No single achievement worth remembering...

"There is not a single achievement worth remembering that isn't stained with the blood of diligence and etched with the scars of disappointment."

Imagining see this statement when you are half walked in the morning like me. I am completely awake.

Spiritual Warfare or attack by the devils

My sister called in tears asking for prayer for some sort of spiritual attack on her family.

I am now writing down from my own experience what I learned:

1. Devils will not fundamentally change anything. They can only touch the surface and make us annoyed. But after the process, what is good always is given to us by God

2. You will be feel like being loved, by strangers, by people not expect them to love you. God is every where.

3. In the even, bit by bit you are not afraid any more. You will be ready to take on more challenges in lives.

Do not focus on the matters that were seen, because they are transient. Focus on the matters unseen, as they will bring internal life.

Holy spirit will help us to understand and grow in the process.

Do you know who you are?

I read this in my daily routine:

The mature people are described as:

They know who they are...
they like who they are...
they are who they are.

They are real.

What you see on the outside, Matters?

Last Friday, it was our first time to join the home fellowship group in our church. It was in a big single family house in the prestigious school district.

We have seen the owner at the church before. The husband always dress with name brand shirts and the wife looks so young that you would never believe she has a son in college already. The house had a swinging pool, which was used for our church's baptism.

That's all I know about them. Happy, easy and fortunate life for them, I guessed.

During the gathering, in order for me and my husband to get to know them, everyone introduced their family and answered my questions, "How did they become Christian?" "Why haven't they give up God?"

I was shocked in a very profound way for what I heard. The owner of the house is a "blended" family, a second marriage for both husband and wife. They have five children in total. Both the husband and wife still work full time.

One middle son is born with autism. The youngest daughter is born with genetic defect, do not have the ability to regenerate blood, had bone marrow transfer when she was 3, now can not have any wounds or cuts, a simple infection can kill her right away...

Second marriage, five children, and autism, and ...
How do they even survive?

But they seem to be happy and grateful. There seems to be only one answer to this: God.

A good life vs an eternal life

Recently I found out most of the unhappiness I had is because things do not turn out as I had planned. I want things to be easy.

However God wants to give us eternal life. The resilience of life does not come that easy without any difficulty.

A good person

Ever since I am expecting, I start to collect baby items. Friends passed along a lot of items to me, including name brand clothes and shoes, which I would not buy. Surprisingly enough, these gifts are mostly from non-Christian friends. One drove 1 hour one-way to deliver his crib to us and another traveled internationally taking her one year old car seat to us. The first gift on the baby registry is from a non Christian friend too. Whereas my Christian friends, we used to pray, share together and I have given them baby gifts in the past, now seem not that interested including some have promised in the past.

Christianity does not seem to make people a better person. The worldly good people may have more "goodness" than Christians.

I start to agree with this.