Mother's Day 5/5: We Rejoice and we Mourn.

Guest Blogger: Lynda Kong from Christ Church NYC.
Mother’s Day Talk: "The Paradox of Our Christian Identity."

On this Mother’s Day we rejoice and we mourn with women everywhere, with mothers, daughters, grandmothers, aunts, and nieces.

The NY Times website yesterday had a beautiful photo of a young mother in Myanmar. Here in the midst of the devastation of the cyclone, was a young mother caring for her baby, her hand was touching his arm, and her face was smiling and crying at the same time.

So we rejoice and we mourn with others, in just the right way, the way that our Lord Jesus Himself has done and continues to do for us.

Have you an comments?

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Pic by Le Papa Tanga. (not the NY Times Pic)

Mother's Day 4/5: So what do we do?

Guest Blogger: Lynda Kong (Our Women's Ministry Director).
Mother’s Day Talk: "The Paradox of Our Christian Identity."

So what do we do?

For those of us who tend to be easily discouraged, easily angered, losing in our battles frequently:

God calls us to see the steady, streaming light that His Spirit sends us, and to walk in it. Even if we feel as though we cannot walk, but that we can only crawl or even less, we can only sit, so long as we are facing towards God, that is evidence of His Spirit at work within us.

And even in our weakness, God calls us to look outside of ourselves and join our family members in bringing more beauty and joy and justice to our city and workplaces. This would be “faith in the minor key.”

For those of us who tend to be too much on the strong and confident side those of us who have the right answers and who might judge others, those of us who are afraid to show weakness on any level:

God calls us to recognize that we too are fundamentally in need of His fresh mercies every day, and in need of our family members who have much to offer us and teach us.

We need to ask God to show us how to listen better, how to be more patient with someone who’s different from us, how to lovingly walk together with someone who needs the right kind of strength from us. This right kind of strength is “faith in the major key.”

This is 4/5. Final post coming.

Feel free to comment. Let Lynda (and me) know your thoughts...

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Pic by acampm1.

Mother's Day 3/5: Faith in the Minor and Major Keys

Guest Blogger: Lynda Kong (Our Women's Ministry Director).
Mother’s Day Talk: "The Paradox of Our Christian Identity."

Our Christian life can also be a paradox – having two dimensions:

• On the one side is poverty of spirit, sense of need, fragility, personal guilt, sense of sin and suffering – what David Powlison calls ‘Faith in the Minor Key’.
• On the other side of the Christian life is vibrancy, boldness, strength, conviction, purpose, and vision – ‘Faith in the Major Key’.

It’s this wild identity where we experience both the fragility and struggle and the joy and confidence at the same time. Our lives don’t fall into neat and tidy categories, but rather, our lives are messy, broken, yet held very dearly by the living God Himself. So we are groping in darkness and yet also bathed with the continuous, streaming light of this living God.

We know some people who are too much on the fragile and discouraged side. We know other people who are too much on the strong and confident side. And yet, Jesus was both fragile and strong, and in just the right way.

And that’s what we’re meant to be, as we are united with Jesus in His death and resurrection life: We grieve over the brokenness in our lives, but we grieve with joy always, because we are in the gentle hands of a comforting God.

And we are exuberant and vibrantly bold, at the same time keenly sensitive to others who are suffering.

We do both, so that someone who’s struggling can walk in and be comfortable with us, and also someone who’s celebrating can walk in and be comfortable with us.

That’s what it means for us to live out our calling as being family members, called by God’s Spirit Himself.

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Pic by Danny.

Mother's Day 2/5: A Radically New Kind of Spiritual Family

Guest Blogger: Lynda Kong (Our Women's Ministry Director).
Mother’s Day Talk: "The Paradox of Our Christian Identity."

And the relationship that I have with her has many paradoxical elements as well:

There is a duty and obligation to care for one another, but it’s a duty that arises out of love; There are times of feeling distant, and yet a great joy and pleasure in being together; There is an inability to communicate well, because we don’t speak the same language, but also a desire to move towards knowing each other more deeply.

This kind of mother/daughter relationship is itself a picture of the kind of family relationship that we have with one another as Christians, because God has called us, in giving us the Spirit of His Son Jesus, into a radically new kind of spiritual family.

More to Come (This is 2/5 Posts)...

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Mother's Day 1/5: A Paradox of Weakness and Strength

Guest Blogger: Lynda Kong from Christ Church NYC.
Mother’s Day Talk: "The Paradox of Our Christian Identity."

Today is Mother’s Day (May 11), so I’d like to tell you a little about my mother, and then share some thoughts on the nature of our Christian life together.

My mother was raised in the rural village in Guangzhou, China, during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. When she was 15 years old, her father, who was an intellectual and the mayor of her village, was arrested by the Communists and taken to exile in Siberia. My mother practically never saw her father again.

She then met and married my father, and together they had four children. They brought us to New York City, when my mother was almost exactly the age that I am now, to start over in a foreign land, not speaking one word of English. And for the next 25 or so years, she worked in a garment factory, a sweatshop, near Canal Street, earning less than $20 a day.

She suffered through much fragility and anguish, with great physical frailty. But she did this with strength and endurance, always able to take care of the needs of the moment. Hers was a steady labor of love for me and my brother and sisters, as she held out the hope that our lives would be better than hers.

Now, while my mother is not yet a follower of Jesus, I have seen in her some Christian characteristics - fragility and suffering, courage and great joy.

Her life is a paradox of weakness and strength.

More to Come (This is 1/5 Posts)...

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Pic by Danpea.

Mother’s Day Talk: “The Paradox of Our Christian Identity”

Next week, I am going to have a Guest Blogger.

Her name is Lynda Kong, and she is the Women's Ministry Director at Christ Church NYC. She addressed our congregation on Mother's Day (May 11). My own mother was at church that morning, and found Lynda's message very moving and helpful. So I wanted you all to read it.

Here is the beginning to get you ready:

Today is Mother’s Day, so I’d like to tell you a little about my mother, and then share some thoughts on the nature of our Christian life together.

My mother was raised in the rural village in Guangzhou, China, during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. When she was 15 years old, her father, who was an intellectual and the mayor of her village, was arrested by the Communists and taken to exile in Siberia. My mother practically never saw her father again.

Would you like to read more?

Yes or No?

We begin in earnest next Monday.

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Pic of kids in Guangzhou in 2007. From Nico in China.