感谢主 for things you don't want to 感谢主 for

It's been a staggeringly awful few months. Terrible things have happened, terrible things have been said and heard, terrible thoughts have been clung to and stoked and nurtured and grown. It has been days and weeks of death, of silence and distance, of loss and grief and holes in hearts that I can do nothing to fill. It has been moments of crumbling pride and painful, crushing humility, of learning to take punches and desperately holding back vengeful urges. And failing most of the time. Mistrust, and trust in all the wrong places. Inadequate silences where words should be boldly put forth. Never knowing the right answers and getting angry at all the wrong things.

Things are constantly, always falling apart. This is the world that we live in, and people you want around will die, and relationships you treasure will fall apart, and trials you face will feel like they're about to crush you, and God is still faithful and still loves in ways you can't grasp.

Make me to know your ways, Oh Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.

Remember your mercy, Oh Lord,
and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness,
Oh Lord!

Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right.
and teaches the humble his way.
All the paths of the Lord are
steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant
and his testimonies.

For your name's sake, Oh Lord,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.
Who is the man who fears the Lord?
Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
His soul shall abide in well-being,
and his offspring shall inherit the land.
The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant.
My eyes are ever toward the Lord,
for her will pluck my feet out of the net.

Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
bring me out of my distresses.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.

Consider how many are my foes,
and with what violent hatred they hate me.
Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
Let me not be put to shame,
for I take refuge in you.
May integrity and uprightness
preserve me,
for I wait for you.

Redeem Israel, Oh God,
out of all his troubles.

Psalm 25.

He met a girl that wrote obscure words on walls behind paintings in hotel corridors. She wrote in pink felt tip pen and underlined them three times. Beautiful, archaic words. Ophryon. Impecunious. Difficult words that confuse the tongue. Librocubicularist. Euneirophrenia. Childish, silly words. Nelipot. Dibble. He searched for these words, behind drab renditions of pears and oranges, bland portraits of far-off sailboats, inoffensive, nondescript patterns of beige and grays. Behind these, pink words were hidden like gems by a girl he spoke to once. She didn't speak back. She pretended she was deaf.

I watched this movie tonight. It wasn't very good, and it was sad. My favourite part was her pink words behind paintings. The movie never explained why she did that. Do people ever write things in secret and actually not want people (someone, sometime, somewhere) to read them? I wonder.

It has been a while. A few things have happened.

My mum's sister, older than her by one year, passed away on Tuesday. She had a full recovery from a battle with breast cancer a few years ago, and then within one month developed caner in her liver and spine. She died a mere eight days after receiving the news. It was, mercifully, very quick.

We are all grieving the loss of her in our lives - she was our closest family member, and now the five of us (my father, mother, and older brother and sister) are all feeling the importance and value of family.

Along with the grief of my own loss, our collective family's loss, and particularly my mother's loss, I am slowly coming to terms with experiencing the death of a loved one who was not saved by Christ.

Death is real. And it is near. God's grace and mercy is real. And it is here, and it will cover you and hold you. And the latter has and will destroy the former.

My family do not know Jesus Christ as their saviour and king. There is urgency, here. There is such urgency. Please pray for them and for me - that I might be praying every day for their salvation, and not afraid to speak the truth openly and honestly. Also, please pray for Josh and I, that married we might be faithful witnesses to my family.

I pray that soon, I will be able to pray wholeheartedly for Jesus' return, not fearful for the eternal lives of my dear mum and dad, brother and sister.

感谢主 for... for...

Some people's lives begin and end with pain. And every day in the middle - hear me when I say this, every day - is a struggle and obstacle and failure. Some people never trust Jesus. They die in darkness and pain.

感谢主 for summer holidays

You know what I love about summer holidays? Here's a few things.

That summer holidays are actually winters in Hong Kong.
Reading Austen fan fiction. (Yes. I am that lame.) Particularly Pride and Prejudice adapted to the world of professional ballerinas.
Going on day-trips to China with my Mum. More for the time spent together than the trip, the destination, or the shopping. I don't have the shopping-stamina she does.
Sugary drinks from Starbucks or Pacific Coffee: Christmas Mint Mochas, Toffee-Nut Lattes, Brulee Cappuccinos.
Watching a whole BBC series in one day.
Spending as long as I like at the gym.
Weekends with my dad.
Grocery shopping every day, spending hours cooking elaborate dinners every night.
Feeling snug under three doonas and my warmest flannel PJs.
Reading historical fiction in coffee shops on the 25th floor.
Getting mani-pedis and reading terrible magazines with my awesome sister.

感谢主 for beautiful days

Yesterday morning, the boy I've pretty much been in love with since I was 15, asked me to marry him.

I said yes. :)

He asked me on some rocks looking out to sea near Bondi beach, after reading James and praying to our gracious Father. He got down on one knee and I dropped my Bible. It was fairly perfect. :)

感谢主 for non-biological sisters

Tonight, in the midst of painful longing for my dear brothers and sisters far across the seas, in the midst of loneliness in a city I somehow never feel I belong to, in the midst of discontent in the dislocation that makes sinking into communities so difficult, I received an email full of prayer requests from a dear, dear friend. She is hurting tonight, as I am hurting. She needs God's love and grace, as I do. She is seeking to give all these concerns over to Jesus, as I am. What great timing our loving Father has: that, hanging up the phone in loneliness and grief, I open my computer and seek distraction, finding instead a heart similarly breaking. And how counter-intuitive these relationships we yearn for, that a sister's pain and pleas for help from our Father would be such a blessing. Oh, Father. Loving Dad. How we need You.