Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: STRESSED - Begins January 18 / Ends January 25 (01/18/18)
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TITLE: Cleansed from the Stress Mess | Previous Challenge Entry
By Rebecca Lunn
01/25/18 -
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1984 was my year of feeling breathlessly pressed by stress. An elderly Canadian missionary had asked if my husband and I would pastor a Chinese church she had founded in Taipo, Hong Kong decades ago. The once vibrant village church had sadly dwindled down to just four ladies. We felt inspired and answered yes, sight unseen! When my husband and I arrived with our two young sons, we doubled the congregation. With no Chinese language to speak of, my Scottish husband then went to language school at Chinese University. Finances became tighter. On top of that, we moved house three times within a year. The unrelenting strain slowly strangled my heart; I cried out to God for relief. Out of the blue, an American missionary couple moved into a village house across from us. They had two boys who were nearly the same ages as my two boys! Smothering isolation and despondency lifted off from my heart like fly-away balloons.
Youth With a Mission (YWAM) heard about our little church and wanted to help. An all-white, English-speaking team of eight young adults came to teach a Christian pantomime to our all-Chinese youth group geared for a weekend of street outreach. The YWAM team would sleep on the church floor and we would take them out for meals.
Since the church budget was meager, I scanned the menu to order for the happy but hungry team. Chow Mein, Fried Rice, Tofu, Beef and Broccoli. One dish intrigued me; it was not pricey so I added “Eight-Treasures Rice” with the intention of asking the waiter what that meant. But the servers were swamped with diners and the big round platters of rice and noodles were scrumptious so I waited until I paid the bill to ask. The tired waiter beamed, “‘Eight Treasures’ is liver, tripe, kidney, uteri, intestine, tongue, heart and lung. Velly good fo’ you!”
My face paled as a tight knot retched its way up from my intestines to my stomach, then to my heart and tongue. I locked my jaw, clenched my teeth, and stiffened both lips to stop the queasy dismay from bursting forth, and smiled a frozen smile at the waiter.
“It’s offal! Yum!” my husband offered.
“It’s awful! Yuk!” I retorted.
Was this how Jewish Peter felt when he realized what God had ordered for his lunch? I can just see God flicking open a snowy white sheet from heaven like a fancy linen tablecloth. When the four corners of the sheet lowered then settled, a kosher Peter was mortified at the unsparing spread: rats, bats, owls, ravens, vultures, toads, snakes and swine; ad nauseam. A voice from heaven boomed. “Kill and eat! What I have cleaned and prepared for you, don’t call it unclean!”
Peter recoiled and resisted. “Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” Was God insensitive to Peter’s cultural upbringing? What was the logic for commanding conflicting orders? First, it was forbidden to eat those critters, now God gives an impossible directive to eat them; three times, no less. But Peter had been humbled by God’s grace so much that he defaulted to a posture of humility once again. Immediately, Peter came to appreciate that God had reserved a private table—the Lord’s Table—where sinners from the four corners of the world may obtain purification: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”
At once, I enumerated the untamed beasts and undesirable creepy crawlies that gnawed at me even as I served the Lord on the mission field: discouragement, resentment, discontent, self-pity, disagreeableness, fretfulness, heaviness, and weariness. Those were ‘Eight-Troubles’ that God wanted to clean off from the stressed-wrinkled tablecloth of my consecrated heart.
I have since discovered that no two “Eight-Treasures Rice” are alike. A Chinese New Year “Eight-Treasures Rice” is a dessert made with eight kinds of fruit, nuts, or candy. Steamed sticky rice is decorated with lotus seeds, goji berries, red dates, dried longnan, candied plums, candied orange peel, and candied winter-melon with a glob of sweet red bean paste hidden in the middle.
I have not tried the New Year “Eight Treasures Rice” yet. But I do enjoy extravagant portions of Fruit-of-the-Spirit throughout the year dining on the “Fine Nine”: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Happily, “all that is within me” blesses His Holy Name!
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I think you could have woven this entry together better by tying the introduction and conclusion together. You could mention something about the stress of encountering different kinds of food in your intro, or in the conclusion, mention how the lesson with the food helped you throughout the rest of that stressful year.
I loved the close!
Blessings~
Thank you. God Bless.
A few quick thoughts. First, you shouldn't start a sentence with a numeral; write it out or switch it up (In 1984). Another thing I noticed is you had a few exclamation points; instead let your words do your exclaiming. On that mindset, instead of using a lot of adverbs and adjectives, try what Jan calls salsa words. (Check out her lessons on forums). For example, I might edit it like this: In 1984, stress strangled my breath and left my heart poundingas my husband and I set off to pastor a church in Taipo, Hong Kong. The church membership had dwindled to only four ladies. It needed a shot of adrenaline in the form of us.
That's just a quick example to show ways of making it pop. You don't really need that extra background information (about the Canadian man asking you and who and when the church was started), which would leave you more word count to show your stress more by using thoughts (in italics), body language, and dialog.
You did have some great verbs like dwindled and strangled, so you have a great start on it. I liked the way you related it to the Bible message, but I'd encourage you to include the reference too. You definitely touched on the topic and this was a fresh and interesting read. I bet you have many great stories to share, and I'm eager to hear more of your adventures.