A Reflection on Mother Teresa

I read an article that talks about the secret letters written by Mother Teresa, which had been made public more than 2 years ago. From the letters, it revealed that Mother Teresa has experienced the absence of God since 1949 till she died in 1997. At first I think, "what would be the worth of learning from a so called spiritual icon who had no connection with God but continued to minister in the name of Jesus?" Isn't she a hypocrite? As a second thought, I say to myself, Mother Teresa is still a spiritual icon whom I admire.

I'm not going to enter into the debate of whether Mother Teresa will go to heaven or not. I'm really not in the position to judge and comment. And whether she will go to heaven, in fact, has nothing to do with me really. What I would like to ponder is the spiritual darkness that she had experienced.

I believe we all experienced spiritual darkness at some point in our spiritual life - unanswered prayers, disappointments in God, doubts in God's love. It's unrealistic to experience God 24/7, given the fact that Job in the bible had also experienced God's absence and the bible tells us that he had remained silent for 400 years during Old Testament time.

Spiritual darkness is the most difficult emotion to endure. The greater the love and longing you have in God, the greater the suffering and pain. It is an experience of extreme loneliness and emptiness. Just like the moment that Jesus died on the cross, his suffering is so servere that He cried out to God, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?". The feeling of being forsaken by the one you truly believed he/she loves you is like feeling being betrayed. A normal response would be to stop loving that person, as you don't want to be hurt and feel the pain.

Mother Teresa had experienced spiritual darkness for almost 50 years. She had continuously remained her desire in longing for God and chosen to experience the pain from stop feeling God's presence. She was truthful to her feeling and continuously asked others to pray for her spiritual darkness - the battle between her conviction in God's love and the failure to experience God's presence. Although she suffers for spiritual darkness, she never gives up the ministry to touch the hearts of the poor and the abandoned. Apparently she did not not do it for her own glory as she believed her achievements without the presence of God is in vain.

I can hardly imagine how can a human in blood and flesh so determined to minister and love for the One you doubt His existence. I pray that if one day, I experience spiritual darkness with great pain, I will have a strong faith like Mother Teresa and able to say "I have come to love the darkness" and continue to do what God has entrusted me to accomplish.

A Choice

"Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. "

This is a command from God - worship and serve our Lord ONLY by throwing away the gods. There is no bargaining platform in the command itself. Can I serve You when I have time? Can You help me to get out of my struggles so I can worship You wholeheartedly? A command is a command. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength". Very clear and precise that there's no way one can misinterpret or manipulate it.

"But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living."

Command is not an order. God doesn't force us to follow his command. We all have a choice - a choice to do it or not to do it - and the choice is personal and individual.

"But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

I made my choice, and you?















A reflection on Joshua 24:14-16

Better Together

40 Days of Community finally comes to an end. One word - disappointed.

The word "together" appears million times throughout the book and it was this one word that bring me hope to the 40 Days of Community. I hope I can learn and practice to grow spiritually together, I hope we can actually do something together to better support each other, I hope ... In reality, what else did we do together in the past couple weeks other than sharing/talking every Friday (and that's already the thing we done previously). Maybe we do not know each other enough to point out others' strengths and weaknesses and give advices to their serving path in church, or maybe there're obstacles for us to love everyone, or maybe we care so much about people's impressions/thoughts on us that we can't truly express our real self, or maybe we personally don't have a good worship life that we can't encourage/motivate others to get closer to God...

Things get to be changed and only actions can bring changes.

I've been growing so independently throughout my Christian life and it now comes to an stagnation. No matter how desparatly I crave for a breakthrough, no matter how many different ways I try to have a more intimate relationship with God, it just simply fails. I need to learn to be interdependent. Trust me, nothing can be better without growing "together".

40 Days of Community

When I first heard that we've to do the 40 Days of Community, the first thought came to my mind was "again?!". Aren't we have enough of that?

Yesterday, I picked up the book Better Together: What on earth are we here for? and read Rick Warren's introduction to this book. After reading the intro, it brings me hope to the program.

In all my life, I choose to grow/learn/experience by myself. The word "together" seems to be an alien word to me. Through different circumstances, God keeps telling me that I'm just not as capable as I thought and "together" is the only way to fulfill my dream - influence other for a better world. This is the reason for this book captivating my heart.

I start looking forward to the 6 weeks experience of being better together (as a Christian and as a member of any community) and I hope you do too.

Acceptance

This happened yesterday...

I hurry to the Yonge/Bloor subway station. It's 5:00 pm and I need to catch the 5:40 bus at Scarborough Town RT station. Yes! Here's the train. Quickly I find a seat and I take out the Time Magazine to read. 30s after I settle on the train, a realize that a lady (maybe around 24-25 years old) who sits at a right angle to me leave her seat after staring at the guy sitting in front of her. This guy sits opposite to me, face to face. He wears a car racing jacket and sunglasses. He covers his mouth with his right fist. Can't really see his face. He has a large traveling bag with him. I examine him for a few minutes. Why the lady left? What's wrong with this guy? My heart beats fiercely accelerate. The guy takes away his fist. He's holding some kleenex in his hand. A lot of saliva comes out of his mouth. That's disgusting and I'm not dare to look at his face now. That guy takes out something from his bag. It's a can of beer (oh! he's a drunk) and a can of thinner (what's he doing with the thinner?) . He pours some thinner onto the kleenex. He covers his mouth with his fist again (with the kleenex). Is he sniffing the thinner? Or is he sucking the thinner? I've no idea. Should I leave? But God asks us to accept all others. Isn't my leave a demonstration of discrimination and inacceptance? After 5-10 mins, I decide to leave. I can't stop thinking about that man after settling in another seat. I take out another book to read. Can't concentrate. I keep looking at the man sitting 2-3 metres away from me, worrying that he'll come near and performs some detrimental acts. Then, I take out the bible, hoping that it will calm my heart. That doesn't work. After reading one chapter, I leave the train.
What's the true meaning of acceptance? Does God expect me to accept everyone on earth, even this weird guy? I can't imagine myself talking or eating or even sitting with that man and I'm sure I don't want to see him again. Am I failing the test of acceptance and love?

1st Valentine's Day after Marriage

Today is Feb 14, 07. The first Valentine's Day after marriage. Hmm...should it be a day to do something special?

I decide to take today off...not because of the Valentine's Day...just because I don't want to get out in this cold weather with so much snow :P

I start off my day with devotion at 9:30 am, then I spend another 45 mins in bible reading. Just finish Exodus and start Leviticus. So amaze that God ended Exodus with a blessing to His stubborn people. After that, I work on some Sunday School stuff for an hour. Oh...it's time to prepare lunch (surprise!? I'm having lunch...hahaha). Actually I'm preparing lunch for Mr. (he takes the afternoon off because he's sick...he has been sick for 3 days...poor guy). After lunch, we watch TV for a bit. It's "Siu Ou Kwok Wu". I love this story so much and really want to pick up the book to read it again. Really admire "Kam Yung" for his creativity and manifestation of human nature...so honest, so true, so human. Oh...go back to my day...after watching TV, I go back to the Sunday School stuff again (while Mr. is sleeping). Checking e-mails, reading some books, eating dinner...now I'm writing the blog and Mr. is teaching piano/bass.

This's my day...nothing exciting, nothing special, but relaxing and I enjoy it.
I hope I can spend my day like this everyday. But I'm sure this'll never happen. Because I still have my dream to pursue.

A Broken Heart

Everyone is broken, regardless of age, gender, social status, ethnicity...
The fact of being broken is actually a gift from God. The brokenness is so personal and unique that no other human beings suffers the same way as you suffer. That's why we find so hard to express our sympathy towards a broken heart. Your brokenness simply resembles the uniqueness of yourself. Your brokenness is something that God has put in you. It's another way for God to say that you are the beloved creation of His and you are special.

Once we start to accept and appreciate our brokenness, I guess it's the time that we can truly accept and appreciate the uniqueness of others.

Love starts with self acceptance, agree?

A reflection on "Life of the Beloved" by Henri J.M. Nouwen