13.03.13 Wednesday, 1655-1800
Just had another epiphany.
Verse of the day, received daily by email.
Today's verse: 3 John 1:14 - "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth".
I have no doubt that it's a blessing, hitting the message home.
... and for the message itself. now. FINALLY.
My relationship with God has been unsteady, rocky, and dangerously detached at times. It's had its ups and downs, the rollercoaster ride of its life but that rollercoaster is forever on an extensive course and doesn't seem like it's going to stop plummeting downhill then crawling back uphill anytime soon.
I was born in a loving Christian family. Both my parents committed to Christ when they were still students, and are faithful sheep of the Lord, serving Him in different ways. My mother used to dance on the Spiritual Dance team at Church, and my dad serves as some position on one or two primary schools' staff Church boards, under the Methodist Church. My sister and I were baptised as children, and had a Christian upbringing in a loving home environment.
As I grew and developed through primary school, then secondary school, and as a college freshman at the moment, I changed Churches a few times and tried to grasp my rhythm and place in the Church environment. But I could never find it. As it was a Chinese Christian church, they all spoke Cantonese fluently and conducted Biblical teachings and Sunday School small group teaching sessions in Cantonese, which frustrated me as I was much more comfortable with learning in English and reading the English bible. As a result I fell and deviated away from God many times. More often that not, I sought refuge in other methods - joining other Fellowships, hanging out with the other international schools kids at Church (though there were not many), and finding refuge in school work. And consequently, at school I constantly produced a high level of achievement that pleased my teachers, my community and my parents - but it was all neutral to me. Just as music is. I loved it, for sure, I was immensely devoted to it - yet there was no underlying meaning beneath the surface ripples that spelt 'love' and 'emotion'.
Many times I was pulled back to God - failures, falls, bumps. Failing a test for the first time. Coming last place in a competition for the first time. Failing an audition for the senior orchestra, and instead of improving my ranking in the cello section of the junior orchestra, dropping back a few seats and letting others who I thought were inferior to me, overtake me. Those were some blue moments that snapped me back into a human being, the realisation that I was not perfect and however perfectionist I tried to be, I would always be inferior to God. So then I learned respect. And love for my enemies and admiration for those greater than myself.
I prayed long and hard at night. I was not always fully devoted in my prayers though. I would pray in bed, knowing that I'd drop off to sleep at any moment, and sometimes wake up to find my hands still clasped in a praying position, having forgotten what I'd prayed for the night before.
And this past summer was my biggest challenge: becoming an adult and university decisions.
Medical school.
Which medical school.
Which country.
If I would ever get an offer.
The long wait.
I returned to Church after what seemed like two eternities of hiding at home under my books and my shield, my comfort, my cushion that was - I did well in school and no matter what else happened as long as I had my grades I was satisfied with life. How naive. There is so much more to life than just grades. This I only found out after I entered university, into one of the toughest degree programmes, mingling in with a class of 209 other kids who had around the same exam scores as I did, or its equivalents. Medical school, on a scale of 1-10, was 9000.
Out of this world. Insane. Bonkers.
And right now, I'm falling again. Even though I return home on the weekends, I'm too fatigued by the week's activities that more often than not I can't bring myself to wake up on Sunday mornings. Whether this is actually due to genuine fatigue, or unwillingness to face my fellow Church mates who I'm forever too shy to strike up a conversation with, or the guilt that I've fallen but the dignity that I would still like to retain my Christian identity - I don't know. It's a combination of all of these factors. Either way, I can say I have no regular Church life at the moment. Though I attend Hall Fellowship sessions, these don't seem to compensate for what I have been absent for already for so long. My heart cries and yearns for God, yet my mind takes no proactive action to fulfill my hopes and desires. I keep praying, yet my mind and my heart are so uncertain. What should I do... perhaps Choir will bring me back. And Choir has brought me this epiphany. But am I willing to change? Can I change? Will I change? The answer is yes. JUST DO IT. :(
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