differences

July 26, 2005

two weeks ago, i was in the pool doing my normal swimming deal. i get in the pool and immediately noticed there was some really weird stuff floating around in the water. it looked like it was pieces of tissue—it was white, tissue-like looking. at first, i thought it was isolated, maybe just one section of the pool. that thought quickly faded as i swam around the pool. it really was a strange sight. i couldn't help but think about it while i swam. after all, i was swimming through it.

there's two strokes i tend to use when i swim: breast stroke and back crawl. breast stroke is my most common stroke. as i swam, i tried to avoid the floating stuff. since i didn't know what it was, i didn't want to swim into it. foreign things have a way of making me feel very uncomfortable. so the best thing i knew to do was avoiding it (or at least trying my best to). swimming laps eventually became more like an avoidance game. interestingly enough, when i used back crawl, i swam normally. though i knew the floating stuff was there, i couldn't see it, so there wasn't anything i could do to avoid it. i just plowed right through it as if everything was fine.

it took me a while to understand what this all meant. near the end of my swim, it suddenly became clear: i was merely being human. whenever humans encounter things that are different, foreign, our natural tendency is to avoid it. after all, we don't know how it may affect us, and if there's a potentiality for harm, we definitely don't want that. that's exactly what i did when i was swimming using breast stroke.

the problem is, a lot of us treat people the same way. when we meet people who are different from us (whether that be personality, ethnicity, etc.), what goes through our minds? most likely we'll feel uncomfortable. it's much harder to work with people who are different. maybe we'll want to avoid them. differences also creates these subconscious divisions between us and them. between me and you. we all do this.

while this is our natural tendency, i do not believe it to be the right approach to people, especially if we proclaim to love Jesus. what we need to do, is yes, recognize that we're different, but not to let that realization get in the way of the way we treat each other. this is what happened when i swam using back crawl. i knew the floating stuff was still there, yet i still swam through it.

one thing that i've been thinking about over the past while, was how we differentiate people as Christians and non-Christians. i've learnt in psychology how we tend to have these in-group biases towards people in our social groups. we tend to favour the people in our group and not favour the people outside that group. this manifests itself in a variety of different ways: we may see ourselves in a better light, we may stereotype them, we might act unfavourably toward the, to name a few. the real problem lies in the fact that most of us are unaware of these biases. this is dangerous. these biases influence the way we think and act. think about it. do you think about Christians and non-Christians in the same way? do you act the same towards them? do you have the same expectations from them? do you love them the same? i think if we're honest, some of our answers to these questions would be no. and while there is nothing inherently wrong with that, it is something that we need to be mindful of.

what would happen if we treated everyone in the same way? if we didn't let race, culture, language, gender, personality get in the way of how we chose to live and love? things would change. lives would be touched. let's put aside our differences and strive to love the way love was meant to be: free and unconditional.

rain delays

July 10, 2005

i watched the men's wimbledon championship match last sunday morning. it was a highly anticpated match between the first (roger federer) and second (andy roddick) seed players. roddick had a gruelling four set match the day before so it was understandable that his body didn't get a chance to rest much for the finals. federer, on the other hand, had at least one day off.

there was a noticeable difference in roddick's performance, granted he was playing against the number one player. roddick's serve is probably his deadliest weapon on the court. i remember watching him last year and being in awe of just how amazing his serve was. he reached something like 30 or 40 straights points on his serve—not an easy feat to accomplish. that's not to say he plays like that every match, but his service game is a force to be recokned with. this match was different. his first serve percentage was lower than average, his top speed for his first serve was lower than average, and he won a lot less points on serve. it seemed like the match would be over quickly. he had few opportunities to win games.

at the end of the second set, there was a rain delay. the commentators said that this would be a great time for roddick to get refocused and change his strategy. they were saying how there's not much his coach could say to make him play better physically, but rather, that he should say something to motivate him spiritually, emotionally and mentally. the rain delay only lasted for about 15 minutes before the match resumed.

when roddick stepped back onto the court, he was a new man. his game significantly improved, in all aspects: his service game was better, and he was making better shots, and smarter plays. the commentators noticed it too. unfortunately it wasn't enough to win the match. federer was simply too dominating, but that's besides the point.

what i took away from watching that was how necessary and vital taking breaks are. and that's the point of this entry. we live in a go-go-go society, where demands are high and time is short. we kill ourselves working as hard as we can to earn that extra dollar or to get to that higher position. we'll burn the midnight oil, sacrificing a few hours or maybe even a day or a few day's of sleep. we'll skip out on meals so we can push to hand in a report on time. we'll miss time with family/friends to attend night meetings. and while this mentality is true for corporate america, it's also true for so many of us living the day-to-day. we've somehow believed the lie that time is money. it's all about do, do, do. down time is wasted time. if you're not doing something, you're not getting anywhere. we believe that progress only comes from action.

that's the culture we live in. if you're a student, every summer you'll be hit with the same question, "what are you doing this summer?" for those who are working/studying/volunteering, there's no problem answering. but for those who haven't found jobs or who aren't planning on doing anything, shame or guilt may be the emotion that comes along with their answer. they may feel like they aren't being productive or simply wasting time. even for those who consciously decide to relax and take a break (like myself), the mounting pressure of needing to do something still remains.

if we continue down this road (that most of our western society travels down), our destination will be burn out/break down. sure, we might have achieved our goals/dreams or even earned that extra dollar, but at what expense? at what cost? let me ask you this. how are your relationships like? what's your health like? are there others parts of your life that have suffered? was it really worth it? if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. stress has a way of manifesting itself in the body, sometimes in very unpredictable ways. and if you're not careful, if you continue to live the high-paced, high-stress, no break lifestyle, you are a very likely candidate for a big crash.

we need to realize that sometimes the best thing we could do for ourselves and others is to simply rest, to take a break. in our busyness, we forget the much needed benefits that breaks provide. it seems backwards doesn't it? that in order to improve our efficiency, performance, focus, we do not engage in more work, but rather in less work, in that we take a break from it all. so how exactly does that work? what does a break give us?

1. a chance to refocus
more often that not, the best way to solve a problem is to step away from it, not to keep pushing at it. by continually doing something, we develop tunnel vision?we only see things in a certain way. we may even realize that we've been doing the wrong thing the entire time. maybe we didn't pay attention to our objective when we started off or as time passed, we simply loss sight of the goal. we need breaks to give us time to refocus on the right things. in our culture, it's so easy to be pulled by the things of this world. after all, we are bombarded with media messages and images every day to buy this or that, be this or that and do this or that. we need to step back and let God whisper over us what truly matters?Him. i wrote an entry about this called "losing focus" back in december 2004.

2. a chance to reenergize
you cannot give what you do not have. a common misconception lies in the fact that if we keep pushing ourselves, we'll be able to make our goals/deadlines. we think that staying up that extra hour or two is better than going to bed and waking up early. what we don't realize is that our body only has a set amount of energy. if we use up all that energy, our performance, efficiency and focus degrades, so what may have taken one hour to complete, now takes three hours to complete. reenergizing is also key in our relationships. when we are drained, we become ill-tempered: quick to react, quick to become angry. the people around us suffer. the more we push our bodies, the more drained we become. and if we don't recharge, we won't have many friends around us. who wants to spend time with people that snap at them all the time? how can we love others if we keep yelling at all the time? how can we reflect Christ like that? finally, we must remember that there is only so much we can do on our own strength. we are limited human beings. God is limitless. His strength knows no bounds. nothing is too hard or impossible for Him. God is the God of the possible. it's only through His strength that we can accomplish things that will really make a difference in this life.

3. a chance to restrategize
maybe our plans didn't work out the way we hoped for. perhaps we didn't account for life to happen. if we don't take the time to develop a new approach, we'll still go at it with our old strategy in mind. we'll always be in crisis mode. crisis mode is never a good place to be because you're reacting instead of anticipating and you're following instead of leading. you let life happen instead of taking it and making it yours. or maybe our plans did work out, but they weren't the best course of action to take. taking a break lets us evaluate where we're at and lets us make adjustments (if necessary) to where we want to go. at the same time, sometimes it's a blessing when our plans don't work the way we wanted. maybe we left God out of the picture and He's trying to get our attention. maybe God is trying to show us that He's got a much better plan in store for us that what we saw. God knows best. He knows the best way to go, the best way to about doing something.

Jesus always rested after He worked. after He fed the five thousand, He didn't stay around to chat, but instead, He went to a mountainside by Himself so that He could pray (see matt 14:13-23). if you think about it, after that miracle, Jesus could have stayed around and preached to the people. the Bible doesn't say the demographics of the crowd, whether or not they were all followers of Him. but i highly doubt that they were all believers. so why didn't He stay around and tell them about the wonderful love of God? He understood the importance of taking breaks and how necessary it was. i think He knew that sometimes the best thing to do is not work, but rest.

work will always be there. it's not going to suddenly disappear and take off. but people won't. circumstances won't. we won't. i've been on break ever since school finished. it's been a great time. i had a really hard time adjusting to it at first, thinking that i was wasting time. but i've really learnt to see how sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves and others is to take a break. and more importantly, sometimes our best service to God is not by doing, but by being, by sitting, by waiting, by resting at His feet and letting His gentle voice whisper over us.

like andy roddick, all of us could use some rain delays.

"come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" - matthew 11:28 [NIV]

frustrated

July 8, 2005

my 10 months of trying/being careful/lifestyle changes/discipline has been wiped away. gone like the wind. i did like the absolute dumbest thing on wednesday. i had an interview for synergy at ETCBC with tim. casey came over to go down with me. everything's normal right? so we get in the car and i back out, only to hit the car on our driveway. it was at a really slow speed, since i wasn't even using the gas. sure, it's a human thing to do and it could happen to anyone. but i've always been VERY cautious about driving, especially since i have fibromyalgia. my doctor said i couldn't afford to get hit again or else my recovery period would be a lot longer. ever since i started driving (16), my driving record has been flawless. i've never gotten a ticket, never hit anything and i've avoided a lot of potential accidents.

so why this? why now? i'm so frustrated with myself. i've been trying to hard, going to sleep early, waking up early so i can swim (just so i can reduce the pain level in my body), i eat better, i've changed my lifestyle (avoiding activities that i used to love doing), i've seen lots of different doctors, i've taken different pills/medication, i've tried alternative medicine... you name it, i've tried it. and just when things looked like it was turning around, i go and do this stupid thing. you know what the strange thing was? i was looking at my rear view mirror the whole time. it was as if the car had become invisible. i was so confused that on impact, i had thought someone in my family had driven into ME! maybe it's this brain fog that people with fm get. i don't know. i don't know what happened. i was cleaning up some of my boxes earlier that day and i came across some of eric's stuff. my mom says maybe i was thinking about eric when i backed out and so my mind was somewhere completely else. possibly. i was really sad seeing some of his old stuff.

immediately after the hit, the pain levels in my body sky-rocketed, probably triple/quadruple the pain i normally have. everything hurt like crazy and it still does. and to think, all i did was give the car a really small nudge. how ridiculous is that? i went to the doctor the next day and told her what happened. she said the pain i feel now will remain anywhere from six weeks to six months. casey was sitting right next to me and he was fine. that's because he's normal and i'm not. that's what my doc said.

i feel so broken. i feel like this old senior citizen trapped in a 20-something's body. i wake up every morning in pain—living is painful. i even look forward to heaven. i don't know how much more of this life i can bear. i think only now do i understand what my brother talked about. he always said that living his life was painful, and while it wasn't a physical manifestation, it was definitely something mental, emotional, spiritual for him. he tried everything under the sun to get better, but nothing ever worked for him. i try so hard, yet it doesn't amount to anything. do you know what it's like to try and try and try and never see any result?

i don't know what it's like to be normal anymore. everything i do seems to be counter-norm these days. why can't i be normal? why can't i just live a normal life like everyone else? why is my life always marked by suffering and pain? why is it that whenever i see a slight glimmer of hope, it is immediately irradiated by something incredibly overwhelming? why can't the devil just leave me alone?

people don't know how hard it is to have fibromyalgia and they'll even forget i have it. some doctors don't even believe it exists! sometimes i wish my condition was visible, because at least people would see it. almost 100% of the time, people treat me as if i was normal. i'm not. i can't do the things most people do. i can't do what i want to do. i feel so limited, so trapped within the confines of this body. i'm so helpless.

for those who don't really know me and can only see the actions i do, they might attribute it to me being lazy/selfish or something else. i'm too tired to explain everything. case in point, i remember early on when i started swimming (like in sept/oct), my hands were really weak, so my mom would have to open the doors for me. a member at the club walked by and made a comment how a person like me should be the one opening doors. thanks. do you think i really enjoy having other people serve me, especially when i feel like i should be serving them?

the other day, i was out for a fun synergy meeting. for some reasons, the three other girls in our group couldn't make it, so it was four guys and a girl. we went out for dinner and the restaurant was particularly cold. i've noticed that most restaurants tend to blast the A/C, so i brought a jacket to keep myself warm. i remember back in december when i almost froze to death, being exposed to the really cold air for maybe 5-10 seconds. knowing that, i didn't want to have another episode like that. the thing with my body is, the temperature fluctuates a lot. i can get really hot or really cold in a very short period of time. i think being cold is worse for my body, because the muscles are already stiff to begin with. more cold = more stiffness = more pain. the girl got pretty cold sitting the restaurant. the normal guy thing to do in a situation like that is offer your jacket right? and since i was the only guy wearing a jacket, i was the logical choice. i must admit, that i did want to offer my jacket, but i also didn't want to have more pain from being cold. so i didn't do anything. one of the guys was like "leo, give her your jacket." he didn't mean anything by it (so if you're reading this, i'm not knocking you at all man). some guys are really clueless and wouldn't know what to do in a situation like that so they need "encouragement" like that. but to me, it was like something i failed to do. like i didn't meet up to the expectations of being a guy.

i'm tired. i can't keep putting up with this. how long must i wait for the new day? how long before i see the silver linings in the clouds? i don't think i can do this anymore. i just want to throw in the towel, throw my hands up and give up. i want this all to go away.

but it's not about what i want. my life belongs to Christ and despite how hard and painful it is for me to be here, my spirit fights. it will not give in. the easiest thing for me to do now is to let myself be kicked while i'm down. it's ironic how i wrote the last entry entitled "i'm hit, i'm hit!" the same day i hit the car. i think God is trying to tell me something. i guess sometimes i think i've been hit so many times, that i won't be hit again. but it seems like i just get hit all the more when i'm down. the devil knows that when you are at your weakest, you are a very easy target. i feel like i'm always at my weakest. i don't know what God has planned for this life, but i think it's big because the devil seems to be trying awfully hard to take me out, to make me walk away from my faith, to abandon my God. that's not happening. all i have is my God. He's the only thing that i have in this life that is constant. He's the only hope that i have. and i will not let Him go, not now, not ever.

i stumbled across psalm 71 today and it really spoke to me. it was as if i was reading my own life story. i'll end with two passages that i found encouraging.

"though You have made me see troubles, many and bitter, You will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth You will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again" - psalm 71:20-21 [NIV]

"rescue me and deliver me in Your righteousness; turn Your ear to me and save me. Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go; give the command to save me, for You are my rock and my fortress" - psalm 71:2-3 [NIV]

i'm hit, i'm hit!

July 6, 2005

while i was at willowcreek, i noticed that i had developed a weird rash thing on my body. it was a pretty big concern to me because i had no idea what it was. when i got back from willow, i looked it up on the internet. it seemed like i had gotten folliculitis for the second time. the first time i got folliculitis, it was from going to the barber and getting my hair cut. this time, it was from sitting in the hot tub—known as hot tub folliculitis. apparently when you sit in the hot tub, the heat opens up the pours and there's a chance that bacteria can be trapped in if the water isn't clean/hot enough.

i went to the doctor to confirm what it was and he said my self-diagnosis was right. he also said that there's nothing you can do to protect yourself against getting it either since it was the result of going to the hot tub on a daily basis. i found that to be pretty interesting.

i find it strange that Christians can walk around life thinking that just because they believe in God that they're somehow protect/shielded from any bad things. in reality, they aren't. in reality, they are more susceptible to bad things because they're in a spiritual war. Jesus Himself said there will be trouble in the world (see john 16:33). if you are a soldier in war, you are not spared from the danger that comes with it—you are not spared from pain, injury, loss and death. the longer you stay in the war, the more likely you will be hit. the closer you are to the front lines, the more likely you will be hit. if you are in the war for a long time and close to/at the front lines, your chances of getting hit are extremely high.

that's the everyday battle we're in, until Christ comes back/He takes us home. the more active, the more passionate you are for Christ, the closer you are to the front lines and the more you are a target of the enemy. since we're also in this battle for life, that means you are an even more susceptible target for the enemy. and eventually, somewhere down the road, you WILL get hit. it is the result of living the Christian life. there's nothing you can to avoid it, nothing you can do to protect yourself from getting hit (i do not mean that there isn't anything we can do to soften the blows, because there is. ephesians 6 talks about putting on our spiritual armor). it's just like going to the hot tub on a daily basis. the more often you go, and the longer you sit in there for, the higher your chances will be of getting hot tub folliculitis.

the devil hates us. he does everything in his power to take us down. he comes to kill, steal and destroy (see john 10:10). when we do the work of God, that gives the devil all the more reason to attack. he wants to thwart the church. he wants to thwart the efforts of advancing the Kingdom of God, because that means the kingdom of darkness gets smaller. this is a battle of epic proportions. but in Christ, the victory is ours. He has conquered satan on the Cross and as a result, the devil has no authority over us. while the battle is long, and the fight will be gruesome, the devil's plans will ultimately fail.

prepare yourself. memorize Scripture. know the promises of God inside out. make sure you've got some comrades who will watch your back. pray. be ready. and above all, cling to Christ. we're in this for the long haul.

"be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong" - 1 cor 16:13 [NIV]

"fight the good fight of the faith. take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses" - 1 timothy 6:12 [NIV]