His presence is our reward

A few months ago Nancy Southern gave a sermon. One thing she said that stood out to me was, "His presence is our reward." I can't remember the topic of the sermon, but that one thing stood out. Soon after that, we had a miscarriage. Both Grace and I were struggling through this period. We had a pre-term birth earlier in the year and now a miscarriage. We felt God was not actively listening to our prayers and intervening in our life. It seemed like things were just taking a natural course. However, in the midst of these feelings, the thing that Nancy said was in the back of my mind ... His presence is our reward.

Grace and I were keeping our feelings to ourselves; we were not even talking to each other about it. One Friday a member in our small group had a pray request. They had a friend who had experienced untimely deaths in her family and were not able to have children. As a result of these experiences, they were struggling in their faith about God.

When they shared that prayer request, we shared with our small group that we were going through similar struggles. That Sunday our small group prayed for us. The week before I would wake up in the middle of the night, struggling with questions of why and asking God for His mercy in our life and for God to come and affirm and encourage us. After that prayer, God miraculously gave me His peace.

I think one thing that Satan wants us to do is isolate ourselves from the body of the Christ. When he does that he can do his work more effectively. When we share our struggles with the church and have the church pray, there is power in that to overcome.

A few weeks after a lady shared in our small group about "practicing the presence of God". How true! We need to actively seek God's face and His presence in our life for His presence is our reward.

Where's Jesus

This past Sun, we had a speaker who opened up the sermon with a passage from Luke:

Luke 2:42-45 (NIV) When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him.

Do we sometimes go about our life, doing ministry, thinking Jesus is with us, then all of the sudden we realize we've been doing it on our own. We lost Jesus along the way.

God with Us

This past Sun I went up for prayer with the ministry teams after service. I was feeling like I was missing intimacy with God amidst all the difficulties and conflict at work. The prayed one thing that really struck me: God is with me. In the midst of all we go through in life, God is with us. Emmanuel ... God is with us.

Finishing the race

Our small group leader, Paul, was praying for us as the Spirit led him. One thing that he prayed for me was: God's purposes for our life would be accomplished and that we wouldn't be tripped up along the way.

That really hit my heart b/c we have been praying for God to reveal His purposes for us and that his purposes for our life would be accomplished. I don't want to get off course by getting distracted with conflict at work or spiritual warfare causing conflict or dissension in our family and work life. Or a myriad of other things like our preoccupation of our own stuff we have to do keeping us from ministering to others or our distractions in the stock market and financial investments pre-occupying us and keeping us from seeking first the kingdom of God and being generous.

1 Cor 9:24-27 says: Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

At the end, I want to be able to say: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2 Tim 4:7

Same team

For Married couples
We're on the same team. I'm not against you, you're not against me. Why do we sometimes act like we're against each other.

Prayer

From Reagon Waggoner's sermon on 4/19/09:

• Goal of prayer is gaining more of Christ

• Prayer is coming to an all powerful God out of our need, not out of obligation (I must pray XX amount every day).

Things to pray for:
- Pray for relationships
- Pray for spiritual breakthrough
- Pray for protection against the strategies of the evil one

Hands and Feet of Christ

Our small group at the Vineyard Church have really been the hands and feet of Christ to us during this time. In the midst of all this, everybody was praying, calling and checking up on us, visiting us, and bringing us food. Everybody had work and kids, but in the midst of all they had to do, they ministered to us. Through them, we felt the love of Christ. We were doing life together and supporting each other through the tough times. This experience would have been exponentially more difficult to go through without our small group and the church there to support us.

Mix of Emotions

Losing Peter was a very sudden. We were half-way through the second trimester. We were half-expecting we might lose him in the first trimester, but didn't think anything like this would happen in the second trimester.

Grace was experiencing some bleeding on the Wed before New Year's. We called the doctor, but she didn't seem to think it was too serious and said you might have a couple episodes of that and to come in on Mon. We went in on Sat and she said we were dilated 5 cm and that we were going to lose our baby.

That first night in the hospital was the most difficult. Babies are not considered viable until 24 weeks gestation. We were at 21 1/2 weeks. We did not have any contractions, but part of the amniotic sac was already out of uterus. The doctors were saying its only a matter of time b4 Peter would be delivered and would not survive after wards. The doctor's wanted to induce labor, but we were not comfortable making that choice at the time b/c we felt like we were choosing life or death. At this point only a miracle could cause the sac to go back in the womb and close the cervix.

That night I was praying, "God if possible, take this cup away from me; not my will, but your will be done." I did not want to go through the pain and suffering of delivering our child, knowing we would lose him.

In an unexpected mix of emotions, I found myself overcome by grief, but at the same time saying, "thank you God" over and over.

Peter Gabriel Hsu

We will be having a service and burial for our beloved son Peter Gabriel Hsu on Fri afternoon, Jan 9th 2009. Grace was pregnant for 21 weeks 4 days when Peter was delivered. He weighed exactly 1 pound, and was 11.5inch long. He lived about 2 hours after birth.

We named Peter after Psalm 18:1-2:
I love you, O LORD, my strength.
The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Peter, in Greek is petra, which means rock. The Lord is my rock. Then we were looking for a Chinese middle name that meant strength. However, we couldn't find anything. While we struggled through this, Grace witnessed an angel twice the night before the delivery. Our son is the baby angel in the heaven right now; he came to the world, went to the heaven to be next to God and he is the purest of all. When Oliver thought about the name Gabriel, we both felt the name is so right for him. Later we looked up the meaning of Gabriel, which means God is my strength, which is what we haven been looking for all these time.

New Baby

Before Grace became a Christian, she once went to a fortune teller. The fortune teller said she was not suppose to have any children, but b/c of her husband, she would have one child.

Grace and I have been trying to get pregnant for a while, but were not able to. What the fortune teller had told her was weighing on her heart. I really felt led to have our small group pray over us and break this pronouncement/curse the fortune teller had put on us, for our God is greater than any fortune teller or evil spirit behind the fortune teller.

That same month we conceived and Grace was with child.