In Jeremiah 13, the prophet (Jeremiah) is told by God to take fine linen belt and to hide it in damp place by a river where it would become rotten and useless. The point was to graphically illustrate the broken relationship the people of Israel had with God. Eugene Patterson explains the passage like this:

Israel was the fine garment that God wanted to wear, but she wasn’t ready yet to be used for His purposes. She wanted to live an ordinary life first, so she wadded herself up and stuffed herself into the secure routines, separating herself from what God had at great cost purchased her for, but when that day comes, it will turn out that she is good for nothing. The beautiful moral life that she set aside for a more convenient day will turn out, when she picks it up, to be mildewed and moth-eaten. (From ‘Run with the Horses – A Quest for Life at its Best’)

Replace the word “Israel” with “Elim” and, well, that’s what has been going wrong with my life recently. But this isn’t all, the Lord says a little later in the passage: “…because you have forgotten me and trusted in false gods. I will pull up your skirts over your face and your shame may be seen – your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution! I have seen your detestable acts on the hills and in the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you be unclean?” (NIV)

It’s not just been a matter of getting lazy with quite time and filling up my schedule to the brim with ‘important’ things, but I had let these things become ‘false gods’ and I had become detestable in the eyes of God. It hit me that my thoughts and my actions (or lack of), and by repeatedly abandoning God’s calling, has made me no more reputable than if I had gone and sold myself on the streets of Amsterdam! Disgusting, moth-eaten, shameful. I wouldn’t do it in life, so why do it in my spiritual life? Our heavenly Father knows when we run from him, even when we’re so good at kidding ourselves into thinking that “I’ll do it tomorrow” or “this is enough effort”. At the end of the day, we’re just kidding ourselves into thinking we’re secure in what we do and that everything is OK when it isn’t, because in reality, the things we do are shameful…what’s worse is that subconsciously we may even know this and yet we carry on because what we do is comfortable and cosy.

Yesterday, I casually told a friend that I could never put up with a man who was constantly passive-aggressive in his attitude towards my work and my mistakes (in reference to my supervisor at work, who to be fair is actually a really nice guy), so today I guess I received my just deserts. I could almost hear the words being screamed at me from the page as I read them.

HOW LONG WILL YOU BE UNCLEAN?

These six small words for me conveyed both the anger and despair of a righteous father, but also, they seemed to say “when will you come back to me?”

Father, how can I come to you when I have done such shameful things in your eyes?

…and the answer always comes as this: because I have already redeemed you. Because you are mine since I made you and then paid for your bail so that you may come home to me again.

Father, I’m sorry…I love you too.

1 John 4:19 says “we love because he first loved us”, similarly, we live not because we deserve life (since the things we do are despicable and contrary to the purpose we were created for), but for the reason that we have been redeemed out of love; since by grace, Christ Jesus (being God) took the just punishment (being death) for our sins and in rising from the grave, he removed that debt so that it were as if our sins have never existed. We live because our lives are no longer our own but rather because we have something greater than ourselves to live for. I can return to the Lord because the awful things I have done, and thought about doing, because I have already been forgiven.

I’ve been hurt – part 2 (that which continues after part the first)

And where was God in amongst all of this? Well, right there beside me actually. It was in most private and miserable moments where I found Him.

I remember a time where I was so lost that I pleaded for God to reveal to me why I felt so bad; after all, I should be glad that my parents are not longer always so angst-ridden that they’re calling me up every hour to check where I am and to ensure that I wasn’t skipping meals. I should be proud of myself for being able to take the step to compromise, and appreciative of the fact that my folks care so much about me.

God spoke to me in such times, after a while, after I’d stopped pouring out my sorrows and complaints like the writer of Psalm 102. The depth of my hurt and pain is a reflection, albeit a poor one, of the hurt and pain felt by our Father and his desire to have a relationship with us. It shocked me to realise that whilst I was busy being miserable, God was hurting more, for me! The Maker of Heaven and Earth was hurting for me and waiting to turn back to Him.

I rediscovered that, for me at least, it is in my moments of vulnerability that God speaks strongest to and through me. 

In my preoccupation with my vulnerability and my problems, it seemed that I had become the one thing I had always thought it was against my nature to be: passive. I am not referring to the beautiful fragility and strength displayed by so many ‘church women’ or the energetic peacefulness exuded by content housewives. The passivity I saw in myself was more of the couch-potato, apathetic kind. When it comes to principles and important matters (other than studying as a rule), I’ve always like to think of myself as an active, passionate person (some who know me more closely may call this trait stubbornness). Imagine then, my shock when I found myself being so enervated in my faith – God as supposed to mean everything to me! Did I not sing and shout to testify as such during worship and to my Christian peers? Why then was I flinging my arms out like a small spoilt child who was too lazy to take any responsibility for herself? “Bless me, Lord…make me change (but please make the change easy and effortless)”

I had forgotten how to fight for the divine-given spiritual transformation of the self that comes from true passion and life in faith. I had become so bogged down in my so-called suffering and fixated on “letting go and giving it to God” that I had lost the urgency and drive to take action in faith.

I remember, about this time last year, I wrote about ‘active surrendering’; where I found myself constantly battling against my natural urge to do things my way, so I may conscientiously surrender to God’s will. Now, it seems, with my natural urge to fight for things switched off, the counter-instinct to dampen down this impulse lies redundant as well, which gives rise to my recent pathetic state.

I remember how I found joy in fighting for my faith, in clawing back that extra half an hour in the day so I may have some quite time before dinner (even though it was amongst manic exam revision); however, I also remember the peace I found when I first truly surrendered to His guidance. Perhaps the ideal spiritual condition and my aim ought to be the equilibrium of these two states?

Yet the question remains: HOW?!

Diary entry 22nd December 2008, Monday...sometime too early for sleep and too late for study...

"I like to think that I know where everything is in my room, what is contained within each overstuffed shoebox or wedged into each shelf. I see my room as being a fairly tidy place..."I am a very organised person", I tell myself. However, look at the room objectively and it's not difficult to see the trays of clutter dominating the desk, nor can you fail to notice the dust-coated stacks of paper that sit quietly at the sides of the room, round and under the table. The owner of these had obviously never returned to sort them or throw them away...some pieces of junk are so old that they have become permanent installations, for example, the files of past chinese workbooks under the desk (although the owner has long since become illiterate) and the large pieces of my 'art' propped behind doors (survivors from a purge of the cellar).

"Here and there lie trinkets and oddities, such as the furry puppet hanging off the wardrobe door, presumably I'd once put it there for decoration... and yet, the walls are devoid of decor. Perhaps the owner of the room doesn't want to express herself further beyond the small trivialities that hide behind the blackout curtains?

"My room lacks character on the whole. Clean up the mess, tidy the bookshelves and one is left with an anonymous room that could belong to any student. It just so happens to be a space inhabited by all manner junk I've accumulated in my life...however, an amassment of items from a person's life in a room cannot give a room character anymore than a collection of memories can constitute to personality or an identity. These are mere contributory factors of character, not the person itself. Maybe the question I am really asking here is: who am I?"

Hi, I'm Elim, I'm a medical student. I'm chinese and I play the piano... er, there are thousands of people out there who fit that description and I personally know at least one who would answer to the name as well. I am my parents' daughter and a sister...mere labels of my relations. I live in London...not really unique to me though. I am a Christian, a child of God...to be brutally honest, I'm still discovering what it means to wear those labels. How can I expect those around me understand or know me if I can't figure out who I am myself?

I am..

• a great procrastinator
• a person who loves rainbow sunsets, smiles from sharing a private joke with a friends, the smell after rain;
• someone who has learnt that it's OK to cry sometimes, and sometimes, it is ok to surrender;
• one who suffers from a lack of patience and a short temper;
• still learning,
• still improving.

I am..

• one who has been wronged and one who has wronged others
• someone who has hurt others and is hurting
• still needing to know that I am loved, worth fighting for

I am..

• a person who has faced personal trials, dark times, spiritual attacks;
• sometimes, still afraid

I am known by a God who loves me, who gave his life to save mine, despite everything I have done (..will do..), before I even knew I was in trouble. Even though I'm a mess, it's comforting that God knows who I am.