Here I stand
With a hope that grace instills in me
I surrender everything I am to You

Live in me
Let my life reflect You constantly
As I open up my heart
As I offer up my soul
I lay my dreams in Your hands

This is what I know
That You are God of all
And I will trust you always, always

Never walk alone
Resting in the hope
That You will hold me always, always

I open up my heart
Offer up my soul

I have a vision,
That one day I will be able to extend beyond myself, that I will one day be able to love and give of myself without fear.

I have a vision,
That one day I will know what it means to be completely loved, secure and adored by God.

I have a vision,
That one day I will be able to grace and mercy without expecting anything back.

I have a vision,
That one day I will be used to do something great for God. That I will be an irreplaceable role of a shared adventure.

I have a vision,
That one day I will be able to move past the pain of my childhood with a renewed commitment to make good choices.

I have a vision,
That one day I will have the courage and perseverance to do the hard things. That I will have what it takes.

I have a vision,
That one day I will see past seeing ‘me’ and I’ll finally see you.

After 3 months of counseling I have realised so much about the ways in which my childhood has taught me to fear and hide. What was once thought to be a strength, a ‘get it done’ attitude and independence was actually harboring a nature of self protection for a little girl who never knew what it meant to be loved, to trust and to feel security from the places that she should of learnt this first, from the nurture of mother. This little girl learnt fast there was no comfort or hope of comfort to be offered and she had to learn to survive the world on her own, get up on her own feet and if she didn’t it would swallow her up.

And it is to the tune of this empty void and brokenness I have been navigating all my relationships around.

Its surprising how our upbringing shapes us. Its amazing what we subconsciously learn as children about who we are or about other people, from those which we first learn to relate to: our parents. The absolute crazy thing was, I wasn’t even looking for this. I just knew something was not quite right within me and I wanted help. I wanted a quick fix, a band aid.. I just wanted God to quickly take the emptiness away and I got so much more than I bargained for.

As I peeled back the layers of me that was wounded God stepped right in. He began to show me that His hand was always working in my childhood, in my life and even this very moment. I knew God brought me back to Hong Kong because He wanted me to reconcile to family and with who I am. I’ve always had this strange sense that coming back to Hong Kong felt like walking into the mouth of the lion, I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but I never thought God would bring me back to the very beginning. To the very start of where the wound began. For healing to happen, it had to start here: in the mouth of the lion.

But God has been faithful. Hes been walking out every step with me, Hes been showing me His love through people and through encounters with Him. He has moved me with His Word. I am moved by His care and love for me. I am moved that He is there on my pain.

I feel like a rehabilitation patient. Like I have just had major surgery I feel raw and weak, but everyday I am learning to walk again. I am learning to use and build muscles that have never moved before. I am learning new skills and coping in new ways. I am learning to be a more whole person.

And Gods love for me feels more real than ever before. I’m beginning to sense the intensity, the fierce passion and abundance of it. In a moment of pure truth my eyes are now opened to see and feel something deeper and something more authentic than what I have ever experienced. And it moves me to tears that He cares.

I’m realising more how Gods love really is the thing that, if we let it go deep into our core, it will change us.

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’ where Lucy faces the nervous prospect of meeting Aslan for the first time.

“Is He… quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most, or else just silly.”

“Then He isn’t safe,” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “ Who said anything about safe? ‘Course He isn’t safe. But He’s good. He’s the King.”

I am on a Week Without Walls trip this year with 16 high school students at Home Of Loving Faithfulness. It is a home for the severely mentally and physically handicapped, its a place where familys who can no longer look after them can make sure they get the care and attention they need. It is indeed an amazing place.

I remember the first time I came to Home Of Loving Faithfulness about a year and a half ago and how awkward I felt. Not really sure on what I would be able to do, they seemed to severely disabled and I was not sure how to interact with them. Like I felt like I wanted to care, but I just didn’t know how.

It’s also in places like this sometimes I can find it hard to understand why things like this happen to people. Sometimes these places open more questions for me in terms of faith than answers. But over the years I think I have come to a place where I am more at peace with the mystery of God, that somehow all of this all fits into a bigger story that is beyond my comprehension. And what God is doing in this world and in our lives, the good and the bad is ultimately working for a greater good that I can not understand or see.

That the residents, are here for a purpose and that God loves them so incredibly much, that God sees their value and uniqueness. That they deserve and need to be loved as much as you and I.

See, we are created for love. Your soul craves love and will find satisfaction in nothing less. God was the one who created us for love, to experience his love. In the same way the residents were created for love too.

I know a  friend who worked at Mothers Choice in the mid levels. It’s an orphanage that adopts out babies and helps unwed mothers. She told me that in an orphanage babies who don’t get held much and affection tend to be more sickly. She said the physical touch and care makes a huge difference in that babies overall well being. That this is what makes them feel loved.

And I thought how true it is for the residents here. They are like those small babies too, unable to speak or move, given up by their families and in need of care. They may not be able to say it or express it but to be loved is something that they need and what makes us all intrinsically human.

In Matthew 25:34-40 it says:
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.  For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.  I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

When we treat each other with value, when we care for each other, when we love, we experience the presence of God and we bring the presence of God into that place.

In a place like this we may not know exactly what we can do to help, we want to be able to do what we can.  When we are with them we want to show them that they are loved, valuable and that they are not forgotten. When we are with the residents to sing to them, engage with them, touch them and talk to them.

I want to engage with them in way that I look them in the eye as if they were the only person in the room and that they really matter. They deserve to be loved and cared for, and that to love is always the right thing to do no matter what the circumstances.

1 Corinthians 13:13 – And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I wonder what it would be like to run with the horses.

I imagine it would be like the sound of thunder with the beat of hoofs pounding on the ground, wind whistling through their manes. I imagine to run with the horses would feel like unleashing yourself to the unknown, terrifying, courageous yet intensely liberating. I imagine to run with the horse to look like a life poured out to the danger and risk of a challenge, terrific, brazen and amazingly beautiful.

The very thought of this sends shivers down my spine. To be able to run free in liberation, bold and beautiful. Living a life that engages the very essence in you that God has created you for. And when you live that very life that exercises your very essence of your being, then that is the most beautiful thing in the world.

When we live our lives the way we are called, to be the very person that you are – with everything inside you that makes you, you – then that is an amazing act of worship.

I believe that this is the life that God had called each one of us to. A life that sounds, feels and looks like; running with the horses. It is a life poured out to His calling for your life, whatever that may look like for you. If you are called to be a mother, a teacher, a student, a chef, a business person, a sister, a brother, a husband or a wife, where ever you find yourself, and whatever your role or your job is, it is to be the best <insert noun> you can be.

This is the higher calling and the journey that God has each of us on.

This is a vision that energises me. It gives life and it flows out.  It motivates into movement, into action. It pushes aside complacency and encourages perspective. It sets a dream in my heart that allows me to hope, to aspire and to one day become someone who is living a life poured out. And that as I keep envisioning this, each day I will be moving closer to a life that sounds, feels and looks like she is running with the horses.

I feel like I need to start at the very beginning. But the beginning seems like such a far memory now, I feel overwhelmed at where to even begin.

Its been a while since I have  blogged. My last post was actually something I had written more than a year ago which I had found in my drafts folder. Mostly finished, I added a concluding sentence and then posted it.

But anyway, back to what I was saying.

So here I am in my eighth month of my journey in Hong Kong. So much has happened and life is so different now. I have to admit that relocating to Hong Kong has been alot harder than I had expected. Before I arrived here I had everything planned out, the church, the friends, the job, my life. I found a dance school where I would continue my ballet classes and I even wrote down a list of goals of things I wanted to achieve with things I planned to be involved in. I felt like I had preplanned my life here and all I had to do was step into it. I wanted to hit the floor running and I thought this would be as easy as stepping into a new outfit.

I guess with all things in life we can only be so prepared. Because as much as we can and want to preempt things, life does happens. It moves and unravels in unexpected ways. It twists and turns, till we sometimes find ourselves in places where we never thought we would be, scratching our heads wondering what the heck just happened.

To say my first eight months in Hong Kong was not what I expected is an understatement. It has been a roller coaster. I’ve had this weird sense that I have actually walked myself into the mouth of the lion. That I had gotten myself into alot more than I had bargined for. I’m not saying that that is entirely a bad thing, I am just saying thats just how it feels.

Its a strange experience to uproot yourself from a life you have come to know so well and into an entirely different way of life and culture. Even the spiritual atmosphere is different here. Its an even stranger experience still, to look back on that life, like an outsider looking into a fishbowl. It feels somewhat objective. Like watching a character in a movie and being able to psychoanalyze all the reasons why they did what they did and were the way they were.

This third person perspective has helped me realise alot of things about myself. Its made me think about the way I live my life and why I am the way I am.  Its made me have to face the music about how I am ‘broken‘.  How we are all ‘broken‘ (in whatever that looks like for you) and why we respond to each other in these ‘broken’ ways. That this life in part, is actually realising we have to reckon with the ‘brokeness’ in this world. Its made me realise why I need Jesus so much more. Why we all do.

If this post sounds a bit cryptic, its because it is. There just too much to unravel and unpack right here. One things for sure though, I know I am meant to be here. The invitation was given, the door had been opened, and God has been holding my hand and walking me back to the very beginning of my story. Back to the beginning to where the journey started.

Back into the mouth of the lion.