ORLANDO CHINESE CHURCH MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
MAY, 2000
Mother! Mother! Mother!
- Abraham was hospitalized. Despite of his young age, according to his mother, he vomited blood at night and it splashed all over the bathroom floor. Teresa was already physically weak due to the prolonged coughing and she could hardly speak. I comforted her, "Please do not worry too much, but take good care of yourself!" There was a moment of silence on the phone, then she broke into sob.
I went to visit Abraham in the ICU. Although he was lying in bed, I could tell that he has almost recovered. Like any 9-year-old, he was very energetic and restless, even asking his mother for pizza. After a long night and a long day of caring for her son, Teresa still had to answer his endless questions patiently and explain softly not to eat without doctor's permission. The diagnostic result showed that it was actually a bleeding from the nose back into the stomach to cause the vomiting. After the blood test was confirmed, they could go home. For the night she would just stay in the hospital with him. "It doesn't matter, let me lean on the chair and I will be fine." I looked at her shining eyes and remembered her tears. The words of comfort intended to come out were then shortened to a simple sigh: "Oh, mother!"
God's love is so wide, long, high and deep that it is beyond any description. A mother's heart can only compare to a small portion of what God's heart is. I Thessalonians 2:7 talks about God's love, "... gentle ... like a mother caring for her little children ... loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you ... our lives ... because you had become so dear to us."
- Last fall, I heard about an accident in our community: A high school student was killed by a car on the road while she was roller-skating to school. In their deep sorrow the parents brought this up to the state government and eventually made them agreed to put up warning signs to remind drivers to slow down at the student crossings.
Not until early this year, I finally learned that this student was still alive. After seven weeks of coma when the doctors were about to give up, she remained conscious. Since her limbs are still paralyzed and she is not able to talk, she is still receiving therapy in the hospital. I was even more shocked to find out that she was Michelle who lives 2 doors next to us (shame to me!)
When I first visited her, it was at night. Her father was sitting next to her and her mother was getting ready to go home. "Honey, I love you but your younger brother is at home and I have to work tomorrow." She kissed her goodbye but suddenly Michelle stared at her and started crying. It stopped her mother, "Honey, do you hate me?" She nodded. "You know we are trying our best. Your brother is only 4 years old and your grandmother can not take care of him. Also, I have a meeting at seven o'clock tomorrow morning." She cried even more. "Honey, you break my heart with that cry!" With her hands touching her daughter's forehead, mother said, "Look at all the wrinkles on your forehead. They hurt my heart." To comfort her daughter, she promised to bring her cat the next day. Then after another while, she was able to leave with tears still in her eyes.
I visited Michelle again one afternoon shortly after her scheduled daily physical therapy. She was totally engulfed by fatigue, laying on one side in her wheel chair. She looked at me with a trace of sorrow in her soft eyes. I gave her grandma, who was waiting in the room, some chocolate which Michelle likes. Then I started to massage her fingers which were not able to stretch.
On the other side, her grandma put away other empty chairs and pushed her seat to a corner. She then asked me to help back up Michelle's wheel chair in front of her. She locked the wheel chair and then slant her to rest on the chair cushion between her knees. Michelle was then rested on the bosom of her grandma. "I am 83 years old. I can not move her to her bed by myself. However it is too tired for her to drop her neck down like this. Therefore I put her in this position so her head can rest on my chest. We can wait till the nurses come to move her to the bed."
Visualizing this picture of Michelle, who was pretty but weak, lying in the old and wrinkled grandmother's bosom, stilled and quieted like a weaned child with its mother. A ripple started to spread in my heart ...
The lord Jesus said to Jerusalem, "how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings ..." (Matt. 23:37b)
The Lord wants to gather us into His bosom, so He can heal the broken-hearted and bandage the wounded. May we all see His wings, and come to hide inside Him to fully enjoy His love.
- "Xiao-mei had a baby"
While asking around for room 2313, the smiling face of Xiao-mei kept appearing in my mind thinking that nothing in this world would ever worry her.
When the door opened, I saw two young and fair faces crowded around a new baby face. While the new parents were still talking about the 16-hour labor pain that Xiao-mei just went through, the baby cried. The mother said, "Look, you made her cry!" It seemed like the little discomfort of the baby then was far more important than the pain that lasted for 16 hours. I quickly took over the baby from her father saying, "What a sweet baby! She looks exactly like her mom." However it did not stop the baby from crying nor calm the mother's anxiety. Finally we realized that her diaper was wet.
As the father put her down to change the diaper, the mother kept reminding him to be gentle and remember to clean her before putting a new one on. Before the new father could get her diaper changed, the baby got wet again and this time on the bed. The mother, forgetting all about her own pain, got up and called the nurse to ask for help ... The mother before my eyes, who cut her long hair for the delivery, seemed to have lost something, yet have gain something else!
Oh! Mother! Mother! Who made you looked so pale?
Why was Paul able to suffer the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish? He suffered for the sake of the Body of Christ to fill up what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions. So he could say, "I am again in the pains of childbirth" (Gal. 4:19)
Why was the Lord Jesus willing to give up His heaven honor to come as a man who was so disfigured and marred, and had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him? On the other hand, He was despised and rejected by men. He was a man of sorrow, and familiar with suffering. He even was led like a lamb to be slaughtered on the cross. Was this because of the burden of love in His heart? Because of this guilt offering, He will see His offspring and prolong His days.(Isa. 53) Pray that we can understand more of the affliction of Christ Jesus so that we can truly fulfill the loving will of God.
Fill Up What Is Lacking In Christ's Affliction
Many of us Mainland Chinese came to believe in the Lord after coming to America because we were attracted to the light and love of Christ we saw in the life of Christians. After one year or two, however, many gradually became distant to the church or even left church altogether. Once enthusiastic some gradually grow cold as they struggle to adjust to their changing spiritual environment(such as pastor change or church change due to job relocation) and as a result their spiritual growth and their services suffer.
This might seem like a problem of getting along with others, but in actuality it was due to the lack of an one to one relationship with the Lord. As a new Christian, we believed there is a God and Jesus is the Son of God; but our understanding of God is very little and limited to mostly head knowledge or secondhand spiritual experience. There is little or no experiencing God in our own life. We put our trust in God's vessels, God's blessings, or some feelings of peace and happiness, but not in Himself. One elderly brother once said: "The foundation of our faith is God and the source of our faith is the Scriptures." I have come to appreciate this statement more and more as time passes. The foundation of our faith is Christ Jesus, so is He the foundation of the church, "no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid"(1Cor. 3:11). If we differ even a little on this point and if our fellowship with the all powerful one and only true God is not based on the new life we receive from Jesus, we will surely be "blown and tossed by the wind"(Jas. 1:6). As soon as people or circumstances impact us negatively, we will drift apart from the Lord Jesus and the church which is His body.
Secondly, we must clearly understand how the church relates to our spiritual growth. We do not go to the church merely to hear a good sermon, nor merely to receive support and encouragement from others. We must realize that we too are vessels and we too should be useful to others. When we truly realize how long, wide, high , and deep the love of God is, and the abundance of His grace, and what treasure we have in our lowly jars of clay, the life of God within us will overflow to those we come into fellowship with. We will not leave the church because we do not like the sermons or because of the lack of love of brothers and sisters. Very often we undervalue the grace of God that has been bestowed on us; we mistakenly put the church or people between God and ourselves, hoping that through them we can further our fellowship with God. When it does not work out, the church losses its significance in our life.
Furthermore, we must be accurate in how we look at the situations when brothers and sisters do not agree. No one is perfect and very few can be totally submissive like our Lord Jesus. As long as we are in this flesh, we are always fighting against the Lordship of Jesus in our life and consequently missing out on the greatest and the highest truth---the Lord Jesus Himself. Inevitably, in certain matters we will not able to agree or see eye to eye. If God leads us to see that there is a weakness or cravity in the church, let us be the one to fill that weakness or cravity rather than using flesh against flesh. Do not put to waste God's grace and drift apart from God and the church. God's will in His church will not change and will always be fulfilled. God, however, leads each local church differently and furthermore, will lead each differently at different time. Regardless of what environment God puts us in, once we are clear that God wants us to attend a particular church, we should be open minded about the format or style of worship instead of paying attention to matters of people's backgrounds. What matters is the lesson God wants us to learn and our services to enable us to become mature and draw closer to Him.
Finally, we must return to the love of the Lord Jesus who demonstrated it on the cross. How much we comprehend the depth of this love determines how much we are able to manifest Christ in our life and in our service. Jesus, "who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped; but make himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death---even death on the cross!"(Phil. 2:6-8) He came "not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."(Mat. 20:28) Just before Jesus returned to the Father, He again emphasized the importance of selfless love by setting an example. "Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him."(Jn. 13:24-26) If anyone has decided to follow the Lord and be His disciples, he must be willing to suffer for the sake of others. May the Lord have mercy on us and raise up more disciples like Paul, who is willing to "fill up in (his) flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions"(Col. 1:24). (Bei)