong. The thing was—I had the amazing ability to hide my chronic sadness. I went to school with a smile, but when nighttime arrived, I closed the door to my bedroom and cried myself to sleep—every night.

I started an official journal when I was 16. Once in a blue moon when I have a "free" weekend, I’ll read my hundreds of pages of journal entries—and even though this period in my life was such a long time ago—tears would start to trickle down my face as I recall those days of melancholy. Sometimes, I feel detached from the girl being described on paper. Sometimes, I want to comfort her. Now—I use this story when I’m teaching the teenagers in my Sunday school classes to remind them that we all go through trials and we all have weaknesses and vulnerabilities—but have faith, God will pull you through.

Without my parents’ persevering in instilling in me the Word of God and the knowledge that He loved me, I, during those moments of incredible despair, would not have had any hope to go on.

This is also the same reason why I can never be convinced that there is no God—or that we are here on this earth living solely for ourselves. If such were the case, I would not know how to go on in this life—or see the reason why I should. What would I be aiming for?

Now that I’m in my adulthood, I have tried to do God’s Will—though one thing I learned since graduating from university is that it’s a lot harder once you begin your independent life. Stuck with a 9-5 job and paying the bills—it’s hard to invoke that feeling of awe and wonder of knowing God. In my younger days, circumstances and emotions were always up and down—and it was almost natural to turn to God. Now that I’m older, it’s more natural to rely on myself to solve life’s problems. Finance, job stability, career opportunities—they are all a product of hard work and ambition, are they not?

Because of this quotidian way of life, I find myself more appreciative of the days when God appears unexpectedly. On most days, however, I am pushing and pushing to see Him, and I find that so much of my behaviour and the words that come out of my mouth are not always pleasing to Him—even when I am whispering a prayer every morning to God, “May what I do today please you…” The words seem to effortlessly slide off my lips out of habit of saying them. To be honest, the guilt and consciousness of my own sinfulness have not been as sharp as they should be.

When I applied for seminary this past winter, something changed. Pursuing a Master of Theological Studies, and knowing that I will one day write essays on Christian-related topics and even preach in the coming year—the sharpness of my guilt and the consciousness of my own sinfulness have become much more glaring.

This is essentially why I am writing this entry. I recently recognized an irony in my Christian life: even though I should have been striving to be a good Christian testimony all this time, I am now feeling more compelled to do so now that I have seminary status. Though subtle, I have noticed it in the way I think and what I do. Granted, part of it is fear of giving God a bad name once people know of what I’m studying in the fall; the other part is the fear of being a hypocrite. Please don’t point fingers at me: I’m trying. Really.

As each day unravels, I am praying to God that He open my eyes to the opportunities to testify to his love and grace. I am praying that I not fail Him—too often. I am praying that whatever potential He has endowed me with—will not be wasted simply because I have somehow let my ego take over once again.

Then again, maybe it isn’t seminary status. Maybe we all just need something in our lives to remind us of what is at the end of our journey. The past few years, maybe I've spent too much time staring at the wrong thing: stop focusing on the rocks on the path, the tortuous road, the long and difficult trek, the possible shortcuts: look straight ahead. When all is said and done, what is at the end of your journey?

If you want to be a writer, keep your rear end on the chair

Didn’t sleep well last night. It’s 9 a.m. and I’ve got awful bags under my eyes. I’m guessing it might have been the post-adrenaline rush after having played (and won!) two intense softball games in a row yesterday or my downing one too many cups of Chinese tea during dinner with the Anointed softball team. Today’s my writing day, however, and I was determined to get up to write whether I got sleep or not—so here I am.

On my writing days, my condo often ends up very clean after a few hours of “writing.” Every time I face writer’s block, I get up to do something that’s “equally” as productive so I don’t feel guilty about getting out of the chair (in explaining the reason for their success, writers have often said, “by keeping your rear end on the chair”). By the time Lee is home, the condo’s thoroughly vacuumed, the dishes washed, toilets cleaned, shower and sinks scrubbed, and the furniture dusted. This morning, imagining heading to the computer, I wound up tossing dirty clothes into the hamper and picking up the vacuum cleaner—I had to stop myself and march myself here. “You can clean if you can churn out one or two pages first,” I say to myself.

Early this year I picked up Andre Dubus’ Selected Stories. After reading “A Father’s Story” I fell in love with his writing. His characters are so real and his writing so lyrical—I am so impressed by how much he makes me feel in one sitting. I am currently reading his book of personal essays entitled, Meditations from a Movable Chair. In 1986, while walking along the road, a car had hit him and he ended up losing both his legs. In some of his essays he describes the pain of his loss in a compelling and vivid way—one of the most moving descriptions was his attempt in making a sandwich for his kids while being restricted to a wheelchair. Each movement, each swivel was trying—and in reading about his pain, I realized how much of that was portrayed in the character of Luke Ripley in “A Father’s Story.” Here is an excerpt from the short story:

“It is not hard to live through a day, if you can live through a moment. What creates despair is the imagination, which pretends there is a future, and insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live the moment at hand.”

In learning more about Dubus’ life and his writing habits, I am learning more about how I should personally tackle my struggles in writing. Having read so many of his stories already, and then finding out what elements of those stories really happened—I am trying now to better understand how to draw that line between truth and fiction. Writing a short story is harder than anything else I have attempted to write. With essays and such you are pooling together ideas from other sources and analyzing a work that already exists. In writing a story you are essentially creating something out of nothing. So how do you know what parts of yourself to trust and what ideas in you are worth pursuing?

It was comforting to encounter this statement while reading Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life:

“Writing every book, the writer must solve two problems: Can it be done? And, Can I do it? Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles… And if it can be done, then he can do it, and only he. For there is nothing in the material for this book that suggests to anyone but him alone its possibilities for meaning and feeling.”

On my writing days, I have to try to fight that “intrinsic impossibility” of my ideas. I have to press on even though I am loathing every sentence I write, feeling cynical about the scenes I’m conjuring up (will the reader really believe that this story could possibly happen?), and imagining all the writers that I admire and how silly it is that I am trying to emulate them—because I am so far from where they are and where I want to be.

My faith in God helps. I have always been thankful that God has instilled in me the passion to write because my journey in becoming a writer parallels so closely with my spiritual one. Both entail struggle—and neither can carry on unless I truly believe in their possibilities. Ultimately, I write because of what He has chosen to instill in me, and even when I am treading the waters of discouragement and hopelessness, I know I cannot and must not stop—my faith in God does not allow me to. In yesterday’s sermon, Dr. Dennis, my spiritual mentor, had preached, “How do you discern the will of God for your life? Know your passion. Know your gifts. Gifts are given by God.” When I write my stories, I try to be true to the character's story and feelings, but the underlying inspiration is God—whether He appears implicitly or explicitly in the story. As Flannery O’Connor states in Mystery and Manners:

“It makes a great difference to the look of a novel whether its author believes that the world came late into being and continues to come by a creative act of God, or whether he believes that the world and ourselves are the product of a cosmic accident. It makes a great difference to his novel whether he believes that we are created in God’s image, or whether he believes we create God on our own. It makes a great difference whether he believes that our wills are free, or bound like those of the other animals… The artist penetrates the concrete world in order to find at its depths the image of its source, the image of ultimate reality.”

I should stop with this blog now. My writing instructor in my short fiction course last fall offered a lot of practical advice in helping me to become a better story writer. One of the pieces of advice she gave was to stop journaling. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it, but I knew she was right. By journaling I end up channeling all my feelings, inspiration, and ideas into everyday language and experience rather than using them to create characters and forceful images. But, of course, having read up to here, you know that this blog entry was my feeble attempt to put off getting back to the story I’m currently writing.

Time to write—but first, I’ll go make some tea...

Yet another year…

Given that this year’s birthday brings me yet another year closer to being 30, I am surprised that I am not more depressed. Being the melancholic, birthdays are tough for me. My husband knows. Recently, he began to grow apprehensive about the imminent date, and had asked me several times in the past couple of weeks, “Are you happy this year?” He then stuck his hand up and began to count the number of accomplishments I had this year. He ended up with six fingers raised in the air. “Is that good enough for you?” I chuckled and nodded.

You see—one of my biggest weaknesses is my constant need for external validation. Without the A’s in some course I’m taking, without the certificates or awards, without a degree or diploma of some sort, without the commendation from someone on some personal undertaking, without the milestones of getting engaged, married, having children, etc.—I am left, every year, most often on my birthday, feeling inadequate—as if, without these things, the year was wasted.

I call it a weakness because this feeling of emptiness and inadequacy counters what I know the Bible teaches—what God wants of me—and that is to be content without these earthly rewards. To know that inwardly, and outwardly in my relationships with family, friends, even acquaintances, that I am doing His will—pursuing excellence in whatever comes my way, loving whomever comes my way, and relishing in wherever He puts me—must be enough. No, it must be more than enough. Because in the end, should my life be cut short, and even if I have the blessing of living a long life—I can’t take any of that stuff with me. And that stuff, at least with the people who matter most in my life, will not be what is remembered.

It’s easy to say—even easy to pretend that I live it—but I know that every day, I struggle.

Last fall, I quit my job as a Technical Writer (after 4 years, 2 months, and 5 days). Started a part-time tutoring business. Committed two days a week to writing. Through the encouragement of my spiritual mentor, enrolled in seminary for the coming fall. These decisions, of course, had their costs, including taking a “hit” to our household income, my giving up the status of being identified with a respectable profession, and my delaying our family’s dream of purchasing a bigger home to hold, God wiling, our future children. Yet—after I went through with the decision, I finally felt like I was moving closer to what I’ve always wanted—even though I don’t know where writing stories and studying theology would eventually lead me (in the pragmatic sense, professionally and monetarily). After all, there are no guarantees. But, ironically, it is in this uncertainty that I feel God’s assurance and affirmation—that all I have to do is work hard at what I am most passionate about, and God will lead the way.

Eric Liddle in Chariots of Fire makes this powerful statement: "God made me run fast, and when I run, I feel his glory.”

Its truth burns in my soul. And in the tiny moments when I can at last offer my self to God—that is, without my desperately clawing the earth brimming with its golden riches, I do, indeed, feel his glory.

This past Sunday my husband and I attended People's church. There were instrumentals and a choir on stage, and the charismatic worship leader had us all stand up to sing "Be Unto his Name." When it came to the part, "Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty..." with the harmony, hundreds of prayerful hearts, and the holy expectancy commanded by the melody and words of this chorus, my eyes teared up, and once again, I was brought back to thankfulness and joy--just simply because I knew God and I knew he knew me.

Ask me how to explain glory to someone and that's how I think of it. That's how it feels. And when I feel it, I don't want to be anywhere else.

Marriage

Last Sunday evening my husband Lee and I attended a workshop held at my church entitled “Leadership Development,” led by Henry Wildeboer, an Associate Professor of Tyndale Theological Seminary. In passing, he had mentioned something pertaining to the Bible that struck me only because it rang so true in my one and a half years of experience in being a “wife.”

Just follow the principles of marriage taught in the Bible and you’ll unearth enough evidence to confirm the truth of Christianity. This was Wildeboer’s bold assertion, though I’m paraphrasing him because I don’t remember his exact words.

I might have at first understood such a statement in theory, but entering my second year of marriage, am now finding myself living it. Though I will not disclose the roller coaster of events that have already taken place in our “new life” together, I can only say that I would have been so lost—exasperated—worn— if my husband and I did not have a God to turn to during this journey, as brief as it has been thus far.

Whether it was knowing that every Sunday morning, even in our sleepy state, we had to get up bright and early to attend worship service and later discuss amongst ourselves over lunch the insights into the week’s sermon, or at one time or another we had to put aside our selfishness and our egos to consider the other’s needs not simply in the name of “love” but because that was what our Creator wanted of us, or that in our most vulnerable, volatile moments, there was nothing else we could do in our incredible weakness but to pray and surrender all of our uncertainties to our Father.

And then there are all the unspoken, unseen moments in-between, the ones that no one else would know of except my better half, and sometimes not even.

The times when I worry about my own spiritual journey, and then his; the times when I worry about the choices I make, and then his; the times when I worry about the person I will become, and then who he will become. These, as the Bible teaches, are not in my control: I am not my husband's keeper, God is. And therein lies my peace.

As with contentment. When God removes me from the deception that marriage is about the big house, the x number of kids, the dream car, the rising of our status in the affluent circle we inhabit--and teaches me through the most trivial moments of my life that true contentment is about now. The absolute beauty intrinsic to marriage is seen in the moment when two people who love each other aspire to love God--in their individuality, in the tiny and subtle way in which they show each other grace, and in their belief that every one of these moments is a gift, a manifestation of the Creator's goodness.

And thereupon I realize, or rather I am reminded of once again, that God is the ruler of my marriage—the model of love, the source of hope amidst despair, and the only way I can place my trust, my entire being, everything that’s at stake, in another person’s hands—because as Christians, Lee and I, we are not here living lives solely for ourselves or even for each other, but for something greater, something beyond who we both are.

In spite of everything, I can attest that God has been our guide, the shining star in the nightfall of our marriage.

And in such moments, I can’t help but wonder, what is marriage if not sacred?

The Paradox of Blogging

Typical of me to always be the last one to keep up with the latest trends: blogging. I hesitated for the longest time (and still have my doubts about this medium) because I am a traditional "journaller" and have always kept my insights and most personal thoughts in my own notebooks, which in the past decade, have formed quite a substantial pile on my bookshelves at home. Would this steadily growing pile eventually be neglected if I started this whole blogging thing?

And, if I were to start blogging, which is essentially for the purpose of publicizing my thoughts, would they no longer cease to be private, and therefore what would be the point? Would it not catapult me further into covering up or disguising my inhibitions and secret musings (being the complacent introvert that I am, the conservative Asian, the secret melancholic)?

Or worse, by blogging, would I not begin yielding to the temptation of putting a ME out there that would seek to be acceptable, respectable--loveable? And if such were the case, would I somehow risk losing myself along the way because I have failed to remain real, once again, in my writing, having tried too hard to please an audience I do not know nor should try so hard in pleasing. (Why do we itch to put ourselves "out there" in the World Wide Web, conjuring a persona that's punchy and impressionable enough that people will notice and spend a good few seconds of their day assessing and then quickly forgetting?). After all, trying to be real is hard enough when done in the comfortable, beautiful solitude and seclusion of my own home.

Then why start? Because, I guess, it shall be another way to force me to keep writing. As much rambling as this blog is fated to exude—it shall be another diversion, hopefully a more productive one than turning on the tube or washing dirty dishes—every time I fall into the pit of frustration, fear, or despair when I make yet another effort to write a scene in a story or come up with an inspiring enough line to put in a poem, essay, or potential sermon. A perceived audience, whether it exists or not, shall do the trick. Which is the same reason why I pay $500 every term to attend 10 sessions of writing workshops at U of T--because without the expectation of some organization or institution, I am often rendered, sadly, indolent and fruitless. Hence blogging shall be my frivolous attempt to impose structure, coherence, and habit on my writing whenever the more serious attempt disappoints.

Now back to the tube…