Loving with all your heart

This hasn't been an easy week because it is a week of grieving over the loss of things that are important to me.
Just one of the things is that Friday is my last day in the office. Packing up, documenting papers, filing etc, brings back loads of memories. I have given of my time, emotions, heart to it.
(Grieving sounds badly serious, but grieve and let go was the best statement I ever heard from someone, and I believe grieving is the whole process of reconciling one's loss)

While talking to a friend on MSN about relationships, I thought of a quote I had read in C.S. Lewis's "Four Loves" before. I read it last year when I was contemplating on r/s, and nursing a broken heart. I found this entry in my blog which is very apt.

C.S. Lewis says
"We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him, throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken and if He chooses this is the way in which they should break, so be it."

I don't know which other way to love, except to give fully of my heart.

In the same entry, I wrote this other quote that I had gathered from the book and really liked- it is the "smallness of our love for God, not the greatness of our love for the man, that constitutes the inordinancy."
What the book was saying, was that the early christian writers, like the dessert fathers, or even Augustus, said that we should have no other loves than God. As in, the general idea is always that other loves - e.g. worldly cares, need to be taken away. But C.S. Lewis is saying, it is not about us trying to love man less, the problem is when we love God too little.

Yesterday was my birthday, and whilst walking to the bus stop, I saw a rainbow. It was beautiful. :) Maybe the rainbow was God's gift for me, cos none of the other passerbys stopped like me, to take a photo using my phone. And then I remembered God's covenant with me. He is faithful in spite of all the ups and downs. He has led me through 2 years and 4 months in my work here, held my hand thru different circumstances, and holds my heart in His mighty hand. The Greatness of God's love, or our love for God, helps us to love others with fullness of His love. It is impossible for me to emotionally shutdown to people I love even if they have hurt me deeply. But it is possible to give these hurts to God, and continue to love through His grace.

lessons i have learnt: on love

1. To love I must first know who I am, be true to myself, my interests, my passions, my purpose. That is when I am in a position of security, because I know who I am on the inside.

2. To love places one in a position of vulnerability. It requires faith to love and to give of oneself. Jesus was in a position of vulnerability. He emptied of Himself. He loved us even before we loved Him. This is linked to point one. That is why we need to be secure in who we are before we can fully love and give of ourselves.

Who Am I?

It's a quiet contemplative saturday, and there are many things heavy on my mind.

After a long struggle of 6 mths, I finally tendered my resignation two weeks ago. God has opened new doors for me to work in a more corporate environment, though still a non profit. It was a great big struggle thinking abt the women, the children in the third world. My new job has an international exposure but relates mainly with the developed nations. But I think it would be great exposure and learning for me. =D My last day wld be on the 27 Aug, and my first day at my new job wld be on 1 sept.

I think I would probably have more thots as I go along, but mainly the past few mths has been a lot of identity crisis. Thinking abt who I am, what I like, what I am called to do, how God has created me, vs who people think I am, societal pressures...and making sense of which was which. There were many voices each calling out their own.

Did I betray myself in my choice of career? Betray the calling for the poor? I ask myself this ques again and again..whether I am compromising for a more comfortable place. I ask myself the same ques thinking abt my relationships with people...the things I love, the people I love. And then ultimately it came to my heart. I need to have a heart of integrity that honours God and is true to myself. ;] And so this is the question of identity.

I have come to realise that Christianity is not abt a set of rights and wrongs, rules and regulations, but being led by the Spirit. There is a great liberty that God gives to us....walking in r/s with Him.

Pray that I wld continue to know who I am in Him! =)

Loving means being vulnerable

If you know it is going to hurt, would you still love?

If you know it means being vulnerable, would you still love?

 

Our prodigal (lavishly abundant) God did.

 

These days, the quote by C.S. Lewis keeps popping up in my mind:

 

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

 

Often we ask people to guard their hearts, but how do you guard your heart when it comes to loving?
Whether it is loving someone, loving a ministry, loving people you minister to etc. To love, brings you to a place of vulnerability. A possibility of being hurt & disappointed, as you open up your heart to someone and something. Maybe, loving with such abundance, is how our Father loved too? On the cross...whereby Jesus was in a position of vulnerability, because God loved the world so much that He gave His only son.

 

How then do we love? I think we can only do it with the Father's help.

The Simple Joys of Being

When I told my co-worker who is based in Cambodia that I had a heart for China, she said- u must have heard the wrong "C", the correct "C" should be Cambodia!

I didn't realise that working in GB or traveling to developing countries has given me such a low expectation of hotels and food. HY kept telling me her verse for me was "godliness with contentment is great gain". It really hadn't occurred to me how adaptable I had become in staying in low costs hotels and I have adapted to just having a roof over my head. (Though I haven't been to something really bad...like staying inside a slum house or...). I still like and enjoy the good life of course, and am experiencing in my comfortable home in Singapore daily.

The hotels in my recent China trip were of much more higher standard than I expected! There were hairdryers, toiletries, and they were clean. One even had rain showers.

The mountains reminded me of the Chengdu trip to the outskirts 2 years ago. The view was amazing. Maybe after running around so much, God just wanted me to be still and take stock of all He had brought me through. Huangshan appears to be a little more rocky, whereas Chengdu mountains were green.




I went to Shanghai and I am amazed by the tremendous development of the city. The skyscrappers, the long bridge, the night scene by the bund with golden litted buildings along it.



Its like nice beautiful scenes that we have along esplanade, and in a way more beautiful. It gives my heart a nice uplifting feeling. But these didn't cut through my heart.. Not like the mountains, the lakes, the rivers.

And as I reflect, why and when did China start meaning something to me? I think it was when I went to Yunnan for YEP. Then Sichuan. The mountains came together as a package with the kids with ruddy cheeks, sitting in cosy small huts/houses along fireplaces. The simple joy of Being.



And yes it was the same in Padang sitting in the house in a village, whereby blackout suddenly occured, and we were sitting in the living room drinking tea and chatting because there never was any TV there.

It was the same drinking Avocado juice in small cafes in Indonesia, that quaintness. And yes maybe some of that was found in Cambodia too, in those small cafes.
And how about the hawker centre at Penang. Penang Laksa and curry mee..and chats with loving people.

We went to the Shanghai expo, and I just couldn't "feel" it in Singapore booth, it was a nice architecture, but it felt cold, with a video showcasing how SG had moved from third world to first world.
Next to Indo booth and I felt the culture and diversity the land had. Next to Cambodia booth, though there was nothing much, sitting there sipping mango juice and laughing loudly was... Heavenly.



So since when did I develop a love for Cambodia and Indonesia I wonder?
And then I realise maybe it was never really about China.
It has all along been that simple joy of being that captured my heart.

A review

It became all apparent, as I was making my way home, on a very quiet night, that God had been so faithful in these 2 years. And my heart gives thanks for the sights and the smells that my senses had taken in.
I had been caught up for the past few mths to stay or go, so that I wasn't freed up to give thanks. There is so much to review, so much work that has been accomplished. And He was in it all.
It was fraught with its fair share of sorrows, after which the rainbow always came again.
I'm trotting into new happy land. I think I'm ready. Father help.

Our destination

If we do not see each day as a process leading towards a destination, but we see each day as a destination in itself, then we would not be so concerned about how to get to our destination. Rather, we would be concerned about enjoying each day. Each day we are alive is a gift from God. And our ultimate destination is not about where we go, but about who we become.

Whose Child is this?

In "The Hole in the Gospel", Richard Stearns says that we see children in the developing countries as other people's children. For example, if you read about a child who is starving in Africa, it would seem far remote from you. But if one day you come home, and you find a child sitting outside your door, and he is starving to death, you would immediately bring food out to save this child.

Whose child is this? The question is asked.

Until we can identify with these children, and these children become personal to us, they would always be other people's children.

But they are Daddy God's children, each of them precious to Him, and He sees each as His own.

 

So my question again, Whose child is this?

 

When you can answer this question...your heart breaks with Father God...

Pour out Your love into our hearts

"and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Rom 5:5 (ESV)

 

If we are not able to sell all our possessions and follow Him, it would be because we do not understand the depth of His love for us.

 

You and I were created for freedom.


Freedom is in our heart.


Nobody likes to be constricted.

Fear constrains us. But when the Spirit comes, He sets us free. By which we call the Father, Abba Father. And we understand that we are His children. We receive His inheritance. And we dwell in safe places where we are free to be who He created us to be.

While we are here in this world, we don't feel at home. But Jesus brings us to a resting place even now. The state of being rested in the Father and communing with Him on a daily basis.

I love to travel. The adventurous spirit in me likes to explore, to meet people of different nationalities. To see different sights, smell different places. =D

And when the fear in the heart is removed...I run...on Green fields of His. =)

Penang was great. Met with people from different nations. Many missionaries! They helped me to expand my horizons beyond this tiny but lovely island Singapore. I miss the warm and friendly hugs and affection... We were created for love!

One day we will see each other......

No wonder God told Elijah he was not alone. His tiny puny mind could only see where he stood. But all over the world, people with Kingdom mind are present. How lovely, how wonderful to have a big family & community!