Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: I SURRENDER ALL (to God) (don’t write about the song) (05/07/15)
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TITLE: Breaking Down Walls | Previous Challenge Entry
By Grace Teoxon
05/12/15 -
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Here’s this fortyish guy; Yang is Chinese. With his chinky eyes, longish beard, and his talk, we call him “Sage.” He said, “The first time I met you, I thought you fly like a bird. The second time I met you I saw the bird has a chain.”
A flitting image of an anklet in a bird hovered … . I was told in a youth camp that my father wished one of us will go into ministry. They looked at me, I looked at them and thought, “oh yeah, great but that’s not me.” Now here I am in the big city - struggling to belong. In this circle, I am thought to be a prude; with Christian friends, they think I’m way out.
So what’s the score? Half way in – half way out.
Being a Christian can be a shield to temptations, or so we thought. The glitzy world beckons so we backslide. It’s nothing new but we try to be nonchalant - it’s no big thing to worry about. Yes … with that teeny twinge of guilt. Who can forget all the churchy things and don’ts - “dress not too short; whose company? she smokes, think again.” I thought, “such a pain to be a Christian.”
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The pendulum swings - right left-right left. It kept on its routine. It didn’t stop on wrong tracks; any gaps just got lived down, raked flat to nothing, buried and refurbished but “newness” didn’t come. Despite the lack of a spiritual immersion, past Christian “highs” persists despite many “lows” - glimmers of beginnings cling.
The Lord so clings to His children. He doesn’t just drop us because we don’t measure up. Yet we grew less in love and more of fear. We lose the connection and drift to whatever calls the strongest. The flesh calls - unless and until we faced up to our humanness and seek Him, we lose sight of His love, forgiveness, and promises. It didn’t stick.
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A child was born with a bad heart. Frail but spirited, she kept her smiles through monthly bouts of colds and cough. Reaching 5 ½ years old, the doctor said, “she has to be operated on or else she won’t reach 7 years old.”
The knell sounded – an open heart surgery for my lovely child. It was a race – time, money, surgery appointment, no infections. During blood sampling, she kept still but with tears flowing, only asked me to hold her head close to mine. That was her security and mine. Now I’m seeing it – that comfort in God’s presence when we feel so helpless.
I walked along as she was wheeled, holding her hand. At the door, I held her face, kissed her, and with our eyes latched to each other as if for strength, we said our silent goodbyes. I followed with my eyes as she was wheeled away to a destiny only God knows. I turned blindly down the halls to a small garden. There my tears just flowed and for once, I let go. For the longest time, I hardly cried for myself, my troubles. I suppose I was one to keep a stony cold front. This time the walls broke down. I cried and prayed so desperately, “Lord please … we want her around … know her more, love her.”
How do minutes turn to hours? It just turns and turns and disappears in haze. All I know was at the end, I said, “Lord not our will but Your will be done.”
The operation lasted for about 5 hours. Later, we saw her through the glass panels of the recovery room - she had tubes attached to her chest. So frail and then she smiled – my brave little girl held her thumb up; a response, to my husband’s victory sign.
The little girl is now a grown lady. At dawn, I would find her singing softly in the dark outside the house – praising and praying. I tiptoed away silently.
I stand welcoming the dawn; another day to honor the gift of life. “Thank you Lord.”
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True
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The first couple of parts felt a bit... "chunky" to me. It didn't seem to flow as well as the last part.
I LOVE this last part about your daughter. I would have focused on that part for the whole entry. Maybe talk about how she learned to surrender all to God through it, or something like that.
You tell a great story about your daughter and your willingness to hold lightly thing things of this world.