Thursday, March 21, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Promise
Last Sunday I went to lunch after church with a group of people I had just met. It's awkward because they think I'm new, but I've really been around the church for five months and just haven't met too many people yet. They're nice, they're similarly settled in their life phase, and a lot of them ask me questions and I feel like I can (kind of) participate in their conversations.
Just a few days prior, I had ended my day of rest by looking through photos and reading old notes from friends. It hit me then that moving away was a conscious choice to not be in someone's life as much anymore. Leaving Stockton meant I was choosing to leave how close I was involved in my friends' lives there. The pictures of my goodbye parties seemed so much heavier in light of that realization: after eight months, it's even more obvious what I was saying goodbye to. You still keep in touch with the closest friends, but you can't do much about all the others. You're simply not there as much, you can't just pass them by. I left their lives, I left a lot of those friendships behind. Left them to be picked up on a fortunate day when we cross paths again, but until then, they currently exist in pictures and the occasional brief facebook comment.
I thought about this when I drove away from lunch, excited at the potential for new friendships. But these people at church will never replace my old community, nor am I searching for people to take the place of my old friends. Instead, I remember that God promises good gifts and provision. That he fills where I lack. I am delighted to discover a confidence in my soul that trusts that The Lord has promised good to me: rich, deep, satisfying. Providing for all my needs, relationships and friendships included.
_________________________
Spring blossoms are everywhere right now; white, pink, and purple petals swirling about in the March wind. I walk under a tree in full bloom on the way to campus. I was contemplating sin, guilt, and reluctance towards change. But I see the white petals swirling around me and I think, promise. What is Jesus' promise in the face of dark sin? His grace is sufficient for my weakness. When will I choose to cling to this above all else? Even with best intentions I fall short. But perhaps that is why we come back over and over again to his promise of forgiveness and redemption. Lord knows I need it.
_________________________
Each week that passes by marks a longer time that Sacramento has been my home. It's getting more awkward and less appropriate to say, "I just moved here." But I'm also finding more reasons to love it even as I'm unsure of where new friendships will happen. In some senses, it feels like yes, I made a decision to leave a city that was home to me...but God invited me instead into a fun, new city, filled with things that I love. Things like restaurants with patios perfect for summer dinners, ultimate leagues and a beautiful river trail (I know, I keep repeating these things), and even a random running club that I did speed workouts with today because I was too bored of training on my own.
They are kind of little things. But they are things that I love, things that make me happy, and things that hint of a promise that I am watched over. Taken care of. Loved and provided for as a daughter.
Just a few days prior, I had ended my day of rest by looking through photos and reading old notes from friends. It hit me then that moving away was a conscious choice to not be in someone's life as much anymore. Leaving Stockton meant I was choosing to leave how close I was involved in my friends' lives there. The pictures of my goodbye parties seemed so much heavier in light of that realization: after eight months, it's even more obvious what I was saying goodbye to. You still keep in touch with the closest friends, but you can't do much about all the others. You're simply not there as much, you can't just pass them by. I left their lives, I left a lot of those friendships behind. Left them to be picked up on a fortunate day when we cross paths again, but until then, they currently exist in pictures and the occasional brief facebook comment.
I thought about this when I drove away from lunch, excited at the potential for new friendships. But these people at church will never replace my old community, nor am I searching for people to take the place of my old friends. Instead, I remember that God promises good gifts and provision. That he fills where I lack. I am delighted to discover a confidence in my soul that trusts that The Lord has promised good to me: rich, deep, satisfying. Providing for all my needs, relationships and friendships included.
_________________________
Spring blossoms are everywhere right now; white, pink, and purple petals swirling about in the March wind. I walk under a tree in full bloom on the way to campus. I was contemplating sin, guilt, and reluctance towards change. But I see the white petals swirling around me and I think, promise. What is Jesus' promise in the face of dark sin? His grace is sufficient for my weakness. When will I choose to cling to this above all else? Even with best intentions I fall short. But perhaps that is why we come back over and over again to his promise of forgiveness and redemption. Lord knows I need it.
_________________________
Each week that passes by marks a longer time that Sacramento has been my home. It's getting more awkward and less appropriate to say, "I just moved here." But I'm also finding more reasons to love it even as I'm unsure of where new friendships will happen. In some senses, it feels like yes, I made a decision to leave a city that was home to me...but God invited me instead into a fun, new city, filled with things that I love. Things like restaurants with patios perfect for summer dinners, ultimate leagues and a beautiful river trail (I know, I keep repeating these things), and even a random running club that I did speed workouts with today because I was too bored of training on my own.
They are kind of little things. But they are things that I love, things that make me happy, and things that hint of a promise that I am watched over. Taken care of. Loved and provided for as a daughter.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Bringing all I am
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. -Ephesians 4:14-16
At Asian American Staff Conference, we were challenged to bring everything we have to the table. Paul encourages maturity and growth a number of times in his letter to the Ephesians, and Tracy called us out on the many times we hold back on our gifts, leadership, and callings because we see the experience, age, and louder voices of the room. We save our best gifts for the campus and for our students, but when it comes to managing up, pushing the movement forward, or even sitting in the very room with those who have paved the road before us, we hold back.
Story of my life.
She gives this message as I sit in the same room as many Asian-American staff who have paved the path before me, staff who I wish to thank yet am intimidated to approach. My life regarding ethnicity, culture, and all related issues feels like it's in a very, very steep learning curve with no plateau in sight. I am clearly finding some sort of voice in this ethnicity conversation, yet at the same time, it feels like the words I have are just the early learning stages of many...learning stages that so many have surpassed already.
What would it look like to bring the fullness of who I am to add to the body that seeks to reflect the fullness of Christ? I often find myself tweaking, adjusting, choosing only to show parts of who I am. Sometimes this is for the sake of being hospitable to others, like holding back on verbose stories or avoiding nerdy tech topics with those who could care less. That's one thing. But holding back because I am afraid to show just how passionate I am, because I fear sounding like I'm full of myself, or because I am waiting for the day that I am more experienced, polished, eloquent...doing so is holding back who God made me at a table that needs everything of everyone present, or keeping silent in conversations that need more voices.
Humility is not denying our gifts, but being thankful for them.
I struggle between standing tall in the things I am good at (that sentence alone feels like a gutsy move) and underplaying them, like we so often are raised to do. Not that no one knows what I love and excel at, but I also don't walk all too confidently in them. Torn--between knowing my skill and experience yet how much more I have to learn, between gratitude for affirmation but the guilty feeling that it shouldn't mean so much to me, between how much passion I have for something yet being afraid of what it means if everyone knew how much I cared.
Everything I am. The extroversion; the bright brain and intelligence; the ease with words, be it written or in conversation. The desire to grow in learning about culture and ethnicity and all the messes that come with it. The hope to be a good public speaker with beautiful balances of charisma, eloquence, and content. The ability to find tools and use them well, to problem solve instinctively and develop good systems. The sheer amount of information my brain can absorb. The really good memory. The natural (but could still be developed) process of being an emcee. The desire for challenges, opportunities to learn, risks to take. The reality of how much being the center of attention energizes me, just like how affirmation spurs and encourages me. The very real fact that I can make friends out of most people, and great systems out of ideas.
My natural instinct is to hide a lot of this: how proud I am of a job well done, how excited I am to receive affirmation, how much I think I can offer, how much I want to say yes to an opportunity in front of me. Sometimes its swept under a front of modesty, sometimes I sincerely doubt my ability. But what if I took the call to grow up and leave the kids table of holding back...and took all of this and more everywhere I went? How do I do this in humility and recognition of the growth that is still to come?
To close, a food analogy from manuscript study: Paul already states the unity we have, the one Body and one Spirit in Ephesians 4:3-6. But the body of Christ continues to get built up until we "become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (v 13). Andy likens this to a pot of ingredients that are already all one together. But as the soup gets cooked, each piece and the meal as a whole reaches a whole new level of fullness. If we as the body are to reach the fullness of Christ, we each need to bring who we are and where we've grown to the pot.
Story of my life.
She gives this message as I sit in the same room as many Asian-American staff who have paved the path before me, staff who I wish to thank yet am intimidated to approach. My life regarding ethnicity, culture, and all related issues feels like it's in a very, very steep learning curve with no plateau in sight. I am clearly finding some sort of voice in this ethnicity conversation, yet at the same time, it feels like the words I have are just the early learning stages of many...learning stages that so many have surpassed already.
What would it look like to bring the fullness of who I am to add to the body that seeks to reflect the fullness of Christ? I often find myself tweaking, adjusting, choosing only to show parts of who I am. Sometimes this is for the sake of being hospitable to others, like holding back on verbose stories or avoiding nerdy tech topics with those who could care less. That's one thing. But holding back because I am afraid to show just how passionate I am, because I fear sounding like I'm full of myself, or because I am waiting for the day that I am more experienced, polished, eloquent...doing so is holding back who God made me at a table that needs everything of everyone present, or keeping silent in conversations that need more voices.
Humility is not denying our gifts, but being thankful for them.
I struggle between standing tall in the things I am good at (that sentence alone feels like a gutsy move) and underplaying them, like we so often are raised to do. Not that no one knows what I love and excel at, but I also don't walk all too confidently in them. Torn--between knowing my skill and experience yet how much more I have to learn, between gratitude for affirmation but the guilty feeling that it shouldn't mean so much to me, between how much passion I have for something yet being afraid of what it means if everyone knew how much I cared.
Everything I am. The extroversion; the bright brain and intelligence; the ease with words, be it written or in conversation. The desire to grow in learning about culture and ethnicity and all the messes that come with it. The hope to be a good public speaker with beautiful balances of charisma, eloquence, and content. The ability to find tools and use them well, to problem solve instinctively and develop good systems. The sheer amount of information my brain can absorb. The really good memory. The natural (but could still be developed) process of being an emcee. The desire for challenges, opportunities to learn, risks to take. The reality of how much being the center of attention energizes me, just like how affirmation spurs and encourages me. The very real fact that I can make friends out of most people, and great systems out of ideas.
My natural instinct is to hide a lot of this: how proud I am of a job well done, how excited I am to receive affirmation, how much I think I can offer, how much I want to say yes to an opportunity in front of me. Sometimes its swept under a front of modesty, sometimes I sincerely doubt my ability. But what if I took the call to grow up and leave the kids table of holding back...and took all of this and more everywhere I went? How do I do this in humility and recognition of the growth that is still to come?
To close, a food analogy from manuscript study: Paul already states the unity we have, the one Body and one Spirit in Ephesians 4:3-6. But the body of Christ continues to get built up until we "become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (v 13). Andy likens this to a pot of ingredients that are already all one together. But as the soup gets cooked, each piece and the meal as a whole reaches a whole new level of fullness. If we as the body are to reach the fullness of Christ, we each need to bring who we are and where we've grown to the pot.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Asks and Wants
We were taught to never ask. When asked if you wanted something to drink, you kindly rejected. You said there wasn't anything you wanted when dad asked you at the mall, even when you had your eye on something on the clearance rack. At the most, you threw out a few suggestions for lunch restaurants, but made sure no one knew which one you were craving. Wants were often pushed into imagination. You did the most you could with what was given, and you waited till it was your turn, till mom and dad offered more. If you didn't get the chance to tell them what you wanted for your birthday, you received what was given to you and let go of your wishlist.
There were a few times I remembered asking and receiving. The stuffed dog that could "walk"--a prize for some success at Chinese School. Or walking through Sanrio to choose my birthday gift, though there was always an invisible price limit (never explicitly stated) that kept me away from the big gifts. Asking for Finding Nemo or other specific birthday gifts on certain years. But there was also a lot of holding back. Immigrant families are the masters of DIY, one of my friends say. You make do without the hot glue gun for craft projects, or you try to mimic the hairstyle the cool girls do in seventh grade even though you don't have the right headband or clips. And even when it was offered and I took it, I remember doing so sheepishly: shyly pointing out a journal when I was out for a father-daughter night with dad, or quietly putting a shirt or two and a pair of cargo pants in the cart for our Back-to-School shopping trip, hoping mom wouldn't say I was getting too much.
It carries over. How you were raised and the culture of don't ask, say no if it's offered, and, if you do receive it, do so with low nods and the attitude that it's undeserved.
But now I'm twenty four, doing life mostly people who weren't raised the same way, wanting to grow in personal and professional development, and most importantly, following a God is the giver of good gifts. Telling people what I want for lunch or self-inviting myself to groups happens more often now. But on a deeper note, this weekend I found myself torn: like God is standing in front of me, wanting to give me a louder voice to speak and more to speak about, but maybe I shouldn't quite take it, maybe I should be happy now. I see potential opportunities and don't know if they are for me. Is it okay to want them, or do I wait for someone to invite me to participate? Am I supposed to look for what I want? Is it okay to want more: more experience, more development, more growth as a leader, more voice?
I reflect on the past few years, and how I've learned that it's okay to want things from God. Desiring freedom is a good thing. Expecting him to show up is a good thing. The muddled gray area of ministry is a strange spot, where I haven't quite figured out where to step out and say what I need and want. Maybe in writing this, I'll let myself let go of the hesitation in being bold. And I'm telling myself that wanting, asking, and getting does not make me any less Chinese.
There were a few times I remembered asking and receiving. The stuffed dog that could "walk"--a prize for some success at Chinese School. Or walking through Sanrio to choose my birthday gift, though there was always an invisible price limit (never explicitly stated) that kept me away from the big gifts. Asking for Finding Nemo or other specific birthday gifts on certain years. But there was also a lot of holding back. Immigrant families are the masters of DIY, one of my friends say. You make do without the hot glue gun for craft projects, or you try to mimic the hairstyle the cool girls do in seventh grade even though you don't have the right headband or clips. And even when it was offered and I took it, I remember doing so sheepishly: shyly pointing out a journal when I was out for a father-daughter night with dad, or quietly putting a shirt or two and a pair of cargo pants in the cart for our Back-to-School shopping trip, hoping mom wouldn't say I was getting too much.
It carries over. How you were raised and the culture of don't ask, say no if it's offered, and, if you do receive it, do so with low nods and the attitude that it's undeserved.
But now I'm twenty four, doing life mostly people who weren't raised the same way, wanting to grow in personal and professional development, and most importantly, following a God is the giver of good gifts. Telling people what I want for lunch or self-inviting myself to groups happens more often now. But on a deeper note, this weekend I found myself torn: like God is standing in front of me, wanting to give me a louder voice to speak and more to speak about, but maybe I shouldn't quite take it, maybe I should be happy now. I see potential opportunities and don't know if they are for me. Is it okay to want them, or do I wait for someone to invite me to participate? Am I supposed to look for what I want? Is it okay to want more: more experience, more development, more growth as a leader, more voice?
I reflect on the past few years, and how I've learned that it's okay to want things from God. Desiring freedom is a good thing. Expecting him to show up is a good thing. The muddled gray area of ministry is a strange spot, where I haven't quite figured out where to step out and say what I need and want. Maybe in writing this, I'll let myself let go of the hesitation in being bold. And I'm telling myself that wanting, asking, and getting does not make me any less Chinese.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
On Losing Trust
I guess I'm fortunate enough to have never had someone break my trust too drastically, or I give it away freely enough that I don't often think if it's worth it. But after a recent conflict-resolution-type of conversation with a friend, I'm left confused at what to do when trust has been broken.
Can I even trust what you are saying?
Is this you pushing off responsibility and making excuses (again), or was it a genuine misunderstanding?
Are you deliberately lying to me, or are you just that forgetful? Because there is a missing piece in here somewhere.
Does she really always have a reason for something? Or is it an excuse?
I'm not sure how sincere you are about changing.
I feel like you have to prove to me that you actually care.
You've said this before, so I really don't know if you're serious this time.
Why do I feel like I let you off too easy?
Broken trust is a weird thing. I don't know what has kept me from having to experience this for most of my 24 years of life. Not to say that I haven't been hurt, haven't felt betrayed, haven't sat trying to sort truth from...other things. But for whatever fortunate reason, a deep distrust of another person is not the kind of brokenness I've dealt with in my life. This is a blessing, I know.
But again I say: Broken trust is a weird thing. And I don't really know how to follow Jesus in a relationship where I don't believe her anymore. I know to forgive--but what is that, really? Do you say what she did in the past was wrong but it's okay, and I'll trust you for the future? I feel like you should be allowed a degree of skepticism...is that like the consequence of sin in spite of our forgiveness? What is the balance of loving her but it's okay that you're not going to let her in completely right now. What is loving her, anyway? How honest should I be about how much I filter from what she says? How do I sort through skepticism and valid distrust, but keep that away from holding grudges?
We say we forgive because Christ forgave us. That my sin was so great that Jesus had to die to cover that. Jesus died to cover her too. But what does that mean between me and her? How do I realistically deal with things instead off the too-frequent, unhealthy just-let-it-go? What is grace after it has been offered too many times...or perhaps that statement alone is my own limitations coming to light. What is grace when I am tired of defending myself?
Broken trust is a weird thing.
Can I even trust what you are saying?
Is this you pushing off responsibility and making excuses (again), or was it a genuine misunderstanding?
Are you deliberately lying to me, or are you just that forgetful? Because there is a missing piece in here somewhere.
Does she really always have a reason for something? Or is it an excuse?
I'm not sure how sincere you are about changing.
I feel like you have to prove to me that you actually care.
You've said this before, so I really don't know if you're serious this time.
Why do I feel like I let you off too easy?
Broken trust is a weird thing. I don't know what has kept me from having to experience this for most of my 24 years of life. Not to say that I haven't been hurt, haven't felt betrayed, haven't sat trying to sort truth from...other things. But for whatever fortunate reason, a deep distrust of another person is not the kind of brokenness I've dealt with in my life. This is a blessing, I know.
But again I say: Broken trust is a weird thing. And I don't really know how to follow Jesus in a relationship where I don't believe her anymore. I know to forgive--but what is that, really? Do you say what she did in the past was wrong but it's okay, and I'll trust you for the future? I feel like you should be allowed a degree of skepticism...is that like the consequence of sin in spite of our forgiveness? What is the balance of loving her but it's okay that you're not going to let her in completely right now. What is loving her, anyway? How honest should I be about how much I filter from what she says? How do I sort through skepticism and valid distrust, but keep that away from holding grudges?
We say we forgive because Christ forgave us. That my sin was so great that Jesus had to die to cover that. Jesus died to cover her too. But what does that mean between me and her? How do I realistically deal with things instead off the too-frequent, unhealthy just-let-it-go? What is grace after it has been offered too many times...or perhaps that statement alone is my own limitations coming to light. What is grace when I am tired of defending myself?
Broken trust is a weird thing.
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