Category: Faith Walk

Reflections About God, His Word and His Work

Trust, Hide, Rest, and the Brook of Cherith

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There were a lot of unusual things that happened today. Like, actually resting on a Sunday, staying home, trading our Sunday best to pairs of pajamas, not working. I cooked lunch, D gave the girls a bath, we changed their diapers, fed them, sang them songs, watched Big Hiro 6, and when it was time for an afternoon nap, rubbed their tiny feet (just one of their many weird habits) until they fell asleep.

I spent some time in front of my laptop while the girls and their daddy napped, and I’m proud to report that I didn’t check my inbox or did anything related to work at all.

The four of us were feeling a bit under the weather the whole week. Some cold virus has come upon this house—first the twins, then their Daddy, and hopefully the cycle ends with me.

This day of rest did us good.

Although I feel like I disappointed some people, failed to show up where I was expected to show up, missed some deadlines and most likely a couple of emails too, I’m glad we made a deliberate choice to rest and be still today. To be quiet and allow God to speak to us, not from the church’s pulpit, but with His quiet reassurances throughout the day—

I am here. I’m with you. Wait on me. Trust in me. Rest in me. Be healed.

Time and time again I am reminded that there’s wisdom in being away from where the action is, taking the opposite direction, saying NO to many so that I can say YES to what truly matters, choosing rest over work, less over more. It’s one of the hardest lessons I had to learn since I became a wife and a mother. I had to make hard choices, unpopular ones, the kind that not a lot of people understood.

Truth is, I’m still learning. Admittedly, sometimes God has to knock me down with some cold virus so that I would be forced to rest, to listen.

Few years ago I learned about this place called “Brook of Cherith”. God instructed Elijah to go to a place of solitude and confinement and without a moment of hesitation, Elijah obeyed Him. That story wrecked me. Elijah was, after all, one of the greatest prophets ever told, and aren’t prophets supposed to be in the frontline and not in some hideout?

The Brook of Cherith totally changed the way I see obedience. It dawned on me that obeying God doesn’t always mean going into battle, doing BIG things for Him, meeting expectations.

Often, obedience requires quite the opposite—

Step away from the spotlight. Swim against the tide. Say NO. Trust. Hide. Rest.

Pray, He Listens

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itstimetogetonyourknees

It’s easy to forget to pray, but time and time again I realize how brilliant praying to God is. Seriously. Praying is not just spiritual, it’s also in a way, practical.

I can’t anymore recall the number of times I have so much to do and I would feel paralyzed and helpless and unmotivated. I would spend time in prayer (or sometimes spend time in silence just listening to what He has to say, knowing that the Spirit translates those thoughts that are too deep for words). And then I would feel strengthened and inspired to carry on with the tasks for the day. Works every time.

So Pray! Pray even when you’re so busy.. *especially* when you’re so busy. He listens. He responds. He speaks.

My One Word for 2015: Pursue

Rhiza13 Comments

pursue

I knew what my word was going to be few days before 2014 ended, and the first few days of 2015 brought me major affirmations that this, indeed, is THE word.

But first, let’s talk about passion.

Last year I faced my fears and chose a word that kept me on my toes the whole year: passion. I told myself I was done with just settling with what’s convenient, or forcing myself to do things just because people expected me to do them. It was time to purge my life with the word “passion” as my *breathe* ultimate qualifier.

So 2014 was the year I rekindled my passion for everything that God has called me to do in this particular season of my life—as a wife, a mother, a breadwinner, a homemaker, a daughter, a sister, a friend (in that order, too!). It was the year I started to pursue things that make me restless at night, things that wake me up early in the morning eager to start the day. Anything short of passion was not good enough.

Which also meant I had to let go of things that held me back from spreading my wings, stuff that boxed me up and conflicted with the values we want to uphold as a family, commitments that were not bad at all but essentially were not the best for us. Others may not have understood some of the choices my husband and I made last year, but we turned to God for direction and His affirmations kept us going and made us strong. In the end it gave us more time and space for the things that truly matter, for family, and for His true calling for us.

And now, this passionate pursuit continues.

PURSUE

This year my one word is PURSUE. I intentionally picked a verb because I want this year to be a year packed with action. Now that I’ve identified my passions, my God-given calling and skills, the industry I find myself relevant in, the work that I really enjoy doing, and the relationships that matter, it’s time for me to pursue them (or to keep pursuing them). I’ve had a lot of planning and dreaming already, and now is the time to get the ball rolling, to translate those plans to action, and to make those dreams happen.

This year I’m going to..

Pursue God more.
Pursue my calling.
Pursue my passions and dreams.
Pursue what truly matters. 

Continue reading “My One Word for 2015: Pursue” →

Healing

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Last week Rain caught a bad case of flu, and if you’re a Mommy, you would know that nothing is more important than a sick baby. Everything had to be placed on hold. I skipped Worship Service on Sunday morning to be with the twins, and by Sunday night we had to take Rain to the ER of a nearby hospital because she refused to take medicines and had little to no intake of liquids and food.

What consumes you?

I filed an Emergency Leave on Monday, knowing that there was no way I could work on anything at all with Rain like that. Thankfully, Dawn had a better appetite than her sister so we didn’t have problems feeding her and getting her to take their meds. But Rain.. it’s probably the worst state we’ve seen her so far, and there was a lot of crying, from both Rain and—when the lights were out—me. 

Rain was clingy, not wanting to be put down the whole time. The only things I could do with one free hand was scroll through my phone, reply to emails with one hand, or read a book. So read a book, I did.

The truth is, I haven’t read a book in years, and what a way to go back to reading! I made a mental note to not wait until sickness strikes again before I read another one.

Normi happened to have lent me her copy of 100 Years From Now by Pastor Steve Murell, and it spoke to me in soooo many levels that, by the time I finished reading it (two days, tops), it felt like I experienced some form of healing myself. It’s hard to explain how a book that talks about the history of a church I don’t even go to made me feel so alive and affirmed of my calling as a mother, but it did.

Let’s just say, I’ve been having an existential crisis for the past couple of months, disappointed at myself for not being able to meet everyone’s expectations of me outside of being a Mom.

Except maybe on Mother’s Day, motherhood is, sadly, not a widely talked about topic in places like work or church, that it sometimes sounds like being a Mom is a “secondary” or “temporary” calling, next only to your career or church ministries. Being a new mom to young children is hard enough as it is; not being affirmed of this calling makes you feel even more burnt out.

While it isn’t really the highlight of the book, Pastor Steve Murrell affirms how important family is, why we should fight for it, and why it’s okay (and even sacred!) to place your family on top of everything, yes, including your work and your ministry.

I can talk about the book for hours; take me out on a coffee date and I’ll tell you more about my takeaways from the book. But my most important takeaways are the ones that are related to family and seeing your family as, not only a basic unit of the society, but the basic unit of the church and your ministry.

“Family is the foundation and validation of ministry,” the book says. I feel so empowered to do what the Lord has called me to do, as a wife, a mom, and an ambassador of this foundational truth.

Family

Rain woke up on Wednesday morning feeling so much better, no more fever, and with a big smile on her face. I was up watching her when she opened her eyes. She cheerfully said “Hi!” and then she hid under her blankie which prompted me to say, “Where’s Rainy?” (It’s our hide-and-seek game.) And then she took the blankie off her face, revealing a huge smile! “There you are!” I said.

You have no idea how happy I was to see that smile on her face again. And at that very moment, I felt God smiling upon me too, and I knew then that I was right where He called me to be.

It was our 3rd wedding anniversary on the same week, and surely there was a lot to celebrate, especially knowing that Rain and Dawn are out of danger zone. My Mom dropped by to watch over the twins while D and I sneaked out for a quick anniversary date. It was a particularly difficult week; still, it never fails to amaze me how God would use our circumstances to affirm us of our calling and to keep us going in its pursuit.

I realised that it wasn’t just Dawn & Rain who were healed last week. I myself received some of that healing too.

My Hillsong Story is NOT My Story

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If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that I’ve recounted this story many many times. It’s a story I love talking about because God has taught me so many things through this experience—lessons on trusting His perfect timing, never giving up on dreams that He has planted in our hearts, and holding on to the truth that His ways are always higher than ours.

Today I’m in the mood to put together this little timeline!

Hillsong Story

(Click the image to zoom in.)

I never really made it to the Hillsong Conference

Looking at this timeline, you’ll notice that I never really made it to the Hillsong Conference at all. After my last attempt in  2009, I sort-of stopped trying. Not really because I gave up on the dream, it was mostly because God has planted new dreams in my heart. I was in New York in 2010, got married in 2011, gave birth to twins in 2012, landed a new job in 2013, and well, there really wasn’t any time (and budget!) to squeeze in Hillsong Conference the past 5 years.

My priorities shifted to easing into this new life with my husband and raising our little family. And although I still daydream about experiencing the Hillsong Conference, it’s one of those things I’ve set aside for later.

Still, this Hillsong story remains to be one of my “stones of remembrance”, something I always look back to, to reflect on what God has been doing in my life, or when I need to encourage a friend.  Continue reading “My Hillsong Story is NOT My Story” →

Where my trust is without borders

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We’re on Day 15 of our 21 Day Prayer and Fasting, and at this point I’m feeling very weak and tempted to devour the chocolates in the ref already! Chocolates and sweets are my greatest weakness, so are my worries and fears, so I decided to give those up along with food, taking only juices and soup, in order to hear God’s voice clearer during these 21 days.

And you know what? It feels good to be vulnerable. To be stripped off these things that give me comfort (yes, worrying comforts me the same way chocolates do) and allow God to speak to me and mold me during this time of inconvenience.

The lyrics of this song captures the prayer of my heart this 2014. Every now and then this song would play in my mind, and I’m immediately brought to a place of rest and profound assurance.

Oceans by Hillsong

Oceans by Hillsong. Listen. You’ll love it, promise.

To be truly honest, I’m not sure if I ever stopped being a coward. I may have taken bigger leaps and bolder steps these past couple of years, but sometimes it feels like the coward in me is still lurking somewhere inside my chest ready to jump out every time I’m on a crossroad.

And yet, here I am, committing myself to a life of passion this year, something I couldn’t possibly live up to unless I let go of my fears and stop being a coward.

God is teaching me to let Him be God

You see, we thought we got pregnant at the start of this year. My period was 3 days delayed, and 3 days may sound a little too paranoid for you, but not to us. I never miss my period. Never. It always comes on the dot, and the last time I missed it, we found out the very next day that I was pregnant.

That’s not to say that we don’t want another baby (babies!), we actually do. It’s just that, we don’t feel like we’re ready at the moment. We worry about the financial, physical, and emotional preparations we have to go through, to think we haven’t fully recovered yet from birthing twins. We decided to wait maybe another year before having baby #3.

I know that may be too much info to divulge, but I find the need to share an important lesson that took me about 72 hours of delayed menstruation to learn. I needed to learn to let Him be God. To allow Him to hold my timetable, and to leave it to Him to decide whether I’m ready for another pregnancy or not. My readiness is not my call but His; my job is to simply trust that He knows what He’s doing and His timing is perfect.

Long story short, I got my period the following day. My husband and I sighed in relief not because I wasn’t pregnant, nope, but because I knew that I got the lesson I needed to learn.

15 Days down, 6 More to Go

We’re sprinting towards the finish line of our 21 Day Prayer and Fasting. A part of me does not want this to end yet, but the other half of me is excited to celebrate milestones and answered prayers, and to receive clarity on important decisions we have to make as a family this year. God is going to make things happen in my life this 2014, and I’m confident that He will make me stronger and wiser in the process.