Doing Life With Open Hands

Your Grace has found me just as I am
Empty handed but alive in Your hand
-Majesty; Hillsong & Delirious!-


Nine months after Andrew's bone marrow transplant, and fourteen months after the initial diagnosis. High and lows, storms and shades have come our ways. We pray fervently and kick worry on its teeth with our thanksgiving.

He is the peace in our troubled sea.

Fear scattered in every way, cutting our hearts and faith with its shrapnels and debris. I learned very quickly that what we hold dear in life can be lost in seconds.

We pray for good reports; and we received confirmation of cancer
We pray for an "easy" type of cancer, Andrew got the worst kind
We pray for chemo only, Andrew needed a transplant
We pray for financial support, our insurances refuse to pay

We pray for a donor match; and I am a MATCH!

Can You Come Over and Hug Me?

Life can be tough sometimes. The worst part of being in a storm is thinking if these waves ever gonna stop-you can feel it up your nose and in your mouth (figuratively speaking, of course).

That is how I felt last night - a wash of exhaustion, inadequacy, and feeling unloved - whirled into a space between my head and my heart and it stayed there.

The funny thing is my prayer was not for fixing. Heck, I didn't even pray for someone to save me.

I was praying for someone to hug me.

Because crap happens and life happens and you know that until we come back home to our Father's arm; it's a freakin' battlefield.

Too Much and Still Not Enough

The first five years of my life was very normal. Happy, even. There were lots of holding hands, hugs, kisses, and "I love you"s

Then it went downhill (which is okay, I'm not gonna fret about that)

When I was around 16 years of age, my youth leader gave us a challenge to tell our parents the three sacred words:

Questioning Faith

This week is Easter week and I strongly feel the urge to write about this.

Since I met (and fall in love) with Jesus in the age of 13, Easter has always been my favourite time of the year - a week smothered in His extravagant love and grace.

I grew up in a Christian home and I do love Jesus wholeheartedly. When Andrew was diagnosed with AML, one of the questions that people asked me was this: How can you still believe in God when this happens to your brother?

Shifting Our Gaze

Hey. 

This week is probably my favourite week in the entire year: Easter Week.

Last week I got a long, long text from some people... warning me about how "Easter" is a pagan word and how we are not supposed to say "Happy Easter" but "Happy Passover"

And that chocolate eggs should be scorned upon (or probably killed with fiyah or something)

Really?

Firstly, I am a big believer that any chocolates you eat on Easter is calorie-free, since Jesus has died for us (and I will get stoned to death because of this sentence. Haha).

Thirty Seconds of Happy

Internet in China sucks. Plain sucks.

If you are brave enough, double it up with Indo/Sydney's "borderline-disorder-maniac internet" then you will understand why I screamed "THISSSSS SUCCCCKSSSSS!!!! YOU SUCCCCCCK" to my iPhone repeatedly. Every. Single. Day.

Followed by curling up in foetal position while mumbling slowly .... I gave up you stupid internet.

I feel bad for my iPhone. I am sure Steve Jobs will smack me from the grave if he can.

We develop this new habit of saying everything you wanna say before the phone died. On a bad day, we get around 30 seconds before the line dropped (and the screaming cycle began).

So we just crammed everything we want to say in that 30 seconds.

Here are some of the stuff we have said:

I LOVE YOU (yelling it out)
Enjoy dinner!
I hate internet!
I'm thinking about you 31/7 (inside joke, sorry)
You are the hottest thing I have ever seen (yep)
Drive safe!
Try again tomorrow.
I MISS YOU
I FREAKIN' LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!

The funny thing is, after all the iPhone-screaming and foetal-position-weeping I almost always have a smile on my face.

30 seconds of kindness.
of encouragement.
and so much missing and loving crammed into such a little space of time

I love our "30 seconds" because it reminds me of the important things. If you only have so little time, you rarely fill it with nonsense or fights or unkind words.

Those 30 seconds reminded me of all things that ring true and lovely about the person that I hold so dearly close to my heart.