Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Focus!

It's so easy to get distracted... take yesterday for example. On my way to work, I stopped to take some pictures of lovely gardens (I did it on my way back home too!), despite the possibility of me being late. Once at work, Jen and I were left with nothing to do until rounds - so we were recruited to help make sandwiches for High Tea, a surprise retirement party for a lady at work. Then, on my way to the gym after volunteering, I stopped by the soccer field because I recognized the "I <3 Camp" t-shirts. It didn't take long for me to find Steph and Victoria on the field.


We have officially switched kccf biblestudies to Tuesday nights instead of Fridays so that Pastor Lo from the local church can attend as well and guide us through some of the tough questions people have been asking. Fridays will then be just a social night - games, movies, food, etc. ...I'm not sure how much of this I can take - if I keep up with this schedule, I will see these people M,T, Th, F, Sat, Sun... Wednesdays will be my only break from them! yikes. But I digress...

Last night's bible study (Luke 9) was quite a reminder of where our focus should be - on Jesus. It's so easy to gloss over the fact that we are saved because Christ died for us to conquer death on our behalf. We confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, but more importantly we are called to declare Jesus as Lord of our lives as well.

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?"
Luke 9-23-25

We talked about denying ourselves, our human nature, taking up this cross and taking it up daily. It boiled down to the basis of choice - to wake up in each new day that is given to us and choose to put on Christ, to live life as Christ lived His. In missions, He asks us to put the worries of food, clothing and lodging aside and trust Him to provide (Luke 9:1-6) and exemplefies it with the feeding of the 5,000 (Luke 9:16). Wherever Jesus went, the crowds followed Him and He welcomed them with compassion. It seemed even in this miracle of multiplying 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish for 5000 men and their families, the lesson for the disciples wasn't that they can't - which they did acknowledge twice (Luke 9:12, 13b), but that God can.

Hearing of miracles that Jesus performed and empowered his disciples to also perform in His name, it's natural that people would look him up. It's like us students, right? If there's free stuff that's good, then we flock to it - and tell everyone else about it. "Free" is enough incentive; "food" puts the bounce in our step, and "healthcare" will probably drive us to actually look for Him earnestly in search for preservation of life. Yet again, we find that Jesus rebukes us for the wrong focus (Luke 9:38-41) - Is it not enough that Jesus was declared to be God's Son by the Father Himself, twice?! (Baptism by John the baptist; the transfiguration) In the transfiguration, he uses what I like to think of as "nevin's word" - "listen to him." (Luke 9:35b). So we've worked out that life isn't about what we can or cannot do. This section adds to the picture by saying that life isn't about what our humanity wants, it's not about the goods, but it's about what Jesus has to say to us.

Finally Jesus explains the cost of following Him (Luke 9:57-62) in what seems like very extreme descriptions. First he says that it'll be difficult - pursued by enemies, there may be no place to hide from the challenges (9:58). Second, there is a requirement of immediacy and dedication with no excuses for delay of action (9:60). Third, there is the challenge to look ahead - not in your personal space, look beyond, like you would when you are driving. Don't look behind to see your accomplishments or where you have come from while trying to move forward, because your eyes are to be fixated on Christ, or as Paul puts it, the prize.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 3:12-14

And so the challenge is to know that I can't serve God by my own strength, it is Christ who moves in our ministries. I can't strive for material or selfish gain, I need to listen to Christ who seems to at times be speaking into my seemingly deaf ear with a megaphone... and lastly, I can't be a fence sitter, because Christ calls us to His ministry like an army moving forward with full force [insert: imagine LOTR, Return of the King's last victorious battle scene], fixated on the prize and not looking back, that the paths we choose might be the ones He makes straight rather than the deceivingly crooked detours.
posted at 8:40 AM by Jo -

Saturday, June 27, 2009

"Where is your faith?" -Jesus, Luke 8:25

Time - it never ceases to amaze me how quickly it flies. My clinical placement midterm evaluation has already come and gone! I went home for Father's day weekend and had a really good time with family and friends. (Of course there are pictures to show...just scroll down!) There was even the smallest fraction of time to visit Uncle Wing who is recovering from quadruple cardiac bypass surgery. Through the ups and downs, I am continually reminded that grace with faith that allows us to see every storm or torrent with a hope beyond immediate gratification of the flesh.

Living arrangements - Steph, my housemate for the summer, is such a beautiful girl and so kind as well. Our schedules never really quite work out so I haven't had dinner with her at home since that first time a few weeks ago. We often end up chatting at the kitchen table while watching "late" night tv :) --> n.b. "late" as in 9-10pm-ish! One thing I love about Steph is her personality. Often, when she cannot explain certain emotions, like absolute amazement or sheer frustration, she will hold up her open hands, do a little stiffened jerk and open her eyes really wide with the appropriate expression on her face. It sounds like a strange description, but I think like all the other little quirks I have picked up over the years, this is one that might stick with me ;)

The connections with people are strange and I think this one is just plain cool: Steph is a really good friend of Victoria, whom she calls 'Tori', and who is the one who runs the Kingston Epilepsy's Homework Club for which I volunteer. Steph also went to highschool with a classmate of mine, Jen, with whom I am currently paired for my clinical placement. What a small world!

Fellowship with KCCF- I have had my share of concerns for the fellowship group in Kingston, and I am sure a few of you have heard them, too. Having grown so much in the Word with UWCCF and PT in Waterloo, coming to Kingston has made me realize the strength with which the UWCCFF brothers and sisters are grounded in Scripture and doctrine. The environment of uwccf allows people to challenge with and be challenged by difficult questions, to take those questions seriously instead of immediately writing the "unanswerable" questions off to "safe" and abstract answers filled with Christian jargon. Time and again, I have felt the KCCF group lacked this environment and promoted a very superficial understanding of the Word. I have been encouraged to share this with the leadership, but have cowarded in silence many times.

Yet last night, God showed me that despite my insufficiencies, He is faithful to His children and reminded me that I am such a small piece of the puzzle; that it's His hand that moves the world. All God did was place an inquisitive heart in the group that was not shy of asking the hard questions, not rushed away from analyzing the text, and definitely not afraid of challenging conventional thinking. The Holy Spirit is alive and real, and yesterday I saw just how alive and real He is!

Investments - Thursday night, I was asked if I have a hard time loving people. Although it was the truth, I felt ashamed to say, yes, I do - I would like to present myself as someone who gets along with everyone, is kind to everyone, and who tries to love unconditionally as I am called to do. Unfortunately, it's not true. I do struggle with loving people. Despite not feeling comfortable with the brothers and sisters in kccf since last August, I think God has met me at every turn to encourage me to keep up my resolution to give more than I take in the spiritual realm. I have "taken" and "eaten" so much during my years in Waterloo and now have been handed the perfect opportunity to "give" and "feed", a calling I had heard even before I took the plunge with Women's Cell a year ago. The summer in Kingston has pretty much forced me to step into kccf due to the summer break of other fellowships I had been attending...the age old story of "I ran, but God chased me anyway!"

So I have learned (re-learned?) another important lesson: comfort, fitting in, knowing what to say - none of those are requirements for allowing God to work within you! Even though I don't play football, crack dirty jokes, break out in random song, or play settlers, my resolve for the summer is to invest in the lives of these people who I know I am to love.





posted at 10:26 AM by Jo -

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Summer in Kingston

St. Mary's of the Lake (SMOL) Hospital Site is a rehab-focused hospital for patients emerging from acute care at Kingston General Hospital. During my clinical placement there, I am working with Jen, my classmate, and with Jenn, a physiotherapist dealing with stroke and acute brain injury in-patients. (yes there are a ton of Jenn/Jens there!) I managed to sneak a couple photos earlier this week while no one was in yet, but the photos do no justice for the size of the place.


Even though I am quite hesitant about how to handle patients, even just this first week is such an eye-opener! The patients are 'so cute' (my prof would kill me if I said that in front of her =P) and never for one minute do I get the chance to forget that these are people rather than just clients. Seeing these people and their condition puts me in awe again at the wonder of God's creation - this time not just the trees and flowers, but the intricacy of our bodies and our physiology. This week, I had the privilege of seeing a newly admitted patient who could not communicate verbally in extreme pain and has been lying in bed for the last month or so get out of his bedroom and into the physio environment, where he sat in a wheelchair, sat on the end of the bed, and even had the chance to stand. In standing, I could not help but notice the huge grin on this man's face - his eyes lit up in disbelief at what was happening, and the only thing he could mutter, over and over again, was "oh God, oh God!" Praise the Lord indeed.

There isn't much else I'm doing yet in the evenings... 'not much' as in not much homework! :) Don't worry about me, there is plenty to keep me occupied in the Spring and Summer...


posted at 5:05 PM by Jo -

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Done

That's it. Exams are overrrr :)
Back at home in TO for the week!
June 1st is the first day of clinical placement at St. Mary's :)
posted at 12:29 AM by Jo -

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Listen

My family is so cryptic. I don't think I will ever understand them.

People say my family is some sort of 'model' family - always happy, always reasonable, always calm. If you were ever in my shoes for a week, or even just a couple days, you would realize such a family does not and will never exist. I am sure my family is not the only one, though at this point I can only speak from my personal perspective. People might only see the bright side and never the 'other' side...and some of the few who have seen glimpses of the true 'us' never seem to understand that we are people who have feelings and sometimes just want to be left alone. Others are very genuine in their support and rebuke, for which I am thankful. Other times, there are some who go poking around into people's lives not to be kind but 'just to know', and it makes me want to just tell them to leave us alone. In the end, we will always hold our heads high with half a smile and attempt to gracefully push them away. The facade remains and, often, so does the pain.

Listening is something our family is very poor at. Extremely poor. I think we would fall off the scale, if there were a reliable, validated outcome measure for chinese families in Canada. It bewilders me how much our internal communication has broken down over the years, because less than a decade ago, I would have told anyone that I would give up anything and everything for these people. And that's how I believed it should be - family first.

In writing this, I realize that my idol was not a golden calf, not school, not a career, not people, not even material treasures, but it was my family. In trying to honour them in the best way I know how, I have lost sight of the fact that God is the one who I am trying to honour by honouring them; God truly is to be my one and only, a Father who disciplines, a Son who saves, and a Spirit who guides.
posted at 3:58 PM by Jo -