There was this man who I met that was completely disoriented. He asked for some help, so I went in, and I couldn’t figure out what he wanted me to do with the TV so I just gave him the remote. Then he started just talking to me. He has a speech impediment so I  had to listen really intensely in order to pick out what he was trying to say, but I always felt bad for those people. It must be really frustrating trying to tell someone something, and no one knows what you’re saying. So yeah, I stayed and chatted. He told me him and his wife next to him (there was no one next to him) were amputees, and they went around to places. He told me how he had a seven year old daughter in McKinley and begged me to find her phone number. However, he wasn’t sure what city he was in and asked me that several times. The whole time I was talking there was this SMELL that just came and faded once in a while. Ugh, it was terrible. My stomach is still a little upset from that.

Then I met this great hulking man who was having some trouble with his blankets, and he kept threatening to fire me if I didn’t move fast enough. Too bad I’m only a vonlunteer, teehee. Still, I tried my best to get him warm, though. I dumped on tons of blankets though he still kept asking for more. X_X I went to get the nurse a little later.

After that, I met a couple of nice, sweet ladies. I love the ladies. They’re so full of compliments.

Well, working there really makes me tired. Those poor nurses who have to go for like 10 hours …. it must be really tough on them. Then again, they’re always eating or chatting. Still, they get their jobs done …. eventually. Maybe I should become a nurse. I wouldn’t want to entrust my parents and friends to them. The residents aren’t too fond of them.

Many years passed – the little boy and the little girl both found different groups of friends, and were perfectly oblivious to the other’s existence. Suddenly, a dramatic incident occurred, and the little boy and little girl began, for the first time, to talk like the more mature people they had become. They began to notice the beauty in each other, and before long, they fell in love. They enjoyed each other’s company and their relationship bloomed ever more with each passing day.

Not long afterwards, a disapproving deity decided to step in between them and tear the young couple apart, stomping into the dirt the blooming flower that the little boy and girl had planted and lovingly tended together.

The little girl liked to pretend she is strong and independent, so she moved on with her life as if the little boy never existed. She found other nice little boys who were interested and tried to create something similar to what she had with the first little boy, but she couldn’t connect with any of them like the way she did before. She went from boy to boy looking for the one she could connect to, until one day when she decided to turn around to look at the path she left. She could only see shame and hurt. That was when she realized that she was wrong for trying to forget and for breaking the promise she made to the little boy. Sadly, by that time, the little boy seemed to be fine without her, chasing after and being chased by other little girls prettier than her. Still, the little girl remembered the promise she broke and tried to glue it back together herself, secretly. She started turning down other little boys and waiting for the little boy with a precious melody in her heart. All the while, the more reasonable part of the little girl is telling her that broken pieces can never fully be made whole again and the past can’t be recreated. It tells her that the future will hold something better as long as nothing holds her back. Still, she’s trying to fight it, at least for one more year.

说好的三年不见面用我們的爱把时间留住. 我笑者说这是我們的考验, 我們的約定.

Well, I haven’t had time to paint the painting yet, though I have to this week because she is leaving next week, but I was able to write her a poem about – believe it or not – cherry blossoms. She really loved it, though I feel pretty bad admitting that I wrote it within thirty minutes before I had to go see her. Still, she loved it and called it precious and made all these nice comments about it that I’m sort of proud of what I’ve done. I’ll just put it up because she loved it so. Well here it is, don’t judge too harshly!

“Meet me under the cherry trees,

And we will leave this world behind;

Ride on stars above the skies

Where people’s opinions don’t apply.

Meet me

Where cherry blossoms fall and the world fades to pink”

There I waited day by day

When sun reached out its writhing rays

Around the fleshy pink bouquets.

Snowy petals fell on my face,

The sun shines

Where cherry blossoms fall and the world fades to pink.

There I stood beneath the trees

When the tempest came to see

The jazz dance among the leaves

Under the flat yellow canopy.

The wind blows

While cherry blossoms fall and the world fades to pink.

And still I hoped under the eaves

As I waited in my world of pink

While crystals dripped down through the leaves,

And a cold came creeping over me.

The heart melts

While cherry blossoms fall and the world fades to pink.

I’m not depressed about some failed love right now. I wanted to write something more narrative, and the most recent thing I’ve read so far is The Jilting of Granny Weatherall and A Rose for Emily – two short stories about girls who were left by the guy they thought they would spend the rest of their lives with. That’s the only reason for such a morose topic.

Today, like everyday, had something new happen.

I got there early to help um .. Jasmine, but she seemed much more mobile today and not in need of much help.

I met many new people today, walked them to church service or took them for a “ride” around the place.

One cool thing I did was help this Chinese lady. The people there couldn’t understand her and she couldn’t understand them, but I saw her relatives talk to her in Chinese last week so I figured out that talking to her in that language would help. =] It worked! Yay for my Asianness.

Oh yeah, I also met a lady today who’s new to the place and figured out she liked to read large-print books. I’ll have to find some for her next week. I also went in to chat with this one man. When I walked out, I saw a picture of a really really pretty lady hanging on his wall and asked him about it. He told me that was his wife who passed away 4 years ago and went on to tell me about his family. He has 5 children, 22 grandchildren, and 27 great-grandchildren!! Talk about LARGE family, and people here say that Americans don’t have such large families.

The fear of the Lord leads to life: Then one rests content, free from trouble.

Proverbs 19:23

I’ve heard a sermon a couple weeks ago about satisfaction with what we have. We all live in a materialistic world, and I am a shopaholic so this satisfaction idea was really hard for me to grasp. However, the sermon hit me really hard, and I chewed on what was said for weeks. This was what I was finally able to get out of it.

Every morning when I got dressed, I looked into my closet and wished for clothes and accessories that I don’t have. When on the road, I saw expensive cars and wished they would be mine one day. I drove by beautiful houses I hoped to live in. And on and on it went in my life of dissatisfaction and wants.

That sermon, however, really hit me. It taught me to get up every morning and praise God for what’s in my closet. When I go into my garage, I thank Him for my car. I thank Him for all the money, the wealth, I have that so many people lack. I thank God for my wonderful, funny family – something I realized was a true blessing these days.

However, that’s not all there is to living a satisfied life. Once I became satisfied, I realized that, surprisingly, I have TOO MUCH. While I have 7 large winter coats, other people are out there freezing to death. When I can reach over and grab cookies whenever I’m hungry or just bored, other people aren’t sure about their next meal. When other people elsewhere have to walk, I have three cars. Suddenly, instead of “not enough” everything seems to be “too much.”

Only with this satisfaction in life can we live without worries. So what if some things are lost to us? We still have more than others. Only with this satisfaction can we give as willingly as God wants us to. What did I do to deserve this more than people less well off than me? Everything we have is a blessing from God. All it takes is to look at your life from another perspective.

“I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for meditation – but all without avail [He probably looked really spiritual to others, but spiritual and Holy aren’t the same]. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me.

I knew that if only I could abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not. I could begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye off Him for a moment, but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, and constant  interruptions apt to be so wearing, caused me to forget Him. [Isn’t that a lot like us, all the work and just life in general keeps us from always abiding in Christ?] Then one’s nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts, and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control. Each day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power. To will was indeed “present with me,” but how to perform I found not.

I thought that holiness, practical holiness, was to be gradually attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. There was nothing I so much desired as holiness, nothing I so much needed [wow, now THAT part is different from us. Most of us don’t constantly strive to be holy. Maybe it’s a goal, but it’s one of many goals.]; but far from in any measure attaining it, the more I strove after it, the more it eluded my grasp, until hope itself almost died out, and I begun to think that – perhaps to make heaven the sweeter – God would not give it down here. … I saw that faith was the only requisite [so according to Hudson Taylor, faith was what was needed in order to be attain this holiness. Well that makes sense if you think about Paul’s “hall of faith”]– was the hand to lay hold on His fullness and mike it mine. But I had not this faith.

I strove for faith, but it would not come; I tried to exercise it, but in vain. … When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes …

‘But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.’ [This was his answer – to just rest on Jesus. Hudson Taylor understood it and it all made sense to him, but I have to admit, I’m still not quite sure what that means, can anyone explain?]

As I read, I saw it all! ‘If we believe not, he abideth faithful.’ I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He has said, ‘I will never leave thee.’

‘Ah, there is rest!’ I thought. ‘I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I’ll strive no more. For has not He promised to abide with me – never to leave me, never to fail me? [how encouraging]’ And, dearie, He never will. …”

Well today was a tiring day. I usually go down the halls and ask anyone if they would like ice cream. If the occupant says yes, then I go bring some to him or her. Well I was taking my walks, peeking through the open doors to see if there’s anyone awake to ask. I look through one door, and a man waves at me. Now one always have to be cheerful while there, so I smile and walk in. There was a table by the bed, and when I reached him, I found that he was really unable to eat any ice cream – he was in bed with diapers on – talk about awkward! Not just that, but he was feeling down and wanted someone to be there with him and to hold his hand. Therefore, I stood there holding his hand, talking to him, and NOT looking at his diapers. Yeah, I can’t even bear looking at my dad without his shirt on, so some old guy without pants on … talk about a traumatic experience. However, he was a poor old man, and I’ve brought him ice cream before when he was better off physically and cheerful, so I really felt pretty bad for him.

When I finally left him, I went, brought my order of ice cream down one hallway and continued to search for others who wanted some. I’ve been there since summer now, but I still can’t completely figure out the halls so I was basically aimlessly walking around. Well I walked by one open door and a lady, I’ll call her Jasmine (pretty name), was sitting in her wheel chair doing nothing. I couldn’t tell whether she was awake or asleep so I kept on walking, but, for some weird reason, I decided to turn back just to check on her. I knocked on the door and she was awake so I walked in. She told me no one has gone to see her today, and she felt like she didn’t exist anymore. I felt so bad for her that I sat there and listened to her talk to me for thirty whole minutes. I didn’t talk much because she was partially deaf and I still can’t master the skill of talking loudly but gently. Well she was new to the place; she got a minor stroke at the beginning of the year and now she’s here for rehab. She talked quite a bit about our education here and how I’m luckier than her back then because they didn’t have AP classes back then and had to waste time getting basic credits in college. She also talked about how volunteering is a great thing, and it’ll even help with finding jobs later on. Well, she talked on and on, but I like her and I told her that I’ll go to see her every Sunday.

Now, for the thing that made me really sad. There was another fragile little lady called, um, Victoria. Well I walked by Victoria in the hallway, and she asked me if I could push her down the hallway to see her niece. I agreed, but a nurse stopped me. He told me that she was kind of confused, and there is no niece down the hallway. Instead, I decided to take her for a little stroll. I pushed her around the place, and the other people who work there were really nice and greeted her. She was a long time resident. I took her to the front where this nice lady from Prestonwood Church met her and talked to her. I was about to leave her there talking to the nice lady when another nurse told me that she needs to go back to her nurse’s station where someone can watch over her. I tried to take her back, but she didn’t want to go. The nurse told me to tell her that I’m taking her to her niece ; so I did, and Victoria consented. While I was taking her back, I asked her about her niece. She said her niece was really nice to her, but she didn’t come to visit her often. Victoria was like a scared little child; when I took her back, she told me to stay with her and take her back home to her mommy. Sadly, I had to leave because I was there for two hours already, so I told her that I’ll go to find her mommy for her and left. I don’t know, I feel really back for tricking a poor old lady like that, but I didn’t know what else to say. Fortunately, she would forget about what I said – she has dementia. =[

keep corrupt talk far from your lips.”

Proverbs 4:24

Proverbs is full of commands and insight that I never knew exist in the Bible. I originally thought that the only commands in the Bible related to speech was “thou shall not use the Lord’s name in vain” and “thou shall not lie” and maybe “don’t slander against your neighbor.” I know gossiping is bad, but only because everyone told me so. I know we need to watch our words because the Bible says the tongue is a powerful weapon, but I never really think about it in my day to day life.

When I saw this verse, it was another sign of how much God cares about everything that comes out of our mouths. In school, there are people who cuss and swear with every sentence, and over time, we got used to simply brushing that aside. Whatever, we think, it’s harmless, just their way of expression. However, if you think about it, the Bible repeats over and over again, “watch what you say, watch what you say.” It warns against not only the most obvious wrongs but little things, too. In the MSG version of this verse, “corrupt talk” is replaced by “careless banter, white lies, and gossip.”

“avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip”

Avoid careless banter. I don’t know about you, but I never thought playful teasing is all that harmful. (By the way, for those – like me – who aren’t quite sure what banter means, I looked it up, and banter means playful, teasing remarks).  What could be wrong with playful teasing? I thought that was just what people do. I hear it all the time; I’m guilty of it all the time, too. I thought about that problem for a while when I finally realized the verse says, avoid careless banter, not just any banter. Teasing can easily go too far without us realizing it, especially with people we don’t know very well and sometimes even with our closest friends. Most people don’t show when they are hurt from what we say, but just because those words we say won’t hurt us, how do we know they won’t hurt others? We can playfully joke around, but don’t make it a habit and don’t do it without thinking.

We should be more considerate and more careful about what comes out of our mouths. I know that we can’t change over night just because we want to. God’s not going to come down with a bar of soap one night and wash out our mouths, but we can try to change slowly: keeping away from perverted jokes, talking bad about others, and not cussing. It’s not easy, we’ll slip many times, but we will also pray to God to help us control leaves our mouths because, of course, we can’t change without God’s help.

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”  Hebrew 6:19

Hope: it’s another four-lettered word, to some people, it’s on their list of forbidden four-lettered words. This word is actually a huge controversy, almost as big as religion itself, just not talked about as much. Some people hold onto this world with all their strength, and others think this is trash, a lie, a fairytale.

I used to call myself a realist – I’m not super optimistic or pessimistic, I’m just simply down to Earth. However, after strengthening my faith in God, I don’t dare, for my love of God, label myself as such. In Him, I have hope, and all Christians should. If one knows that there is a supreme being who is in control of all things, if one knows that the supreme being loves him so much that He can sacrifice the person most precious to Him, then how can he be afraid of the future?

Look at Haiti. The death and destruction there breaks my heart. I think of that day, everyone’s just doing his own business, and suddenly, everything and everyone important to him is destroyed. Their world literally collapsed around them. Yet, there’s hope in that still. Today is their first Sunday after the earthquake, and Haitians are holding a Sunday service in their partially standing church. The faulty infrastructure is gone and there’s room to start anew with better planning and quality. Aid came immediately from their close and wealthy neighbor – the US. Best of all, God is watching over them.

As the song, “Wait and See” by Brandon Heath, nicely states:

“There is hope for me yet because God won’t forget,

all the plans He’s made for me

I have to wait and see,

He’s not finished with me yet. He’s not finished with me yet.”

No matter where you are and what you’ve done, remember, hope is more than just the light at the end of the tunnel, it is the Light of God always with you.