Beautiful Day

Friday, May 28, 2004

Ishmael

It's been a busy day yesterday. As usual, whenever I go to Hillsong women on Thursdays lately God will fill my spirit right up to the top. I had a full day,spiritually. It was loud and clear, heavy and strong. I wanted to write something, but by 2am I still hadn't got a chance and I was tired to think about words. I'm still too busy today, so I won't go into details now, maybe I'll write more about it later. But just a brief note.
I was having another psalm 51 experience. The spirit of repentance fell on me. I have been wondering somehow in the back of my mind why I've been having so much troubles in my walk of faith in the past year. And the Lord strongly convicted me that the promise that I received was from Him, just as the promise God had given to Abraham was right, but in my lack of wisdom and discerning, and pride, I've been creating Ishmaels. I only walked half way of the path of faith, and I mixed faith with the good intention of human heart and natural strength. By doing that, I actually created a platform for the enemy and I actually shoveled God out of the whole thing.
It's an intergrity issue. Good intentions and good deeds that look good are sin if it's not from the will of God. And if it's sin, it'll give the enemy a doorway and it'll produce wrong results.
So I repented. And I asked God to blow away whatever is chaff. I wanted to start all over again fresh.
Actually Ishmael means "God listens". It's a place of conviction and expression of mercy. If it's not for Ishmael, Abraham would probably have to wait another 25 years before he could figure it out and get it all right.
Well, it ends up not being that brief, I almost don't need to come back and write more details now. Hope it makes sense.
Must go, heaps of housework and packings to do today. I didn't even bother to take Ellie to school today, I just couldn't get out of bed, and neither could she.

As seen by Susan @ 9:46 AM

Monday, May 24, 2004

Getting ready to move

Finally we're moving this weekend. The new house looks glorious (well, at least to me).There's such a nice feeling to a brand new house. I took the kids there tonight to do some cleaning, the kids just loved it. Katie(20months now) hasn't been there much, or if she did, she only got to stay for a few minutes, as there was heavy dust, paint,etc. everywhere. Tonight it's the first time that she got to stay for a few hours, and she loved it. She was so excited. And the other two girls refused to leave by the time we needed to go.
So, needless to say, I've been quite busy and will still be busy for a while, packing and unpacking. We've got so much stuff. Sometimes I look at them and I just feel like fainting. Heaps of stuff that I just don't know what to do with them. Boxes and boxes and boxes of toys. When we used to live in Port Macquarie, we had a huge garage-workshop, which can park maybe 8 cars. But it was full of stuff that I couldn't even walk through it. Maybe that's just part of the deal of marrying a builder. Well, we have moved a few times since then, and we have dumped heaps of things. Still heaps to go.
Been really busy for the whole day, got home around 10pm, then bath the kids and put them to bed. Now I'm tired, but still quite excited. Can't wait till the weekend when we can finally sleep in the new house.

As seen by Susan @ 11:20 PM

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Autumn leaves

It's autumn here. Everywhere I go there's this stunning look of autumn leaves.
I love autumn leaves. I love that golden, picturesque look of the trees. I just love it. It's so beautiful to me.
It's interesting. When you think a bit more about the falling leaves, it should be a sad time: all the leaves are dying and perishing, and the cold winter's coming. But at this seemingly dying season, the nature gives the leaves a glorious sense of beauty. Nobody really feels sorry for those leaves(unless your super sentimental), as everyone knows it's just a season, and when spring comes, they'll come back: there's life in those trees, they look different in each seasons, the temporary falling doesn't mean they're dying.
This made me really appreciate the life that God has put in us. At times there're things that He takes away. At times we seem to be failing, withering. At times when you reason it, we could even look as if we're dead. But when there's life of God in us, these moments can actually be beautiful, like those glorious looks of autumn trees. When in the natural everything says,it's finished, in the spirit we know, it's just a season, and when spring comes back, things will be totally different. From the world point of view, we should be feeling sad and depressed, but in the spirit, we can just relax and enjoy the beauty of the "autumn leaves".
Autumn leaves are romantic to me. They always bring back beautiful memories. To me, it's a romantic season.

As seen by Susan @ 2:11 PM

Monday, May 17, 2004

Home

Home

This week's blogger idol topic is "Home".
There's this saying, "Home is where the heart is."
Funny sometimes while at home, I find myself mumbling,"I want to go home." My husband heard me sometimes and he just laughed. I remember I used to say that when I was at my parents' home while I was still a little girl. My mom used to laugh,too. But it's true: sometimes I'm right at home, but I still don't feel totally at home.
I guess deep down in my heart I'm yearning for an ultimate home. And I think God put that yearning and desire in my heart. It's my home in heaven.
I'm created and born for this purpose, to live in my heavenly home one day.
The house of my home will be a mansion, I don't have to have any complaints or any more wishes about the size, style, colour or structure of the house: it's designed just for me, and it will be just how I like it. It's the ultimate house with the utmost beauty. And I don't even have to worry about housework!
I will have lots of children. My natural children at the moment are like seeds, and by the time I go home these seeds will have become trees with more seeds and more trees and more fruits on the way. I will just enjoy the harvest that I'm sowing now.
I will be loved and treasured as much as love can be. And I will be free to love.
I will be living with my ultimate lover, Jesus, and my loving Father, what a life that could be!
Heaven is such a beautiful place. And it's my home!
"Home is where the heart is". My heart yearns for heaven, and only heaven can be my ultimate home.

As seen by Susan @ 7:43 PM

Friday, May 14, 2004

On giving

On Giving

Giving is a very good place for excercising Faith.
It's exactly like excercising in physical sense. Sometimes we feel like having some excercises and we just start out having a big "lump sum" amount of excercise on the first day.Then our bodies feel overwhelmingly tired and exhausted and then we just give up the whole idea of excercising. And the result is, it doesn't do much good to our health, either. The kind of excercise that will work is starting out on a very practical, bearable amount of excercise, but to keep it up on a consistent basis. When our muscles are strengthened during the process and got built up, then we can just stretch our excercise amount little by little. We can't expect to be a faith giant overnight. Faith grows by excercising on a consistent basis.
Another thing about giving is we should always give as if to the Lord. Sometimes it's easier to give to a good cause, for a good reason, to some good ministries or persons. But it can be a trap down the track. We should always keep our focus solely to the Lord, and nothing else. Don't worry about how other people are spending the money we give, they have to give their account to the Lord one day, but that's really not our business. When our hearts are right before the Lord, He'll richly reward us.

As seen by Susan @ 2:01 PM

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

A glimpse from Beijing

A very close friend of mine who's an American missionary just emailed me this letter, they had an "incident" a little while ago which result the following. I'd just copy his letter here:

If you remember as a result of the bust a few months ago Abbie was taken away from the family of five next door, in process of adopting her, they had her for a year. This was BIG!

Today we went to get her, me and the whole family...It had been about two months or so with no visiting privledges. It was extremely heavy. I was the first one to see her come through the door...she was absolutley gray, it seemed there was no life in her. She didn't know any of us and did not want to be with us, shaking her head no!...it was a total shock!! I was very scared for her! The kids were crying, the mom was crying. Finally the mom took her and held her, I started praying that the Holy Spirit would restore her to this family and they started singing some familiar songs from priviously. In about ten minutes she started responding...in 30min she was totally back!!! Whew!!

As they were all trying to deal with all this I noticed a little girl standing at the door way with one of the ladies...I went over and knelt down to speak to her, to touch her...she was one of the most beautiful little girls I've ever seen. I wanted to take her...she was so beautiful.I said a few things to her, she was a little older than Abbie..maybe she was three and a half, four. I then returned to the family I was with as they were signing papers.

Later as we all went into the hall way I saw this little girl again. She was smiling at us, it was then that I found out that her and Abbie had become close friends. This hit me so hard!! Abbie was coming with us, but she had to stay. I couldn't take it. I went out to my car and left. I sang and cried to Jesus alot of the way back to Beijing, its all up to Him. So many of these children. Its all from the fall. I hope to pray for this little girl the rest of my life. I will never see her again. I guess its good to be a basket case at the moment. I am glad I have these feelings!

Abbies home though and thats good! Its bitter sweet.

Love
????

As seen by Susan @ 7:14 AM

Thursday, May 06, 2004

Mother's day thoughts

Lately it seems to be the way that whenever I go to Hillsong women, God will drop a little message in my spirit during the worship time. (If I don't look around too much)
A lot of the posts that I've written lately were as a result of that.
Today at Hillsong women I actually had a topic for God to answer.(Usually He tells me what He wants to say).
Well, this weekend is the Mother's day, and I've been given so many little presents, art pieces from all of my 3 children that they've been working on in their schools, daycare and church children's services. So my question to God today was, what does motherhood really mean?
The Lord showed me in vision that it starts out like a little tender green sprout that just emerged from the soil. And that represents a child. Then the gardener waters it, looks after it, keeping the bugs away from it, and making sure that all the care that the little sprout needs is provided. Obviously the gardener is the mother. The mother can't make the sprout grow, but as she takes care of the sprout, the sprout grows. Then I see that sprout grows into a little plant, and from a tiny seed, it becomes a big leafy plant that bears lots and lots of fruit, and then the fruit drops seeds, multitudes of seeds, countless of seeds, and they drop into the ground, and they become plants as well. As time goes on, it produces a big harvest. And the seeds are multiplied, moving into all over the places.
And I feel the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit explaining to me, motherhood is like an investment. It seems for the moment a lot of meaningless chores, but if you just spend the time doing it properly, the little sprouts that's in your care will bring you a huge harvest that's beyond your wildest imagination into eternity. This is an investment that nobody can rob away. This is an investment into the kingdom of God, into eternity, and it will multiply and reproduce with a science that you can never fully understand. And one day in heaven when you looked back, you'd say,"I'm so happy that I had my children... what would I have lost if I didn't..."
People are all working crazily hard to invest in things like houses, share market, businesses and the like. But the return of these investment are very limited and can only remain in this world. But if you invest in raising children into the love of God, you're investing into eternity. Just think about Abraham, that seed he had (Isaac) had multiplied and multipled, and his descendants are like the sand of the seashore, and boy, hasn't he got a harvest in heaven!
This revelation has really blown me away. I start to realise how awesome and honorable and meaningful in being a mother.... as I'm in the process of producing a big harvest for eternity.

As seen by Susan @ 2:15 PM

Tuesday, May 04, 2004

Happy Birthday to Peter!!!

Today is my beloved husband's 50th birthday! We've been married for 8 years now and I'm still desperately in love with him. At 50 years of age he looks as young and healthy as ever. I wish I could put up a picture of his on my blog, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet(anyone would like to give me a tip?). But I do have a picture of mine in case your curious enough to have a look. Up until now, no one that he's got contact with has guessed his age right. Most people will say that he'll be at most in his thirty's. No one has even suggested 40 yet. Yesterday he went to a job, and the people at the job asked him, "so are you thirty?"
When I first met him, I was tricked by his look also, and when I finally found out, it was already too late. When we got married, he was 42, I remember when I was telling my friends about his age they sweared to me that I was just joking to them and they had no doubt that he was 24.
Well, the secret I think it's in his diet. He eats lots of fruit. He has fruits for lunch every day. For a while he went on a fast kind of diet, that he would only drink juice, fruit juice or vegetable juice, but no food at all. And he actually felt the healthiest and strongest than ever. He's a builder, and he's exposed to sun, heavy dust and harsh conditions all the time. Sometimes when he's with another guy at his age, he can actually look like a son.
If you ask him, he probably wouldn't agree that the secret is in the diet. I think he might say it's because of the Holy Spirit.

As seen by Susan @ 5:57 PM

Monday, May 03, 2004

Character -- -- Spirituality part II

Continuing with my post Spirituality, which is a few posts down, I was talking about how different spirits can affect us. Take an example of the spirit of drug, first it comes as a suggestion, then temptation, then you follow that suggestion and put it into action. And the spirit gained an access. Every time you give in to this spirit and do what it wants, which is to take a drug, the spirit gets a bit stronger. If you keep giving in without willfully stopping it, eventually this spirit gains a possesion. Then giving up the drugs becomes a big problem, and you become addicted. Now this is a bad one.
On the other way, it works the same with the Holy Spirit. But the difference is the Holy Spirit will not tempt us, or lie to us, but He will invite. It's actually probably harder to follow the invitation than the temptation. But every time we yield to the Holy Spirit and do what He wants, the Holy Spirit grows stronger in us. Well, the first time we need to invite Him to come, and He will if we ask. So every time we do something according to His will, we'd allow the Holy Spirit to gain more control over us. And eventually it won't be a struggle any more to do good, you just have to do His will, you become "addicted" to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit gains control over our will, and our character becomes like His.
And this process can be called the character building process.
A big difference is if you follow the bad spirit, you'll always be traded and accompanied with guilt and shame, but if you follow the Holy Spirit, you'll be rewarded with overflowing joy and greater annointing.

As seen by Susan @ 8:01 PM

Sunday, May 02, 2004

Miracles

There have been a lot of miracles lately in our lives. Well, not the big miracle miracles, but lots of little things. Enough to be thankful and truly amazed at how God's watching over me in everyday daily life.
Just for some examples, someone gave me two free adult tickets to go to wonderland. well, we already have yearly pass. So I was thinking who I can bless these tickets with(they're worth 100 dollars). It's not really much fun for only two adults, in my opinion, you need to go with kids. But too many kids can cost you a fortune as well. So eventually I thought about a family with two kids, one's under 4 who can be free, the other kid is Ellie's friend. They still have to pay for the child, which is 33 dollars. I was really wondering if it's a blessing or a burden to them. So I asked the Lord to help me(to feel better really). Then the night before they were going, round about 10pm someone out of the blue asked me if I want a free ticket to wonderland, I had a look, it was a child ticket! Is that a conincidence or what?!
Well, the next day I went to wonderland with another family. The mother put her jacket in the underbasket of my pusher and we went for a ride. By the time we got back, the jacket was gone. There's some small cash, flybuy card, and a pair of glasses in the pockets of the jacket. She was really worried, she said, I don't care about the money or even the flybuy card, but the glasses sure worth a lot of money and it's a lot of trouble to get a new pair. So silently I prayed to let her find the jacket again. It's obviously been stolen. I just felt she'd get it back and I kept comforting her that she'd find it in the office. We went to the office during the day, it wasn't there. But by the end of the day when we're about to leave, it was! She checked the pocket, the money's gone, but the glasses and the flybuy card still there! She was so relieved.
Then we have been a bit tight lately with money. Paying two rents, final payments for the house(carpet, etc), GST, rego,etc. Especially this week being the first week of the term, lots of tuition to pay(only dance costs nearly 600 dollars). During the week when I calculated, I really don't have any extra money to pay for the kids Chinese school, which is 220 dollars. But I really want them to go. Anyway, I somehow sensed in my spirit that it's going to be Ok. I don't know how it's going to work out, but I just know that it'll be alright. So Saturday morning I took the kids to the new Chinese school, they insist me paying first for the whole term. I tell them that I need to let the kids try out first, and if they don't like it, I won't force them to go for the whole term. (which happened just a couple months ago, they didn't like the school I took them before). They didn't want to agree, then a friend of mine's an organiser of the school, and she came along and helped me out by walking out without paying first. Well, the truth is, I didn't have the cash that morning. So I came home, trying to find some money, I sneaked in my husband's wallet, nothing there. And I was wondering what I was going to do if my kids do like the school. And randomly I thought, why not just check the bank account again(I checked earlier, and I'm not supposed to be paid again until the end of next week.) And to my big suprise and delight, there's this mysterious 210 dollars credit (social security money which is not a regular payment at all)deposited to my account. Isn't that amazing! And as a result, my kids loved that morning at the Chinese school and they just couldn't wait to go back next week.
I've been asking friends for boxes for house moving for a few months, and for different reasons I haven't got any. It's really time now that I need to get on with packing. And this week my husband went to a job, and this lady just gave him around 40 boxes of different sizes, and they're packing boxes, designed especially for housemoving!
Then again, this morning we went carpet hunting. We've been looking around for a little while, and we'd like it to be put down next week. So I asked the Lord, please help us find the right one today. It's been really a hassle, trying to decide what color, quality, and price we'd go for. And then the one and only shop we went, this carpet, with the perfect colour(you just know this is it when it's the right one), extra heavy duty 100% wool(feels really thick), with half the price that's the standard market price(we know, as we've been looking around). And we had no problem coming to an agreement right away! And we don't even have to wait for the order, the total amount for the whole house is available right there.
Isn't God amazing! It all happened this week. And there's still more.
By the way, the total amount of money for the new carpet of the new house is given to us as a gift, which is totally unexpected and much needed. We have actually been given the amount of money to buy carpet a while ago, but we spent it... And we're given again! Anyway we're moving in the end of this month, can't wait!

As seen by Susan @ 1:04 PM

You'd see Him everywhere!

"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matt 25:40)
This verse, together with the verse I quote in the last post, says in my understanding that you treat everyone around as if you treat the Lord. Whatever you do, for whoever you do, do it as if you're doing it for the Lord. In this case, you'd be serving the Lord in whatever you do, and you'd see Him everywhere!
Maybe that's difference between dating and marriage?
Dating is like a set time, a few activities, romance and kiss good bye until next time. But marriage is you see each other all the time, and more service and living life together. A shared life goal and varied responsibilities.

As seen by Susan @ 12:16 PM