Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts

Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul
3:10 PM - Posted by Sunchild - 0 comments
They told me it was just migraines...

It's been almost two months since my symptoms started happening, and I don't know exactly what to make of it.

Eye pain, vomiting, headaches, neck stiffness, weakness... paralysis on one side of my body... trouble breathing...

And perfect one paper.

MRIs, CTs, EEGs, and 32 blood tests ruling out nameless, unspeakable fears - meningitis? ALS? multiple sclerosis? stroke? West Nile? ...Cancer? All officially ruled out (with much praise!) and no answers to take their place.

"Ma'am have you been feeling stressed?" "Is that really as hard as you can squeeze?" "....you DROVE here?" *shuffled paperwork and hushed voices. A quick glance over to make sure I'm not listening too closely. Worried looks from doctors that I've known and worked with in my own ICU. Forced levity from my co-workers who've come to visit me.*

What's wrong with me? My God only knows.

-------


In all this, I cannot be grateful enough for my church.

It's a small church, with lots of college age kids, a lot of grown ups that weren't college kids so long ago, and a handful of gruff middle age and older adults that don't know how to tell you they love you except to demand that you take it easy - it's 'cause they care.

In the last two weeks, my pastor has providentially started a sermon series called "Psalms of Lament: Finding God in the Dark Places".

How good is of God to not have left me devoid of hope, but given me comfort even among my own congregation!

The tenant of this theme regards the honest worship of believers who cry out to God and praise him, while still is despair.

For crying out to God to save you in the dark places depicts an accurate perception of God, namely - that he is one who saves.

Similarly, as we would not chasten a child who hesitantly asks, "Do you still love me?" when he has been punished by his parents, neither should we chasten believers who ask the same thing of God.

Honest praise and honest worship begin when we ask God the hard questions with full faith in knowing He is big enough to answer them.

Whether directly or indirectly, our God WILL give us resolution, even if it merely comes as peace in tribulation.

As fellow believers, it is our duty to bear one another up and remind one another about the true attributes of God, just as our own parents would remind us as children, "Of course we love you, it's why we do this".





I may not know much about God, but I know two things:

1). My God is God. He is sovereign and in control over all things. ALL things. Sickness, pain, hurting, fear, my car being stolen, my new car's engine blowing up, lack of autonomy, lack of a working income, inability to drive, inability to walk without help, feeling weak... how the list of my troubles seems so great until I put them in perspective of a greater God.

2). My God is Good. He who IS love, is also the God who saves, protects, succours, shepherds, provides, and .... heals. And he is the God who also, in his perfect wisdom, doesn't heal.

It is a strong and comforting revelation that men in the Bible far more righteous than I, suffered under the hand of my same great God, and declared him righteous though the end seemed bleak. [Glance briefly through Hebrews 11 and Job 1-2].

LORD may I but be like Job, like Daniel, like Samuel, like David, like Nehemiah, like Esther and Ruth, and like other modern and ancient saints too many to count, who have suffered greater sorrows, been tempted and tried in more dire circumstances, been slain, destitute, and acted as wanderers in ways far greater than I can imagine, and endured far greater trials than I can comprehend, and YET, through faith they were declared righteous before my same great God.

They endured. May I please be given the grace to do the same.




"But without faith it is impossible to please God: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." - Hebrews 11:6 





To whom much has been given....
11:47 PM - Posted by Sunchild - 1 comments
In the undergraduate, and now master's of nursing program that I am in, the course material requires the students every few semesters to present a small snippet of who we are; our lifestyles, our passions, and our driving factors that affect our decisions and everyday lives. The title of the assignment is "Who Am I?" and requires a visual or artistic rendering of the answer.

Since the admission to my undergraduate school, my story, although it's telling has taken many forms over the years, remains a simple one:

The Felder Girls 2001
I am the second oldest of a family with five daughters; no boys. I was raised in a safe, loving, God-centered, and Christ-filled home. Though never rich, the LORD never allowed us to know lack or hunger, and through a multitude of blessings and miracles, his hand was ever evident in the lives of my family. When I was sixteen, my family went to Bangkok, Thailand to teach english at a student center for two months.

 It was there that I met her.

Her name was Gift. She was a bright, sunny fourteen year-old girl who was always eager to learn, and listened intently to all that would teach her. Intrigued by her unusual name, I called Gift over after class one day and, through the use of an interpreter, asked her about the origin of her name.


Gift explained that when she was eleven, in a time of financial crisis, her family sold her to be a prostitute, and for three years she knew the hands of many men. One day an American missionary couple came to her and told her about Jesus, the one that could free her from more than her owners, but also of her sin. They asked her if she wanted to leave her situation and come with them, and Gift readily agreed. The missionaries not only bought Gift from her owners, but also were paying for her to learn english in order to obtain a trade where she would never have to sell herself again.  Gift struggled to explain in her own broken english that she felt as though God had given her so much "happy" coming to know His grace and the missionaries she lived with, she felt as though her second chance at life was a Gift.

Coming to know Gift, a girl who was two years younger than me, and had faced such abuse and hardship from such a young age grieved me deeply. I learned later that it is increasingly a socially accepted norm for southeast Asian families who have multiple daughters to sell a daughter's virginity, and eventually their entire freedom, in a time of financial crisis or simply need the extra money. As one of five daughters, I realized that in an Asian country, my life would have been much different. Instead of growing up in love and safety; instead of the ability as a young woman to attend college and learn a trade, instead of being able to choose where I will go, whom I will love, when I would stay, my life would have been one of devastation, desolation, abuse, mistreatment, terror, shame, illness, pain, illiteracy, violation,  without safety, without protectors, and without a daddy to tuck me in at night or console me when I had a bad dream.

Luke 12:48b tells us that, "To whom much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more."

Who am I? 
I am one who has been given much.
I am one who has seen the needs of the downcast, the abused, the down-trodden 
     and I am one who will never be the same.
I am one who believes in the most High God, who has created each life with purpose and value.
I am one who will die if I have to proclaim the Word of the LORD, to awaken the sleeper, and to set the captives free.

LORD, let me not have been given much in vain. 

If you're interested in more material about women and children in the sex slave industry, or want to find out how you can help, check out:






The Puppet’s Face: Being a Vessel of Honour
1:55 AM - Posted by Sunchild - 0 comments


Fallen. Broken. Distorted I am.
Far from the girl I once was.

Curled on the dusty floor, 
layered with soot and grime
I lay helpless, unable to change.



Crunching glass caught my ear
I looked up to spy the last person  
-the only person- I wished to see.


There HE was. 


He looked at me with such compassion, 
My broken body.

I cried with what feeling I had left…
I thought I was special.

Porcelain purity, blue eyes of faith, 
China lips that spoke truth, and a silk dress of modesty.
I stood, displayed proudly in the window
And beamed upon those that came to the master’s house.


I was his girl. 

But, O! Heart!
O fickle creature that I am!


I, tired of being set apart
Resented the heart that bound me in love
I saw the other dolls being played with; enjoying their world
Their pleasures seemed innocent enough at the time.

Teetering on the edge between duty to HIM and to those I longed to be like.
I swayed, until the decision was made for me.
And then I fell.


I fell hard.

Broken. Yes broken is what I am
Mutilated beyond repair.



And he looked at me.
Just looked with the quietest, sad smile.

He picked me up and tried to find all my pieces
Most were there, though some were badly chipped.

He pricked his hands and cemented me to his heart with blood.
Warm blood that never gets cold.

Piece by piece I was made whole again.
The master found another dress for me to wear,
Though one not nearly as pretty.

My glass eyes shone again, and my pretty lips spoke truth once more.
The master placed me in a different window,
Not quite as sunny, but still…. Heaven.

Praise God that innocence grows back.



“But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, [and] prepared unto every good work.”
II Timothy 2: 20 – 21

I actually wrote this... analogy? back in January of 2007. I had just been through some of the deepest period of sin in my life, and was still reeling from the guilt of hurt I'd caused others and the rift in my relationship with God. My dad preached a sermon when I was little about the different types of vessels in the house of God. He told me that there are lots of vessels in a house... some are of the highest honor - like my mom's blue china plates she'd gotten for her wedding - and some for dishonor - like the toilet scrubber bowl. Both have uses in our house, but which would you rather be? 
In the house of God, the kind of filth we immerse ourselves in dictates our own place of honor in His house. How can God show off a vessel which is obviously tainted with refuse? Yet... the Bible goes on to say in II Tim. 2:21 that if a man purge himself (from dishonourable acts) that he can be sanctified and restored to a position of honor. That's why I said that innocence grows back. Because though we may have fallen into filth, Christ has returned to claim us for his own and "by his wounds we are healed." 


A Prayer of Remorse
2:42 AM - Posted by Sunchild - 1 comments
My tongue's become a flaming fire
Unleashing on all around me ire
And words as sharp as coldest hail
That seem to come from lowest Hell.


I need you, God, to tame my tongue
For you, My Father, are the one
Who only has the power of life
To cease this sword from causing strife.


It seems it's only bittersweet
That flows from me, it is not meet!
When I should oft your praises sing
It seems I turn to venomously sting.


Here now your servant humbly craves 
Your streams of life with power to save
My soul from this most heinous sin
That speaks of all my soil within.


Here now my soul I humbly bow
And call on you with fervent brow
Take this poor servant's biting tongue
Make me like I was when young.


Where I would ever sing your grace
And kindly speak to every face
Make my words like a healer's balm
Befitting of a Christian's alms.


These things I ask of you and more!
May I ever to you praise restore
May my vain words and bitter deeds
Instead give life to those in need.


Amen.


Lately it seems that my words have become more and more biting. While I naturally seem to be blunt and honest in my speech, this has of the last several months become a venomous serpent that lashes in criticism to people around me that I disapprove of. While nothing I say is untrue or intentionally meant to harm, I have begun to notice what an effect it's had on others and has seriously convicted me. As James says,


 " Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindles! The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defiles the whole body, and settes on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.For by it we bless God, even the Father; and by it we curse men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. "

James 3: 5-10


Finding God when there is no wind
12:08 AM - Posted by Sunchild - 0 comments
In my mind, I often think of my life -the world around me- akin to properties of water. I often imagine my thoughts as a trickling, merry stream, with mossy rocks poking out here and there. My thoughts are not new, or diverse, or even that profound, but they are constant. The stream seems unbroken, and there appears no apparent pattern. However, just as the stream remains the same but the water journeys on, so my thoughts seem to hasten to an unexpected end (likely to get caught up in a tide pool, where they circle around for a bit before finally evaporating, or continuing on to make its way to the rapidly filling expanse of ocean I call my life).


 One of my favorite things about journaling or writing prayers down is that it's like taking a picture of that stream. For an instant, I am able to take those individual droplets, and write them out where they can be examined, thought out, and frozen in time to be compared with thoughts anew. So often, I'll experience a dry season in my spiritual life, or face some new impossible problem or trial, or feel some emotion I thought must be entirely new, only to find that it's a theme that has recurred again and again without me ever seeming to have noticed a pattern.
Do you ever feel like you are constantly changing and that nothing is the same, and yet at the same time you are getting nowhere and nothing is new? Perhaps my metaphors and rambling have lost you, my poor reader, but my thoughts... like a gurgling stream that has endured a chilly spring rain with no jacket, now slops over the edges of my mind and demands some run-off be channeled onto electronic paper - I've not the patience to attempt to journal this by hand. 
As all streams and rivers meet to join hands in vaster expanse, so my thoughts eventually make up my life and my surroundings. I, settled aboard my shanty of a ship, with my tattered sail, have had the blessing to have that wind, that pneuma, that breath, that.. Holy Spirit to guide and lead my life. HE who knows all, and is through all, and is in us all (as believers), has guided this little ship, my life boat, through many a calm sea and stormy waters, and he has never steered me wrong. And yet, there are times when this breath seems silent, and I can not feel his spirit ruffle my hair, or tug me in any direction,  or stir the waters of this serene sea, and I can not help but feel alone and lost. 
Father, what have I done wrong? What have I not learned? How do I seek you better? Wind can not be caught LORD, and you will not be tamed, but I..a child, ask that you would take me where you will, lead me as you desire, I just.. want to know that you are there. It seems so childish to fear that a parent would leave for good when they have stepped out of a room to place one in "time-out", and that they will not return with a loving embrace once again. Yet I, Father, sometimes fear that you have left me to my sin for good, and have given up patience on me once and for all. Do not abandon me O God! Do not take your spirit from me! Restore unto me the joy of my salvation, for nothing in life is comparable to you. Can a person buy wind? Can I make what you LORD only have? LORD, I have nothing but you. YWH. Please.. be my God who saves. 
How do I find God when there is no wind? 


I listen. pray. repent. and cry desperately out to a God who is the only one mighty enough to save. 


"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and I will heal their land."
II Chronicles 7:14



When I was One and Twenty
10:47 PM - Posted by Sunchild - 0 comments
When I was one and twenty
I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one and twenty,
No use to talk to me. 
When I was one and twenty
I heard him say again
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;"
Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two and twenty 
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
- A.E. Housman


Doxology
11:48 PM - Posted by Sunchild - 0 comments

In the Bible study I have on Sunday nights, we were looking up the chords to play the Doxology when I stumbled upon the song from which this famous chorus had come. I always knew that there was more to this song, but had never actually read them before. Are you ever surprised at how aptly those works from ages past capture your life so much better than modern words ever could? Reading this hymn... awaken in my soul a desire to make this my life's theme song. Its newness and oldness enchant me, for it seems as though I can't read it without humming that cherished melody sung so often in childhood. The memories of then and the gentle reproach it is to my life now, make the tune savory and compelling in its own unique way.

Awake, My Soul

Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth, and joyful rise,
To pay thy morning sacrifice.
Thy precious time misspent, redeem,
Each present day thy last esteem,
Improve thy talent with due care;
For the great day thyself prepare.
By influence of the Light divine
Let thy own light to others shine.
Reflect all Heaven’s propitious ways
In ardent love, and cheerful praise.
In conversation be sincere;
Keep conscience as the noontide clear;
Think how all seeing God thy ways
And all thy secret thoughts surveys.
Wake, and lift up thyself, my heart,
And with the angels bear thy part,
Who all night long unwearied sing
High praise to the eternal King.
All praise to Thee, who safe has kept
And hast refreshed me while I slept
Grant, Lord, when I from death shall wake
I may of endless light partake.
Heav’n is, dear Lord, where’er Thou art,
O never then from me depart;
For to my soul ’tis hell to be
But for one moment void of Thee.
Lord, I my vows to Thee renew;
Disperse my sins as morning dew.
Guard my first springs of thought and will,
And with Thyself my spirit fill.
Direct, control, suggest, this day,
All I design, or do, or say,
That all my powers, with all their might,
In Thy sole glory may unite.
I would not wake nor rise again
And Heaven itself I would disdain,
Wert Thou not there to be enjoyed,
And I in hymns to be employed.
Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

- Thomas Ken


Heroes or Fools.. is there a difference in love?
2:25 AM - Posted by Sunchild - 2 comments
I was thinking about the odd oxymoron of love today, as I cleaned my room and listened to a particularly interesting podcast that awakened my thoughts to Greek mythology. I don't know where this mindset comes from, my first instinct is to blame it on our Western mentality -simply from ignorance to whether it has been present in the past. Wherever it's origin, the social concept of heroism in love is so fascinatingly frustrating.

The scenario is so often the same, a fair maiden, a damsel of some serious distress, and a man who decides she is worth the effort to attempt to claim her for his own. He decides to pursue her, though his chances are slim, the world telling him to turn back, that she is too far out of his league, and that their relationship would never work out, and this situation yields four types of men:

1. The Fainters: ones who listen to reason and decide that she is not worth it. After all, why throw your life away chasing something that may not pay out in the end? Why risk being made a fool of? Aren't there plenty of other easier women in the world? Yet, the crowd gives a grunt of disgust at this gentlemen who so logically made his choice, and seems very displeased that he should give up so easily though odds were against him.

2. The Waiters: Men and knights of old who decide to bide their time in fair maiden's presence without opting to make any advances in making their passions or intentions known and wait for their odds in the role of a dice to improve. While neither lauded nor scorned by the crowd, spectators lean forward in expectation for rising developments since no protagonist can stay in this position for long before falling into one of the two next categories:

3. The Fool: A knight errant who sees fair lady, rushes to the highest tower, throws himself before his object of passion and eloquently begins to make his appeal only to be denied by a cold lover. Because he clings to the hope in his heart that things may change, she may have hidden feelings, or that he simply did not try hard enough the first time, our character sets out once again to prove how worthy he is of his fair lady's hand, scaling tower, crossing hill and dale, and dauntless pursues her only to find out her heart is with another.

4. The Hero: A gallant and noble man seeming no different than the Fool in his endeavors to procure his fair maiden. Both scale the same tower, cross the same hill and dale, and make the same pleas of earnest and abiding passion. However, whether fate and the stars were on his side, his delivery of passion was better, or maybe he just had a better physique?, he procures the lovely damsel's hand and rides off with her across his saddle bow into the sunset, where we naturally assume that they will live happily ever after. The audience then departs the pretty picture with the warm feeling that all is right with the world and that true love has won out in the end.

But how is this true love? How is this fair? The hero and the fool are the same in all their feats and endeavors. Both risked being made a fool of after failing, wasting time, effort, and energy on some maiden that may not even be as worthwhile as either of them thought, and both felt just as genuinely about the girl. In truth BOTH are fools, for why did they pick the girl in the tallest tower when there are plenty of hardworking and pretty milk maids to be had in any village a stone's throw away? Is this danger of losing so enchanting? Is it that we as society have trained our hearts to desire that which we cannot have or that is difficult to come by?

We have romanticized love (odd as that may sound) to the point that if it is not forbidden or secret or hard to come by, it is not worth our time or desires. Slake your lust on those easy to be had, but save all those romantic feelings for one that may not exist and will probably never be. We are in a quandary in our Western mindset of what true romance is, and - just as importantly - what true heroism is. Heros aren't made in the flashy fanfare of one who just happened to get lucky by doing something daring and risky and it by "fate" happened to work out. Heros are those who live the quiet life of love in hard times, stability in pain, and caring in the face of heartache or boredom, not some match that shines brightly to enchant a lover only to flicker out as soon as it has begun.

What is my point? What is my qualm? What is my remedy for this mess? I honestly don't know but earnestly question the realities around me in which I see. God is love, and in Him we know what true, real love is. But how does it look in the lives of love in His people? Is it godly to look for romantic or heroic love in the way we glorify in the realms of Westernism today? I don't think so, but I am still waiting to find out - if it is not a hero that is to come to sweep me off my feet, who then am I waiting for?