I was very emotional. I didn't know I was going to be this moved... but I suppose my heart was very full and the mix of sentiments just overflowed.
This is what I shared...
--
So I
grew up going to church. Childhood memories include saying the
believers prayer with a VBS worker and receiving my first Bible, probably around five or six years old. I also have memories of my mom reading Bible stories from The Big Bible
for Little Eyes to my sister and I before bed and praying together. We used
to pray in Taiwanese …and for a while I thought God only understood Taiwanese. For
as long as I can remember, I accepted that God is real. I believed that He made
the universe and that He sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins. My
understanding was that if I believed that Jesus died for me then I would go to
heaven after I die. My prayers then went something like this, “Dear God, please help
me not get too nervous when I have to get up and speak in front of people and I
promise I’ll be good.” They also went something like this, “Dear God, sorry I yelled
at my sister and was mean, but good thing You know everything and You know that
I didn’t really mean it and good thing You are so loving and kind and will
forgive me.” It wasn’t until I went to college that I realized that I was
cheapening His grace and taking it for granted. This visual stuck with me. I am
like a little girl playing outside in the mud and before entering God’s
gigantic clean wonderful mansion, Jesus is at the front door with a towel, wiping
away my mud and dirt so I can enter into His Father’s house. At first, I am super
grateful, but with time, I start taking it for granted and it is as if I’m just
wiping my feet on Jesus, the doorway mat, before entering.
It was
in college that I realized that believing in Jesus is not just “hell insurance”
as Pastor Tom likes to call it… but if I truly love God I would naturally want
to please Him and do His will. But how would I know what God’s will is unless I
read His Word, the Holy Bible? When I was trying to share my faith with my
dorm mate I remember I could not answer a lot of his theological questions, yet
I would not waiver in my faith. He accused me of having blind faith. So I was motivated
to really dig in and know the Bible. My faith solidified and really grew those
four years in college. At the time, I was going to a very mission-minded
church, our pastor was Hudson James Taylor the IV, his great great grandfather
was the famous Hudson James Taylor, first missionary to China. At Urbana ’96, I
remember being so convicted about the great need for missionaries overseas that I stood
when they called for us to stand before God and others to commit to the
calling. I knew I was going into medicine and I imagined that I’d be a
physician living in a remote underserved area, helping folks physically and
sharing God’s Good News.
Well,
life does not always go the way one plans, even though I really thought my plan
was God’s plan. So due to a number of circumstances that I do not have time to
go into detail, here I am… a physician, trying to help folks physically and
share God’s Good News, here in Bucks County, wife, and mom of 4 kids. Now to be honest, it has not been easy. In fact, I tell folks that motherhood is the
hardest thing I’ve ever done my entire life! It is harder than medical school and harder than residency. It is not just hard physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually as well. Motherhood
shines a bright light on my own ugly sins that I always knew was there… but
didn’t know to this extent! Impatience… irritability… selfishness... rage. Countless
times, I'm battling thoughts in my head… and like Jesus in the desert, the only way
to counter these negatives is with His Truth from His Word. Even when I
don’t feel like believing in the truths, I have to choose to believe that what He says
is Truth so it must be true.
So when
I hear, “You are a no good sinner!” I have to remember Romans 8:1-2
“Therefore, there is now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus
the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law
of sin and death.”
When I
hear, “You will never change. You will always fall back to your same sins.”
I have
to hold on to and believe Philippians 1:6 “Being
confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to
completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
When I
hear, “You will lose this battle. Give
up!” I have to believe Romans 8:37-39 “No,
in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I
am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither
the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Growing
up in a Presbyterian Church I was baptized as an infant and before going off to
college, confirmed as an adult. I stood in front of my home church congregation
affirming my faith in Christ. When I got to college, and after that first year
of tremendous growth I remember asking my pastor whether I should get baptized again and dunked. He said it was not necessary for salvation and it was
up to me. I never did it because I didn’t think it was necessary. I figured I
already went in front of a church congregation, so technically already
testified. But something Pastor Tom said once in a sermon struck me. He said to get baptized because Jesus got
baptized. I decided ok, this is something I want to do. Since salvation didn’t
depend on it, I thought it would be more special and memorable if I did this
together with one of our kids, whoever gets baptized first. So I’m very pleased to be doing this today with Sierra, my oldest.
You
know, as I was preparing for this, I thought about all the different mental warfare I’ve had over these years… there are many, you heard some of them. One
struggle that occasionally comes up has to do with the Parable of the Sower. Some seeds get snatched by a bird or choked by thorns or fall on rocks
and have no root. How do I know that I’m the seed that falls on good soil? Boy, when that condemning voice gets loud, I can almost be convinced that I must not
be good soil and therefore doubt my calling to missions... doubt my calling be counted in God’s family. I realize that on this symbolic day, this act of going
under water and up again... from here on forward I can think back to this day and have
a concrete physical reminder of God’s Truth... that I have made this decision to
follow Jesus and I am forever His sheep.
Jesus
says in John 10:27-29 “My sheep listen to
my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal
life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My
Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them
out of my Father’s hand.”
So I’m
reminded to persevere. Philippians
3:12-14 “Not that I have already obtained
all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of
that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, 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.”
And
what about when I thought I was called to be a missionary somewhere
remote? Well… we’ll see… life isn't over
yet. At the
end of my life I want to be able to say like Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7-8 "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the
race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but
also to all who have longed for his appearing."
