Highlights of Life

This week, I’m able to spend sometime with my mother. She’s been giving me the royal treatment, cooking this wonderful chicken soup that is simply divine and hearty and warming right down to the tip of the toes. Heavenly….

And I feel so blessed. I know it’s the way she shows her love for me… by doing stuff for me… cooking and other motherly things… and I am thankful to God for the many blessings in my life. For simple pleasures like enjoying my mother’s cooking.

She’s been not feeling well lately. I have a suspicion that she may have had another stroke. She complains about not being able to use her right hand properly. And one of her front tooth broke last week, and she had it extracted (rather painfully too, I might add). Sometimes I feel so bad for her, but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do. My life is so busy with my own stuff these days, that I can’t seem to make the time to help her out too much. *sigh*… and that bothers me.

I sometimes feel like the time I have with my parents are limited… and it makes me want to be more selfish and grab more time with them as much as I can… while they are still able to spend time with me. That thought makes me feel rather down and a bit pressured these days. Or perhaps it’s the guilt of being so far away from them sometimes as well.

I am lucky to know that my parents loved me and still love me… and for that I am so deeply grateful. I know some people don’t know how much their parents love them (when they do) and miss out on many blessings that are available to them. I also know our family may not have been the ideal loving picture of the Brady Bunch family… dysfunctional and Asian all the way, but that’s OK… because each and every person and family is different. Despite our dysfunctionality, there was a love that my parents gave us, and as an adult today, I now know and appreciate very much.

I only hope that I can be as selfless as my mother was, as idealistic as my father was, as caring as my mother, and as prayerful as my dad was. It’s sad to realize that my parents are getting old and on in years, and it’s sad to see them looking so frail. Sometimes I wonder how did all this time pass, cause sometimes I still feel like a little kid around them… and yet now seeing them so fragile, I want to simply sweep them up into my arms and hug them and protect them. And that thought kind of makes me want to cry at their humanity and frailty. Ah… perhaps I’m getting too sentimental.

sigh.

I find it really interesting that there has recently been a flurry of reports in the media of people who have won the lottery.  People who were suddenly given millions and millions of dollars that they had only dreamed up of before.  Anyways, the documentary (?) by the tv company does a biography of these various instant millionaires, and how their lives turned out after becoming one of the fortunate few.  Unfortunately for them, their lives all end in tragedy or misery or divorce or suicide or drugs or lawsuits or any combination of the above.

Some of these folks are good church going people as well.  It’s baffling to me really.  How winning incredible sums of monies actually end up being a curse upon these peoples lives, and they end up being more miserable than when their life was poor and full of hardship.

Hmmm.  Food for thought.   I am sure there is a biblical proverb in there somewhere.  It’s just not coming to mind at the moment….

how blessed life is.  I just realized today as I looked at a friends photos of Africa, it struck me exactly how privileged we are to live in such a rich and wealthy country.   Although the photos were absolutely gorgeous, and it took your breath away, at the same time, you couldn’t help but cry out for the children in the pictures.  Walking around barefoot, in tattered clothing, following the tourists and mesmerized by the cameras, and unable to attend school, the photos were heart breaking.  Pictures of little girls doing their chores, and pictures of children asking for pens, the absolutely astounding level of poverty simply screamed out at you.  It was heart wrenching.  At the same time, all the children were full of smiles.

And here we are living in North America, with our stomachs full, with opportunity and wealth and blessings at every turn, and we take it all for granted… and forget what He has done for us.   How sad a picture it is… for the ones who want, and the ones who have.