2007: THE CRAZIEST YEAR OF MY LIFE (so far)

In the last 365 days, here is where the good Lord has brought me (in order):

• Toronto

• Vancouver

• Panama

• Vancouver

• Toronto

• Vancouver

• Colorado

• Vancouver

• Whistler

• Vancouver

• Toronto

• East Asia

• Toronto

• East Asia

• Toronto.

A lot of people travel more than this, I know. I suppose travelling needs to be differentiated from moving though. For me, I've moved at least four times in the midst of all the travelling. For a creature who is a homebody by nature, this is an amount of packing, unpacking and moving that borders on being classified as extreme!

Still, I'm deeply grateful for this year. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have been in all these places, for all the people I've met and all the lessons I've learned. I'm grateful for my parents who've allowed me to journey away and keep welcoming me back, even when I come back worse for the wear. And I'm very grateful for Tim, who's persisted in courting me through all these changes of distance, time zones and my moods that fluctuate faster than either of us can keep track of.

At the end of this year, my heart is full of praise because I know God that much more intimately. And Jesus is my heart's treasure more than ever.

I'm tired, yes. But His grace is allowing me to rest now. And by His grace, it's going to be a

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
~Genesis 28:15~

THE FOOL'S EXCHANGE

How is it that the grandeur and splendour of a natural wonder like Niagara Falls has attracted such an odd assortment of businesses? It is sad to see that so many "attractions" that have sprung up in the downtown part of Niagara Falls are really distractions from life: Ripley's believe-it-or-not, wax museums, haunted houses, tatoo parlours and more recently, the much celebrated casinos. It's like all the weirdest stuff, the out-of-ordinary, the ghoulish and fantasy have all collected right beside one of God's amazing creations. It's just bizarre. On one hand, you have the magnificence of what God has to offer. And on the other, you have the pitiful emptiness of what humans have to offer. The clincher is this: the experience God offers is free, while the other option will cost you your wallet (and maybe more).

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
~Romans 1:22-23~

WORD OF THE DAY: FRANGIBLE

(from dictionary.com)

frangible \FRAN-juh-buhl\, adjective:
Capable of being broken; brittle; fragile; easily broken.

me.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
~2 Corinthians 4:7~

ALL THINGS NOT EQUAL

I bought a bunch of bamboo a couple months back. Since they were too long, I cut off some inches from the bottom before I stuck them in a vase of water. They have now happily grown a healthy entanglement of roots.

The short bits that I cut off, I stuck in their own little glass container with some pretty white pebbles to keep them standing straight. I'd seen a friend do this before and hers started to grow leaves. I figured I might as well give it a try too. I put my little "garden" next to the sink in my bathroom. I like how it greens things up.

Anyway, they have started to grow leaves. What intrigues me though is that some of them have leaves about 3 inches long, while others are only just starting to show a little nub. In observing their growth, I've realized that God's creativity extends to the timing of things. I mean, He could easily make them all grow at the same rate - and the human perfectionist in me would be more satisfied if that were the case - but He doesn't.

In the same way, I think He allows people to grow at different rates as well. Too often, we are tempted to compare ourselves with others (imagine one bamboo comparing itself with another one!) and we might even complain that God's not being fair, but reality is that His love and grace is just as plentiful for each of us and that He is glorified in the variety and differences.

God...makes things grow.
~1 Corinthians 3:7~

WHO DOES GOD TRUST?

At a retreat this past weekend, in one of the prayers, the person thanked God for trusting Himself to the care of a teenage girl when He came to earth. That's a pretty incredible thought. That God would trust humanity to take care of Him. That the Creator would trust Himself to the created. Then it dawned on me that God not only trusted Mary, He trusted many other people in the Bible. He also trusted many others throughout history. He trusts each of us who know Him. And most incredibly (to me anyway), He trusts me.

This is something I'll need to think more about - that God's character is trusting.

[Love] always trusts.
~1 Corinthians 13:7~

REMARKABLE!

Yesterday, a friend and I had lunch on the 12th floor of a hotel by the beach. Looking out over the rhythmic waves as they washed up along the shore, we prayed for each other. She thanked God for His love and that His thoughts about me outnumbered the grains of sand. After we finished praying, we both looked at each other and wondered, "What could God possibly be thinking about us that He would have THAT many thoughts about each one of us?!"

Could it really be that Someone out there loves me THAT much?

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
~Psalm 139:17-18a~

MIRACLE

I think I'm finally starting to believe that I really am loved.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
~Ezekiel 36:26~

BROKEN

Today,
The water isn’t running,
Our apartment smells like sewage,
The internet is temperamental,
I was fortunate to have a seat on the bus one-way,
It’s taken me almost 2 hours to make a simple soup,
And all I want to do since I woke up is go back to sleep.

This soldier is broken.

I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
~Psalm 40:1-2~

FRUIT-LESS

This post has been rattling around in my brain for a while now and I thought it was about time to set it free...

In my devos one day, I read about a gardener who was asked about his abundant and lush grape harvest. He explained that when he first acquired the vineyard, he pruned all the plants and for two whole years he had no harvest. I saw a parallel in my own life. I've been feeling fruitless lately but it was as if the Lord spoke and affirmed to me that it is actually quite unnatural and impossible for a plant who is in the pruning process to bear fruit. A pruned branch cannot bear fruit! Nor is it expected to. A pruned plant has only one task: to drink in the sunshine and take in the nutrients from the earth through the vine. And one day, when God deems it time, flowers will bloom and fruit will come forth. Even more fruit than was ever possible before.

Christ's yoke is much lighter than my own. Hallelujah!

...Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.
~John 15:2~

WHAT AM I DREAMING?!

This past week, my sleep has been full of really strange dreams consisting of many, many people. I'm not sure what's going on, but if you think of me, please pray for undisturbed sleep. Sleeping is making me tired.

This morning, I had the weirdest dream I've had in a long time. Curiously enough, I think God had something to teach me through it. I'll try to narrate it here without confusing you - it was really quite something. (I actually feel vulnerable posting this; you might think I need therapy after reading it!)

So in my dream, a handful of friends and I were taken down in an elevator 99 floors underground. The elevator operator warned us that there were spirits in the form of snakes, looking to find people to inhabit. He told us to be careful lest we be bitten by a snake and inhabited by a demon. He also told us that the floor we were getting off at had an illusion of reality and that we should remember not to trust what we saw.

The elevator stopped and we got off. After a while, we found ourselves in a room containing different themed sections. One of my friends had this child's bedroom setting with a big bed in the middle against the wall and pictures and things surrounding it. As we tried to decipher what the operator meant by this being a place of illusions, my friend figured out that the place where the bed was was actually a fireplace with a mantle on top. The bed was an illusion. The fireplace was reality.

We were excited to discover the truth. Each of us then began to realize that our areas of the room also had been distorted somehow. Even more exciting was that as we saw the truth, we were released from the oppressive place and able to return back to above-ground reality. As we worked on unmasking the illusions, the employees there kept trying to dissuade us from our work - they kept telling us there was no reality behind the illusion and that we were wasting our efforts. We did not listen to them but kept encouraging each other to seek freedom. And for some reason, we felt a pressing sense of urgency to finish the work.

What was even more interesting was that those of us who figured out the reality of the place did not get whisked above-ground right away. We only becme invisible so that the workers could not harass us anymore. We remained in the room to encourage those who hadn't fully discovered reality yet. It wasn't until we had all seen the truth that we left that place.

Another strange thing was that the whole time we were there, not even one snake was seen.

As I reflected on this dream and asked the Lord to teach me from it, I saw the oppressive place was this earth. As we live life here, what we see is not all we get. Through Christ, we are able to see reality. As we find the Truth, we are set free from what the enemy wants us to believe. There are also those who want to discourage us from seeking truth - they discourage us and tell us that it's all a waste of time. Just as there are lies planted in our minds - rumors of snakes - that are meant to frighten us and give us anxiety. And for those of us who have seen the truth, we are shielded from harrassment from the enemy and we continue to remain on the earth so that we can encourage others to keep seeking truth. And undergirding the experience is a sense of urgency.

In a broad sense, I see this as an allegory for the work of the gospel. People need to see the truth about their lives here and the reality of eternity. There is an enemy who wants to discourage them from seeing the truth because when they find it, they will be out of his grip. He wants them to think that what they see is all there is to life. We urgently need to exhort people to keep seeking the Truth.

Personally, I think this is an allegory for my journey to unmask what's really behind the tireness and discouragement that I've been battling lately. I sense the Lord encouraging me to keep persevering and allow Him to dig deep so that He can show me my true condition and free me from my warped perspective.

You will not fear the terror of the night.
~Psalm 91:5a~

RISK

A couple weekends ago, I had the pleasure of an after-dinner hang-out with a few of my favourite people. Over some blended coffee drinks and tea, the conversation turned toward the topic of risk. The question posed was, "What are some of the biggest risks you've taken in your life?" We took turns sharing our stories.

It was my turn. As I opened my mouth to speak, I began to realize that although I've taken quite a few risks (especially in the last few years), I didn't really consider them risks. I made my decisions because I knew God was in them. To not take the risk would be the bigger risk. To obey has been the safest thing for me to do.

We had stumbled upon yet another example of the upside-down workings of the way of the Cross: what seems a big risk is really the safest thing; and what seems safe, may actually be the riskiest thing.

I'm really not that much of a risk-taker. I'm just foolishly obedient. ;)

Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
~Luke 17:33~

A COUNTRY CALLED BROKEN

A couple weeks ago, I was on a "long distance" bus taking me from one city to another. I sat in the far right corner of the bus in a row that was raised by just one step. As such, my sightline included the air vents above every seat in front of me, all the way to the very front. Having 8 hours with not much to do, I observed that most of the vents were broken (it didn't help that it was a hot day and the air conditioning was finicky so everyone was trying to adjust the air flowing to their seat.) I looked at my vent. The plastic grill had fallen off who knows when and some brilliant person, who was either too hot or too cold, had stuffed an empty juice carton in the vent that was now a hole. Except it was juice-sized carton for milk. Sigh. The vent beside it was still a gaping hole.

Outside my apartment complex, there is a sidewalk that leads to the bus stop where I catch the bus everyday. The sidewalk is unlike most sidewalks in that it's made of smallish squares of stone that are set in a pattern. The sad thing though is that the soil between the stones has eroded and some of the stones themselves are cracked. The first time I took that sidewalk, I nearly got my foot stuck in the deep crevice between the slabs of stone. I've since learned to watch my step.

The apartment I now live in is nicer than any apartment I've ever lived in on this side of the ocean. It's spacious, it's clean and it's really quite comfy. When I first moved in, I noticed little patches of white dust on the edges of the hardwood-style floor. I wondered what it could be from. After a while, I realized that there are little pockets of wall that are puckering out in random spots. I still have no clue what they are, but apparently, the paint is falling off like dust and collecting in neat little piles underneath.

It's also not uncommon for the public buses to stall every few stops.

I was reflecting on all this brokenness around me and I wondered if it ever bothers people here. They don't seem to be phased when things don't work or aren't complete. Perhaps when you grow up with things not working all the time, imperfection doesn't annoy you quite as much? I wonder if perfectionism is an issue linked to culture. I wonder if I grew up in a place like this, would I still have such a strong drive for things to be perfect? Would I still have such a problem letting go of the ideal of what I think things should be and embracing the reality of this fallen world?

Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
~1 Corinthians 13:12 [NLT]~

WHO IS THIS KING OF GLORY?

Recently, I've been reading the Word with the question, "God, what do you want to teach me about yourself?" I've discovered it to be a rewarding way of reading the Word. It takes my eyes off myself and teaches me more about the One whom I love most.

Being overseas again has brought me back to a place of emotional vulnerability - all my "normal" support structures aren't as easily accessible once more. And to be honest, it's been a hard fight for joy. God continues to expose the deep, hidden and wounded parts of me - my insecurities, doubts, sins, fears and failures; my resistance to His unconditional love and my hesitance to accept myself fully. The result: I feel like an emotional basketcase.

Enter the Living Word of God - Hebrews 1:11. The heavens and the earth will perish. But the Lord remains. If the Lord remains, does the Lord grieve the passing of the heavens and the earth? Afterall, He created it all. Does His heart become sad when it all comes to an end? Did Jesus show grief (He, being the most tangible expression of God that we have)? I am surprised at the answer. Yes. Jesus grieved. He wept. He wept over the passing of his friend Lazarus. He wept at the thought of the destruction of Jerusalem. God felt grief. God feels grief.

What a thought.

Usually, I do not associate God with grief and sadness. I think of Him as the God of joy, happiness and celebration. And I realize that ultimately, joy will be greater than the grief of a world passing away. But it comforts me to think that my God is an emotional God. He feels the whole spectrum of emotions. Deeply. Probably more deeply than I can ever have the capacity to feel. And I feel because I am made in His image - the image of an emotional God.

Which leads me to think that perhaps I should let Him lead me to those dark and hidden places, those places I'm afraid of going to because it might get too emotional.

Around the same time as this discovery, I started reading "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality." In it, the author points out that many of us have grown up spiritually but we're so immature emotionally that our churches are made up of shallow connections. We know all these things about Jesus but our hearts are far from being transformed by Him.

I'm learning that very few people actually live from their heart. Very few live connected with their soul. And those few who do the difficult work, who stare their junk in the face, who get counsel, who let Jesus into all of the rooms in their soul that no one ever goes in, they make a difference. They are so different; they're coming from such a different place that their voices inevitably get heard above the others. They are pursuing wholeness and shalom, and it's contagious. They inspire me to keep going.
~ from "Velvet Elvis" by Ron Bell

I want to be emotionally whole. It might mean feeling like a basketcase for a while yet, but I want to let Jesus transform me. Completely.

Open up, ancient gates!
Open up, ancient doors,
and let the King of glory enter.
~Psalm 24:7~

SIGNPOST

I read a quote recently from John Townsend's book Hiding From Love that gave me some encouraging perspective in the face of moving away from my friends and loved ones. I meant to post this earlier but I haven't had a chance to until now. [Side note: I've arrived here safe and I'm dealing with the jet-lag full force]

The extent to which we attach deeply to God and others is the extent to which we leave something behind in people's hearts. If we allow ourselves to matter to others, and they to us, we'll miss them and they'll miss us. The feelings of loss are like a signpost: "Love was here."

This ache in my heart is therefore a gift from God.

"There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven."
~Ecclesiastes 3:1~

TWO GOATS

Last week, I heard one of the best explanations of the gospel. Mark Driscoll (pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle) spoke about the double nature of what Christ accomplished for us at the cross. He related it back to the old testament Day of Atonement, which was the bloodiest day of the Jewish year.

[As a side note, he explained why he thought God used blood as a symbol for sin. He said that the way we recoil and are disturbed when we see lots of blood is probably similar to God's reaction when He sees sin. So God relates blood to sin so that we can have a better idea of how horrendous sin is in His sight.]

So on the Day of Atonement, there were two goats. The first was the goat of sacrifice. The second, the scapegoat. The goat of sacrifice was led into the temple and the priest would lay his hand on the goat's head, pronouncing all the sins of the people for that year. He would then lift the goat's head and slit his throat, sending blood everywhere and ultimately, killing the goat. This first goat represented the payment for the people's sins. In Jesus' death, we understand that His blood paid the ultimate price for our sins. Because of Christ, God would consider our debt to Him paid. This concept, Mark Driscoll explained, is called propitiation.

The second goat (the luckier one, I think), was sent by the priest into the wilderness to wander. This was the scapegoat. The scapegoat represented the second element of redemption; an element that we often forget, or perhaps the enemy wants us to forget. The scapegoat represented the truth that once the sins were forgiven, God remembered them no more. Our slate is clean! We are counted righteous. In Revelation, we will all wear white. This concept is called expiation.

The beauty of the gospel is that in Christ's death, we receive both effects. Our sins are paid for and God considers us clean. Understanding this brought me so much joy! Mark Driscoll gave an example of a woman who has been abused. We cannot simply tell her to confess her sins because Jesus paid for them. She has been sinned against. The good news of Jesus is that His death cleanses her even from the sins others have done to her. She is made whole. Entirely whole. What hope we have in Jesus Christ!!

I know a place, a wonderful place
Where accused and condemed find mercy and grace
Where the wrongs we have done
And the wrongs done to us
Were nailed there with Him, there on the cross.
At the cross, He paid for my sin
At the cross, He gave us life again.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
~1 John 1:9~

NO IDEA

A prayer by Thomas Merton.

My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this You will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore, will I trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
~ Romans 8:28 ~

STILL HERE

i know i've kinda fallen off the blogworld lately. blame it on a job that requires me to be staring at a computer all day, no internet at home, going to Panama and yes, being in a courtship. :)

two very unrelated thoughts to post today...

1. i heard a cool analogy about sin this past week. imagine two guys flying a plane. the pilot looks down and sees a scorpion on his leg. he looks over at his co-pilot and asks, "what do you think i should do?" the co-pilot says, "put on your oxygen mask and let's fly as high as we can. sooner or later, the scorpion will suffocate and fall off your leg." sin is like that scorpion. the higher we fly and the nearer we draw to God, the more likely it will suffocate and fall off.

2. i don't tend to post things like this, but just for fun:

You Are An INFJ

The Protector You live your life with integrity, originality, vision, and creativity.Independent and stubborn, you rarely stray from your vision - no matter what it is.You are an excellent listener, with almost infinite patience.You have complex, deep feelings, and you take great care to express them. You would make a great photographer, alternative medicine guru, or teacher.

What's" Your Personality Type?

alternative medicine guru, eh? hm. i suppose telling people about Jesus could count as alternative medicine... ;p

Submit yourselves, then, to God.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
~James 4:7~

I, A THIEF(!)

I had a most interesting dream yesterday. In my dream, I robbed a house along with somebody else. I don’t know who that other person was, I only know I left that house with a black duffle bag containing stolen goods. I don’t know what goods were in the bag, I only know they were valuable and I would be in big trouble if it was found out that I had stolen them. Anyway, this other person and I somehow got into an elevator to make our escape. The elevator was packed with people. Suddenly, the elevator lurched and began to fly out of the shaft. I tried to conceal my panic.

The elevator took us to this spacious looking complex. Rumour had it that it was some sort of government screening centre and a jail. I was horrified. What if they discovered my bag of stolen goods?! Thankfully, I discovered that there was a long winding line-up (it was a government centre, what was I to expect?) and there were lots of corners to turn. I nonchalantly dropped my bag in a corner somewhere, hoping no one would notice. Everyone around me was carrying luggage too, but I was so worried about being found out that it didn’t matter.

Finally, I got to the front of the line. It turned out that the workers were really nice and they weren’t looking to put people in jail. We had a pleasant chat and they showed me around the building. The whole time though, I was half expecting someone to come running up to me with the bag I had dropped and ask me if it was mine. I expected to get busted. But I was fully accepted there and I couldn’t shake the feelings of guilt and shame of what I had hidden. I wasn’t free to enjoy the grounds or the company.

After I woke up, I asked the Lord what He wanted to teach me from this. As I lay there, He let me see that in everybody else’s luggage, they also had stolen goods!

Recently, I’ve been reading “Hiding From Love” by John Townsend. In it, he talks about how a healthy maturing process includes accepting the bad parts along with the good parts of oneself. As I read, God revealed to me that this is an area I haven’t matured in. My perfectionism and performance-drivenness stem from my refusal to accept the bad parts of myself and my coping mechanism is trying to hide my mistakes, failures and sins. In light of this, my dream was another way of God saying to me that I don’t need to be ashamed of my bag full of stolen goods, that everybody has them and that Jesus already paid for them.

My head understands forgiveness, but my heart is only just beginning to.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
~1 John 4:18~

OH HOW WONDERFUL

i've been thinking about heaven recently. about my life here on earth in relation to heaven. about my 70 or 80 years and how they are really just a speck of time and yet God allows me those years so that i can make a difference in eternity. so i've been asking myself whether every aspect of my life is being impacted by this awareness. and evaluating, will this (whatever it is) last into eternity?

i've also been thinking about how i'm about to move yet again. and how i anticipate that i'll be flying at least 11 times this year and spending time in at least 6 cities in 3 parts of the world before the year 2007 is over. it's a lot of travelling. mind you, i'm aware that there are plenty of other people in the world who travel a lot more than i do. but for a homebody, it's a lot.

i don't think i mind the travelling part as much as i dislike the emotional impact of it all. it's like everytime i get somewhere, i start building friendships and connecting with people and then i have to leave and uproot my heart. i kinda feel like the more places i go, the more bits and pieces of my heart are left all over the world.

which brings me back to heaven. i really look forward to being in a place where everybody is around all the time and it'll be forever! no more packing, no more goodbyes, no more trying to squeeze in appointments with people... how wonderful it will be!

Oh how wonderful, oh how marvellous,
and my song shall ever be,
Oh how wonderful, oh how marvellous
is my Saviour's love for me!
-from a hymn

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
~Revelation 21:2-4~