Co-written with jameslow.com

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 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.

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 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 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.

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.

In hindsight I end up feeling a bit silly when I recall these situations, after all, most of the things we worry about hardly ever happen. Maybe its just human nature, we often think the worst. Or maybe its our defense mechanism that if we think the worst and it doesn’t happen we enjoy that feeling of release (or relief!) from the self inflicted stress we had put ourselves through earlier.

I’ve had my stomach knots the past week, thinking and praying through the purposes God has for me. Concerned about what might happen and  what people might think.

‘What will they think of me if I do this?”

Fear of man is a tricky thing. It like an invisible string that binds you from every corner. Theres no easy way to navigate through it because, well, everyone has an opinion right?

I think it takes a strong person to stand for what they believe in, no matter what other people think. And an even stronger person to stand firm in what they believe God is saying to them.

I don’t believe that God ever hides Himself from us. I believe that if we seek answers for something, God answers. Surely and lovingly. Maybe if we can’t hear it, its because He’s answered in a way we were not expecting or we weren’t in tune to what He is saying. Like we’ve been listening on the wrong frequency. But He is always speaking. He wants to show us what is important to Him, He wants us to see things through His eyes.

And that is all that ultimately matters; whats important to God and seeing life through His eyes – not to be moved by one man’s mere opinion.

The heart unguarded is a dangerous place – it can be a war zone in there. With everything around us vying for our attention, to be caught in our hearts, the unguarded heart will lead you away from peace.

Sometimes my heart gets really weary. I get tired feeling like I am giving out, sometimes without any return. Sometimes I feel weary because I want to love but at times it just seems too hard. Too hard to overcome my own selfishness, to hard to reach out into perspective from my tunnel vision.

As I walk through this journey and the more I experience I realise how delicate the heart really is. How much we are effected by the things around us and in us; the people, the situations and circumstances. Before we know it something has rooted itself in there. Sometimes they are good things like hope, faith and love and other times its bitterness, unforgivingness or disillusionment. And its these things that if they get rooted in our hearts, will flow out of us.  They will either build up or tear down.

But even with that in mind, I hold on to hope in the good in which the human heart is capable. For in it resides a pure love and love motivates everything. I never want to lose hope in this.

I want to keep choosing to love. I want to keep reaching beyond myself.

I want love to win.

We are all called with our giftings, our talents, our circumstances and most of all we are called by what God has placed in our hearts. He has entrusted to us the desires of His heart that we may be called into action. That we may use all that He has given us to serve Him. To be His hands and feet to love on others. To care and to see need. To be the person who will step out and extend our hands to pull up another who has fallen.

I truly believe that.

I feel that God has been opening my eyes to things that I have never noticed before. To see people in a way I have never seen before. Something feels different. Maybe the only way I can only describe it is like an itch. Like there is something inside deep in my soul that will burst if I don’t let it out. If I remain still. Unmoving. Immobile. Something would be lost.

I believe we are called beyond our own strength, intellect and understandings of our suburban world.  We are called to something so much bigger than ourselves, beyond what we can see. Something so big that without God, it would virtually impossible. I want to reach forward and experience it. I want to see it with my own eyes. To immerse myself in it. I want that. I want to be in a place that I am so expectant and reliant on God that if He doesn’t pull through, all could be squandered.

And then, there is love.

If there is anything above all else I wish to grow more in, it is in love. But not only to just love but how to love more. I want to know how to love when its not easy to love, in those times when everything inside me is squirming to give up and walk away. I want to know how to make ‘love win’ when love is rejected. I want to feel my heart expand past the outer walls of comfort into the destitute places of humanity. To even those destitute places within me.

It is only through the outworking of love that a human heart can be changed. I am praying that God will give me His heart and love for people. And in the same way that God has shown His immense love and grace to me, that He may use me. That my love, like His, would also inviting.

I believe we are all called. Into love and action. I pray that we would never callous our hearts that we can no longer sense the gentle breath that He whispers deep into our souls.