I thank God for you...

(A.S. family picture from our planning retreat)

"I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers"

Ephesians 1:16

As I reflect on the many things I'm thankful for during this Thanksgiving weekend, I think of one of the greatest things I am thankful for - the amazing community of friends that God has given me. I am thankful for friends who know me and love me - who have seen the good and the bad in me, and still love me. I am thankful for friends who draw me out - who don't take my surface answers when they ask "How are you doing?" and seek out how I'm really doing. I'm thankful for friends who hold me when I'm broken and hopeless, crying my eyes out. I'm thankful for friends who sit with me and come alongside of me, who don't try to fix me, who aren't surprised by me - but love me in my brokenness and show me God's presence - that the intensity of my emotions, my sin, my failures, my fears, my insecurities, my pain don't separate me from God's love.

As Henry Nouwen says in the book In the Name of Jesus:

"We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers, we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much care as anyone we care for. The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God."

Thanks for being a vessel of God's love to me.

Machines Ran Away with My Heart.

(Photo courtesy of julosstock from sxc.hu)

I wish I were a machine,

Then I wouldn't have to feel

The loss, the hurt, the pain.

The guilt, the sadness, the shame.

I wouldn't have to look

At the dark places from where they came.

I wouldn't have to spend time and energy

To tend to the broken parts of me.

I could just go, work, and do.

Efficiency 100% times 2.

Logic rules-

Feelings subdued.

Just keep moving,

Just keep busy.

Just keep doing.

I wouldn't have to try to hide -

The feeling of deadness inside.

But then I wouldn't feel

The comfort, the care, the unconditional love

Of the Father's hands who hold me.

Of my Savior, of the descending Dove.

I wouldn't feel the joy of His presence

His delight, His favor, His grace,

His compassion, His mercy, His strength

To endure and run this race.

So I sit, I cry, I scream, I yell-

Because this is the closest I'll ever get to the depths of hell,

And You are still there.

On Courage.

Courage.

It's a word I've been hearing alot lately and thinking about lately. What is courage?

Wikipedia defines it as:

"Courage, bravery, fortitude, will, and intrepidity, is the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. "Physical courage" is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, death, or threat of death, while "moral courage" is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition,shame, scandal, or discouragement."

I often think of courage in people such as a firefighter going into a burning building to save people, or a military man fighting for our country to protect the lives of civilians, or a performer performing in front of an audience of thousands.

I don't often think of myself having very much courage, but it's been a word that other people have given to me to describe my journey of confronting the brokenness of myself and allowing others to see me in this brokenness. I know this must be the Spirit working in my life, and a sign of God's grace in me. It is encouraging to hear because I often times focus on the bad in me, that it's hard to see the good.

I really wish I had everything all together - but at the end of the day, it's in the brokenness and pain that God meets me because as Jesus said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17). And if I had everything all together, there would be no need of Christ's love. Yet, as I face my own demons, I also see the depths of God's love for me. And so, I experience the reality of Paul's prayer for the Ephesians as I experience the depths of God's love for me:

"so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19)

I remember the summer before I started seminary, God kept on bringing to mind the verse, Joshua 1:9:

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

And then I remember Rob, telling me that this verse repeatedly came to mind as he thought of me in Spiritual Mentoring Group, during my second semester at Talbot. So here it is again, and again I am reminded that even now, God is with me - that I can be strong and courageous - even as I face my fears, I can take courage in the fact that God is always with me.

Now as I think about courage, I see how courage is around me much more than I realize. I think about the courage of my parents - how they left their homeland of the Philippines, to come to America to make a better life for themselves and their families. Rising up from poverty, they worked hard and excelled in school so that they could provide things for me and my brother the things that they never had growing up. I think of the courage of my dad, coming to America alone - moving to a foreign land full of strangers with no family with him. I think of the courage of my mom, converting to Protestantism even though most of her family was devoutly Roman Catholic. I think of the courage of my parents, moving to a predominantly Caucasian suburb, so that my brother and I would have the comforts of the American upper-middle class. I think of their courage as they worked long and hard hours to send us to a private Christian school, and provide opportunities for us that they never ever had - like enrolling me in piano and violin lessons. I think of their courage as they sought to raise us with good morals and Christian values. I think of the courage my parents have had in hardship as they've both had to mourn the loss of their parents and some of their siblings.

In many ways, they have been great examples for me of courage. And in a sense, perhaps, this is a virtue that I have gleaned from them over the years.

I often don't think much about or thank my parents for the way they raised me. But I am thankful.

And looking back at my childhood - seeing both the good and broken parts doesn't negate either one. Just because I notice the performance-driven patterns in my life in the need to the achieve or gain others' approval, and perhaps work too much, doesn't negate the fact that my parents also demonstrated a great amount of courage and fortitude, in which I have learned from them. Understanding my childhood and looking back at the good times and the painful times, doesn't negate God's goodness or mean that I am ungrateful, but I think it just shows how God's grace and goodness have been in my life and how God uses both the good and broken parts for His glory. His power is truly made perfect in our weaknesses.