Life and Peace

Last night, the last thing I wrote in my journal before going to sleep was a list of comparisons between how I have been living (or struggling to live) in the past few months.

I realised that I've been involved in a conflict between two violently opposite powers: the flesh and the Spirit.

I wrote that the flesh has made me want to stay in this job indefinitely, until such time as I'm offered a "better" job -- the dream job that I've been hoping would offer me career fulfilment while enabling me to save the world one client at a time. According to the flesh, I am my own provider. If I leave this job, I will have no source of income. No income, no food. No food, I die.

So for months, I've been living in the flesh, by the laws of the flesh -- and dying by inches in a boring job that barely makes use of the richest talents my God has given me. On and on I slogged up a craggy path for which I was not suited. My face was constantly turned to the monotony of the rock face before me, instead of outwards to the views, the pleasant breezes and blue skies that had never left my presence.

Last week I reached a crisis point. The unexpected upheaval of having a suddenly flooded studio apartment threw me over the edge and, in that suspended, anti-gravity moment that occurs mid-air to cartoon characters and action movie villains alike, I had a profound revelation:

I can't fly.

And I didn't want to fall only to land with a thump and a squelch.

I knew that if I wanted to live to climb again, I would have to trust. I would have to surrender to my utter helplessness and call to the only One who could instantly be with me in that insecure place of free fall.

So, last weekend, I decided that I would stop living the life so opposite to my journal entries that spout off brave words about living by faith and pursuing a bigger purpose than survival. I would start living my journal entries.

Last night's journal shows a balance sheet of sorts, a reconciliation of what I was before last week and what I am now.

The flesh was worried about what I would eat. The Spirit has gently ministered to me with His promises of provision and a loving reprimand to not worry.

The flesh was worried about how I could afford to pay rent without a job. The Spirit knows His own, and He looks after them.

The flesh was focused on maintaining my current lifestyle. The Spirit wanted me to know that I'm living in rags while He's prepared riches beyond my imagination.

This morning, a verse popped into my head. Good old Paul, still relevant after so many centuries.

For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.

Ironic, isn't it? In my anxious fretting over how to live, I was surrounding myself with death.

I have given all of those worries to Him now, this Spirit who not only brings life and peace, He is life and peace to those who choose to make Him all in their thoughts. I am so thankful that I am His and He dwells in me.

You can choose, too. Death, or life and peace? Seems like a no-brainer... but I have come to learn that when it comes to the things that really matter, I am often a no-brainer. :o)

Grace

Today, after church I found myself drifting northwards in the city. For some reason, I wasn't just going to get on a bus and go home. This is going to sound weird (and pitifully materialistic) no matter how I say it, so I'll go for the plain truth.

I felt like I had to buy the stuffed toy lamb I'd seen in a shop window last week.

Not that I would like to. Or that it was cute and I was wistfully eyeing it, thinking if only I earned more or had less expenses to see to I could buy it. But that I had to, because God had something for me to learn from the experience.

You may be rolling your eyes thinking I am attributing a retail impulse to an authority figure, thereby turning impetuous materialism into dutiful obedience. How like a good Chinese girl to pass the decision-making buck, eh?

Exactly. That's how I felt.

But, now that the day is nearly over, I think it was true. There were things for me to learn.

First of all, because of what the animal was and what it symbolises.

A few weeks ago, I was in a prayer counselling session and the main theme that came up was the Holy Spirit's gentle looking after of my heart. And one of the counsellors kept referring to me as a little lamb that the Lord is taking the greatest care to guard and love.

Also, it's the Easter season. Maybe in the secular (and commercial) world, the lambs filling shop shelves everywhere are simply a symbol of Spring, spilled over from the Northern Hemisphere where it is, in actual fact, spring and not autumn.

But for those who know the Story, the lamb is a symbol of atonement for sin.

More than that, it's a symbol of undeserved atonement for sin. It's a symbol of me having my death sentence exchanged for an eternity of joy and life and peace, because a perfect Man took that sentence upon Himself.

I was uneasy about spending the money. I wanted to save up as much as I could for a rainy day. But I felt Him urging me, "Go and get it. Don't ask, just listen."

So I went, grumbling a little that maybe I could wait until after Easter and it might go on sale. Why do I have to get it now and pay full price?

Lesson Number One hit me.

If you wait, it might either get taken off the shelves after Easter, or get sold out.

Grace is a little like that. Although it never runs out, we can miss opportunities to take it home with us. We can wait so long that it doesn't become a part of our lives. We can get so obsessed with how much we have to give up for it, or how much it's costing us, that we never see how much more valuable it is.

And grace is costly. It's costly for the giver, because by its very nature the exchange is an uneven one. But the receiver also has a price to pay, and it's hard to get those fists uncurled from around their prize.

As I said, grace doesn't run out. But it isn't always available in this way, in this place, so when it's offered to you here and now, grab it.

I reached the shop at 10.25. I wasn't even sure if they would be open today, but then again, why would a chocolate shop miss out on the chance to get some last-minute Easter business? The sign said they would open at 11.

I was afraid of looking foolish and desperate, skulking around outside a closed chocolate shop while the sales staff scurried around inside and then stood waiting for the last 15 minutes while the crowd outside began to thicken. By the time the doors opened, there were at least a dozen of us.

Lesson Number Two was on its way.

One group of two elderly couples had got there about the same time as me. The friendlier of the two ladies told me that she lives in a suburb about 30 minutes from the city, but her sister is visiting from the North Coast and the latter's husband loves that brand of chocolate. I saw him prove that later on, when he grabbed a wire basket and went as berserk as a dignified grey-haired man in conservative short-sleeved white checks can get.

"Are you here to get your Easter egg?" the friendly lady asked.

"Umm, no. I'm here to get my Easter lamb," I replied sheepishly (ha! That was so not intended!), pointing through the glass at the shelf of lambs, their numbers greatly reduced from the first time I saw them.

Another gentleman in line asked me if I was also doing Easter shopping. "Kind of," I said. I felt embarrassed. Who does Easter shopping for themselves?

And a reminder of another, older lesson floated in.

Get over yourself. This is your season for being looked after, and if it means you looking after you, that's what it is.

"Yes. I am."

And then, because he looked nervous and almost scared, I asked him, "What about you? Are you doing some last-minute shopping for someone?"

"Yes. I forgot, and... we pay a price for forgetting, don't we? I mean, I'm standing on the street, outside a shop waiting for it to open, just because I didn't get an egg earlier."

"I guess. So, who?"

And then it was his turn to look sheepish. "New girlfriend."

"Right, really not a person to forget buying an Easter egg for, huh?"

"Yeah. And, like... do you know if these chocolates are good? Is this a good shop?"

And so ensued a friendly chat about the quality of that particular brand and the pros and cons of his taking a bus to other chocolate boutiques in the suburbs. In five minutes, I discovered that they've been together a month, he's from out of town hence his lack of chocolate-specific geographical knowledge, but she's from Sydney and so she'd know if he went to a dud (not the Milk kind) chocolate shop, and they're (or he's) Greek Orthodox.

He didn't really know what to get her and was vaguely checking out the cellophane-wrapped hampers on the top shelf. With a definite note of doubt in his voice, he said, "But I don't know, that's a little..."

"Corporate gift!" I screamed silently. For the sake of love and romance and all that is good and mushy in this world, don't do it!

Besides, it was nearly $100 worth of chocolate, cellophane, ribbon and wicker.

He finished his sentence, "It's so... it's like something I'd get for my Nanna."

Good enough. Crisis averted. I decided to let him in on my secret target, which was behind the window on the other side of the shop.

His eyes lit up. "Oh, you're right. That's a good one. It's cuddly and looks cute, and it isn't an indecent amount of chocolate."

I thought, "This guy might actually know what he's doing, after all."

And then he shifted his gaze a foot upwards, and said, "Oh, but look! They have hampers with the lamb in them."

Maybe I was a little too optimistic.

When I left, the older man was still gleefully sweeping bars and eggs into his basket while his sister-in-law and her husband patiently guarded his suitcase outside.

Last-Minute New Boyfriend Guy had a lamb -- the last one with a blue ribbon which I had fished out from the back of the shelf after making my choice, because I pointed out to him that the blue goes so much better with cream-coloured synthetic wool than burnt orange -- and a couple of eggs, and was wondering aloud about the chocolate fish.

Lesson Number Two: On your way towards grace, or on its way to you, you will meet other people. What you stand to give to or get from them seems secondary to the fact that for that moment in time, you connect with others who are similarly made in the image of the Divine, who pulse with life, who get things wrong and are trying to make them right, who need help and who help others and who have questions.

People who may look completely different, but are in fact just like you in the ways that matter.

Not too long after, the lamb (and the two small chocolate eggs it came with) and I were on the bus home.

By the time I unlocked my front door, I knew what its name would be. So, meet my new friend.



En En.

(Pronounced to rhyme with "fern burn" but without the Rs)

En in this case is Chinese for grace, the sort of grace I'm talking about. Not just a false, face-value sort of grace that pretends to be nice to you while secretly resenting the allowances it has made, but extravagant, unreasonable, expansive grace. Grace that gives in quantities greater than you can ever repay. And that's why instead of naming the lamb En-something else the way most Chinese names are a compound of two separate words, I named it this.

"Grace and More Grace."

Because that's practically the sum of my life at present.

Happy Easter.

What feeds me?

I don't know why I still feel disappointed when this happens... you'd think I'm used to it by now.

"Why don't you come back to Malaysia and go into business?" she asked. "You can earn a lot of money and then if you want to migrate you can do so as an investor."

As I said, I don't know why it should bother me at all anymore.

I guess part of me still holds on to the idealistic belief that people who've lived longer than me on earth, and in the faith we share, would be even more eager than I am to know God's specific, detailed plan for each person's life... instead of dispensing more of the same tried, tested, tired formulas for getting ahead.

I am beginning to wonder if I'm the only one who believes that God's favour is the one and only indicator of direction to follow. I am not trying to sound proud or "holy"... if you know me well enough, you will know that. As it is, my life is a daily struggle of balance, of combining the "don't knows" of head knowledge with the "go anyway" of faith.

I'm tired... have been baking almost non-stop for nine hours now. Someday let me look back on this moment and laugh... right now all I want is a hot shower and for everything to stop aching.

But hey, I just realised that's nearly nine hours straight of worship music. Without it I don't think I'd have lasted this long.

The title? Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me."

I want to say the same, but at the moment I don't know exactly what my diet should be in this case.

"I know the way out"

At least one part of my life of late has been filled with confusion: the part that involves navigating the visa application tangle to find the least complicated (cynical laugh) way to stay and work here.

Amidst the added confusion of many different voices giving me well-meaning, but often ignorant and unfounded, advice are my own frantic attempts to simultaneously take no notice of the mistaken advice while paying close attention to information from reliable channels (such as, say, the official website, which for some uncanny reason tends to be at a tangent to the advice from the aforementioned. Why do people seem to think that having been through something personally makes them authorities on the wider subject, even when it involves others in completely different circumstances? See my previous post. Meh.) and I feel as though I'm rowing a boat solo along an unfamiliar network of winding rivers, while dozens of different people stand on the bank and call out conflicting directions.

Without the benefit of a cox (and navigator), I'm sunk. Pardon the pun. And last night, I could feel myself sinking. The weight of it all was pushing me under the surface and keeping me there. "I can't do this. I don't have a job, I don't have the money for all of these documents and applications, I don't even have money to pay my utility bills and the rent, and everybody around me is too interested in giving me advice to listen to what I'm saying. I get the feeling that even if I were to strain my ears to listen to just one of them -- any one, that person would still end up giving me directions to the wrong destination because none of them knows what I'm aiming for, but they know where they've been and that's where they want me to go."

Never mind that some of the roads they're recommending have long since been closed, or merged with other roads.

Never mind that I am someone else entirely, with different aspirations and dreams and plans.

Never mind that everybody is eager to talk to me (or at me), but not in the least interested in listening to me.

Can you hear me sputtering as I try to keep my head above water? Nobody knows, and nobody wants to know.

Cue sobbing. Tears. Tissues and more tissues.

And then came the voice I have come to recognise for its unearthly peacefulness even in the stormiest of storms.

"I know."

He knows?

"I know the way out. I know where you want to go, because I created that destination for you. Follow Me."

Once before, in a similar time of desperation, I saw myself as a rat in a closed maze. There was no way out, just lots of cheese and even more walls.

And then I saw a hand reach down to lift me up and "bring me out into a place of abundance". And I knew then that no amount of effort on my part, or "help", or "advice" from others who are really just rats in other mazes who think they've found the way out of mine, was going to get me out. I couldn't climb up the high, slippery walls. I couldn't chew my way out. I needed only to stop my frantic race, to wait, to be still, and I would be lifted out.

I feel ratty again. I feel as though all of this futile scurrying down what seemed like promising leads from my beautifully uninformed friends has resulted only in fatigue and crumbs of stale cheese, not the fresh air and food (and rats of a similar stripe) I'm longing for.

Once again, I want to place my trust in Him and only Him. Not the multitudes on the river banks, telling me what each of them thinks is best. Only Him.

And He knows, knows very well, the one way out that will lead me to the life abundant that I have been dreaming of.

"Not even little percent"

After years of very sparse entries on this blog, I've decided to try and update it more frequently. I deliberated long and hard over whether I should even keep it at all, or make my primary blog the one-blog-fits-all location of all my online writings.

Over the years I've built up a collection of devotional writings that I hope to type out and upload here, but tonight I want to write about something that's still fresh in my mind and heart.

I had a bit of a "moment" yesterday when a couple I consider myself close to, whom I've counted among my spiritual mentors for years, inadvertently hurt me (again) with some things that they said. They meant well, but their comments went deep and hit hard, and I spent the rest of the day back in the shell to which I retreat whenever things get too painful to face.

Tonight, I finally had the courage to sit down in the absence of noise and activity, revisit what happened and try to understand why it caused so much pain.

The content of the hurtful statement isn't relevant to this post. Suffice it to say that they had spoken out of their very limited human understanding of a very complex situation, with shrapnel-like results. As I drove home after our encounter, the words of one of the mothers in The Joy Luck Club floated into view. "You think you know me, but you don't even know little percent," she sniffs to her ignorant American daughter.

"You think you know me, but you don't even know little percent," I felt myself saying, in my mind, to this lovely couple. It's true. They are busy and have their own concerns; what I share with them is a tiny fraction of the myriad experiences and insights and trials that I encounter on a daily basis. And yet they saw fit to sweep together these fragments and try to piece together the immense, complicated tapestry of my life.

Tonight, as usual, I wrote. The benefit of being a writer is that I can articulate exactly how I feel. The benefit of writing in a private journal is that the world is spared 95% of my painfully introspective writing. But when I encounter hidden treasure as a result of that writing, I can share it here in the hopes that it will do some good.

As I wrote and wrote, my pain from being misunderstood and having the wrong conclusions made about me fell away and I began to see a different picture, hear a different voice.

A voice that, like mine, laments not being known as He truly is.

A voice that, like mine, weeps over having pronouncements made over the "best" way forward, when very little effort has been made to understand His heart.

A voice saying to a world that has misrepresented and misunderstood Him, and then dismissed Him without a second thought, "You think you know Me... but you only know..."

... and as for the rest of the statement, I have to wonder if the perfect One would ever use broken English, but perhaps for the sake of preserving the flow of my evening, He might.

"Is this how You feel, Lord? Do You long to be known as You are, not as I want You to be? Do You hear my conclusive, definitive, (absolutely mistaken) one-liners and think, 'That's not what I want at all, but you won't listen so I can't tell you'? Do You wish for the walls to come down and the scales to fall off so that we can know one another -- You in Your nail-scarred perfection, me with my tattered heart?

"If this experience is what it took to draw me closer to You, then how could I not thank You?"

One way or another, life has struck me hard over the years and I have the blood and scars to prove it. The friends I am privileged to have, the brave ones who dare to really know me, are the ones who haven't minded getting a little blood on their clothes and mud on their hands as they walk with me. But I pray that they won't only be soiled by my presence; I hope that some of my perfume would also rub off and sweeten their journey a little.

I walk, and so do many of you, with One who has shed much blood, who has borne scars many times more painful than mine. One whose very existence has a purity that puts my filthy best efforts to shame. Walking with Him, I am bound to get some of His blood on me -- and I cannot say loudly enough that I not only want to, I need to. Not only to have it smeared on me in places where I happened to brush against Him, but to have every part of my being soaked in it, because without His blood I cannot live. And while I crave that the faintest touch of my pathetic earthly fragrance, whether it's Bvlgari Eau de The Rose or Kenzo Amore or whichever takes my fancy on a given day, will brush off on my friends, I long for my life to smell strongly of Him -- the priceless aroma of sacrificial obedience and Kingly servanthood.

What is truth?

"THE head of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese in Australia yesterday advised people who think a Sydney house that weeps oil is a hoax should see it first before casting judgment.

"Archbishop Paul Saliba said God had many ways of revealing himself and he had no doubt that was what was happening in Guildford, in Sydney's west.

"Thousands of people have been flocking to the home of George and Lina Tannous after oil and ash started appearing in the bedroom of their late son Mike.

"'I've been there many times and we cannot pinpoint exactly what's happening. It is miraculous," Father Saliba yesterday told The Daily Telegraph.

"'Our church policy is that people have to look and see for themselves and make up their own minds and this takes time.

"'When the people of the church come to a conclusion, then the church will comment.'"

Full article here.

"Look and see for themselves"?

"Make up their own minds"?

"Come to a conclusion"?

Is this how truth is affirmed, then? By people examining something and then deciding if they will call it true?

And the church in question will only issue a release based on the consensus?

So in this case, truth relies on numbers.

I don't know about you, but I need a more concrete, reliable truth than something that can be influenced by how many people show up to take a look, who ate what for lunch, and who just got into a fight with his mother-in-law.

I believe with all my heart that my God works miracles.

I believe that He will not share His glory with anyone.

And I believe that He has given us not only brains, but discernment, so that we don't have to decide if something is true or not, we can know if we ask Him.

Sigh.

Rock on

Someday, I hope to have a home with land big enough for a rock garden. Not just any old rock garden with any old rocks, but a special rock garden commemorating God's goodness to me, the way it was done in the Bible. One rock for each time He's come through in some mightily improbable way for me and my family. (It would have to be a very, very large garden, unless I use small rocks.)

Right now, I keep shifting from house to house in Sydney and it's left me feeling very unsettled... but it has taught me that He is my ultimate dwelling place. As long as my home is in Him, I belong; I am safe; I am secure. So I can't have my rock garden yet... but I have my Rock.