Under the Shadow

In the Garden, before sin darkened a perfect world and made it the twisted fallen one we recognize today, there was no doubt. Adam and Eve saw God–or at least had relationship with him–in a way that left no room for the shadow. They walked and talked with God in the cool of the evening. Their faith (trust and confidence) in God was perfect. The world was young and fresh and so was mankind. They reasoned and asked God anything and without hesitation had access to his limitless wisdom and knowledge. They trusted him entirely.

“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:8-9)

The fall happened. The world fell under the shadow of a curse. Humanity was cut off from  free unhindered communication with God. Many questions came after banishment and silence yawned into minutes and hours and years. All of humanity has had questions that Adam never had to face pre-fall. Why is there pain? Why is there death? What is my purpose? Is there anything worth living for?

Experiences were held through the tinted lens of separation from God’s eternal wisdom. Through sin was born fear, doubt, rejection and pain. Our world revolved around the counterfeits of what God created it to be. Separate from the creator’s word and guidance our own conclusions were drawn. I am unloved. There is no God. If there is he is not good. etc.

Adam saw with his eyes but when his eyes no longer saw and he might ask God, “Are you listening?” In the silence of the night doubt crept close. His faith and trust in God was tested. He could not see God as he saw the stars. He could not hear God as he heard the crickets or feel him like the breeze through the grass at his feet. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and drank cool water from the stream allowing water to pour over his blistered hands and chose to believe God was there, somewhere.

In the gap between a question and an answer, doubt rises up to challenge faith. Doubt tests the strength of faith as a wrestling match reveals strength and weakness.

In another light I like the way Bill Johnson approaches these ideas in ‘Dreaming with God’:

To embrace what [God] has shown us and to obey what He has commanded us, often in the midst of unanswerable questions, is an honor beyond measure.

To have questions is healthy; to hold God hostage to those questions is not…Not understanding is OK. Restricting our spiritual life to what we understand is not…Such a controlling spirit is destructive to the development of a Christ-like nature.

We all have questions and if answers don’t appear doubts may grow. Personally, I believe what we choose to do with them is most important. Doubt will die when we do but faith came before life and will continue after death.

¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. ¹² Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.^[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

¹³ Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13:11-13)

To Filter or Not to Filter, that is Facebook Question

The great thing about internet communication is you can filter what you say. The terrible thing about internet communication is that you can filter anything you say! Yeah, lots of people seem to post whatever crosses their mind that split second, but there’s a category of us (those lurking facebookers who rarely post but comment and ‘like’ perpetually or worse..silently lurk) who think twice about posting stuff. I mean really, you never know who’s going to see it!

I find myself afraid of letting my personality slip too freely into the inter web for a variety of reasons.

One. The government is watching. Ooo. If you’ve seen Person of Interest–you know, the show that stopped being fiction when Snowden decided his conscience wouldn’t let him stay silent–then you know what I mean. Privacy is a thing of the past, whether we like it or not. Even if the government is watching, I won’t let that keep me from saying what I’m given to say. It didn’t stop Snowden. What’s happening is happening but fear should not silence our voice—every voice has the power to change someone’s world.

Two. What I post defines me. Yes, that’s true. The videos I like, the comments I make, the links I share, the words I write: they all give you a little glimpse into me. What I don’t post defines me too. If I want you to know me, I’ll share what I want you to know. I don’t think you need to know every intimate or mundane detail. I like Benedict Cumberbatch’s response when asked the color of his toothbrush:

“The color of my toothbrush? Once people start to imagine what actually cleans my teeth at night and in the morning then I start to worry a little bit.” He said with twinkle in his eye. “I like to remain a little enegmatic so the color of my toothbrush will remain a secret.” (skip to 1:10)

There’s a limit to the sharing.

I want people to know the real me, yet I’m on such a semi-public platform. I will be misinterpreted. I want to entertain, inspire, and encourage. I want to help and not hinder. Not to care so much about what people think as much as what God has given me to say. I want my words to count, but first I have to risk it, and say them.

 Life is about growing and changing. So, try something different. Maybe that means being a little more filtered or maybe a little more honest. I’m scared by it, but I want to be honest. God made me who I am for a purpose.

He made you with a unique personality worth being heard too, so please speak up.

Not so much about breakfast and toothbrushes, but a little more heart and head. You have something worth saying, but it may take corking the steady stream of mundane to find the gems produced under a little pressure. Think, is this who I want people to see?

Be free, be inspired, but balance that flight with some wisdom.

Speak the truth, but always in love. And remember, Nodoby’s perfect, except Jesus. Forgive. Often. When you have something worth saying, Say it!

Mirror, Mirror on Every Wall, Can you Tell me the Reason for them All?

It was the weirdest feeling to walk into my own house after being gone for so long. It didn’t feel like home. When you’re gone from a place long enough to stop identifying with it, blind spots become blatant facts. So many things I never noticed before I left now have me wondering, “Why did I not see this before?” One of the strangest things I discovered was my obsession with mirrors. I walked into my room and thought, ‘Wow, was I self-obsessed or something? There are a lot of mirrors in here.’

A mirror hung at a diamond angle over my bed, a large oblong mirror took center place as part of an old-fashioned glass vanity table. The one by the bathroom door hangs so low I can’t see my chin if I stand straight–have I really grown or did I hunch? Then there are the two tucked away in my ikea dresser cubby holes.

It’s took me two weeks to figure out this strange phenomenon. My first assumption didn’t fit at all. One glance at old pictures will tell you this girl was not a self-obsessed fashion diva teenager so concerned about her image. Frizzy hair fell in fluffy out of control brown waves over baggy garish colored tee-shirts which appeared to be a smaller size of her brother’s grocery store shirts and kaki cargo-pants, were part of my typical wardrobe.

Now, sitting in front of the vanity-desk mirror as I write this, I know the answer. How did an extrovert survive two years of self-motivated high school living at home with her parents maybe seeing friends once a week or twice a month? Mirrors! I became my own company. I entertained myself, with myself.

Mirror Entertainment: It all comes back to me now. Standing in front of the mirror by the bathroom door that linked my room with my brother’s, I messed with my hair in a replica of a middle school side ponytail and made hubristic stuck-up faces.

“Hi,” I said using a nasally high pitched voice and planting one hand on my hip for attitude, “What’s your name?”

To my 14-year-old mortification, a male voice answered from the other side of the door. “My name’s Joshua, what’s yours?”

I gave a little shriek and ran out of my room dropping the charade at the door. My brother came out of his room an impish laugh in his eyes.

“I didn’t know you were in there!” I protested, the heat rising in my face.

“I know! That’s why I said something!” He said, his laughter completely unashamed.

Mirrors have brought me much entertainment over the years. They have allowed me to dance like Taylor Swift in “You Belong with Me,” and express my dramatic persona! Yet when I have people I don’t need any mirrors. A strange thing happens when I am away from mirrors for a long time.

Asian or American?: At one of our Church Youth Camps we didn’t have mirrors in the cabin. Surrounded by asian faces all day long I remember surprising myself when I went to brush my teeth in the bathroom. Alone for the moment I scrutinized my strange white face with such wide brown eyes and a prominent nose–for asia at least. I thought, “Who is this? Is this really me?” Without mirrors to remind me I had almost begun to forget my own race. My Accent blended, my words, thoughts and way of speech didn’t give me away. If it weren’t for the towering effect I have around most Asians, I might have thought I was Asian in those moments.

Now the reflection I see is different. The girl continues to dance in and out, singing and pondering, but I see so much more there now. I see what I couldn’t see before. I see a woman who stands with passion and confidence. I see a girl who is a little wiser for times spent at the feet of Jesus in an unpretentious Bible college a long way off in America. I see an Asian who discovered she was American and an American seeking to discover how much of her remains Asian. And I see a girl who longs to see in the mirror the reflection that God sees and realizes he’s right there to showing it to her.

When will my reflection show, who I am inside? We are all more than meets the eye, but on closer observation we can see the real person hidden in plain sight, right before our eyes. It takes a bit more time and love to understand what it is we see.

I Believe I can Fly…?

Gravity will bring me back to the ground if I jump. There are absolutes in our world and we cannot escape them. All of us have faith, whether in God or ourselves or gravity, we cannot escape faith.

Am I to be limited to what I see? I cannot see the wind but I feel it, will you call me sentimental and driven by my emotions? Am I limited to what I can understand and grasp with my feeble mind? If so, my world can’t extend into the pain of an African mother as she watches her children starve. She clings to their frail bodies as they die in her arms and feels a pain I cannot comprehend. I trust that history is true though I could not be there. So, I have faith in Jesus: his life, death and resurrection.

If I put my faith in my own mind or ability to accomplish something it will be limited by the greatness of my strength. If I believed I could fly the belief alone wouldn’t keep me from face-planting in the ground. Faith is only as strong as the source that anchors it.

Suspension of belief

Faith is trust. The dictionary defines faith as, “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” In order to have faith we must trust God and not doubt that his word is true. We trust in his unchangeable nature: he is good and cannot lie. Faith in God requires us to sacrifice our own perceptions of the world in exchange for his perspective. It means giving up habits and thoughts that destroy us so we might be reborn into a life of joy found in God and his ways.

Faith in God is different than the faith I have that this chair won’t crumble under my weight when I sit in it. Faith in God takes trust to a whole different level. He is a person. It’s like love. When you love a dog you know you will be returned without needing to do much to please that dog. When you love a person you realize the complexities of that love and every expression of love. You find it’s a lot more rewarding and yet takes a lot more effort and sacrifice. Yet, who in a loving relationship would look into the eyes of those they love, see the pain and sacrifice that brought them here and say, “I would have rather had a dog.”

Faith in God is similar.

The strongest fibers of a Faith in God is relationship. Just as faith comes through knowledge and teaching, the best teacher is God himself. All of creation was made because God desired to have a relationship with us. So the foundation and building stones of our faith is on relationship with him.

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” John 15:4

Next topic, Doubt in the place between Questions and Answers.

The Power to Change the World At My Fingertips

3 minutes to tell a powerful story.

I don’t know about you, but I cried–sobbed like a child looking for a lost kitten. I brushed away the tears and thought about what this little video could do.  It provokes the question of what if…?

We never know the moments our lives will be seen by the world. The moment someone becomes a hero doesn’t announce itself. It comes in all shapes and sizes. Who knows what smile, kind word, or helping hand you give to a stranger will keep someone from committing suicide or give them confidence for a job interview or the courage to say, ‘I love you,’ to that special someone.

Nice picture, you might say, but this is a made up story. Sure, it’s fiction, but it reminds me of another video I watched a couple days ago.

This man never knew he changed the world of a 13-year-old boy by buying him a cookie. He did it because that’s who he was. So here’s my question for you.

Who are you?

I ask myself the same question. When no outside motivation presses me to be greater than myself, what will the little things in my life say about me? Without help, I doubt anything worth notice. In God I find the passion to love people. He sees the brokenness and points it out to my bleary heart so I can become his outstretched hand. Jesus is my role-model. Who I want to become more like

Jesus touched the lepers shame
He embraced the lost and lame

He reached the beggar’s hand
Defied death and took a stand

He carried the cross: a message from above
History’s most eloquent expression of love

Whether anything I do is noticed like the officer I want these words to define me,

“At the end of the day, I wanna hear people say
My heart looks like Your heart, my heart looks like Your heart
When the world looks at me, let them agree
That my heart looks like Your heart, my heart looks like Your heart”

(Your Heart by Chris Tomlin)

I don’t come in contact with a lot of strangers, but the power to change the world–the power of life and death–still lies within my fingertips. In little moments amid strangers hungry for friendship. In the moments I dare to write. So if you read this, I hope you leave a little more aware of your world. I hope you hear the heartbeat of God a little louder. Listen. Ask God. He will show you what you can do. Little changes you alone can choose to make.

It can be as simple as a prayer.

Even if you can’t talk to someone, it takes no risk or effort to reach out with a prayer. Is God only able to hear us when we pray aloud? Please, pray for people you meet, whether aloud or in your head. It’s a start and God listens.

You have an impact on those around you. One day, you might leave. Who will they remember you as?

6 Things I Forgot About Living in Malaysia

1. Amy is a name for Malay men. I sat in the Doctor’s office and watched the flow of patients go by and the busyness of the secretary when I heard my name. I looked up and realized the secretary was talking to the woman beside me. I couldn’t understand the rest of their conversation except the word Amy. You might say, that could have been her name, but I was in a knee and joints specialists office and not long before this conversation a tall dark-haired guy in his mid-20’s wearing a football tee-shirt and sporting (pun intended) crutches came in. He talked to the woman sitting next to me for a while and then limped back to the seats in the hallway. That must have been Amy.

2. When you most want a seatbelt, it’s not there. My first experience back in my parents car was on the way to church last sunday. I slid into the back seat and by habit reached for my seat belt only to discover the buckle didn’t appear to exist! I got into the car the third time before I was fed up and pulled up the seat to find the buckle hidden beneath the seat. No one uses backseat seat-belts despite it being illegal. That law isn’t so strictly enforced. Besides, some taxi drivers feel insulted when you put a seatbelt on because it shows you don’t trust their driving.

3. People are polite in person but vicious on the road. I grabbed the side of the car as we drove trying not to get scared by my dad’s hair-breadth escapes between cars. People are anything but polite when they drive here. If you don’t get cut off at least three times on the way to your destination you must be driving only two blocks! Maybe this is a bit of an exaggeration but not much ;).

4. Malaysians like to be cold when they’re inside public buildings. So, I spent 7 hours at the Doctor’s office yesterday. DOn’t worry, I’m fine. He’s a very popular doctor and I met with him twice. With an X-Ray inbetween the meetings there was a long wait everywhere. Hospitals here tend to be clean and well-ordered but they do like to keep them cold. I thought no air-conditioning in Malaysia could phase me after all my time in Portland, but I was wrong. I sat there shivering with a shaky pen in hand–I thought a good way to fill the time would be to write–until my Dad brought a blanket and sweater from the car. I haven’t been that cold for months!

5. Laundry is best done in the morning so they dry before the Rain comes. Rain comes on a daily basis and everyone hangs out their clothes in the sunshine to dry. This is why I loved dryers in the states so much! I expected things to dry a lot slower here than they do. Despite the high humidity the heat helps dishes, clothes, and floors to dry quickly. Even now, I have clothes on the line and I watch the skies for the threat of dark thunder clouds. If we see the first drops everyone on the street with laundry out runs to their patios.

6. The sky pours and the shower drips. If I were to compare Portland water pressure to my shower here I would use the rain as an analogy. In Portland I used to joke that the sky spits at you and if you’re wearing a coat you might forget it was raining. Here you won’t forget. In a single outburst, our melodramatic skies can bucket 7 inches of water in half an hour. The heavens throw a tantrum, sparks fly and rumbling voices echo across the city or it sounds like the angels have a bowling party taking pictures of each other before the ball hits the pins with a loud CRASH!

So the shower reminds me of Portland rain. No rumble or lightning in Portland but only the drizzle, and here it would be easy to forget the water was on it’s so gentle. Except, you feel it a little if lighting strikes near and the water tingles over your head. (This isn’t a common occurrence. I’ve only had it happen once or twice.)

)

Sparrow, Stop By Sometime

I’m sitting in the Air Asia Airport–I can never remember, is it KCCT or KLCCT?–an hour before my flight is planned to start boarding. It’s a good feeling sitting here alone. I didn’t expect to feel so natural and at peace but I suppose that’s all God’s doings.

Three little sparrows are flitting around inside here. Well, I’ve seen three, there might be more. I love sparrows. I think they’re probably one of my favorite small birds. (I happen to love birds of prey like falcons and eagles~Oooo…) I mean, there are so many bright exotic birds I’ve seen, but the sparrows have always has a nest in the corner of my heart’s home.

They’re so small–unpretentious and plain to most people but humble, delicate, and chipper to me. I would love to be like Disney’s Cindrellla with wild birds as tame as pets coming to my window sill for a crumb or two. The bars on my ledgeless windows in KL were not exactly prompting me to follow through on this unconscious dream.

I never really thought about it before now. At Christmas time we did put out a string of popcorn for the birds. Mom’s disappeared within minutes. The whole string must have been carried away by one particularly greedy bird. It must have felt like a bird’s jackpot to line his nest with a string of food–or so I imagine.

The other thing about those little birds is just how free they are. There are so many of them you find them everywhere you look. On a park sidewalk and a bus terminal, in the trees and exploring the inside of an airport.

They must find us crazy creatures needing huge roaring birds to fly around in. I doubt any sparrow that takes a second look at all the complexities of human life would ever want to change for it. Sure, they have their own sorts of dangers, but they’re like children who never have to grow up. They fly and play and find food and enjoy all creature with the simple pleasure of innocence.

Even Jesus thought about the sparrows! He said God cares for them though they only cost a third of a penny in those days. Still, I don’t think I would trade my life of worries and fears, mistakes and failure, for all that. There’s a greater joy in serving the creator of sparrows and me through all troubles than being of very little help to him without them.

All in all, I’m glad I’m who God made me to be–at least, becoming that way–and yet can learn a lesson or two from those flighty little birds.

It’s nights like this I wonder…wonder about the awesomeness of God that he’d bless me so much–wonder about how I could ever find futility in life–wonder about all things good and, well, simply wonder.

After a day full of ginger and sugar cookie making with my next door neighbor, listening to stories and talking, cleaning and decorating, I end up with the most delicious stumbling onto a gold-mine of information. I love the things my mom knows about her parents and grandparents–about their lives and their struggles and their joys–about them.

(haha it’s 10:55 PM and my dad just took his clothes off the line. Mom said she was waiting to see when he was going to get around to it. She asked him to take them down–it has been three days since they were first put up–but he seemingly kept forgetting. Now he got them down. He remembered!)

Back to the memories. We talked for a while until my DG leader called. Her details on our trip to a camp site for a DG retreat on Friday made it sound great. Outdoor activities galore: Paintball (never done it, not sure I’m too inclined to do it now..I’m not most agile dodger in the world), Swiming, canoeing, and go carting!

After all that I spent another half hour talking with Mom. Sometimes it’s so hard to say goodnight and actually leave, because we have such good talks. Every night after saying ‘I love you’ and goodnight my mind goes to a detached memory that has no connection. An old man weeping at his wife’s deathbed saying how much he regretted not telling her he loved her more often. It’s a cumulation of many books and movies of such a scene but the emotion has stuck with me.

I never want to regret taking for granted my mom. I know I’m not perfect and I get upset, I do take her for granted sometimes, I know I’ll miss her. I’m thankful though. I’m so thankful to God for her and I’m trying to be a good daughter. That’s all I can do, I suppose. So I want no regrets.

I hope someday I’ll be able to get stories about my grandparents from my aunts and uncles, before it’s too late. There will come a day when I won’t know anything about them, and I don’t want to be without those memories that will disappear with each relative unless I ask.

On that note, Goodnight. Walk the joys and pains of memory lane and don’t waste time in regret. Do something for those you love around you now. Merry Christmas

Pass the Turkey–Chicken, and I’ll Give You Some Gravy

The days pass like flash-cards before a wiz-kid. If my calendar was in pieces my floor would be littered by the bygone days. I eat, I laze, I cook, I write a little. Friday night was a Christmas party at my house.

Liquid energy flows through my veins when the steaming food almost overflowed the tables and guests started swinging the gate until it rang and shuddered from squeaky hinges. flip-flops being tossed from feet at the doorway and cluster after cluster of faces emerging into our bright living room was a sight I haven’t seen since my birthday.

Everyone commented on the smells of roasted chicken and sweet-potatoes floating out to the street, but I must have gotten used to the smell from working in it all morning. When everyone finally arrived we settled around the tables for our meal. The Hemps brought their legendary (at least among the circle of Ginder-Christmas-Party goers) cream-cheese-covered-in-raspberry-chipotle and spinach salad.

Other additions from the nine guests rounded out the meal nicely: fruit salad, cabbage salad, cranberry sauce and rolls. It was a refreshing time full of laughter and talk. Allison brought her adorable baby who was passed around heartily to all baby-loving-ladies. I was a little afraid to hold her. I’ve never held a baby before and I’m always afraid of doing something wrong and hurting them–or worse.

A long time after the meal was cleared away and Dad was banging wonderfully in the kitchen, (I was supposed to do the dishes, but he did them for me being really very kind.) I brought out the dessert I’d spent all day tossing together. A long yule log called a Moca Roulade was a great success among the party-goers thankfully. Despite the slightly complex recipe it certainly turned out better than my ‘fallen’ angel food cake. Mom, in her great recourcefulness managed to salvage it by making low-fat tiramisu which I think turned out tasting just as good as the full fat log.

Once I was done gorging (I really do eat to fast these days! When did I stop tasting my food? sigh.) I flittered around mingling among everyone. It was really good to see Allison, quirky and smiling as usual. She just as beautiful as ever though now she’s ‘an old married woman’ now (as the minister from Emma might say) with an adorable baby to boot!

Games followed soon after as everyone who didn’t want to watch Monday Football with Dad settled around the coffee table to chat. The cards were brought out and a family discussion broke out among the Hemps on the details of a certain game called 99.

Anything is entertaining with Julie and the games were lively and fun. I’m glad Mrs. Johnson finally stopped her loosing streak when we played golf (at my expense but honestly, I’d been making her loose all evening 😦 )

The football game was a disappointment (40 something to three) and our last goodbyes and photos were taken. The sky was a dusky blue lined by silver clouds. I walked Alison out to her car. She’s leaving for the UK today. I hope to see her again before I go though it will be next year.

Where are you God?

I say these words in a way without the loneliness and foreboding that you’d think might accompany them. Only a fear creeps in around me and I shiver without realizing it. where are you God? I whisper again. as in..am I anywhere as near you as I should be? I feel. At least that is a good thing though what I feel isn’t always the best or healthiest.

Oh, I know where you are God. You’re in heaven. You’re on earth. You’re with me, here and now, but if I don’t sit still, if I don’t close my mouth and eyes, turn off the flurried nothing where my thoughts are and listen, I won’t hear you.

Though I read your word nearly daily, I still feel I’m slipping away from you. Though I’ve known your nearness, I still shrink away right now.

Though I thirst after you my laziness leaves my soul parched. Though I love you, though I want to serve you and do what your will is, my shoulders are slumped in defeat of my goals and aspirations. I am learning just how helpless I am without your full and constant support–like a sick child suffering from malnutrition my soul needs to be carried and supported by arms.