Aunt

Tonight when I got home, my dad said he misses his sister. She passed away a month ago.

India

you are deep in my heart.

something's up

through all the things that've been happening to my PHYSICAL body, God is so totally giving me an "extreme makeover" in body, soul, and spirit. He has forced me into places of my heart that're ugly and still seeped with disbelief, and purging them away, forming something new. Everything inside me is being stretched to believe that water can be turned to wine, in the exact will of His timing. It is the eleventh hour of something before something better and more amazing is going to crash-land on everyone - those already awakened and those still slumbering. can you feel the urgency?

as for my ankle...

read Hosea 6.

inner joy is...

I am in a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very ....very.......... safe...... place.

moon river, wider than a mile

i'm crossing you in style, someday . . .

dream maker, you heart breaker

wherever you're going, i'm going your way . . .

two drifters, off to see the world

there's such a lot of world to see . . .

we're after the same rainbow's end

waiting 'round the bend,

my huckleberry friend,

moon river . . .

and . . .

me

一步又一步，這是恩典之路

祢愛，祢手，將我緊緊抓住

一步又一步，這是盼望之路

祢愛，祢手，牽引我走這人生路。。。

God melted my heart with this song tonight . . . I feel like a cotton-candy flavored mushy pear inside.

He leads me to meditate on His goodness, and it feels like honey deep inside. And oh, the deep seated joy of trusting in Abba Father. . . .

the team i will serve with tonight is my family

Having led worship for a while now, I know that it takes a whole team of worshipers to be a worship band that comes before the living God corporately and together in one heart to worship Him in spirit and in truth, wholeheartedly abandoned. The strength, tenacity, and spiritual depth of coming before the Lord to behold Him and at the same time lifting up the highest praises a human being could muster to give - our very all - cannot rest on the worship leader alone. There must be a whole team of people with one like heart and spirit, each of us standing firm on the assigned role to give all we could give in worship, whether on drums, backing vocals, keys, sound, or the powerpoint. Each of the "all" that we gave melts together to form a flawed but perfect offering of love called worship. And the best team always stems from a family where relationships are deeply rooted in love.

I have been so blessed to be able to walk with a group of young people at anhop. We labour and yearn for the same things. We know each other's hearts. We see each other every day. We call ourselves a family and we live to this name. We are all so so different but we enjoy and celebrate one another. One of the greatest blessings my life has encountered has been having people to walk with, to grow with, to nurture and be nurtured with. We were never meant to walk alone. And... oh the joy of seeing my friend and my brother or sister grow! Seeing all of us blossom into the men and women we were meant to be is amazing. It shows me that God is alive and He does live in us. I truly see the glory of heaven when beholding plain, unadorned human faces.

Tonight we are heading out to lead worship at another house of prayer. And the team I will serve with is my family.

so here we are all perched on a narrow line, waiting to fly.

in the meantime, singin' keeps the songbirdies awakened :)

for john keats (and my literature degree)

"I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain." -JK

stressed

I got a clear rhema word from God that I am to take a deep sabbath after relentlessly pouring myself out in Homecoming. And ever since I got home, my phone has been flooded with text messages, my email account full of emails I have yet to reply. And then there is still global day of prayer which up till now is a very long story and one that drains me. I even feel torn from not meeting very close friends/family for so long and yet feeling the desire to be a hermit because i just need to rest and focus...

I am so tempted to throw my cellphone into the sea, or just turn it off for a week or two. And then I imagine, after a week, the gazillion text messages, emails and missed calls of close or not so close friends and family with topics ranging from a casual "hi whatsup" to ministry enquiries to "could you reply me on leading worship for....".

I am stressed. I need to turn off my phone! I think I need a break from everything but a keyboard and my Bible.

Compelled

So it's one of those seasons in life where the wilderness beckons. The dreams are among the only things left keeping me alive at this point (although it's not as bad as it sounds, there is a high degree of truth in this statement). Life at the house of prayer is very, very good, and it's none's fault but mine that i've slowly grown numb to it all. Tonight i wrote all my dreams out in my journal. There are so many things that He has told me to do that I have left idle.

I dream of music. I'm getting really really tired of not pushing in my best in playing and creating music for my God, and for compromising to whatever. By "whatever", i don't mean the standard of music but the attitude. If our God is a beautiful God, and I want to give Him something He is worth, I want to give Him my very best. He isn't worth what's on the outside but the inside. I want to give Him all of my effort - my best effort ... I've been getting really lazy in song-writing, story-writing, and simply creating and being creative - which is what I'm called to do. So many times I've compromised playing something better for Him because I've been lazy on myself and on coaching others. Blaming it on the busy lifestyle in my city, on my internship schedule, and even my age as most other musicians at HOP are older than me... when I know deep down that all times of creating require a cost - the setting apart of time, heart, and intense determination. Lately He's been using every way He can to try telling me that it's time to create again.

And so I step into the wilderness again. For it's in the wilderness where good things are created - songs, stories, my character.

As the approaching summer months intimidate me with busyness, people and things again, I have to set aside time for creating. Also for getting my driver's license and learning the languages I want to learn. There's not much time left before life gets crazy and in fact a song is due in a week's time. I need to start living intensely on the inside again.

blessed

I never really grew up with siblings. I grew up with my neighbor who was two years younger than me, and we really practically lived together; but it was different. When people asked me if I wanted siblings growing up, I never really imagined what it would be like so I told them that I enjoyed being with myself. Also because of this, my relationship with my parents from when I was young, throughout the rebellious years, till today, is a very deep relationship. They treat me as friends, I treat them as friends. We know that they were called to serve me by being my parents, and I was called to serve them by being their daughter. We functioned as a family, always.

Over the past year and a half, as God aligns His children and our relationships become "family-like", I was blessed with true younger brothers, true younger sisters, true older sisters, and true older brothers. So many of them. I am blessed with the opportunity to comfort, guide, walk alongside, love, and receive love. It is almost like now that I have so many siblings, I realize what I've been missing out on all along. So, by God's grace, my heart was full before I had siblings, and my heart is even fuller now that I have siblings. It's amazing.

I have always wanted an older brother, I am happy because they pay for you ;P

a muddy dirt road out to the wilderness

So many people are called onto this road.

So few people take it.

Even few people stay on it until He is done.

We pray prayers of glory, revival, signs and wonders, open heaven... It is all glorious. How many will pray a prayer of welcoming His refining fire? How many will willingly stay in the furnace? How many will see these momentary light afflictions as greater glory in the age to come? Indeed, the glory inside of us is incomparable to what the eye can see. It takes submission to walk on the narrow road. It takes so much more submission to stay on it.

Some say that in the different myriads of paths and choices we encounter in life, God allows us to choose, He respects and blesses our free will.

Yes, my dear brother, my dear sister; my dear father, and my dear mother. He respects your free will. He blesses you because you are His child. But do you know, sometimes, how much our choices, our reactions, our responses... how much they pain His lovesick heart? He waits... and waits... and waits... for one man, one woman, one family, one body of believers, one generation - who will not seek to be blessed, but will seek to bless His heart.

Your eyes search to and fro across the face of this earth, across the different generations that come and go like a whiff of wind, across people of different language and tribe and culture, across the rugged brittle path of human time. You search for one person who is after Your own heart.

And the path to Your heart leads us to the mountain tops, to the prairie plains... and always, through the wilderness. Of going low, of learning submission, of embracing humility. Of dying to self until we cannot hold back our smiles of true joy and freedom as we pick up and carry on our bare backs the heavy cross of Jesus Christ.

Oh, how beautiful is this path, Lord. This path that You have also taken with Your own bare feet, in a feeble human form, and which You continue to walk on, with me.

I stroll out of the exit and into the midday sun. Busy streets; busy sounds. Two beggars scream for my attention and my hands search my pocket for coins. I walk towards where I'm headed, always in a rush. People bump into people and utter no less than a swear word under their breath. Never any smiles. Blue, grey, silver, concrete. Traffic; smells of exhaust gas and of exhaustion. Pressure and real estate prices. Suits and heels, shiny black leather.

City life.

Yes, I do have an attic of memory.

Hidden treasures.

Joyful and regrettable.

Secretly blissful...

And secretly lamentable.

All labelled "No trespass".

... only Him.

I love how I don't need to write about spiritual significances when I write.
I am so amused at the marathon water station voluntares shouting below my home at 5 in the morning.
I remember and miss the first time I hit water and dived to 15m.
I remember and do not miss the first time I hit Hong Kong waters and dived to 5m in pitch dark.
I see angels and demons.
It is so difficult to love her sometimes - my friend and my sister whom i am called to serve.
I love God's presence at anhop.

Because writing is like breathing to me.

my simple statement of the day.

Lost ... and found.

It has hit me. I can't believe I lost my journal in Taiwan. What the heck?!

But then, I loose - and I gain more than I loose. It always happens like this. A principle of God.

I have no profound inspiration compelling me to move the tips of my fingers on the mac keyboard.

What I do have is this bursting lump of extravagant love compelling me to live a life of difference.

one of my favorite photos :)

Interesting and frightening things from my Old Testament class

"The Levites, however, were not counted by their ancestral family along with the others. God had told Moses, "The tribe of Levi is an exception: Don't register them. Don't count the tribe of Levi; don't include them in the general census of the People of Israel. Instead, appoint the Levites to be in charge of The Dwelling of The Testimony - over all its furnishings and everything connected with it. Their job is to carry The Dwelling and all its furnishings, maintain it, and camp around it. When it's time to move The Dwelling, the Levites will take it down, and when it's time to set it up, the Levites will do it. Anyone else who even goes near it will be put to death.

The rest of the People of Israel will set up their tents in companies, every man in his own camp under its own flag. But the Levites will set up camp around The Dwelling of The Testimony so that wrath will not fall on the community of Israel. The Levites are responsible for the security of The Dwelling of The Testimony."

- Numbers 1:47-53

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"Turn the Levites over to Aaron and his sons: they are the ones assigned to work full time for him. Appoint Aaron and his sons to minister as priests; anyone else who tries to elbow his way in will be put to death.

God spoke to Moses: "I have taken the Levites from among the People of Israel as a stand-in for every Israelite mother's firstborn son. The Levites belong to me. All the firstborn are mine - when I killed all the firstborn in Egypt, I consecrated for my own use every firstborn in Israel, whether human or animal. They belong to me. I am God."

- Numbers 3:8-13

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"The Levites are mine, I am God."

- Numbers 3:45

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"The Levitical priests - that's the entire tribe of Levi - don't get any land-inheritance with the rest of Israel. They get the Fire-Gift-Offerings of God - they will live on that inheritance. But they don't get land-inheritance like the rest of their kinsmen. God is their inheritance."

- Deuteronomy 18:1-2