Jen Lee’s weekly update #20 (30 jun – 6 jul 2010)
Dear family and friends,
I’m writing this update from a room on the 7th floor of Metro Hotel Sydney Central. I am using the little netbook of my roommate Priscilla who is from my Singapore church, FCBC, the keyboard takes a bit of getting used to cuz it’s so small and cute, so this may well be a short update :)
I am here for the Hillsong conference – it’s been amazing so far. I can’t even begin to really describe what I have experienced since Monday night…it will take some reflection time to process, I think. But one thing that has stood out for me is a renewed sense in my heart of the Wonder and the Miracle of salvation – that Jesus was the lifesaver Ring that was thrown out to us, humanity drowning in our ability to know what is right but having no power to do it.
This IS the Gospel, the good news that is oh so good, but we can sometimes forget that. As speaker Ed Young said tonight (his sermon was full of puns, it made me appreciate my corniness – haha, I should nurture it in case I am ever called to preach :)) – the Ring is the Thing. And the Hope is the Rope. And we are to Pull so that the House will be Full :)
Haha, you can ask for my notes if you are curious to know what the whole sermon is about, but no I am not going to go into more detail here..but suffice to say that I am thankful for God’s refreshing in this area as I have been trying to reach out to the people around me in the past few years and I do sometimes wonder if it makes any difference. After hearing the stories in this conference, I know that it does make a difference, and even if it does not, I pray I will continue to share about the Light of my life, the Lover of my soul – Jesus.
On a more serious note, this conference, whose theme is Isaiah 61 (it begins: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, to preach good news to the poor…), is very timely because I needed to hear again God’s life-giving words. You see, last Wednesday night, I was suddenly confronted with news that two of my friends had died.
The first was Peter, a newsmaker I had interviewed for a story about locating his family after losing contact for 40 years. After his story got published in The New Paper, he was reunited with his family and we became friends. He came with me to church a couple times and those of you who were at my farewell party in February, he was there. Sadly, he died from heart disease about two months later in April. I didn’t know about this until Wednesday when I got a letter from his stepbrother telling me that Peter had fallen while taking a smoke break during breakfast, and just like that, he was gone. I had been printing out my updates every month or so to mail to Peter as he does not have email – that is how his stepbro got my address.
One of the last times I spoke face to face with Peter was when I prayed for him in church. I had sensed that his Heavenly Father God wanted to welcome him home, if he would invite Jesus into his heart. But Peter felt that he wanted to see if science could answer the questions of life and my pastor encouraged him to attend Alpha course, which explains the Christian faith to non-believers. Peter declined, saying that he needed to sort out some stuff in his life first, and I left it at that, thinking there would be a next time. Tragically, there wasn’t. I wish I could have told him that science can explain the hows of life (how do we get oxygen to keep us alive?) but it can’t explain the whys of life (Why are we alive?).
Sad as I was about Peter’s death – I knew that God was comforting me, even through the other thing that came in the mail – which was the birthday package from my Singapore church cellgroup. My birthday was in May, so it was very belated, but with God’s timing it was just perfect because the gifts and thoughts on the card cheered me up I also got a sister from my Brisbane lifegroup to pray for me, as well as my blood sister Jean.
But that was only the first death I was to learn about. After I spoke to my sister on Skype, I decided to look up some friends on Facebook or Google. Maybe I was nostalgic because I suddenly realised that friends can sometimes leave you very suddenly. That’s how I came across an online article that talked about how a very good friend in university, Sky, had taken his own life in 2007.
I was reeling as I read of how he had been doing really well in his PhD (getting published in prestigious journals even before he completed his studies etc), how he was admired for his humour and compassion, how he would hesitate to kill a fly but yet he killed himself, how no-one realised how low he was feeling, how he had a great relationship with his girlfriend and had talked about marriage. What happened? What went wrong?
The article said he had always been hard on himself, for not postponing school to take care of his mother when she was diagnosed with cancer just before he went to university. A year later, she died and those close to him said he always lived in regret. This could have contributed to his depressed state but in reality, only God knows.
Sky’s death hit me hard.
Maybe because we are the same age (Peter was in his 60s) and we worked close together in the environmental activist group where he was elected president and I was vice-president.
Maybe because I once liked him and he was the first guy I ever told my feelings to (he didn’t feel the same way but he was so mature about the whole thing that our friendship grew stronger after that).
Maybe because I felt guilty that I had not kept in touch and I had not told him about Jesus (during my university days, I had backslided and I hardly talked about faith matters) – maybe that could have helped, maybe not…I will never know.
I asked a few more people to pray for me online because I felt this could potentially cause me to become depressed…they told me to let myself grieve, that Jesus would comfort me. One of them asked me to read Psalm 23. Even as I cried, I sensed Jesus’ understanding – because He who did everything He can to give us life has His heart utterly broken each time someone chooses death. Also, He didn’t blame me for failing to tell Sky about Him.
It took me a few days to be able to talk about and read more about Sky without crying. The university he was at (Caltech) set up a memorial fund in his name, there is a blog for his friends to share photos and memories of him.
Maybe one day I will write an entry, about the times we had spent gathering petitions for environmental causes, about the salmon fish costume we painted and put on to send a message out on the importance of clean water…I remember little things like how his long black trench coat would flap in the wind when he cycled, the way he would dismount even before his bike came to a stop…But I also wish I had more to hold onto, like a recording of his voice, which had a slight raspy quality…or a photo of his clunky rain boots, or a video of the way he would pinch his little goatee when he was making a point…
For now, I pray that I will cherish the life that God has given me and the people that He has brought into my life.
To all of you reading this, if you ever, ever, feel like life is not worth living and you want to end it, please, please, give Jesus a chance to come into your heart.
He loves you so much that He went through death on the cross for you even though He lived a perfect sinless life, so that you can be in right standing with God without having to pay the penalty for your sins. This is Grace, the unmerited favour that God has freely given to us, at Jesus’ expense.
As someone who has gone through several rounds of depression, being diagnosed with having bipolar, I have felt suicidal more than once. By the grace of God, I am still here and I know that His love continues to heal and restore me. He has also placed me within caring communities who play a critical role in my well-being. God has no favourites – what He did for me, He wants to do for you too.
Amen.
Love-in-Christ,
Jen Lee
I’m writing this update from a room on the 7th floor of Metro Hotel Sydney Central. I am using the little netbook of my roommate Priscilla who is from my Singapore church, FCBC, the keyboard takes a bit of getting used to cuz it’s so small and cute, so this may well be a short update :)
I am here for the Hillsong conference – it’s been amazing so far. I can’t even begin to really describe what I have experienced since Monday night…it will take some reflection time to process, I think. But one thing that has stood out for me is a renewed sense in my heart of the Wonder and the Miracle of salvation – that Jesus was the lifesaver Ring that was thrown out to us, humanity drowning in our ability to know what is right but having no power to do it.
This IS the Gospel, the good news that is oh so good, but we can sometimes forget that. As speaker Ed Young said tonight (his sermon was full of puns, it made me appreciate my corniness – haha, I should nurture it in case I am ever called to preach :)) – the Ring is the Thing. And the Hope is the Rope. And we are to Pull so that the House will be Full :)
Haha, you can ask for my notes if you are curious to know what the whole sermon is about, but no I am not going to go into more detail here..but suffice to say that I am thankful for God’s refreshing in this area as I have been trying to reach out to the people around me in the past few years and I do sometimes wonder if it makes any difference. After hearing the stories in this conference, I know that it does make a difference, and even if it does not, I pray I will continue to share about the Light of my life, the Lover of my soul – Jesus.
On a more serious note, this conference, whose theme is Isaiah 61 (it begins: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, to preach good news to the poor…), is very timely because I needed to hear again God’s life-giving words. You see, last Wednesday night, I was suddenly confronted with news that two of my friends had died.
The first was Peter, a newsmaker I had interviewed for a story about locating his family after losing contact for 40 years. After his story got published in The New Paper, he was reunited with his family and we became friends. He came with me to church a couple times and those of you who were at my farewell party in February, he was there. Sadly, he died from heart disease about two months later in April. I didn’t know about this until Wednesday when I got a letter from his stepbrother telling me that Peter had fallen while taking a smoke break during breakfast, and just like that, he was gone. I had been printing out my updates every month or so to mail to Peter as he does not have email – that is how his stepbro got my address.
One of the last times I spoke face to face with Peter was when I prayed for him in church. I had sensed that his Heavenly Father God wanted to welcome him home, if he would invite Jesus into his heart. But Peter felt that he wanted to see if science could answer the questions of life and my pastor encouraged him to attend Alpha course, which explains the Christian faith to non-believers. Peter declined, saying that he needed to sort out some stuff in his life first, and I left it at that, thinking there would be a next time. Tragically, there wasn’t. I wish I could have told him that science can explain the hows of life (how do we get oxygen to keep us alive?) but it can’t explain the whys of life (Why are we alive?).
Sad as I was about Peter’s death – I knew that God was comforting me, even through the other thing that came in the mail – which was the birthday package from my Singapore church cellgroup. My birthday was in May, so it was very belated, but with God’s timing it was just perfect because the gifts and thoughts on the card cheered me up I also got a sister from my Brisbane lifegroup to pray for me, as well as my blood sister Jean.
But that was only the first death I was to learn about. After I spoke to my sister on Skype, I decided to look up some friends on Facebook or Google. Maybe I was nostalgic because I suddenly realised that friends can sometimes leave you very suddenly. That’s how I came across an online article that talked about how a very good friend in university, Sky, had taken his own life in 2007.
I was reeling as I read of how he had been doing really well in his PhD (getting published in prestigious journals even before he completed his studies etc), how he was admired for his humour and compassion, how he would hesitate to kill a fly but yet he killed himself, how no-one realised how low he was feeling, how he had a great relationship with his girlfriend and had talked about marriage. What happened? What went wrong?
The article said he had always been hard on himself, for not postponing school to take care of his mother when she was diagnosed with cancer just before he went to university. A year later, she died and those close to him said he always lived in regret. This could have contributed to his depressed state but in reality, only God knows.
Sky’s death hit me hard.
Maybe because we are the same age (Peter was in his 60s) and we worked close together in the environmental activist group where he was elected president and I was vice-president.
Maybe because I once liked him and he was the first guy I ever told my feelings to (he didn’t feel the same way but he was so mature about the whole thing that our friendship grew stronger after that).
Maybe because I felt guilty that I had not kept in touch and I had not told him about Jesus (during my university days, I had backslided and I hardly talked about faith matters) – maybe that could have helped, maybe not…I will never know.
I asked a few more people to pray for me online because I felt this could potentially cause me to become depressed…they told me to let myself grieve, that Jesus would comfort me. One of them asked me to read Psalm 23. Even as I cried, I sensed Jesus’ understanding – because He who did everything He can to give us life has His heart utterly broken each time someone chooses death. Also, He didn’t blame me for failing to tell Sky about Him.
It took me a few days to be able to talk about and read more about Sky without crying. The university he was at (Caltech) set up a memorial fund in his name, there is a blog for his friends to share photos and memories of him.
Maybe one day I will write an entry, about the times we had spent gathering petitions for environmental causes, about the salmon fish costume we painted and put on to send a message out on the importance of clean water…I remember little things like how his long black trench coat would flap in the wind when he cycled, the way he would dismount even before his bike came to a stop…But I also wish I had more to hold onto, like a recording of his voice, which had a slight raspy quality…or a photo of his clunky rain boots, or a video of the way he would pinch his little goatee when he was making a point…
For now, I pray that I will cherish the life that God has given me and the people that He has brought into my life.
To all of you reading this, if you ever, ever, feel like life is not worth living and you want to end it, please, please, give Jesus a chance to come into your heart.
He loves you so much that He went through death on the cross for you even though He lived a perfect sinless life, so that you can be in right standing with God without having to pay the penalty for your sins. This is Grace, the unmerited favour that God has freely given to us, at Jesus’ expense.
As someone who has gone through several rounds of depression, being diagnosed with having bipolar, I have felt suicidal more than once. By the grace of God, I am still here and I know that His love continues to heal and restore me. He has also placed me within caring communities who play a critical role in my well-being. God has no favourites – what He did for me, He wants to do for you too.
Amen.
Love-in-Christ,
Jen Lee
posted by thejenlee at 5:44 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home