Day 2: Wait and Believe

Since I've been given life again after burnout, life has been... full. I'm thankful for renewed energy to engage meaningfully in relationships and work. With all that's been swirling on, both growth inside my heart, and outside around me, it seems perhaps a bit odd to be feel like I'm in waiting. At work we're waiting for some doors of partnership to open. Personally, I'm waiting for clarity in my creative dreams and relational hopes. And yet again, I'm waiting for the right roommate to come along in the right time.

Working with my team at Prayer Current, we've been talking and praying through the idea of "waiting in prayer." One of the key places this idea comes from is Jesus' last interactions with the disciples after his resurrection. After giving the disciples a clear mission, you'd think they were good to go out and accomplish the mission! Yes Jesus told them to wait, and stay in the city until they received power from on high. They had the mission, but they needed to be equipped with the power to do it.

I'm increasingly struck by just how opposite Jesus' kingdom values are with how our natural human wisdom works. We live in a world that tells you to charge ahead and create your own destiny. But my story as a follower of Jesus includes a character much greater and more powerful than me who takes a central focus in the story of my life. God created me, knitted me together in my mother's womb, and gives me breath each day. He is the author of my life.

So if God is the one writing my story, I want to check in with him, talk with him, listen and wait, to see what the next steps are, to see the direction to come, to get all that I need to move forward. Even more, I need to get to know the Author more, so that I can recognize him and his voice, and trust that he can write a way better story than I ever could!

Waiting is not just sitting around, doing nothing, twiddling my thumbs, expecting everything to fall from the sky into my lap with no effort on my part. I'm talking about the kind of waiting where there is action happening... below the surface, often undetected to the natural eye. This kind of waiting is a time of formation, involving almost always a subtle (or sometimes drastic) growth in my heart, and sometimes a stirring of external circumstances and timing before a door opens to walk through. It takes discernment and a supernatural eye to recognize the action that happens in waiting, internally and externally.

Right now it feels a bit like I'm pregnant. I'm leaning toward, expecting, anticipating something within me that feels like it's growing and forming. Never mind that I'm not sure exactly what I'm giving birth to exactly, though I have some early conceptions. I guess it's still too early to tell if it's a boy or a girl.

Yesterday was Day 2 in the 15 Habits of Great Writers Challenge. The second habit of great writers Jeff Goin introduced was, "Believe." He writes, "We choose to see the invisible inside ourselves and bring it to light." When I wait in prayer, it's a foundational step in believing -- choosing to believe God's power, choosing to receive and believe the "divine invisible" that's been placed inside me, and letting Jesus call out the light. 

I love Jeff's counterintuitive practicality here, "How do we turn something like belief into action? We don't. Not yet, anyway. Instead, we marinate... We become what we fixate on. So today, believe it. Tomorrow, do it." The way he describes it, believing sounds a lot like "waiting" to me. Wait/Believe. Respond/Act. Believe. Act. This is the rhythm of walking in belief and faith, as a Writer, and as a follower of Jesus.

Where are you needing to wait, believe, marinate?

I'm still here... and still running

I'm done apologizing for my blogging infrequency. Life on the other side of burnout has brought me to a growing acceptance of who I am and how I roll. I am an all-or-nothing kind of gal, including my blogging frequency. Just call me a binge-blogger, posting a bunch at a time, and then nothing. I will blog whenever I'm inspired to blog, and stop apologizing every time I come back (so Canadian I know, eh?).

Now is an apt time for me to dive back in where I left off. Yep, I'm still here.... and I'm still running. This is a shock most of all to me. My all-or-nothing ways lead me to chew through a new pursuit intensely, and then move on to something else, sometimes never to return again. Yet somehow, even on the other side of winter, I'm still running. While my sister, whom I hold responsible (i.e. delegating the blame) for all this running ridiculousness, is a hard core runner and will do races in the dark, at night, in the heaviest of pouring rain, I am a fairweather runner. If it's anything more than lightly sprinkling, running for cover is the type of running you'll see me do.

After the first marathon I did in October, I swore I would never subject myself to that kind of pain again. Ever. Though I had trained hard and was in good shape, I made a critical yet classic newbie mistake of starting off too fast, and fell apart two thirds of the way through the race. Way too early I hit the "Wall" dreaded by all runners (when your body has used up every ounce of energy and you feel like you can't go on.) While I did manage to finish that race with a lot of walking (I would have crawled if I could have), the last third was so brutal and full of pain I'd rather not re-live.

Eventually memory of the pain wore off enough that I egged my sister on to sign up for her first full marathon, offering to do it with her if she took my dare. And she took the challenge! (Serves me right!)

The lessons and goals matured from my first to second race. The first time, I wanted to finish, and aim for a specific time (which I surrendered to the wind when I fell apart). This time, my goal was quality over quantity. My major aim was to run a better race, especially in how I ran the race. I didn't even care if my time was slower, I just didn't want to feel like I was going to die half way through like last time. And I wanted to finish strong, rather than slowing to a crawl near the finish line. Applying my painfully acquired lessons from the first race, I managed to run the whole race with only five brief walking breaks, with the bonus icing on the cake that I shaved five minutes off my previous time (which was unexpected!). The cherry on top was having energy (barely) to help my sister run the last leg of her race.

The end result was still the same (a finished race) but I felt so much better and enjoyed it more the second time (or at least all the photos with my cheesy grins would lead you to believe I was actually having fun out there, rather than enduring the foot abuse). I hope I can keep applying a few key lessons to finish the "race of life" strong:

• Purpose and preparation is key. To know your goal and approach, and to have a direction is invaluable in life. You may not rock the plan every time or you may have some "off" days, but sticking to your direction overall prepares you and builds momentum for the finish (if you pace yourself... see below). Truth be told, I probably only stuck to the plan two thirds of the time, and there were other variables that meant my condition was weaker going into this race, but I knew where I was headed.
• Pacing and refuelling is everything. For running, this includes pacing your training with enough recovery time so you don't injure yourself (the plan I use is actually called "Run Less, Run Faster" which is contrary to some of the approaches out there that go for mass volume of miles), and tapering (reducing your miles) to reserve energy for race day. And of course, managing your pace and energy, including breaks, water, and fuel, during the actual race, so you have enough in your tank to actually finish the race.
  
  This is probably the greatest life lesson running long distances has taught me. I used to try to push at an intense pace constantly and feel frustrated I wasn't always effective. Then I hit the Wall of living unsustainably. I burnt out. My body, mind, and heart shut down and wouldn't let me live as I had before. After a lot of recalibration and soul surgery with Jesus shining light on my inner drives and needs gone awry, I emerged out of the darkness into a new way of living and approaching the race of life. I now live more according to "seasons," knowing that if I am approaching a busy or difficult uphill stretch, I give myself permission to slow down before (to conserve energy) and after (to restore energy).
• Traveling light is wise. In running you may not notice in shorter distances if you're carrying a pack full of stuff, even useful things. But the further you go, the more you feel the burden of every extra ounce of weight that you carry. You actually want to throw it off. In life, I see the wisdom of travelling with less and less as we go further, rather than going for more and more. Less emotional baggage. Less unhealthy expectations. Less material stuff. All this just weighs you down, keeps you from running and enjoying the race, and maybe even hinders you from finishing the race.

And so, we'll see where this running journey leads... I suspect I'll keep on keeping on, just because I am a learning junkie and love all the metaphors to be had (and a glutton for pain, apparently!).

Running: From Allergy to Obsession

It's no secret that Vancouver is a fit city. It's a fabulous city for the outdoors and sports. There are beautiful trails, not to mention our gorgeous long stretch of seawall that runs along beaches, trees, and shiny cityscape that is perfect for running. It's a city full of races, runs, and walkathons year round. I remember on my way to church on the skytrain some mornings, seeing people with race T-shirts boasting "Vancouver Marathon". I used to think these runner-people were crazy -- I can barely manage to roll out of bed and onto the skytrain at 9am on a Sunday morning, and they have already finished running 42km/26 miles by that time. Who are these crazy people?!

Well somehow, the impossible has happened. I've become one of them. I somehow still am not comfortable calling myself a runner... I'd rather describe myself as "a person who runs." I'm not sure what's behind my reluctance to just own it, but it really is weird to see that I've come such a long way with this thing called running.

I used to say, "I'm allergic to running." And people would laugh. And I'd say, "No, really, running makes me itchy." And really, it did! When I told my sister this one day many years ago, she enlightened me about this thing called "runner's chafe" and that if you choose the right clothes, it would reduce the chance of itchiness. Turns out she was right.

So I couldn't use that excuse anymore, not using a physical allergic reaction anymore as a copout, at least. But I was still mentally allergic to running. Once a year in high school phys ed class, we would do the dreaded Cooper Run -- 12 minutes of running laps in the gym. We were graded on how many laps we could complete. The more laps you ran, the higher the grade. I don't have a problem with using such an exercise to evaluate fitness, but there never seemed to be any warning, preparation or training for the task. You would just show up one day, and it would be Cooper Run day. As an asthmatic, unathletic person growing up, this was quite the dreaded task.

It was no surprise then, that when I started attempting to add the treadmill to my gym cardio mix last year, that 12 minutes was the mental barrier. But amazingly, using a run-walk rhythm approach, I gradually increased my endurance to run beyond a dozen minutes, one minute at a time. I was happily treading along on my contained cardio machine routines, when one day, my sister upped the anti.

She was renewing her running energies, she asked if I wanted to go along with her to run a 10K race, post Thanksgiving. I blame all my subsequent running obsessions on her! My all-or-nothing personality and way about tackling new interests kicked in high gear. After running that one simple race with her, we egged each other on in our running efforts. I'm not quite sure how it escalated to this point -- but this weekend, we are heading to Victoria. My sister will run her first half-marathon (go Flo!) and I will ahem, attempt my first full marathon. I'm still daily debating with myself if I've officially lost it... what was I thinking when I signed up?!

When I started diving into the whole arena of "race training" and preparation, I anticipated there would be many analogies that would parallel life and the many lessons along the journey.

• You learn to pace yourself for the long haul, so you can finish the race without burning out too early on.
• You learn to know your style, not getting caught up in trying to be like someone else. I'm such a bad sprinter and am a better long distance runner, so I don't need to freak out with my sluggish-start before I can really hit my groove past 10km/6miles. True to my form, it takes me forever to start at anything I begin!
• You learn to listen to your body, to hydrate, rest and recover adequately.
• You learn the value of having a training goal and plan, how structure and direction provide a good foundation.
• You learn how a seemingly impossible goal is achievable, one step at a time, slowly pushing your comfort zone bit by bit, mile by mile.
• You learn the value of accountability and having people to run with. There were some days my sister had to coax my butt out the door.
• You learn the value of encouragement, and cheerleaders along the way, especially in the really hard parts where you feel you have nothing left.
• You learn that having people to celebrate with at the finish line is much more satisfying than just accomplishing it by your lonesome. My sister and roommate running on the same day I did my first half-marathon made the euphoria grander, and the pain of laughing more joyful.
• You learn to enjoy the journey, to look around and see the bigger picture of where you are. I've actually stopped listening to music as I find there's enough around me to take in, observe and absorb, and pray for people and the city as I pass on by.

Speaking of "the bigger picture" while I began running just to challenge myself, I realize that I'd be foolish to miss out on the opportunity that it can be to draw others into my journey for a greater cause. I was inspired by the beautiful and passionate women who recently completed the She-Loves Half Marathon to raise money for our sisters in Uganda who are suffering atrocious injustices.

And so, I'd like to ask you to please give to SA (Servants Anonymous) Foundation -- a local Vancouver organization that works to fight human trafficking of women and children around the world. They are one of few organizations internationally that offers a comprehensive and uniquely designed long-term recovery program for young women between the ages of 16-29, who have been or are at risk of becoming sexually exploited and/or trafficked, including those who are pregnant and/or have children. Read more about Servants Anonymous here. Make a donation here. Please note that while the race is Oct. 9, the giving page will be up until the end of the month, as I was late getting into the fundraising arena.

If you think of it, and if you are the praying type, please pray that I would finish the run in one piece, but more important, pray for the countless struggling and exploited women to be freed to live in the dignity and beauty that God created for them.

Thanks for joining me on this journey...

Summer Miracles

O summer, where art thou? Growing up in sunny Saskatchewan, I am forever a sun-seeker. While the sunny season in this city is short, it is glorious indeed!

But with autumn in the air, and the official first day of the season past, I find myself in a lot of conversations answering, "How was your summer?" It's a bit like the back-to-school obligatory creative writing exercise within the first week of class.

While I stayed in the city for most of the summer, I kept it necessarily simple. Do the work I needed to get done, leisurely enjoy the sun and the city, and focus on my family.

At the beginning of the season, my 97 year old paternal grandfather fell ill and was admitted to the hospital. Amazingly up until that time, he was living with my grandmother on their own in a sweet co-op housing deal near English Bay. I would imagine that one of the most difficult things about the aging process is losing your independence, after having enjoyed it for most of your life. Basically our mobility and independence starts out zilch when we enter the world as babies, and if God grants us a long life, we eventually deteriorate to lose both those treasured abilities in our old age.

So most of the summer was invested in family support, with my parents and other relatives coming in and out of town, as my grandfather remained in hospital, and then eventually when he left us and passed on to the next life.

As the family busied ourselves with preparations for the memorial service, it turned out that my small contribution of sharing a portion of the eulogy, was a blessing in disguise. In the constant-being-with-family, my contemplative soul was hungry for some down time to slow down and simply remember. The assignment of preparing part of the eulogy was just the right accountability to pause and reflect. The process of looking back allowed me to really see, recognize, and receive the hidden gems and miracles of what had just transpired.

As I began to speak at the memorial service, I surprised myself with tears as I struggled to keep control of my words. I had not cried while doing my maternal grandma's eulogy. And I certainly did not expect to cry on this occasion, as I would not classify my relationship with my grandfather as close, warm or fuzzy. This reality of relationship was partly due to language barriers, but was also related to some difficult lessons of hurt and conflict that had occurred in our family in recent years.

As I looked at him and said my last goodbye on this side of heaven, it hit me why the extra emotion in the farewell. With the family drama and conflict that had gone down and dragged on in the last decade of his life, his (and our own) weaknesses were all the more apparent. A battle of pride, self-protection, and our typical Asian inability to truly resolve conflict left us with a painful several-long year gap of non-communication in key family relationships.

Our need was more desperate for God to intervene with his power to bring reconciliation to our seemingly beyond-repair broken relationships. The relational crack was so large and impossible to our doubtful natural human eyes... so when God showed up, it was so obviously supernatural, so evidently clear that it was his power doing the work of reconciliation. It truly was a miracle to see the softened hearts and openness that brought communication and relationship alive again for the last year of his life.

In essence, because of my grandfather's human frailty and weaknesses, I could see God's grace more clearly in him. He wasn't perfect. Nor is anyone in my family perfect. And least of all, I am not perfect. But the more evident our weaknesses and limitations are, the clearer that God's goodness and grace can shine through our cracks.

I am grateful to have gained this rich life lesson in this past season. God will need to help me walk it out in reality, so that I can increasingly embrace my weaknesses and find and share his grace there. The journey continues...

Goodbye to Grandpa Hwang (Yeh Yeh)

Spontaneous poem written by my grandmother

For seventy three years,
we loved and watched out for each other

You were an energetic man with wings

We could not fly side by side,
like love birds in the sky

We were like intertwined vines on earth

Today you went ahead of me,
resting in the bossom of the Lord

But I still treasure your foot prints

Forever you will live in my heart

Love, Check

My portion of the eulogy remembering my Yeh Yeh on August 19, 2011

We all know my grandfather had a love of all things air-related -- airplanes, flight and skies. By the time my grandparents arrived in Canada, and by the time we were born, his flight career was a previous chapter of his life. And I want to remember him more than just what he passionately did for his career. I want to share more personally of the person he was.

My grandparents first arrived in Canada in the spring of 1976. That was the year i was born, in May. My parents decided to put them to work right away and left me behind in their care when I was one month old, while they went off to vacation in New York. He was my first care giver.

When I got older, he continued to care for me in practical ways. I am glad that I came to Vancouver to study 16 years ago, because of the opportunity to grow in my relationship with him. He gave me his first TV in Canada so I could watch TV while at school. He gave me a fabulous clothing iron from the 1950s that I still use today -- it's much better quality and built to last than anything you could buy today. He always told me he would care for me, that if I ever needed him or anything, just tell him, because I was his granddaughter.

But more than these practical ways that he cared for me, what I will treasure most is the spirit he exhibited especially in his last days. I thank God for what a clear mind and heart to talk with us whenever we came for visits. He was always in good spirits, joking with us, telling us what we were like as children when he was taking care of us. You could tell he was taking pleasure in us and enjoying us and his family. The nurses repeatedly commented on what a good and pleasant patient he was, joking with them, saying how good their care of him was. Despite his weakness, tiredness and physical struggles and suffering, he didn't complain about being in the hospital. In fact he joked about why he didn't come sooner to the hospital to enjoy such good quality care.

I really feel God gave him a softer, more tender spirit in his last days. He was always thanking and praising God for giving him such a good life with so many blessings, and bringing him this far. On one particular visit where I arrived around his dinner hour, I had the privilege to help him with his meal. In between bites he kept saying how glad he was for a family that loved him and granddaughters that cared for him.

My grandfather left us a good example of leaving this life well. He had made peace with God. When the pastor visited with him, he knew of his place in heaven and God's love for him. Despite the conflicts that life brings, despite the conflicts that our human nature and weaknesses can stir up in our relationships, he made peace with all his loved ones. He was grateful for a good long life filled with blessing. He was ready to go.

Last week my sister and I went to the hospital for another visit, which turns out was our last. It was Sunday, the day he passed away. He was sleeping so peacefully, breathing ever so gently. So I didn't want to disturb him. I sat down and watched him while I prayed for him. I thanked God for him and how much Jesus loves him. To see him so tender in his spirit, really showed me how God was working in his heart and life. I could see Jesus in him. I prayed for Jesus to be close and present to him even in his sleep, every step until the time he would call him back home with a big warm welcome. And then I said goodbye and left.

And shortly after, he went back to his heavenly home into God's faithful presence, eternal and unconditional love for him. I know that he is enjoying an even better room than at the hospital -- he's enjoying the room and mansion that Jesus said that he is preparing for each of his children that love him. I know that he is joking with and enjoying God face to face. I am thankful that as we remember and celebrate Grandpa's life, we can have hope that we will see him one day again in God's presence.

"High Flight" Poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr, read by my cousin

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds -- and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew --
And, while the silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the fate of God.

I'm back...

Well, it's been a long time, but I'm back. A lot has changed since my last post 3.5 years ago. It's difficult to articulate it all as I'm still processing the major changes that have happened deep within me -- changes which are still incrementally working their way out into my outer habits and behaviours.

Suffice it to say that in the last 3.5 years, Jesus brought me through a complete system reboot. I'm still going through the process of deciding what needs to be installed on the new system -- some good old programs and systems need to be reinstalled, but there are far more that need to be left behind for good. I'm still figuring out how to run within the new operating system, learning lots as I go on in learning new ways.

The reboot and "comeback" was long overdue. It was three years ago I came to a point of total give-up surrender. I had just completed working on the final project for a counselling course which involved letting Jesus walk you through your own "stuff" (the premise being if you don't know personally to have Jesus rescue you through your own messy wounds and issues, it's difficult to help anyone else through their own baggage).

For that assignment I decided to be brave and work on my addiction to work and productivity. Literally at the start of the project I felt like I had to "work" on it myself and muster up enough effort to overcome my life-long problem of letting my identity be chained to my career or what I was able to produce or do.

Well by the time I was ushered through the process of understanding the entangled roots of my problem, my eyes were necessarily opened to how I was in way over my head. I was overcome by my sense of helplessness and powerlessness to change anything -- especially matters of the heart which all my external actions flow out of.

And so I gave up -- "Jesus! Understanding my problems and knowing what the right thing to do from here on, does not give me the actual power to do anything differently. I need you to do it. Because I just can't."

And that was the simple, yet difficult, point of turning my way of being into a new direction. I was experiencing the counterintuitive, yet powerful truths of AA's first 3 steps:

1. We admitted we were powerless over (our addictions), that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

It's counterintuitive that giving up my own self-effort will help me move forward. I'm realizing more and more how Jesus' ways of governing are so entirely opposite of human wisdom. In my mind it doesn't make sense that dying to myself would be the way to finding new life. But that's exactly how I found my way back to myself -- or rather, to my new self.

Shortly after I waved the white flag of surrender, every area of my life (professional, personal family, relationships, spiritual, emotional) surfaced multiple crises that ran me over like several trucks. I crashed.

My old house was demolished. The foundation was brought to the ground. Only then was there possibility for a new foundation to be laid.

With my work addiction slain, I didn't define myself anymore by what I could do. I actually swung to the other extreme where I was repulsed by questions of, "so, what do you do?" or comments of, "wow, you did such a great job on..."

In the demolishing, I had lost all my passions, drives, and dreams -- both good and bad ones. I felt like the North point of my compass was removed completely. And I had little clue as to what my new North should be or look like.

During the time I was a bit befuddled about who I was anymore, I had the amazing opportunity to go visit my friend and her husband who were doctors in Sudan at the time. The town where they lived had only one paved road. The rest were a muddy mess of jeeps, motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, and corrupt soldiers and police fining foreigners willy nilly. My friend's husband was helping the government form a primary health care system. It was eye opening to see how much we take for granted in our civilized existence.

The image was loud and clear to me -- it's messy to create a new society. Really messy. It's messy to learn a new way of life. Really messy.

Since then, I've been journeying along to discover the new ways of being, thinking and doing that I feel called to. Some days I'm taking steps forward. Other days I stumble and fall and lose my way, finding myself trying to live by the old ways in the new land.

But I'm back. I may be walking in a different land, but I am slowly learning to walk differently.

a different look at easter

Easter totally came and went and tumbled right by me this year. (I can see the value of maybe trying to observe Lent next year...)

To be honest I've been stuck in church-inertia the past few weeks and have found it difficult mustering the desire or energy to go. I know it's at those times I need most to reach out and connect with my spiritual family, but the inertia has been strong this time around.

I had a majorly hard time hauling my butt outta bed for the day of prayer on Good Friday at my church. I actually skipped out on the first half of the day. But as usual, at the end of the day, after spending the afternoon in talking with others and God, it was exactly what I needed. It was so good to get out of myself and look to others and the world, bringing their needs before God in prayer.

The Good Friday service was appropriately somber and good to remember that this is the day that God died (thanks for the wording, Joc...). It's the day that Jesus, God's son, was cut off from his Father God for the first time since he had been in perfect communion with him since the beginning of time and creation. All so that I would not be cut off from God.

I still feel shallow in my understanding and experience of this, but I suppose this the essence of the faith journey is a lifetime of rediscovering and tasting this truth in new ways. It amazes me that when Jesus came back to life and appeared to the disciples there are times they simply don't even recognize him ("they were kept from recognizing him" Luke 24:16) and it's only "until their eyes were opened" (Luke 24:31) that they can recognize him. I think that's a cue I can take in praying for myself and others, that eyes would be opened to see Jesus as he really is. No amount of trying harder on my part, or on the part of others, can bring those spiritual "aha! I see!" moments.

Easter Sunday our Eastside and Westside groups convened as one church downtown at the Roundhouse Community Centre. I basically ended up missing the service altogether as I was putzing around greeting and directing people, and helping Carla with lunch and Lee Anne with the Easter egg hunt for the kids.

As much as I craved being able to simply rest and take in the service, I quite enjoyed myself participating in other ways. Being outside in the hall away from all the action, there were moments of quietness I found myself having a spirit of prayer for various parts of the service as they went on and for specific people as they came to mind.

After the Roundhouse, we headed back to our home base at the Westside building for Camper's "graduation" (i.e. ordination) service. When I walked in, the room was filled with the fresh scent of lilies. After all the hustle and bustle of hosting everyone at the Roundhouse, coming back to the Westside felt like coming back home. It was like having a party at the Roundhouse for the community, then coming back to the Westside was like having a coffee to really relax after all the guests have left.

That feeling of "ah, I'm coming back home" is one that I think I needed to feel to remind me in light of my church-inertia what I am really missing. I have been given such an amazing gift of friends and spiritual family. "My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."

apology for narcissism

Our staff meeting on Tuesday was particularly good for me this week. It woke me up from myself.

We started off by praying for a specific situation of sexual exploitation happening in Central Asia and for the larger issue worldwide. Then we prayed for a few key leaders in our midst who are all seeming to be undergoing tough challenges and spiritual attacks of various sorts recently. I particularly and necessarily needed to feel the weight and help carry the burden for others. It was exactly what I needed to get out of my self-focused funk in my little cave as of late.

As I felt the weight of the present trials and difficulties of this world, I was tempted to be too weighed down with the heaviness of magnitude of some of these situations and questionning of God asking why there had to be such pains and injustices in this broken and clearly imperfect world. Yet in my momentary heaviness I was glad for this opportunity to look up from my navel which I had been gazing at too much recently. I've been more aware since that point in this week of my navel-gazing and simply got tired of it.

Last night as I found myself yet again working through and over-focusing on myself, I actually got tired of myself and tired of thinking about myself. So I took a nap. (I had a headache too, which was too easy a reason to complain for myself, so my strategy was to take a nap so I could wake up fresh with a new beginning, which is one of the things I love most about waking up, either from a night of slumber or an afternoon nap.)

Waking up from my nap was like the much needed turn of tide in our prayers for the latter half of our staff meeting. We had started with the heavy burdens of evil and trial in the world and in our own lives, yet we necessarily concluded our meeting by praying for several encouraging happenings and "God-on-the-move" activities coming up. No doubt there is a correlation between all these good things happening in the spiritual undercurrents of our city and the spiritual hits our leaders are taking.

When we face a setback spiritually, the temptation is far too great to be discouraged and dragged down, rather than seeing it as an indication that we might be causing enough flag-waving in the spiritual realm to invite attention to ourselves. In our weakness and despair is always an opportunity to find our strength and hope in Christ. We must lift our gaze to Jesus. It is a matter of survival.

I'm tired of focusing on myself and writing all my blog entries on that topic. If I'm tired of this, there's a good chance you are too, so I do apologize for the heavy dose of narcissism in this blog as of late. If you catch me putting a whole entire post on the topic of me, myself, and I anytime soon again, please please do everyone a favour and stop me from indulging in my self-reflections and spare you of them too. Seriously! Please, and thank you!

the anatomy of an addiction

Not long ago my friend Renae asked me if I would like to go on a sugar fast with her. I didn't particularly want to, yet I knew it would be good for me. And in my past experience, having accountability in forming a new habit can be the key difference in succeeding. So I told her sure, I would.

Well each day since then has fallen into one of two categories:

1. totally forgetting about the conversation I had with her and eating sugar (like chocolate chips or something similar) first thing in the morning and then all day.
2. 2. totally wanting to honour what I said to her yet totally failing 2 hours into the day (again, usually on chocolate chips or something sweet lying around the house).

It seems like the harder I try and resolve not to do something, the less likely I have been to succeed.
I think I am addicted to sugar (and food, period), among many other things. How do I know? Because I can't control it. It has more control over me than I have over it. Crazy that an inanimate substance can have such power over me. But there are many other things that I am addicted to, things unseen -- like getting approval on a job well done, and the rush of getting my way in a conflict.
I think addictions make empty promises, offering to satisfy some kind of real need, but once the rush wears off, leaves you empty.
Good thing I am starting a 12 step course tonight (same 12 steps as AA), as part of a Spiritual Transformation course my church is offering. I tried taking it last year, and the addiction I was working on then (and likely will continue to work on this second time around) was being overly independent and commitment-phobic. In the end my Commitment-phobia won out and I dropped out of the course half way.
The hardest work is going deep and addressing the real roots of our addictions.
Let's hope I make it past step 5 this time.

lessons from a dying plant

I received a beautiful orchid as a housewarming gift when I had my party back in June.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am plant killer through and through. I've never ever bought myself a plant because I know myself well. Two other friends have bought me plants (one for my birthday 2 years ago, another for my housewarming at my last apartment 4 years ago). I even got quite excited when I saw noticeable growth in one of them.

Alas, it was only a matter of time before I killed them both after a few months of concerted on-again, off-again effort.

I was quite excited to receive the orchids as they are one of my favourite flowers. So simple and elegant. I was thrilled to discover the instructions for care were simple -- indirect sunlight and water once a week. I thought I could handle once a week. And I did for quite some time. I even managed to ask my roommate to water it while I was away in Vietnam for two weeks in August.

I gave up on it in early September. Until my new roommate Becki, who has a green-thumb, gave me new hope this week. She cut the dried, flowerless stems, watered it again, and dusted off the green leaves. I had written it off as dead because the blooms had long fallen off. She pointed out the leaves were still green which meant the plant was clearly not dead yet! She made a comment about different seasons and how it wouldn't be blooming every single day of the year.

Something clicked in my head when she said that. I think I expect everything in my life to be in bloom all year round. I am quite impatient with long term anything in life, especially things like transforming my heart and forming new habits and perspectives. I want to see everything happen now. I want my food and sugar addictions to end now. I want my dream business ideas and career plans to happen now. I want my character flaws to change now. I want to see my friends' problems end now.

How unrealistic that kind of thinking is, and how it only serves to set me up for disappointment and frustration. One of the things I want to learn more is finding (and being satisfied) with rhythm and rest in my life. I want to enjoy any season I may find myself in on any given day.