Nov 7, 2012 | Life Reflections
This Is My Story, part 2
The first great gift God gave to
me came in the form of my parents. Today is my mother’s 55th birthday and this post is dedicated to her.
Born in Bali, my mother is the validation of my weak and thin claim that I have roots in a most exotic and fascinating place. She’s the second of four children. She was essentially my math teacher all throughout elementary school, and the early foundation of the engineer in me is credited to her.
She was the one who quizzed me before every exam until 6th grade, and she was also the one who punished me when I underperformed. She accompanied me to dance lessons, English lessons, piano lessons… and for the last one, also sat nearby to pinch me when I pressed the wrong notes, which happened all the time. She bore with me through my ugly teenage years, and now, waiting to see what will become of my life.
My mother’s life is a continuing, open lesson book for me, especially as a woman in the brink of adulthood. Or maybe I’m in it already. I don’t know. It’s debatable.
To the youth, phases of life seem to line up in a predictable way. We start as students. Then comes early working life. Singlehood is the given status around this time, and then comes marriage, kids, middle age, empty nests, and retirement. It seems sometimes that these are the way life should be.
My mother’s life, however, has given me a slightly varied perspective. She lived with her family until she was about 26, moved in with my father when they got married, had kids, lived comfortably, saw her kids went to college overseas, and perhaps experienced early phases of retirement. But when she was 51, everything changed.
She became a widow then, and instead of cruising along in comfort and safety, she began a new phase that she never experienced before, living alone. Her kids are living half the world away, and no one is settled yet. And not only that, she now has to be a full time working woman, inheriting the family business that my father had built almost all of his life. The pressure is high and the burden is heavy, and she bears it day by day, with a degree of uncertainty on what will become of her family.
If there’s anything I learn from her, is that none of us is entitled to live an easy, comfortable, or predictable life. But one thing is sure: God is enough in all seasons of life, and He will sustain through it all, somehow.
Happy birthday to my dearest mother. I love you tons!
Nov 5, 2012 | Faith, Life Reflections
This Is My Story, part I.
In a few weeks, I’ll be turning into an age that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. And as it usually goes around this time, I automatically go into reflection mode.
This year’s reflection mode, however, is in extra high gear since I’m in a major transition phase ministry-wise, academic-wise, and life-wise. The confluence of these things have in fact put me somewhat in constant reflection since… Oh I dunno … summertime? It’ll probably last until next year.
I understand that transitions and life uncertainties can be stressful, but at this juncture, stress is the polar opposite of my experience. The words I’d describe this phase are excitement, possibilities, and believe it or not, fun. I’m exhausted, but I’m having fun. And I’m grateful. So grateful that I feel like the luckiest girl in the world, except luck is a misnomer, since all good things in my life are given to me by Him “whom my soul loves.”
It’s not to my credit that these things are so. I have a God, and He has been kind to me. My path has not been trouble-free, but I am clay in the potter’s hand, a vessel in the making, silver being refined, and that makes all the difference. I think God is bringing me toward something, a distinct purpose, of which I don’t know yet but I’m getting closer to it.
I’ve been counting my blessings and concluded that I am tremendously and immensely blessed. So with this post, I’ll begin a series of testimonies of how my life has changed. These are not particular incidents, but the overarching narratives of years of transformation.
Oftentimes this generic phrase is used in personal, faith-related testimonies, “God came into my life, and He turned my life around.” What I want to do is spell out just how exactly God has turned mine around.
For me, this reconstruction is deeper than behavioral; it’s in the level of personality, worldview, life philosophy, and the lens through which I perceive people. I’ll pay tribute to the friends I’ve gained, those whom I probably would never come to know if not for my conversion. And of course, I’ll pay tribute to my family and my late father, whose character traits I’ve discovered to be present in me more and more as I grow up. Though my time with him is cut short, I’m so thankful to have been trained, brought up, and loved by him.
In a book by one of my favorite authors, he says, “there are no proofs for the existence of the God of Abraham. There are only witnesses.” (Heschel, The Prophets, p. 27) Well, I am a witness, and I’m unashamed to declare it.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I’d say wealth is in the contented heart. The currency of my life consists of friendships, service, learning, wonder, and moments of reflection. Of these I have many. God has made me rich.
Oct 29, 2012 | Faith
When one knows of an impending crisis, the prudent thing to do is to prepare. The more serious the crisis, the greater and more elaborate the preparation. But if the crisis is real, this preparation time will not go on forever. There will be a time when it’s done, and the only thing that comes next is the crisis itself.
The time in between the end of preparing and the beginning of a crisis can be really eerie. This huge thing that you’ve been waiting for is finally here, and it’s kind of surreal. It’s akin to the feeling you’d have when you sit in an exam room, just before taking an exam. At this time, there is no more studying, no more preparation, because the preparation time is over. You’ve done what you’ve done, and now there’s only the test, and you hope you will pass.
Imagine that when this big thing comes, it finds you unprepared or underprepared. What are you going to do now? Or ever worse, you’ve done nothing, and didn’t even know this thing is coming until it’s there. You start asking yourself, Have I done enough? Will my preparation last me to the end? I’ve done some preparing, but I could’ve done more too. What you have may or may not be enough, and there’s no way to find out until you’re in the crisis already. You just take a deep breath, and hope you make it through.
I’m thinking of my friends back in NJ at the moment. The hurricane is here, and the time to get food, water, batteries, etc. has long passed. They have waited, and the hurricane has arrived. I’m lucky enough that I got out of NJ just in time last Sunday…
But if I had stayed in NJ, if I didn’t have this conference to go to, I would’ve been that person who was underprepared. Or UNprepared. Like, seriously. I didn’t know that the hurricane was coming until a few days before, and had absolutely no time to go to the store and stock up. I would’ve had limited water and food. I would’ve been like a that person who came into an exam room trembling …
I’m obviously not just talking about the hurricane. There is another test for which I absolutely do not want to be underprepared. And the time to prepare is now.
Romans 13: 11-12, “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.“
me came in the form of my parents. Today is my mother’s 55th birthday and this post is dedicated to her.