Happy birthday, Dad.

Last summer, Alisa was cold, so I gave her my sweater to wear.  She happily put it on & said she was Little Red Riding Hood.

Then my dad came out & said he was the Big Bad Wolf . . .

Happy “12th” birthday, Dad! :]

Mantiox chawe.

That’s Achí (of Guatemala) for “thank you” :]

Here’s what I hope is the first of many such posts — posts giving thanks to God.

Reflecting on the past week, I’m thankful for . . .

1. Lessons from Bare Trees

The last time I took a walk in my neighborhood, the trees were just beginning to give up their leaves. Yesterday, I started to feel really restless. I thought it was because I’d spent the whole day studying & needed some fresh air. So, right before sunset (the best time of day to walk, by the way), I headed for the neighborhood park.

Above, the sky was making its colorful transition to dusk, & the bare trees were darkly silhouetted against the sky. The trees were completely bare except for an occasional nub here & there. Fingertips of spring. Pregnant with life.

I began to wonder if the trees ever grew restless between winter & spring. Waiting, waiting. Waiting for the nubs to turn to buds. Waiting for the buds to blossom. Waiting for the blossoms to give way to fruit.

The trees didn’t surrender their dying leaves in the autumn in vain. There was the faithful promise of spring. But I wondered, Why all the months of bareness in between? Why not give the promise immediately after the surrender occurs? Is the waiting necessary? Are the months of seeming dormancy necessary?

I don’t know. Months of no sign of fulfilled promise — not even a nub until the very cusp of the new season.

But those months are not wasted. The Creator knows what He is doing within the tree, in preparation for spring, through all those winter months.

How much more, then, in me? How much more, then, in one He loved from before the foundation of the world?

2. Boyce Bang

“Boyce” is my roommate from college. Her real name is Joyce, but all the roommates called her “Boyce” (I think Kelly started it).

When I first met her, she was just beginning to walk with the Lord. Watching her transform over the past handful of years has been encouraging beyond words. I can’t help but rejoice (& be so challenged) when I see her quiet fortitude & trust, even in spite of persistent thorns.

What a faith He is forging. ♥

3. Waveboarding

A couple months ago, I was given a waveboard as a gift. It’s become quite the ministry tool with a couple of my younger cousins.

It’s cost me a couple of scrapes & a bump on the knee, but it’s been a fun means of spending time with them.

I rode it to get to the bank today, & as I was crossing the street, I thought I saw my old pediatrician on the road (I used to be scared of him). When I looked to see if it was him, I hit a crack, fell, & put a hole in my pants.

Good one.

“Does thin equal beautiful?”

Ed Welch, author of When People Are Big & God Is Small, gave a message a couple years ago at Capitol Hill Baptist Church — Does Thin Equal Beautiful?

“We’re a culture that has lost its heart. The only thing that we have is appearance. The only thing that we have is a facade. There isn’t discussion about things below the surface really that often . . . a culture that especially for women advertises that appearance is what truly defines you . . .Thin does equal beautiful in this particular culture.”

I’ll just let Ed Welch’s message speak for itself.  Listen to it :]

Because one just isn’t enough.

O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace!
C H A R L E S   W E S L E Y , 1 7 3 9

Since from His bounty I receive
Such proofs of love divine,
Had I a thousand hearts to give,
Lord, they should all be Thine.
S A M U E L   S T E N N E T T , 1 7 8 7

My heart is filled with a thousand songs
Proclaiming the glories of Calvary
With every breath, Lord how I long
To sing of Jesus who died for me
S O V E R E I G N   G R A C E   W O R S H I P , 2 0 0 3

. . .

A thousand tongues to sing of One Lord.
A thousand hearts to give again & again to One Love.
A thousand songs to tell of One Deed.

Blowing on the embers.

This past week, some things I’ve read have fanned a renewed desire for the gospel-less, Bible-less places of the world to be reached.

I pray these excerpts serve to blow on the embers in your heart (random aside: if you keep looking at the word embers long enough, it starts to look a little funny :] ) to again pray that those from “every nation, tribe, people, & language” would come to hear, know, & worship the only true God who saves them from their sins . . . & perhaps even pray that you might be the one to go tell them . . .

An email from a friend in Papua New Guinea regarding difficult decisions in Bible translation (I’ve edited some parts to keep it anonymous):

The [K people] have been having very “heavy” discussions on the current topic: what word or name to use for God [in their vernacular language]? They have come up with the name of a traditional spirit, who created the world, who knows all things, who even does good/kind things to people, but there is also a taboo on speaking the name out loud. It’s part of the secret knowledge that men who have been initiated can know, but others should not, or that an old man on his deathbed might whisper to a younger man. Therefore, out of this group of I think six men, there are varying and conflicting opinions. Some are afraid to speak the name, and think that this is a spirit from their traditional culture and not the true God of the universe, while some think that it would be good to call the one true God by this traditional name, and it’s just that the sense of taboo (in speaking it) needs to change. They hope that using this name will help the people to understand that He is their God and the Creator of everything, not just the white man’s god, bringing in an outside religion.

From Noel Piper’s Faithful Women & their Extraordinary God (from the brief biography about Lilias Trotter, missionary to the Arabs — particularly the Arab women — in Algeria):

Is it impossible that I [Noel Piper], or my daughter, or my granddaugther should do such a thing? Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t depend on me. Who is my God? Is He not the same God who called Lilias Trotter, prepared her, moved her, & sustained her in Algeria for forty years? Is He not the same yesterday & today & forever?

But how can I know what lies in the future? How will I know how to get ready? I can’t really know. Lilias must have been mulling such thoughts when she wrote:

How many of us have said & sung with all our hearts “Anywhere with Jesus,” but at the same time we did not realize all that it meant for us. Indeed at home, & surrounded by all that home means, we could not know. When the test comes we must not forget that “anywhere” means for missionaries something different from life in England, & let us take very good care not to make a misery of anything that “anywhere” brings us.

To us in Algeria it must mean sometime or other, Arab food. Do we object to it? & mice, do we mind them? & mosquitoes, do we think them dreadful? In some parts it means close contact with dirt & repulsive disease. Yet if Jesus is there, what have we possibly to complain of? It means living among a stiff-necked & untrue people & struggling with a strange & difficult language. & yet let us evermore write over all our miseries, big, & for the most part very little, these transforming words “With Jesus.” & then the very breath of Heaven will breathe upon our whole being & we shall be glad.

Today from Desiring God Blog, Bill Walsh shares a letter written by Michelle, a missionary wife in South Africa. Here are excerpts from her letter, “Why I Would Die for South Africa”:

I could faithfully serve Christ & the gospel in another country. But I wouldn’t expect to reap the same amount of fruit as in a desperate place like Africa: “But God chose the poor of this world to be rich in faith & heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him.” (James 2:5). People here see their need for the Great Physician. People are suffering. We have the cure that they are asking for. The gospel (a biblical worldview) is the ultimate cure for AIDS & poverty & crime. In more western countries, people are deceptively self-sufficient & hardened to the gospel. Why not stay where the harvest is ripe & the workers are few?

. . . We stay because we are called to South Africa. When you are called, no promise of greater security or comfort can lure you away. You are free to enjoy all the beauties of South Africa without constantly wondering if it is time to abandon ship. How do we know that we are called to South Africa? Because this is the place where we can be most useful in God’s harvest field. This is the place where our talents can best be multiplied for the Master until He returns (Matt. 25). This is the place where we find the greater blessing of giving rather than receiving (Acts 20:35). This is the place where we can raise our children to be true self-denying Christ-followers. Unless He calls us somewhere more difficult, this is where we will stay — to live & even die for South Africa. Where are you called to die?

“Unless He calls us somewhere more difficult, this is where we will stay — to live & even die . . . Where are you called to die?” It sounds like something we’d accuse a “glory-missions”-minded person of saying. But she’s living in the realities of South Africa with her husband & children right now; her question has more thrust because she’s not saying it flippantly or naively.

For some of us (& by no means is it a lesser task or lesser harvest), that may mean staying home & faithfully ministering to our families. For others of us, that may mean eventually leaving our families & faithfully ministering somewhere else.

Let’s pray for the nations. Let’s pray for our missionary friends. Let’s pray & tell God we’re willing to go or stay . . . to be faithful to Him & faithful to proclaim the gospel (in truth, in love) wherever we are.

But let’s not immediately discard the possibility that He may call us to leave & labor in another field less harvested.

We Would See Jesus (excerpt).

I found this in my old CCM outreach team files. It’s an excerpt I find myself reading at least once a year as a reminder.

An excerpt from We Would See Jesus by Roy & Revel Hession (emphases added):

“That deep hunger for God is patently lacking, & it would appear that we have lowered our goal in the Christian life to something less than God Himself . . .

Instead of stressing holiness in order to see God, the emphasis is on service for God.

We have come to think of the Christian life as consisting in serving God as fully & as efficiently as we can. Techniques & methods, by which we hope to make God’s message known, have become the important thing.

To carry out this service we need power, & so instead of a longing for God, our longing is for power to serve Him more effectively. So much has service become the center of our thinking that very often a man’s rightness with God is judged by his success or otherwise in his Christian work . . .

To concentrate on service & activity for God may often actively thwart our attaining the true goal, God Himself.

At first it seems heroic to fling our lives away in the service of God & of our fellows. We feel it is bound to mean more to Him than our experiences of Him. Service seems so unselfish, whereas concentrating on our walk with God seems selfish & self-centered.

But it is the very reverse.

The things that God is most concerned about are our coldness of heart towards Him & our proud, unbroken natures.

Christian service of itself can, & often does, leave our self-centered nature untouched.

That is why there is scarcely a church, a mission station, or a committee undertaking a special piece of service, that is without an unresolved problem of personal relationships eating out its heart & thwarting its progress. This is because Christian service often gives us opportunities for leadership & position that we could not attain in the secular world, & we quickly fall into pride, self-seeking, & ambition.

With those things hidden in our hearts, we have only to work alongside others to find resentment, hardness, criticism, jealousy, & frustration issuing from our hearts.

We think we are working for God, but how little of our service is for Him is revealed by our resentment or self-pity when the actions of others or circumstances or ill-health take that ministry from us!

Alas! In this condition we are trying to give others an answer which we have not truly & deeply found for ourselves. The tragedy is that much of the vast network of Christian activity & service today is bent on propagating an answer for people’s needs & problems which few of those propagating it are finding adequate in their own lives . . .

If we make service for Him an end in itself we will be full of reactions & will want to fight back or to break away & start an independent work of our own, & we become more self-centered than ever . . .

This, then, is the purpose of life: to see God, & to allow Him to bring us back to the old relationship of submission to Himself.“

This excerpt reminds me of something Eric Alexander said in one of his Shepherd’s Conference messages. He was speaking to pastors & other church shepherds, & he observed that no one today would very readily accept or believe the endorsement of a famous athlete who recommends a particular kind of soda in a commercial (or “pop”, I think he called it :] ). The best way, he said, to know whether that athlete really prefers that brand of soda is to see if he drinks it in the privacy of his own home.

I wonder how many of us — not just pastors & shepherds but any who profess to be followers of Christ — forget the importance of “drinking of” & delighting in God (& His Word) in the privacy of our own homes, in the privacy of our own hearts.

Jane Austen.

I just read over my last post & started laughing.

That one line dealing with being “constantly fatigued” even after only a little bit of “physical exertion” sounded too much like something from Jane Austen.

I just finished reading her Sense & Sensibility (my first time reading one of her books). I enjoy the description of people & places, especially her detailed character analyses, but the endless dances & preoccupation with how much someone makes or spends a year & all that is a little wearisome — kind of like a soap opera from the 1800s.

I still prefer L.M. Montgomery.

All that to say . . . woops :] I tend to become so engrossed in what I read that I pick up the style & language of the author I’m reading.

Maybe I should just stick to the Bible :]

Rest & reflection.

Rest & reflection. The two come hand in hand.

My body started to give me warning signs of neglecting the former a little over a week ago. I was ill in bed last Sunday, but after a day’s rest, I thought I was good to go for the week. I was constantly fatigued after even just a little physical exertion, but it was my last week with my students, so I pushed myself anyway. I must have run on adrenaline or sheer determination all week, because finally, a couple days ago, my body just crashed. I couldn’t get up from bed, couldn’t walk, couldn’t eat.

But today I’m at least up in bed, & my mind is unaffected by bodily weakness, so I have plenty of time to reflect, think, & pray over some things :]

* Love necessitating vulnerability

* God as my ultimate goal in pursuing holiness

* Ministry: “opening wide” my heart, the sharing of gospel and life

Maybe over the course of the next week, these thoughts will take on the form of separate posts. God certainly had different plans for me this week. I was supposed to spend this week (& next) at the library, studying for grad school exams. “8 hours a day,” I boasted. My pride & my words apparently ran ahead of me.

I had other neglected priorities. Exams can wait.

. . .

On New Year’s Day, we took flowers to my grandma’s cemetery (the one we never met but who, by God’s grace, passed on a lasting legacy of faith in our family).

One of the yellow flowers fell from her bouquet, so my brother provided some fun[ny] entertainment for me . . . & the camera.

I love my goofy brother.

I appreciate his forthrightness. (It’s something I can learn.)

What I’ll miss about teaching.

Friday is my last day of teaching.

I’ll miss it.

I’ll miss walking to class in the morning & seeing freshman Adam waiting for friends near the parking lot, blowing into his cold fists & politely waving to me. I’ll miss thinking in my head, “Calm outside of class, bonkers in class . . . of course.”

I’ll miss approaching the classroom & seeing Jimmy waiting by the door, quietly returning my “good morning”, & not coming into class for another two minutes while I turn on the lights & turn on the radio.

I’ll miss the handful of students who begin the minute they walk into class: “Ms. Ha-an . . . I’m so tired!”, “I don’t know what to do!”, or “Yesterday was horrible!”

I’ll miss calling for homework, counting to three as the students yell, “Wait! No! My name! What’s the assignment number? Pass it up! Hurry!”

I’ll miss wracking my brains for a journal topic for the day. A current event? A deeper question about life? A funny, random question?

I’ll miss telling the students to take a dictionary for their bathroom pass & to learn a word before they come back.

I’ll miss hearing Jimmy & Jether “argue” about who dropped the chapstick & who needs to pick it up.

I’ll miss senior Adam’s randomness (“Ms. Han doesn’t get mad, she gets glad”) & songs about fanny packs.

I’ll miss mathematical Kirandeep asking exactly how many lines & sentences she needs to write to get full credit.

I’ll miss Kelvin, our one-man show, dancing to entertain us.

I’ll miss Sarah’s heavy silences, full of unspoken thoughts & feeling.

I’ll miss seeing Skye’s green Mexico Missions hooded sweater with a cross in the front.

I’ll miss Danny coming up to me with a scrap of paper in his hand, a newly written poem that he wants me to look over.

I’ll miss watching Julian go from, “What’s the point of this?” to intense, concentrated enthusiasm.

I’ll miss Naslen’s dripping “Awwww, Ms. Han”s during class.

I’ll miss Robert asking me to check his work every 5 minutes, dramatically complaining with a “C’mon Ms. Han, don’t stomp on my creativity!” whenever I correct something.

I’ll miss Rachel’s ability to put her heart to paper, touching the class with her words (& me).

I’ll miss seeing only Richard’s head lift up whenever I deliver a spoonerism or any slip of the tongue. He looks at me & gives me a “Wait, did you just say what I think you said?” look, as I laugh to myself.

I’ll miss shy Gieser trying to push his smile down with his upper lip & using his hand when he’s really trying not to laugh.

I’ll miss mischievous Josh & Adam, trying to melt my stern look with their “I’m innocent” smiles.

I’ll miss laughing at Kristen’s dramatic “You hate me!” comments whenever I assign something she doesn’t want to do.

I’ll miss seeing my candy box slowly dwindle away as hungry hands sneak its contents during class. I’ll miss labeling the last piece of candy with a note — “CANDY THIEF!” — & later hearing the guilty candy thief, Kenny, laugh during class.

I’ll miss telling Rene, the human jukebox, to keep his music in his head during class.

I’ll miss my break time visitors, Jackie & Jessica. I’ll miss hearing Jackie’s freshman-year school woes in her baby voice; I’ll miss Jess’s quiet, serious, “little sister”-like mannerisms.

I’ll miss Satvir coming in every break & lunch, sitting perched on the edge of a desk, swinging her legs back & forth.

I’ll miss Manuel’s updates about how his soccer team played in the weekend tournament. I’ll miss scrounging around to find him something to eat.

I’ll miss talking to Louana about cooking & sewing during lunch.

I’ll miss pulling out my Barry Bonds bear when the students are reluctant to talk during a class discussion. The bear is tossed from speaker to speaker. (Yes, the stuffed animal trick still works in high school!)

I’ll miss the delight of watching a student “get it” & then “love it” (e.g., with poetry).

I’ll miss enjoying the company of 120 students a day . . . each an individual, thinking, feeling, despairing, hoping, struggling, living person. It wears me out, but it’s a content-weariness at the end of the day.

I’ll miss being able to see their faces, being able to walk among them as I silently pray for them.

I guess, in the end, I won’t miss the teaching itself; I’ll miss my students.

Two more days of teaching. Two more days, & I may never see some of them again. But I pray I might yet see them (every single one of them) in a more lasting city than this one . . .

He knows.

He knows.

He knows.

I can’t begin to tell how much comfort this truth has brought recently.

He knows what these trials are producing in us, He knows what the outcome will be of present uncertainties, He knows the pain of loss, He knows our innermost thoughts, He knows what is in our hearts, He knows exactly what to say to comfort us in each circumstance, He knows how to humble us, He knows our needs, He knows what He is doing, & He knows we are but dust (even when our proud hearts boast otherwise).

The past few weeks, circumstantially, have been relentless; & the flames have been more painful because they’ve revealed more dross in my heart than I ever suspected was there. I’m not half as strong, half as principled, half as loving, half as interested in Christ’s interests as I wanted to believe that I was.

It would be one thing to face life’s gales (or to come alongside a loved one who is enduring them) with a humble, sweet spirit.  But it’s been agonizing to do those same things while at the same time struggling with the obstinate sins & hardness of heart that the gales have uncovered within.  Trials without, but no sweetness of spirit within.

But He knew that, too.  How vast, really, is His love?  According to “my” calculations, love should have dried up a long time ago.  How is it, then, that I still find myself so inundated with love that I’m unable to feel the bottom?  Who is He that He would love like this?

Losses, the feeling of death’s finality, questions of whether a loved one will make it through an illness, the workload that gives no heed to cries of weariness, the constant battle with sin & pride . . .

He knows.  He — God Almighty, the God who says He is Love, the One who is unfolding life moment by moment according to His perfect plan & good pleasure, our Savior from first to last.

I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know how to comfort the grieving. I don’t know how to minister to those I love. I don’t know what is in my heart. I don’t know how to wholly give this life to Him. I don’t know.

But He knows. His person, His knowledge of all things, & His constant love; I can lean with my full weight on these things.

I need not look elsewhere. He will never fail.