Food for Our Souls

My dad could have been a musician.

But growing up in Hong Kong, he was cooking for his family by the time he was twelve and supporting himself through college. As an adult, he still had a desire to learn the piano and study music theory (and for the longest time, we had two old violins that moved with us from house to house), but he never found the time.

My mom too could have been a musician.

I would hear her singing as she worked in the kitchen, her soprano voice ringing through the house. But her father was a portrait photographer who worked out of his family's small apartment, and her mom was an illiterate child-bride, so my mom relied on scholarships just to get through school.

It was through the church that my parents found an outlet for their love of music. They both became Christians in high school, and singing hymns was the perfect way for their hearts to express the musical joy that they had always felt. And when my sister and I came along, my parents made it a priority to buy a piano and find us piano teachers.

Today, I'm a piano teacher and music teacher. If not for my music teachers when I was young, I may not have had the chance to develop my skills. And I think often of my parents as children, and other children who are in situations like theirs. When I see my children (or anyone else's children) sing and dance on stage and I see the pure joy and the free innocence on their faces, my eyes always fill with tears. I know that this is what heaven will be like. And I want to give ALL children that bit of heaven on earth.

Music and the arts may not be the most practical skill, but I have learned from our "Covid" season that though we may look to science and medicine to heal our bodies, we must look to the arts to heal our souls. Music is one of the signs that we are more than robots and machinery; simply putting food in us and fighting off disease is not enough to keep humans alive–we need beauty to thrive! More than that, God gave us the wondrous gift of music, and music is a gift we can give back to God! The Bible is full of verses that say "sing to the Lord" and "make music to the Lord"!

So think of ways that you can grow the next generation of artists and musicians. You don't need to be an award-winning professional. You just need to have the love and the desire to pass on this love. Support the arts by attending youth events or donating to non-profits like Christian Youth Theater (shameless plug here: CYT Tri-valley). Ask the young painters, singers, writers, and dancers in your life about what they do. Remember, the arts are more than extracurricular or "just a hobby" or steps towards a job or career. Music and the arts are essential to our beings; they are food and medicine for our souls!

No Words

"Aaaaaaaargh!"

Sometimes there are no words for how you are feeling.

On Thursday, I wanted to raise my eyes to the heavens and scream.

I wanted to ask God, "Why?!?!?!? Why did she get cancer??!??! Why couldn't You heal her???!!"

Because it hurts. It hurts again. Another friend has passed away after months of praying. I just want to know why.

God says He cares for the sparrows. But I've found baby sparrows dead, fallen from the nest, too late for me to save them. And it happens again and again.

And this happens again and again. Another friend has lost a daughter. Another friend has lost a wife. In two and half years, I've said good-bye to six friends, three of them to cancer.

And I have no words.

It's hard to praise God at times like this. I admit it. I praise Him through gritted teeth and streaming tears, like an angry child who doesn't understand but won't argue the fact that his parent loves him. 

So I keeping praising Him–for what He knows that I don't know, and what He can see that I can't see.

The finite human mind cannot reach into the recesses into the infinitely transcendent mind of God. But the end of understanding does not mean the end of trust or love or obedience. ~Gregory Floyd

If you are grieving right now, for whatever reason, know that it's okay to tell God how you feel. Or, if you don't have the words, just raise your eyes to the heavens and scream. I'm not going to try to explain grief, or suffering, or God's will, but if you would like to read more, I recommend C.S. Lewis's book "A Grief Observed." If someone you know is grieving, I recommend Nancy Guthrie's book "What Grieving People Wish You Knew about What Really Helps".

God and Dishes

When I was a young teen, I suddenly decided one day to wash the dishes for my mom while she was out (this was in the day before we had a dishwasher). Surprisingly, I had never washed the dishes before. My parents never taught me, or made me.

But this one day, when I saw the dishes piled in the kitchen sink, I thought it would be a nice surprise for my mom. Most likely I was prompted by a recent Sunday school lesson, something about "honoring your parents." So I did my best to wash everything and put it in the drying rack, then I waited for my mom to come home and notice.

It didn't take long for her to spot the clean dishes. 

I waited for her to come and ask me about them, which she did. But when I told her that I had washed them for her, she didn't say "thank you" as I expected her to. She said, "They're still greasy. You didn't do it right."

And I didn't wash dishes for my mom for a long time after that.

This was the memory that suddenly popped into my head as I washed the dishes this morning. I don't know why. But I see a two-fold lesson here:

1) Praise a child for doing right. There are times when quality matters, but what is more important is that the child is choosing to obey, to take initiative, or to make the attempt at something that is difficult. Rather than focusing on how well the child did the job, praise him/her for doing it to the best of his/her ability.

2) Our Father in heaven loves it when we obey Him. We hesitate because we worry about failing, but God asks us to take the first step in obedience, and He promises to guide us the rest of the way. He is the perfect Father, and He never criticizes us for not doing a good-enough job. Rather, He's the Father who asks you to do the dishes, then stands with you at the sink, gets His hands dirty, and cleans three plates for every spoon you clean (and the rest of the kitchen besides!)

Be That Role Model

I stood at the front of the room, eighteen pairs of teenage eyes looking at me. I was teaching a singing class, but I wanted to share something with my singers before we even opened our mouths.

I started telling them about how I started singing in high school, with no previous experience at all, how I learned all I could along the way, dealt with the disappointment of not making the top choir, but going on to college to study music and to keep singing. My hope was to encourage those who didn't feel like they were great singers.

I wish I could say that a student or two came to me after class and said, "Thank you so much for sharing that!" but none did. But I knew that if I had heard someone tell a story like that when I was in high school, I would have felt better about myself (and not have the courage to tell the person so.) That person would have become my role model for sure.

You have a story to tell, and you never know who might need to hear it. YOU can be the role model for someone who simply needs to know that someone has gone through similar experiences. For someone who is still on the journey, you are the one he/she sees further down the road, and it is so encouraging and so helpful for all of us to know that we are not traveling alone. 

So share your story; be that role model for someone.

The Joy of Rising With the Sun

Something magical happens around six in the morning at my house. Color slowly seeps into the world again. Blacks and grays become blue, greens, and reds. What was invisible becomes visible. And the day is reborn.

I never appreciated this time when I was younger. I was a self-proclaimed night owl who loved sleep too much. I greeted 7:30am with a groan. 

Then I became a mom. And I started greeting all hours with a groan. Morning always came too soon and I rarely woke with a cheerful attitude. If I couldn't roll over and bury myself under a pillow, I grudgingly forced myself out of bed. I wasn't thinking about the rebirth of the world; my mind was already running through my long to-do list for the day.

So what changed for me?

Two things:

My early-bird husband somehow convinced me to start walking with him early in the morning. 

"If we wake up before the kids, we can go out for a walk, just the two of us!" he said.

"Before the kids?!" I replied. "At like... 6am?!"

"Yeah! Then we can get some exercise, get some time together, start off our day right!"

I can't tell you how many times we had this conversation before I finally said yes. And when we finally started getting up at 6am, I grumbled for a full week, because it was cold and I really loved my warm bed. But after a week of grumbling, I began to notice things: the neighbors' beautiful flowers, the morning's stillness, the early sun's lovely pale light, the birds eagerly looking for breakfast. The kickstart also gave me more energy in the morning. I wasn't moving at half-speed for half the morning. And of course, the extra time for uninterrupted conversation with my husband was a bonus! I started looking forward to rising with the sun.

For several weeks, we remained consistent in walking, Monday through Saturday. And then, just as we were making a habit of it, we couldn't go out because of the poor air quality from local fires. Then there was illness. Then the winter cold and rain. Then, it was simply getting-comfortable-with-sleeping-in-again. Before I knew it, I was groaning and moaning at 7:30am like before. I didn't know what I was missing until we went camping in July.

The Klamath area where we camped is full of redwoods, beaches, blackberries, and fog... my perfect environment. But camping also meant wildlife is right outside. Every morning, around 5:30am, a crow would sit in the tree directly above our tent and caw repeatedly. Then the sunlight would start coming through the tent. Then a child would wake up and need to go to the bathroom.

And it was on one of these early morning bathroom trips that I noticed how happy nature was even when I wasn't. While I was bleary-eyed and scowling, small song birds were chasing each other, chirping cheerfully like kids running a race. The flowers showed off their colors and the redwoods stretched to the sky. It was a new day, and they all knew it and greeted it with joy.

I decided to start a new habit: no more grumbling about my mornings.

When I came home, I told my friend Smreethi about my morning revelation, and shared with her three verses that I've put on my bathroom mirror.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. ~Psalm 118:24 ESV

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice! ~Phil 4:4 NIV

I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. ~Psalm 69:30

And Smreethi encouraged me with this verse:

Then I was constantly at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind. ~Proverbs 8:30-31

Just last week, I asked my husband if he would start walking with me in the morning. His answer was an enthusiastic "yes!" The next morning, I got up without a grumble. I put on my jacket and shoes and stepped out into the morning chill. The sun was just peeking over the rooftops and my morning glories were starting to wake. A bird greeted me, and I greeted it back. The day was reborn.