Tim and Olive's Blog

I was regretting the past
And fearing the future…
Suddenly my Lord was speaking:
‘MY NAME IS I AM.’ He paused.
I waited. He continued.

‘WHEN YOU LIVE IN THE PAST
WITH ITS MISTAKES AND REGRETS
IT IS HARD. I AM NOT THERE.
MY NAME IS NOT I WAS.

WHEN YOU LIVE IN THE FUTURE
WITH ITS PROBLEMS AND FEARS
IT IS HARD. I AM NOT THERE.
MY NAME IS NOT I WILL BE.

WHEN YOU LIVE IN THIS MOMENT
IT IS NOT HARD
I AM HERE.
MY NAME IS I AM.

~Helen Mallicoat

HE KNOWS MY NAME

I have a maker, He formed my heart
Before even time began my life was in His hands.

~Tommy Walker

Tommy Walker’s song is really just a contemporary expression of Psalm 139. this weekend, i experienced the reality of it again.

on sunday night, a group of us left our retreat to attend a wedding banquet for one of the members of our church. at about 10:30pm we all hit the dance floor. now you have to understand, the guys in our group rarely dance, in fact, i think the majority didn’t even know how to slow dance. needless to say, it was a highly amusing evening. in all my years being at our church, i’ve never had so much fun with this group of people. and i think i haven’t laughed so hard since coming back to Toronto from my mission project.

on the way back to retreat, i realized that my misgivings of leaving retreat to go to the banquet had been silly and that God had planned it all along. He knew i needed to laugh again. He knew i needed the time just to have fun with the people i serve with.

my friend and fellow worship leader said to me just before we started to dance, “this is very different from sunday worship.” and i looked at him and responded, “maybe somehow this is worship, too.” in retrospect, i know what happened that night really was worship – because God’s sovereignty shone through and in the end, He got the glory.

praise God for meeting our needs before we’re even aware of them!

OFF AGAIN

long weekend:summer retreat with my church:almost three days away from home to focus on God. in a way, i’m looking forward to it. but i’m not really that excited about it. maybe because i feel like i’ve been on one long retreat since school let off. and maybe because i’ve felt a little like i’ve been in a bog since i got back from Japan. but still, i look forward to having time away from the everyday stuff just to spend with God. i pray that i can be open to His voice and that i can be an encouragement to those who will be there with me.

i’ve realized it’s difficult to live in the present. my tendency is to either live in the past or the future. hm. reminds me of a quote i read a couple days ago.

KINDERGARTEN REVISITED

when i was a small child, my mom taught me how to read and write chinese. after a while, i got too busy and too disinterested in learning the language so my chinese books sat in a drawer and collected dust. later, those books were packed into a box and hauled down into a corner of the basement. there they remained.

until yesterday.

i guess one of the benefits of being a pack rat is that you have stuff when you need it. now that i’m preparing to head to China, i suddenly realize that knowing how to read and write is actually a very good thing. mind you, it’s a lot more difficult to learn everything now, but it gives me hope knowing that countless people who have no chinese background have learned mandarin. and so i set off on this new adventure. starting with book 1: kindergarten.

JOLT

once in a while, you’ll hear about something that shakes the core of who you are and makes you rethink your life. this afternoon, my friend told me about his friend from another country who’d been attacked while leaving her campus one night, knocked unconscious and subsequently had to have an abortion. what’s more, these horrifying events were only part of all the pain she’s been through.

the only image in my mind after hearing about her was a limp, broken rag doll. my heart shattered when i saw the extreme brokenness that this girl was experiencing and i realized brokenness surrounds us daily. why has God chosen to protect me with His grace? why has He chosen to spare me from the dangers that devour so many people around me? i will never know the mind of God but i do know that i will thank Him for the life i do have and i will be ever more fervent in spending my days here on earth bringing His love to the hurting, sick and lost (which is really every person i’ll ever meet).

HUMOUR IN THE HOUSE[parents sitting in the family room, Dad mindlessly flipping channels][enter Olive with her dinner]

Mom: Have a seat![Olive sits][all eyes turn to the TV]

Ols: Um, Dad, can we watch something else?
Dad: Why?
Ols: It’s a show about snakes.
Mom: And she’s eating.
Dad: Oh.[Dad flips to another channel][pause][Mom and Ols burst out laughing]

Dad: What?
Mom [still laughing]: Read the program title![On screen: Top Ten Toilets In Vegas]

DAWN

Dear God,

At last, I am free. I am simply me, open to receiving all the lessons, challenges and blessings You desire for me. And I am secure because I know I was Your idea in the first place.

LEARNING FROM CHILDREN

ABOUT FAITH
yesterday, my pastor told us about a game his one-year-old daughter made up. she’ll be happily playing in the room with her daddy when all of a sudden, he’ll look around and find that she’s not there anymore. then, he’ll see that she’s at the foot of the staircase, giggling away, teasing her daddy to come chase her. her daddy slowly creeps toward her and she scrambles up the stairs. by the time he reaches the stairs, she’s four or five steps up. then, in an act of pure and complete trust, she freefalls backwards, fully expecting to land in her daddy’s arms.

ABOUT TRANSPARENCY
my parents and i spent the afternoon watching old family videos from my 4th and 5th birthday parties. other than being highly amusing, i noticed that when it came time for unwrapping the gifts, my little friends would hand me their gift and while i was busy tearing the paper off, they’d tell my mom what was inside. it dawned on me that somewhere on the road to adulthood, we’ve all gotten very good at keeping secrets. too good, even. we’ve learned to pretend that things are ok when they aren’t. and most of us present ourselves to people based on the way we want them to think of us.

no wonder Jesus told us to learn from the little children!

LIKE TOILET PAPER?

Life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you are to the end, the faster it goes.
~John Maxwell

Life is like a roll of toilet paper, you never think you’ll run out.
~Steve Choi

RAISON D’ETRE

seems to me that the book du jour is the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. every cell group i see is going through that book. people are mentioning it left, right and center. i was given it for my birthday. and since i’ve been asking God what He wants me to do with my life, i’ve started reading it as well. anywho, something that is becoming very clear to me is God’s call for me to China. and along with this call, comes the challenge to encourage more Canadian born Chinese students to consider it.

here’s my line of thinking. God made me for a purpose. God promises to fulfill the purposes He has for me (Psalm 138:8.) the ultimate purpose for anything is that at the end of the day, all things will be held under the headship of Christ (Eph. 1:10.) so to tie those thoughts together, God has made me as i am so that i can help bring people to Christ.

i know that God does not make mistakes. so there is a reason why i am born as a Chinese girl in this age to Christian parents. and there is a reason why i was raised in Toronto.

growing up as a CBC, my peers and i often looked down on the fact that we were Chinese. we made jokes about China and poked fun at the cultural customs and tendencies. we were proud of our identities as Canadians but not so much as Chinese. but now i realize that that attitude was disrespecting God. it was He who brought our parents out of China so that we could come to know Christ in this free country of Canada. it was His plan that this new generation of Chinese people would have the financial stability, spiritual foundation and network of support to be sent back to their homeland to reach the 1.3 billion people who share their heritage but are dying without Christ (23,000 a day). it was also in His divine plan that we would be ready to minister in an age when hearts are open and there is a window of opportunity to reach China before materialism takes root. God makes no mistakes. and that is why i believe that in the coming few years, many of the youth in the chinese churches in Canada will be hearing the call to reach China. all in His perfect time.