What a Friend I have in Jesus!

I got a shock yesterday (29/1/09) when I called home as usual just to check on my parents when my brother answered the phone in tears. I couldn't talk much with him because he had to attend to my dad who was not well. I started to get worried and bursted into tears as I imagined the worst. This is the second time in the span of ten years since I left my family and hometown to follow God's leading that my Dad fell terribly ill to the point of almost losing him. The first time was back in 2001 when he came down with pneumonia and was hospitalized twice before he was fully restored. That time I was able to fly back the next day to be by his side with the rest of the family. So as I waited anxiously for them to let me know the situation I smsed a couple of friends and colleagues to stand with me in prayer because I felt utterly helpless! As the hours went by my sister and brother called me to fill me in on what was happening. My dad went into a fit as a result of hypoglycemia- dangerously low blood sugar level at barely just 2% which if my family didn't make it to the hospital in time might have caused him to go into shock and possibly a coma. They brought him to a private hospital where they gave him initial treatment of pushing up his sugar level then he was sent to the General Hospital for further treatment at the intensive emergency unit until 5 in the morning before the hospital released him after being satisfied with his overall condition. All these happened while I'm thousands of miles away from home feeling helpless and only able to pray, cry and hope for God's goodness to comfort my dad and my alarmed family. One friend replied my sms saying how hard it must be for me because I'm so far from them-which was exactly how I felt. And on top of that I was all alone and felt so alone. Others replied with the same kindness and comforting words and prayers. That calmed me and reminded me truly what a FRIEND I have in Jesus and because of that I'm never on my own. I couldn't sleep even after 1 am and every now and then I would cry as emotions overwhelmed me. But I was exhausted that I finally fell asleep and woke up at about 5 something when I got an sms from my brother that they have reached home and my dad was getting better. I called my mother again at lunch time just to find out how things were. She said that Dad was getting much stronger and I told her to tell my Dad to take care of himself by eating regular to regulate his blood sugar level. He had not been eating well the last couple of months and back then was already showing the symptoms of hypoglycemia and I think this was the last straw. I think I understand why he is in that state - probably they are going through the emotional turmoil of the empty nest syndrome. When we all of us the children are at home he seemed to enjoy the family meals but when they are on their own they don't eat properly and at times skip their meals. Lord, please be my parents best Friend even as they deal with a lot of emotional challenges that they are struggling with as they grow older and becoming more and more on their own. Moments like these makes me cherish my parents more and wish that I can be there near them yet I know I have been called to follow in the Master's footstep to where He is leading me to fulfill His purposes. Am grateful that my parents have come to terms with this and has actually given me their blessings to pursue God's calling. Am glad that I can still care for them even from a distance. Anyway, I'm still recovering from the strong feelings I had yesterday and hope that God's presence will continue to sustain them. I'm assured, Lord that as you have called me out You will be there for my loved ones...in that I will rest my heart and mind and continue my pursuit of Your calling.

The journey so far...

Looking back at the last 26 years I have been on this journey of faith I marveled at the freshness and newness of the love of my Creator God who is also Father, Redeemer and Counselor that has lovingly and faithfully nurture me and brought me up to who I am today.

I might be growing weary every now and then as this body aged but its His perfect, unconditional love that keeps me journeying. Many, many years ago I was just an awkward, timid and uncertain teenager but when He become real to me as the God from whom I have my existence there was no turning back but a forward journey.

A journey that is slowly but surely leading me to the destiny that I was meant to fulfilled even before I was knitted together in my mother's womb. A journey that has seen me growing from someone that had no real meaning in life to a person who is passionate about making the most of life, not in a selfish, self gratifying way but in a way that God can unfold His higher purposes through me.

My sense of calling also has become more define over the years and that is to help in raising a generation of children and young people that would know and experience God as the Father, Redeemer and Counselor and they in turn do the same to the next generation.

It is a broad spectrum of work but I know that He has given me the gift of His father heart to fulfill this calling. Also I am sensing that it is not only to children and young people but also to anyone who needs to experience God's healing touch.

This thing call LOVE

Yup, I'm at my favorite topic again;) about my love life with my greatest LOVE of all. Ever so often when I sort of go into a rut and feel my spiritual energies drained its usually a signal that I'm not feeding myself enough on my spiritual food. And as for God His presence is always open for us to run into. Can you imagine that must be how God waits for us every moment to be with Him, consciously and deliberately making and creating space for Him in our hustle and bustle. He is never in a hurry but time move with Him not against or over Him for He is the Lord and Master of time, space and everything that exist!As I read Matthew 14-15 what struck me most was the fact that Jesus, the very essence and representation of the Invisible One, showed God in action. In His personal life and ministry He was compassion on legs. In His human limitedness, He could only 'touched' those that came after Him yet He had time for everyone. And even in the little drama between Him and the Canaanite woman showed that He had and made time for those not belonging to the so called "lost sheeps of Israel"...what extreme love and kindness! As I 'see' Jesus in the language of The Message I see this great yet compassionate God, the One who is so driven by His love for His creatures, mankind which He tirelessly pursue. I see God who is so full of compassionate love even when He's rejected over and over again. My heart is tender, the first words I whispered to my Beloved this morning was ... 'I love You dearly and deeply NOT because of all the blessings You have given me and will continue to give me generously BUT because You are so worthy to be loved and worshipped. I love You more than any love possible for another human being because You alone deserve that LOVE!' I think 'being in love' with God is the ultimate purpose of my very existence. This year will be the 25th anniversary of my spiritual journey, walking alongside the One who had tirelessly pursued me until the day He captured my heart and set it ablazed with His love, come May 15, the day I fell so deeply in love with the One who loves me so dearly and deeply. It has not been an easy journey yet our love has withstood the test of time. His love is perfect but it was and is my love that is being perfected and yet in the long process of this journey of love I have learned and is still learning how to love the way He love, not only towards Him (though the love I have for Him is exclusive) but also my fellow human beings:). After all that's what His love is all about...flowing out, reaching out, bringing healing and wellness with it.

Being Runa and appreciating it!

I think everybody struggle with who they are in one way or another, negatively or positively. We can't help it because we are living in a world that is forever 'telling' us what we should be. Look at the terrible, terrible obsession we have with the body perfect image culture. Everything is telling us to strive for the 'acceptable' image and those of us who are born quite average in every aspects will definitely feel the sting more than anyone else, that is if we are not learning to be secure within ourselves.

When it comes to living cross-culturally there's also its own set of challenges. Point to ponder... so how do I make the most of these situations so they can work for me instead of against me. Working for me in the sense that the process makes me a better person! Ever since I came over to West Malaysia I have been mistaken as a Chinese person by not only the Chinese people who would speak to me in Chinese whenever I enter a restaurant, coffee shop or even the salesgirl in the supermarket but by practically everyone that I happen to come in contact with. But the moment I open my mouth to speak either in Malay or English they cannot place me into which race, Malay or Chinese. In the beginning I use to be quite annoyed and feel offended but as the years goes by I began to appreciate the uniqueness of who I am and I'm learning to be true to who I am despite of having to 'adapt' the cultural setting of where I'm at currently. Yet, as I ponder on who I really am as a person, again I'm struck by the uniqueness of who I have become. Ironically, I'm a child of a generation that is so far removed from my original culture. It's both a sad and happy thing, though. Sad, because I have no real sense of my cultural heritage like its arts, music and dances, language and oral history. I have adopted and become adapted to a second culture...a global culture where I have more knowledge of American and European history than my own, grew up learning alphabets and numbers and English words from Sesame Street, yes, I grew up with Bert and Ernie. Perhaps watched too much TV for my own good, so much so that even in my teen years I idolized Hollywood golden stars like Doris Day, Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn, Gene Kelly, Jerry Lewis...just to name a few. And because of this even up to today the culture I have grown with is so global that English is actually my mother tongue and that tend to annoy my parents slightly when I talk to them with my 'corrupted' language of sort, mixing whatever knowledge of my original dialect I have left with English or Malay words. Happy, because I see God's redemptive work in it as I feel I'm in a more relevant position especially in my calling of serving a much globalized generation. I do not think like a Kayan (the name of my tiny, almost extinct tribe) in terms of its cultural context and inclinations but I feel more freedom to think like Christ. I have never been influenced by any cultural trappings like some of my friends that grew up in the more confined cultural environment but I'm greatly influenced by the Christ culture that I have grown into the last 25 years of my life as a follower of Christ. My parents used to be quite conservative in terms of all these cultural issues but I think what we children have become has somehow rubbed on them. My brother's wife is of another tribe which about merely 50 years ago might not have been acceptable but people are embracing this 'integration' of races and cultures more readily today. And I observed that one of the reason for the near 'extinction' of my tribe is due to cross cultural marriages. After making a search on the Net, there is approximately 5,000 Kayans left in the entire world but I would think that there is a rising generation of mixed blooded Kayans! I know some of my friends and relatives have married Indians, Chinese, Caucasians and other tribes. But I personally think that this is quite a good thing, perhaps a foretaste of how heaven would be, no more boundaries of races but one people under God! Point to ponder...how does all these makes me a better person. I think it does in two important ways. One, it reminds me very strongly that though I don't have a family history that goes back as far as thousand years like the Chinese people for example, yet my real history is integrated in the humanity of Christ that goes back to Adam's time. So, that's where my real roots are and it is even more so true with the relationship I'm privileged to have with my Creator God in Christ Jesus! And that's where lies my true identity! Second, it helps me to be all embracing and accepting to others in terms of cultures and be able to be incarnational in reaching out with the love of God to others outside the peripheral of my own so called culture and to appreciate the beautiful aspects of the other person's culture. This is why I think I am able to survive quite well outside the context of my original culture. Its God who sustains and God who transform one to think more like Him. So, thanks my Father for making me who I am and giving me the grace to appreciate your wonderful handiwork!

In retrospect...

In retrospect, sometimes I find it really unbelievable that since 2004 to 2006 I have move to three different places and each time the process of making the place a 'home' becomes easier and that goes the same for the emotional adjustment! The third and current place I've moved into about two years now has become a cozy little home I've made for myself and it has become a 'refuge' for me after a long hard day at work each day.

A place to pick up myself and pull myself together after being pull into so many different directions the whole day. I'm really enjoying living alone, perhaps as a compensation of having to spend five years in the bible seminary (1999 to 2003) and sharing a room with two other people that seems to come and go while I made my tiny little corner as homely as possible over those five years. By nature I am a loner, introverted but after ten years away from my comfort zone has help me to become a more well adjusted adult, I think (smile). Yes, I still love the aloneness, the quietness, the sense of orderliness and that sort of give one a sense of control of one's space yet there are those horrifying moments when being alone gives one a sense of insecurity. Those very human moments when you just need to sense the strength of another, the courage outside of your insecure self to feel the courage to go on!

Yes, from time to time I still miss my parents, the sound of their familiar voices even if it’s in nagging me why I'm not married yet (sigh!) and the sight of their old and rugged faces! Many times I wish things were what they were at one time when every one of the family was in the same place, easy to visit siblings or parents and yet looking at it realistically if we didn't let God move us along life's journey we will be stagnant. We will not bloom, not grow and mature! I was just contemplating the other day about God's perfect will for my life as His precious child.

When I was younger and had just embark on this spiritual journey with God, I thought God's perfect will for me would be having the 'perfect' work or ministry, having the 'perfect' situation in life where things would just fall beautifully into their places and even believing that God will provide the 'perfect' life partner for me! But the long twenty over years of journeying with my God through the valleys, the deserts, the mountains, the 'fire' and the 'flood' has help me to view life's journey more realistically. To my understanding now the perfect will of God specifically for me is not in all the things I had earlier thought it would be. The perfect will of God for me is to be ultimately changed and transformed into the likeness of Jesus. Everything that happens between now and that destiny is part of the process of getting me there as I keep myself in a posture of being teachable, as pliable clay in the hands of a skillful potter. Looking back at the last ten years since I have embark on this journey of faith as I 'migrated' to West Malaysia from my home state in East Malaysia I marvel at how far I have come, how incredibly I have been able (enabled by His grace and strength, of course!) to survive this independent living detached literally from my very roots, my family that provides me with the sense of who I am as a person. The first time I left my family and home state for the longest time was 15 years ago for almost half a year to do a five month stint with an international mission organization.

That experience changed me in many ways as a person, my worldview, my perception and even my attitudes in a better way. The one month doing short term mission work in the Philippines helped me to embrace a broader understanding about God's work and world and where tiny little me fit in this awesome plan of the Sovereign Lord! And now I contemplate with gratitude in my heart this experience of being planted in this 'ground' and how through His sustaining grace I have thrived. I feel more at peace with myself with a deeper sense of God's destiny in my heart and above all the fervor and zeal of my first love is stronger still and gives the needed strength to my will to go on and pursuing His perfect will for me.

The burden of love

I was watching CSI: NY on a local network the other day and the theme of this particular episode struck me and made me think deeply about love being a heavy responsibility! There were two separate stories of crime but somehow linked to the sense of 'strong love' but of course in its perverted and broken sense! The first case was of a tunnel builder who was found dead after an explosion in the tunnel.

The CSI people finally found out that it was the victim's own brother who killed him because in his own words...he was such a heavy responsibility! As the story unfolded this guy felt a heavy responsibility to make sure his trouble making brother was well taken care of throughout life. So heavy was the feeling of responsibility that he did the unthinkable in leaving him down in the tunnel to teach him a lesson. Being asthmatic and left with an empty inhaler the victim died and his body left in the explosion to make it look like an accident. When he was finally 'caught' he showed no real feeling of remorse!

The other story is of a 16 year old girl found drowned in the river. The CSI people found out that she was killed by the rich girl who was her best friend. The girl became jealous of the victim when she began to gain the affections of her late father and only brother. When she was 'caught' she not only did not show remorse but a perverted sense of heartlessness as she told the CSI people that as a hunter her father often told her that there is no feeling whatsoever as one watched life fleeting from the eyes of one's victims!

I still think 'love' in its raw and tainted human sense IS a very fragile and brittle thing! So when I think of love being a heavy responsibility I look at it from God's point of view. How heavy a responsibility it is to love me in all my ugliness and brokenness yet whatever He do 'to teach me life's lessons' He does so out of a sense of deep and unconditional love for me.

Not to 'satisfy' His need for vindication or to show who is boss but to help me see life and love as it is meant to be! He is not some insecure being that gets mad every time we step on His toe! But He is also not a sappy sentimental being that just smile every time His creatures lash out at Him. He is the perfect moral and spiritual being that will not tolerate anything that trivializes what matters to Him!

The Bible says that sin has no place in His holy presence, sinners yes but not sin and He takes that seriously! Maybe when I was younger in my faith I couldn't fully appreciate His hands of discipline but over these many years I appreciate His personal involvement in shaping and refining my life because it’s a proof that He is treating me like His true child! I am who I am today because He took the pain and trouble to nurture me.

And yet I think it is true that He would never think of loving me as a burden! In respond to the second story in the CSI episode I think a lot of hurting people, if we are not careful, CAN become heartless and deadly cold in trying to keep what they strongly feel is theirs by right!

For me, as a rule of thumb for my own inner healing, I have always maintained a 'pliable' heart (by God's amazing grace every time) to make it a little easier on myself. No doubt it’s painful every time God does a 'soul surgery' but with the pain comes healing. And with healing comes wholeness and wellness for the soul! So when I think of love often time than not it is a heavy responsibility, a sort of a burden that keeps one on the toe to be alert and mindful of the other. I think of love being a 'burden' not in a perverted or broken sense of the word but in a caring and nurturing way.

Love that is responsible towards the other, not taking the other for granted in any way or taking advantage of the other in any way! I've seen this in my parents' forty over years of marriage. They are not the most perfect or affectionate of couple I've seen but I've seen how hopeless and restless the other will be without the other.

There was one time my father had a minor accident, collapsed while driving because he was sick which was later diagnosed as pneumonia and was hospitalized for a week. My mother was a wreck. After two days of being discharged he became very sick again and we thought we were going to lose him. This time my mother was a total wreck! He was hospitalized at a private hospital and received excellent treatment that brought him literally back to life. I could see life returning to my mother's eyes also.

That was about six or seven years ago. Every now and again she would complain to me how difficult my father is at times when he loses his temper or being unreasonable, I would calmly remind her of that incident and need not say more. I think it made sense to her as she would stop complaining! My parents' formidable relationship is really the only reference point I have when it comes to try and understand a marriage relationship.

I think this will be the greatest legacy they can leave to us their children! Being imperfect creatures surely means imperfect relationship but there's always hope in God! My parents have taught me well (not fully realizing it of course) how to love quite perfectly despite the imperfections! And it is quite a heavy responsibility. I don't claim to understand it all about the 'mystery' of this man-woman relationship but what I do know is that it is a heavy responsibility and in that sense love is a sort of a positive burden that will help us appreciate it more!

Living the over forty life

The fact that I have turned 41 reminded me that I'm not getting any younger, and I'm no longer a young lady but a spinster in the making. Yes, it's quite a shocking thing when you look at it that way. And maybe, its better that family or friends don't remember your birthday and you get less or no reminder at all with all the birthday wishes that you are growing older.

Oh well, I went through the phase of becoming a gawky teenager that I was and survived it well. I went through the phase of becoming a twenty something and then a thirty something and I survived and turned out quite well. And yes, here I am navigating steadily into my forties and still single!!! Insecure? I think I am going through that process at the moment. I suppose it’s a choice I have to make as how to live my life. Live with a positive outlook or with a defeated mind? It’s all about choices!!! Currently being a youth worker with an organization that's reaching out to children and young people and the Christian community at large is a very positive learning experience for me. I've always sensed that to help in the work of building up a generation of God-fearing and loving young people has been the integral part of God's divine purpose for my life and to do exactly that at this juncture of my life is quite fulfilling!

Then there's all the new stuff I need to do...driving, studying again and etc. How I wish I don't' HAVE to do all these stuff especially at this age BUT it’s a necessity so again it’s a choice I have to make. After all I firmly believe that the older one gets life should be lived actively to avoid from being idle and sliding into the doldrums.

So, here's one for all the late bloomers in the entire world. We might be a little late than the rest but when we bloom, we bloom! At times how I wish I have a very 'intimate' friend that can weather it with me. It’s so much assuring to have someone who really knows you inside out just to provide that strong presence for you, listening and hearing you at the same time, without judging and condemning, giving direction to your heart and thoughts...

Well, I can almost hear the Holy Spirit whispering into my heart at this moment... “Well, that's one of the very reason I have been sent to you, Runa”. Thank you, my dearest Friend!

Oh Lord, give me the grace to grow old gracefully, becoming a better spinster and never a bitter one>Teach me to be happy with myself, never to compare or to wish that I am someone else and yet never be afraid to change what I can and be brave enough to embrace fully and thankfully what I will never be able to alter. Yes, life is still beautiful if God is the center of it, don't you think so?