Courageousness

Joshua 1:9
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

There are times when you come face to face with yourself, and all of the sudden, everything makes sense.  All of the sudden the reasons why you did this and said that are rudely apparent and you're forced to put up with your own reality.

At times like these, its difficult for me to be courageous.  I tend to want to curl up and bemoan my fate.  I desperately want someone to come find me, pick me up, and hold me.  Sometimes, only God is available to do that for you.  I would be lying if I said that sometimes it feels like God isn't enough.  I know He should be enough, but there is something about the physical presence of arms holding you close that seems to connect easier with us than God's intangible presence.

I was recently encouraged by this song by Laura Story called "Blessings".  And at the risk of seeing too "high school", I'm going to post the lyrics and a Youtube link.  How often we ask God for the things we want rather than the things we need.  Maybe in times like these when courage seems difficult to grasp, we can cling to the hope and the promise of God's never-ending love and that He knows what is best for us: Him.

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the achings of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

Congratulations Tiffany!

I would upload more, but they took SO long to upload.  Haha.  Congratulations!  :)

For Lady GaGa

I am not into the popular music scene.  Lady GaGa, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars.  Those names only ring a bell.  I don't instantly have something to say when I hear them.  I couldn't even think of another name to put there after Bruno Mars, and I honestly can say it took me half a second to think of someone else to put after Katy Perry.  I listen mostly to music clean of cuss words and bad themes.  Even the recently downloaded "Marry Me" song by Bruno Mars jars me because it sort of paints love in a non-committal sort of way.  (Yes, I am very motherly in that respect.)  But today, my fiance posted this video on his Facebook, and I watched it.

It's not that I like Lady GaGa's music.  Her lyrics and music videos are definitely not something that I would want to partake in.  I don't support her "ministry" as it were.  She claims she is bisexual, supports homosexuality, and often expresses herself in very showy and inappropriate ways.  I don't like that she is declaring herself a Christian through her prayers and references to God and Jesus in the same sentence as cuss words.  I think of the hypocrisy that she emulates and how she is diluting the Christian name.

But...there is something undeniably honest in this video.  I believe her prayer is earnest.  I see how she is a bit misguided.  Her love for her fans has become her purpose in life.  Growing up, she felt like a loser.  She still feels like a loser.  And she feels that she must express herself, show that being a "freak" is alright, and give others the opportunity to do the same.  The idea behind her love is something that many Christians lack.  How many Christians do you know reach out to the "freaks" out there?  Perhaps she isn't diluting the Christian name.

It brings up questions in my mind.  How would YOU love Lady GaGa?  How would you witness to her?  Imagine...Lady GaGa on fire for God.  What an influence she would be.  And a strong one.  She is passionate, you can tell.  If she left her life in God's hands, she would be a great member of God's army.  What if Lady GaGa walked into a church one day?  Would the congregation love her with the same type of love she has for her "little monsters"?  How do you reach someone like that?

Its all hypothetical.  But the Youtube video brings up some important issues, I think, about Christian living and the potential and also lack of Christian influence in today's culture.  I mean, I don't support Lady GaGa in almost every way except in the idea that she is a human and God loves Lady GaGa.  It feels weird to say.  Like most Christians, I would be the first to shun her if she walked into my church wearing practically nothing.  I would probably be cold and indifferent to her tears.  Yet God calls for a more tender heart than the one I hold, a heart that yields a love so powerful that it can change anyone.

God loves the Lady GaGa's of the world.  Do we?

At Random

This is all highly theoretical, but have you ever wondered if there was anything that is truly random? 

I mean, you start with things like a CD player or your iTunes program that picks songs "at random" (aka shuffle).  It cannot be truly picking something at random because there is some formula built into the machine that shuffles the songs in a pattern of some sort.  While the pattern is too long to ever detect what it was while listening to one CD, making it seemly "random" song selection, there is still a built in pattern, right?

Let's take it a step further.  When one reaches their hand in the basket to pull out the winning ticket, is that really random either?  Or is there some method to the madness of why that person picked that particular ticket? 

Is randomness just something that cannot be calculated?  Since you cannot really calculate with 100% correctness which ticket that person would pull out of the bucket, but there has to be some rhyme to the reason, right?  Somewhere, deep in the subconscious, perhaps the way the synapses click for this particular person, or the external pressures of the room affect the timing, or something! 

I guess what I'm just trying to throw out into the unknown is that perhaps there are more things that effect every day instances than what meets the eye, things that could effect our definition of random.  True randomness.  What is that anyway?  And can it ever truly be attained? 

Part of me wants to go into evolution vs. creation, but I will leave that be.  Perhaps for another time.

My philosophical self is signing off now. 

Sickness & House Moms

I have been taken captive by the influenza virus.  I am not a normal captive to this hideous tyrant who demands control of every part of your body that can ache, but this year I fell victim.  Sick for four days, going on five.  I slept for 15 hours the first day I was sick.  Only today have I felt well enough to even pull my laptop downstairs and sit on the couch (lying down, because sitting up takes too much energy) and write this. 

Figuring that this is the last time I will be deathly ill and still under the cares of my attentive mother, I relished in the ability to have water delivered to my bedside, meals made for me, and movies put into the DVD player for me (complete with the remote handed to me while I lounged with my 101 degree fever).  I will be probably be very sad the first time I'm sick at home alone, my husband having gone to work for the day, and I'm having to drag myself to the kitchen to force myself to cook something to eat because otherwise I'll just lie in bed all day.  

And I keep saying this, but it is true: I had forgotten how boring being sick was.  Perhaps it was the nature of this flu, which the doctor says is one of the worse strains she's seen over the seasons.  Between the muscle aches, the joint aches, the nasal congestion, drowning in my own phlegm (too much information?), the head aches, and the sweating fevers, I had little space between the fatigue and the lack of brain function to do much of anything except stare at the television.  Reading has become something like writing to me: part work and part enjoyment.  Therefore, reading would require too much energy while I was sick.  So, there I was, watching movie after movie because I had nothing else to occupy my time until I got better. 

Quite depressing.  All this time...five days of it...wasted because I have no energy to do anything.  I was and am quite frustrated that all this time has passed and I accomplished nothing except to stay in my pajamas for probably the longest continuous time in my life.  I guess, that is a feat for some.  

Meanwhile, I've been watching my mother do her thing around the house.  Its interesting watching a house mom.  Little decisions can consume their entire day.  Suddenly feeling bothered by the dust on the floor can cause a flurry of cleaning, putting every thing else that was on the to-do list somewhere else.  Desires like cooking that chicken or finding that dress are now job tasks, not wishes.  They are things that have to get done, otherwise the paycheck doesn't come.  Not really, but they have more magnitude.  You wonder what they do from the hours of 8am to 3pm when their children are in school.  Sure, my mom also has her business, but most of that I see her doing in the evening.  So what DOES she do?

I guess when I become a house mom, I'll understand, since that is the plan.  I want to stay at home with my children.  I guess the job becomes a little more looney when the children start moving out and growing up.  I guess what I was observing these past 5 days was an empty-nester syndrome attaching itself to a once-busy house mom who used to have at least one toddler toddling around the house.  That would mean at least one eye was busy watching the kid.  Now, there are no toddlers, only teenagers and young adults, leaving the eyes with nothing to watch in the corner of them and only worries.

Being sick and quite bored, perhaps I am babbling on about nothing that is true since I've never been there before or perhaps the medicines are getting to my head.  Either way, its been interesting, and while I don't mind being able to sleep in, I will very much like to stop being held physically captive by all of this fatigue.  I can't wait to get something done.

Being Clay

Wrote this post and posted it on my writer's blog.  Enjoy!

http://cheryldwong.blogspot.com/2011/02/being-clay.html

I've been engaged almost three months, and this period of time has yield a lot of struggle and learning.  I feel like the clay in the Potter's hands, being molded and pushed and smashed and turned.  It's been a frustrating sort of pain.  You know that you are going to come out better, bolder, smarter, but you feel your insides turn at the thought of going through another round on that potter's wheel.  It hurts.  And even though the goal of a "better me" and a "better marriage" and a "better relationship" dangles above like a carrot, you can't help but focus on the pain at present and wish you could just skip to the end.

My sister took a pottery class in college.  She told us around the dinner table the first time she saw her professor work the clay on the spinning wheel.  She said the clay looked like water in his hands.  He moved it up and down, using his hands to mold and move the clay into various shapes.  He would knead the clay, stretching it and then putting it back into a lump and then stretching it again.  My sister is more show than tell, so she moved her hands, mimicking his movements and telling us how she remembered thinking, "I can do that."  It looked so easy, of course.

Her professor impressed on his students that just the right amount of water is needed.  Too much and the clay slides off the wheel when it spins.  Too little and it won't move when you press your hands to it.  He said the moisture of the clay is important to a good pot.

My sister then proceeded to her own wheel and naturally, she did not move the clay as easily as he did.  Some of her peers had flying balls of mush spinning off their wheels, but her clay was a rock.  She sprinkled more water, and it still didn't move.  How had her professor made it look so easy?  She pushed and pressed and punched and her clay remained a rock.

This turned into a discussion of how our Potter feels when He tries to mold us.  I can imagine that I'm much like the clay without enough water.  I'm stubborn and prideful, and those things make me immobile.  Not to mention I don't like change.  God patiently tries to mold me with His hands, and I resist, screaming, "No!  I don't want to change!"  I imagine others are like the ones with too much water.  They just spin off the wheel and run away.

These past few months have been full of spending time on the Potter's wheel.  Premarital counseling has opened up a lot of opportunities for change and growth, and while in my head I understand that I need to reform myself, I find that I am resistant to climbing out of my cozy little hole.  And I can't admit that I even dug myself this hole.

As I've spent time in this period of my life, I've begun to see insight into character.  We can't understand character unless we get to know someone other than ourselves.  Understand is a heavy word.  Its not just understanding; its understanding.  Sorry, poor English means having to use italics to make a point.  Let's put it this way.  One way the verb "to understand" is defined is "to be thoroughly familiar with; apprehend clearly the character, nature, or subtleties of". That is a definition with of "to understand" with an object.  Without an object, "to understand" is defined as "to perceive what is meant; grasp the information conveyed, to accept tolerantly or sympathetically".

To understand my husband-to-be is to be both thoroughly familiar with him and his character and to also know him so well that I can interpret what he says, grasp the meaning he tries to convey in the words he says.    I've been dating this man for 6+ years and this is still difficult.  More difficult now as we try to blend our lives together.

Everyone tells everyone else that communication is the key to a relationship.  True, of course.  However, I do not think it is as much the communication that is as difficult but the development of understanding.  Understanding has a lot of things built into it: sympathy, empathy at times, humility, and an ability to put one's self into a third person perspective.

As I've attempted (and failed) to understand my fiancé, I've begun to see how character is intricately more difficult than any other thing in a story.  To accurately convey a person in the confines of words, allowing for this complexity and reality.  Its something next to impossible to truly achieve.  People try.  And a lot of writers get quite close.  To truly accomplish it is something extra-ordinary.

As I've spent time on my Potter's wheel, I begin to see the intricacy of His creation, my own stubborn flaws, and opportunity to hold a richness of life that I have yet to tap into. 

The Power of Prayer

Double the Fun!

For those who do not know, I have an author's blog at www.cheryldwong.blogspot.com. It is what I update periodically for my potential audience as an author. The posts are mostly writing related, but one of my other writer friends encourages me to combine my personal and writer blog. Recently, my writer blog's posts have leaned more personal than in the past and I have a hard time figuring out what to post where.

I like my personal blog and my writer's blog. I guess its just not as much of a point to have both. But for now, I'm too lazy to make the transition to just one.

So, if you would please, you can follow both of my blogs as well as both of my Twitter feeds! My Twitter names are missweird13 and CherylDWong. Like I said, personal and writer feeds. Really should combine, but at this point, I'm like..."Why? When I'm just going to change my name soon and everything is going to have to change anyway?"

Haha...so, we'll see. Anyway, you can follow both for twice the Cheryl fun! If you can stand it. ;)

Engaging

It's been awhile since I've posted...a, ahem, long while. And so much has happened. Holidays, busyness, work, writing, smiles, tears, laughter. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, yes, even an engagement.

Can you believe it? I'm engaged.

I've been waiting for a long time, although now looking back in retrospect, I wasn't ready until this year. Even though I've been waiting for what seems like years, God knew that I had to wait. That I still had growing up to do. And I still have growing up to do, but I've grown up enough.

Its amazing what God can teach you from a haphazard relationship with a boy. Well, a man. Sometimes it boggles my mind how much I've grown in the past 6 years and almost 4 months. How learning how to love this person can teach me so much about myself, so much about God, so much about how love works. It doesn't operate well with selfishness or pride or arrogance (which I am slowly learning is different from pride) but demands humility, compromise, and dedication.

Something that surprises me is my lack of enthusiasm for the wedding. Now, don't get me wrong, I am DYING to get married. I am just a lot less excited about the wedding than I thought I would be. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the wedding. I like the dress shopping and the color picking and the idea brainstorming. I just thought that I would get more butterflies in my stomach trying on white dresses and veils and that I would feel more jitters looking at churches and reception halls.

But no, what gave me the most jitters and butterflies was walking around Kohl's hand-in-hand with my husband-to-be and choosing what color our bedspread should be. Selecting the items for our registry sent me into long moments of daydreaming about moving my things into his house and waking up next to him.

I guess that's a good thing. It's just somewhat disconcerting, considering that half of my life I've been daydreaming about my wedding day and preparing for my wedding day. Who knew that when the time finally came to prepare, that I'd be day dreaming about the life after. I guess that is because when you are single, all you can imagine is being chosen by someone. And then when you're together with someone, you don't want to just be chosen. You want to be one.

This might be too much information for some people. I always find it a bit awkward to read about other people's relationships, especially if the information is intimate. It's just something that I didn't anticipate. Maybe its just me. Maybe I've been dating too long. Who knows? All I know is that I'm not looking forward as much to August 21 as I am to August 22.