How did your past relate to God??
Giving more thoughts to my past after the Friday GLC, from struggles to growth, I have the following "findings":
My past can be summarized as:
- a journey to know and acknowledge more and more about "God is love"
- a journey of finding and feeling home
- the development of "being stubborn" in what I believe
What did I learn from this reflection?
I truly believe God found me from the lost and not vice versa. Yet, from the reflection above I realized intruitively and unconsciously I was trying to connect back to God inside throughout all these years. I kept trying and trying hard, finding love, to be loved to be precise. At the time, my "best strategy" is to present myself nicely and almost perfectly so as to please everyone whom I ran into in my life journey. That's why even though I seem like a happy girl in appearance (yes, don't you know people like to see a simling little girl than a crying little girl?!!) I was lost ... dunno my identity, myself, my worth is totally based on others' values ... and was hurt deeply when I felt being rejected. But from this "tough training," I learn to understand and listen to others instead of imposing my own opinions (though I find myself getting worse on this!! *sigh*). And most important of all, I have been trying to please my dad the best I can despite how much disappointment and hurt I encountered in the process.
This also reveals why home is soooo important to me. No matter what happened at home: arguments, pain, hurts, cold wars, I still wanted to be home, and I still do. Home is where I want to be and I should be ... I'd feel so lost if I don't know where my home is, and feel so disappointed if I don't know what's happening at home.
Ever since God's love touched me .. I started learning to find my true self. God's love helps me to know more and more about myself, and at the same time, I'm able to learn more about God ... I found my value ... my value is no longer based on how others see me, comment about me .. I know my value is unshakable by others in God's eyes. I started to develop my image and my identity ...
It is interesting that from the process I remembered an instance that I forgot for a long time .. An instance that shows my "stubborness" was evident from waaay back ... hahaha ... I refused to eat one time as I was forbidden to pray before meal. I was about 6 years old then. Of course, I totally forgot to pray after that instance for almost 20 years!!! There were many others since that demonstrated my "stubborness", determination, persistence .. whatever you want to call it ... Hhmm .. I learned couple things from this. I need to be extremely careful in what I take as my value, since I can (almost blindly) keep following what I believe until I hit a wall. Second, I realized I have the "character" to carry something from start to finish, if that's something I truly believe.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Saturday, November 18, 2006
C1 U21 and U22
C1 U21 and U22
What's the code above?? Haha .. those are the section number and seat numbers of a concert we went to just this Thurs at Roy Thompson Hall ... cheap tickets yet very good seats ... It's a great performance too ... Really enjoy it. So thankful that there's an evening I can be quiet down and enjoy the "creativity" and "talents" of men ... Doesn't that remind us again how great and creative HE is??
Details of concert:
Goodyear Plays Mozart
Wed. Nov. 15 at 8:00 pm
Thu. Nov. 16 at 8:00 pm
TSO conductor laureate Sir Andrew Davis presides over a banquet of outstanding music spanning the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras. He also contributes his own expert transcription of the towering Passacaglia and Fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach. Harold in Italy by Berlioz casts the solo viola as the main character, a heartbroken wanderer, in a picturesque symphony/concerto inspired by the fanciful prose of Lord Byron. Pianist Stewart Goodyear revels in a Mozart concerto, famous for its dreamy slow movement that was featured in the film Elvira Madigan.
The November 16 performance will be broadcast
live-to-air on CBC Radio Two.
Sir Andrew Davis, conductor
Stewart Goodyear, piano
Teng Li, viola
Bach orch. Davis: Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K.467
Berlioz: Harold in Italy
Some pictures from my little palm .. hahaha
What's the code above?? Haha .. those are the section number and seat numbers of a concert we went to just this Thurs at Roy Thompson Hall ... cheap tickets yet very good seats ... It's a great performance too ... Really enjoy it. So thankful that there's an evening I can be quiet down and enjoy the "creativity" and "talents" of men ... Doesn't that remind us again how great and creative HE is??
Details of concert:
Goodyear Plays Mozart
Wed. Nov. 15 at 8:00 pm
Thu. Nov. 16 at 8:00 pm
TSO conductor laureate Sir Andrew Davis presides over a banquet of outstanding music spanning the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras. He also contributes his own expert transcription of the towering Passacaglia and Fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach. Harold in Italy by Berlioz casts the solo viola as the main character, a heartbroken wanderer, in a picturesque symphony/concerto inspired by the fanciful prose of Lord Byron. Pianist Stewart Goodyear revels in a Mozart concerto, famous for its dreamy slow movement that was featured in the film Elvira Madigan.
The November 16 performance will be broadcast
live-to-air on CBC Radio Two.
Sir Andrew Davis, conductor
Stewart Goodyear, piano
Teng Li, viola
Bach orch. Davis: Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K.467
Berlioz: Harold in Italy
Some pictures from my little palm .. hahaha
Friday, November 03, 2006
Spiritual Battles
What does “spiritual battles” mean to you?? For me, it was a term to express some struggles we face especially when we are serving God. But lately, through some events, this term actually becomes soo vivid that at a time I was scared;; scared to realize the realness and closeness of the battles around us. Whether you like it or not, admit it or not, you see it or not, it exists.
The reason why it suddenly hits me hard is due to deaths. Starting last year, I’ve been to quite a number of funerals and learned about people I know passed away. This week, I learned another young beautiful talented young lady, I don’t know her too well - she’s a friend’s friend, but we met and had some dialogues before, passed away .. just at age of 27. It is hard to deal with the feeling of loss especially for these prematured deaths. It is even harder to learn she’s actually starting to open up to Christ, or willing to listen and learn more about God.
So this scare feeling hits me when I learned about it … After some thoughts and reflection, I finally aware it’s the realization that the spiritual battles are sooo real and close that frightened me. Think we, at least I for sure, might have 1) underestimated the power of satan and what they can achieve (right, they still are under God’s “supervision” …) 2) overestimated our power on how much we can achieve (or fix); and 3) “over-dependent” (in lack of a better term) on God’s grace.
I think one of the reasons for the above is due to our lack of the alert of being in a battle .. we don’t see that we are in a battle due to the comfort we have here in North America in general. We see ourselves as outsider instead being part of the battle. It is sad to reveal we are actually in a battle yet we do not aware or are not alert about that. But without being alert, we are basically slowly giving rooms/grounds to satan without even realizing it .. (I’m not talking about the “win” of satan re: death .. I’m actually thinking about how we Christians react to these incidences .. something we don’t expect, we don’t want happening - how do we deal with our emotions etc. I believe we might lose grounds there for satan if we don’t deal with them properly.) this is sad. Like Psalm 1: 1-2 .. in order to act out all these .. we need to be alert and aware what situation we are in. Without realizing where we are .. we can basically do nothing, or we do not know what is the right thing to do!
Yet, I am thankful .. thankful for fellowships that God gifted to us .. so that we have support and companion in this battle .. we can talk through things, we can remind each other. Having a strong real fellowship (not just physically attending one) is like a castle – minimize the chance of being defeated. United and fellowship is a common theme popping up lately in my life .. and I’m really really thankful for all of you who “keep” me in fellowship!!
The reason why it suddenly hits me hard is due to deaths. Starting last year, I’ve been to quite a number of funerals and learned about people I know passed away. This week, I learned another young beautiful talented young lady, I don’t know her too well - she’s a friend’s friend, but we met and had some dialogues before, passed away .. just at age of 27. It is hard to deal with the feeling of loss especially for these prematured deaths. It is even harder to learn she’s actually starting to open up to Christ, or willing to listen and learn more about God.
So this scare feeling hits me when I learned about it … After some thoughts and reflection, I finally aware it’s the realization that the spiritual battles are sooo real and close that frightened me. Think we, at least I for sure, might have 1) underestimated the power of satan and what they can achieve (right, they still are under God’s “supervision” …) 2) overestimated our power on how much we can achieve (or fix); and 3) “over-dependent” (in lack of a better term) on God’s grace.
I think one of the reasons for the above is due to our lack of the alert of being in a battle .. we don’t see that we are in a battle due to the comfort we have here in North America in general. We see ourselves as outsider instead being part of the battle. It is sad to reveal we are actually in a battle yet we do not aware or are not alert about that. But without being alert, we are basically slowly giving rooms/grounds to satan without even realizing it .. (I’m not talking about the “win” of satan re: death .. I’m actually thinking about how we Christians react to these incidences .. something we don’t expect, we don’t want happening - how do we deal with our emotions etc. I believe we might lose grounds there for satan if we don’t deal with them properly.) this is sad. Like Psalm 1: 1-2 .. in order to act out all these .. we need to be alert and aware what situation we are in. Without realizing where we are .. we can basically do nothing, or we do not know what is the right thing to do!
Yet, I am thankful .. thankful for fellowships that God gifted to us .. so that we have support and companion in this battle .. we can talk through things, we can remind each other. Having a strong real fellowship (not just physically attending one) is like a castle – minimize the chance of being defeated. United and fellowship is a common theme popping up lately in my life .. and I’m really really thankful for all of you who “keep” me in fellowship!!
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