The Lord's Prayer

We could see the children's insecurity... No, they haven't been naughty or seeking negative attention if that's what some parents might think, or insist -- but we know our own children and we know when it's a real menace or fear.

Joy has been crying and clingy at nap and bed times. Couldn't do anything with her -- she wouldn't let me carry her if I wasn't leaving the room with her; but I couldn't because Faith needed me too, and it's bed time. Eventually, KH couldn't bear her wails and picked her up from the foot of the bed. She struggled to get off just like when I tried to carry her, but was calmed in seconds and fell asleep in less than 5 minutes -- yes, she's THAT tired! Not because her day was stretched; she's just that tired from all that stressful crying!

Later on, KH told me he only sang The Lord's Prayer to her and before he even finished, she was asleep. That has been going on for more than a week now, and it seem to have bonded Joy to daddy a lot. It's a blessing that she's taken to daddy for her needs just before the arrival of her new sibling. How wonderous God's timing.

Faith, on the other hand, has been more fragile emotionally for quite awhile...very, very sensitive. Sometime back, it was she, who requested one evening when she was teary and apprehensive about going to bed, "Mommy, Jesus pray...". I couldn't understand her, so I asked her what she meant, and waited. She thought again quietly and pointed to a framed cross-stitch that was just passed to us by our friends who were leaving Shanghai, and said, "Mommy sing...Jesus pray."

All I could think of was The Lord's Prayer, but I wasn't sure because I don't remember her hearing it much after she was born -- it was only sung in the Catholic church and she's been attending protestant Sunday schools since we moved to Shanghai! I do remember deeply, though, that she leapt in my womb when The Lord's Prayer was sung at Good Shepherd.

So I asked her if she wanted me to sing 'Our Father in heaven...'. She repeated, "Sing 'our Father'." I sat her on my lap and sang. I could feel her comforted and calmed in my arms. After that night, she cuddled up to me more often again, and would often spontaneously hug and kiss me, telling me, "Mommy, I love you, too."

Last night she sang herself to sleep with the prayer for the first time -- tired after all the crying and talking -- I had to discipline her over some bedtime issue. She only sang 'Our Father'; I sang the rest. She was asleep before I finished. Tonight she sang again after she asked KH to sing. Her voice was so sweet when she said, "Papa sing 'the Father'?" When we sang quietly with her, we realized she could now sing 'Our Father in heaven' clearly. What followed that she couldn't remember or pronounce yet, she waited to hear us and tried to follow. Music has so far been the best way for me to teach her anything. Praise God for that! Recently we're seeing too, that she's taking to doodling and telling us her story as she doodles with pen, crayon, pencils or paint. I noticed that started and evolved dramatically since KH sat down with her and drew her sad story of her balloon being blown away.

We are so grateful that God has given us this labour of love to be parents, and have been teaching us to enjoy them, with His wisdom and His love. Indeed, in all circumstances as we give thanks to You Lord, You have blessed us. Amen.

Blog Blocked

It's been a pain -- seems all blogging spaces were blocked just before June 4 until now! What an ostrich behaviour! Ancient Chinese wisdom 'to cover one's ears as one steals the bell'??? HAHA! ;p

God vs Money

Deuteronomy 8:3, 5

...人活著不是單靠食物，乃是靠耶和華口里所出的一切話。 你當心里思想，耶和華你神管教你，好像人管教兒子一樣。

...man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mout of the Lord. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.

This has been on my mind yesterday after a casual chat with a friend who shares similar outlook on life and dreams for their family. Both of us and our husbands understand and take jobs and achievements in career as a tool -- tool to transport us to our dreams. So we could always exchange a seemingly comfortable state of life we have at anytime for an experience of a lifetime. We talked about this when she shared with me how many have questioned she and her husband's decision to move to China despite not speaking the language or knowing the culture at all. I replied her, half-jesting, 'The next time someone asks you this same question, maybe you should tell them that you came here precisely because you do not know anything about this place, so you could learn.' We both had a good laugh and agreed, 'Indeed!'

What also came to me was this,

Matthew 6:24

一個人不能侍奉兩個主。不是惡這個愛那個，就是重這個輕那個。你們不能又侍奉神，又侍奉瑪門（注：“瑪門”是指“財利”的意思）。

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Money is not evil. But being overly focused on money and material needs and wants definitely distracts one's attention from everything else -- is that not the same with all other things? How then can we claim to trust in God but is still praying hard for wants or hopes, and not God's will?

I have been thinking about conversations we've had with friends...worries about funds for children's future education, medical, retirement, child-births and having (or not having more) children (at all!), holidays, etc. Do we sometimes worry too much that we forget God is in charge? Are most of these worries justified?

Then, I was wondering, why do we worry about money all the time when we have a job? Worry we'd lost THIS job? Worry we'd not have a job as well-paying and high level as this? Worry we'd not have a job at all? Is it possible not to have a job at all if one is willing and happy to do any kind of work? God has blessed me with good training in my younger days when I had to be thankful that I even had a job -- any job at all, just to survive and pay bills; nothing more.

I was blessed with a thankful heart because of the hard life and constant fear I was raised in. Who would have thought there would be a youth born among the 'well-educated' 1970s who had to struggle and fight for opportunities to further education beyond secondary level -- I'm probably not the only one? Many with diplomas and degrees find it difficult to secure employment -- would it not be harder for me who was blessed with neither? I thank the Holy Spirit for the constant awareness I have of God's many blessings -- because of many earthly things I did not have as a child (loving family, opportunities for further education and other enrichment classes, expensive clothes and toys, etc.), I get to count my blessings now.

I pray for God's wisdom and for Him to soften my heart to learn all these with His compassion; for with my limited human's viewing points, I will not be able to see. What I CAN do in the meantime, is to be obedient to Him, be still and know that He is God, and only HE is in-charge. Amen! :)

School for Parenting?

Having both been raised by single parents. or rather, fostered out for the larger part of our childhood lives, I've always said to my husband, 'There is no school to teach anyone how to be good parents.'

I say that to comfort and help us forgive ourselves so we could pick-up quickly whenever we face difficult situations in parenting. After that, we'd turn to God and the Bible for 'further instructions'. I forgot -- as Christians, we do have a 'school for parenting' by God's grace! Amen! :)

Thanks for the sharing and reminder!

Our Homeschool Curriculum Came Through...FINALLY!!!

Our homeschool curriculum finally arrived at our doorstep this morning -- unexpected! The duties we have to pay was reduced from an expected RMB500+ to RMB160! My mind instantly exploded with 'PRAISE THE LORD!' fireworks!!! Friends of ours here who has followed the story would testify the same for us -- this could only be God's work.

Just yesterday, Andrew and I surrendered to God the curriculum, which was then still held at the customs for almost 3 weeks. We knew that only God could be in control and that if the curriculum couldn't come through eventually, then this is the curriculum He didn't want us to do.

Hallelujah! OUR GOD REIGNS!!!

One God

This is what I have observed in the mere 18 years I have come to know Christ. From the time of the first church there ever was -- even in the Bible after Christ is risen -- church split into churches, denominations...up to this day, we see churches, even within the same denominations so defined by themselves, splitting up due to conflict in certain specifics in beliefs. Don't we all believe in the same Christ and God, the Heavenly Father?

I used to feel sad -- literally anguished about it, that I was often praying, complaining, arguing and questioning God about it -- WHY? Why do You allow this when You know and can see that whichever separated ways these people have gone into, they are Your children who love You...or at least with my limited human ability of perception from what I see on the surface. Of course, often after my strange conversation with God, I'd bow, surrender, defeated in the loving arms of my Abba, cry and smile and feel my knowledge and wisdom grow a painful, tiny fraction of an inch perhaps...and I thank God. Thank you, God, Father, for Your love to relentlessly teach us about Your ways as long as we surrender ourselves willingly.

I thank God for bringing us out of the 'little well' where we come from. He brought me to brothers and sisters in Christ who found and grew their faith in a completely different environment -- deprived and controlled of the knowledge of God and Christ. Yet God's amazing grace found them here -- of course, material wall is nothing to the Almighty God who spoke this world into being from nothing! They have impressed and strengthened me with their faith and love for each other; even me, a foreigner and stranger. Yet, however, here it is again -- strong human sense of judgement of which way they feel is right or wrong -- not for oneself but imposed on others. But this time, in the eyes of God's love, He revealed a new lesson to me.

It is human weakness to fall into pride after we get better at what we do. We think we're the specialist and we KNOW, therefore others know LESS -- we forgot that it was God who placed us where we are. After that pride, when we thought we're certain, we settle down thinking and feeling secure -- hmmm...don't remember we have to refer to God anymore. When we've finally once again thought we've found security, we stop wanting to learn new things and move out of the comfort zone that we have formed.

God allow His people to be divided from the time He cast them off the tower of Babel so that they would continue to WORK and MULTIPLY and not think they can even reach Heaven with their own ability.

'Come,' they said. 'Let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top reaching heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves, so that we do not get scattered all over the world.'

Now Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower that the people had built. 'So they are all a single people with a single language!' said Yahweh. 'This is only the start of their undertakings! Now nothing they plan to do will be beyond them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they cannot understand one another.' Yahweh scattered them thence all over the world and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, since there Yahweh confused the language of the whole world, and from there Yahweh scattered them all over the world. (Genesis 11:4-9)

God gave us wisdom and intelligence -- in the capacity He knows we can handle. He forbade Adam and Eve to eat the Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil because He wanted to protect and bless us from the woe of evil -- but Adam and Eve thought they knew better...so here we are...they fell and our world broke down. If they'd known that evil was 'so bad', they wouldn't have tried, right? Hmmm...

砲火連天！

告訴你：一點都不誇張！到現在都還沒停呢！

其實－－只是我們小區里的鄰居在放煙花！卻不知甚麼時候開始，變成三、四家都在放。過了午夜，連附近別的小區也有人家湊熱鬧；再加上我們斜對面的鄰居跟著放鞭炮起鬨......哎唷，現在我們小區里簡直是白矇矇的一片；連離我們才兩座屋子的門都看不清楚了！聲音嚮得跟大炮就在門口一樣；睡著了的希彤和心悅一直在動。

我還是和小時候一樣很喜歡看煙花；但這次我也看得涅了一把汗。我們家上空都是來往虹橋機場的飛機。煙花越放越高、越放越頻密；真怕會樂極生悲。:p