And God said yes...

"For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ. And so through him the 'Amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come." ~2 Corinthians 1:20-22

The road of obedience is hard... but I've tasted and seen "what is to come" and I want to see more! Since the only way to see more, is to take this next step in obedience, I WILL do it. I know it will be possible because I will not be going alone, nor will I have to act in my own strength. Let's be honest, I ain't got no strength... it's all God. ALL GOD!

taking new steps forward...

so begins another month... august. I can't believe that July has already come and gone... I have already returned to Edmonton and come back to Hong Kong. What a trip!

Before I left, I think God had already started to change me. Before I left I wrote the following:

"I don't like where I am right now... so by the process of elimination, that only leaves me with once choice. I MUST keep going forward. Regardless of how scared I am, or how unwilling I am at times... it is the only choice that makes sense. It is the only path that is lit up... the only path has teeming with life and hope."

That is what I have been trying to do. To go forward with my life... which all started even before I left for Edmonton. In the last several weeks, I have been learning to step out in obedience, learning to follow God's still small voice, learning to sort out my own thoughts from the pulling of the Holy Spirit. The result? A joy and peace that can only come from God. An outcome that screams that the hand of God is over my life!

While in Edmonton, God allowed and created the platform for reconciliation. He allowed for me to complete the process of healing He has started in Hong Kong. It is now finished, the wall of anger, bitterness and hatred has been broken down. In it's ruins sprouts new life, new hope, and new friendship.

Back in Hong Kong, I've decided to apply the same principle to work. I'm so tired of where I am... so I took the plunge. Gonna give something else a try and see what happens. I've told some of you of certain openings elsewhere that I have been approached to think about. So I thought it about it this week.. as in I really thought about it. I've decided... why not. What's holding me back?!

Basically, the one thing that I have been learning is this: the smaller I become, the stronger I feel. The more I lay myself down, the more confidence I gain in God's hand over my life. I like to make excuses to get myself out of doing things I don't like... one of those things is stepping forward. I get myself into places or situations that I don't really like, but make up excuses for why I don't get myself out of them. Really, it was just out a fear of the unknown. Yet, as I stop making these excuses and stepping out, I am learning that there is nothing to fear when God is in control.

A time of change is coming in my life, I feel it, and I'm sooooo excited for what is coming. I have no clue as to what it will look like, but I'm very certain that it's gonna be beyond my wildest imagination anyways! So forget giving God the steering wheel, I'm abandoning ship altogether and jumping into God's ship instead.

the learning continues...

I think I'm learning that just because I've told THE story doesn't mean that I get to shut myself up and become a hermit... even though that is what I really want to do. I'm learning that just because I've shared doesn't mean that it's never going to haunt me ever again. I'm learning that just because God's used my story to encourage others doesn't mean that I don't need others to come along side me and encourage me in return.
Sharing what I thought was my deepest darkest secret has left me feeling rather naked and vulnerable. Except there are 3 things I can do from here... I can turn around and go back to where I came... which is in hiding with my shame and condemnation. I can stay where I am, scared outta my mind and feeling lost, or lastly, I can suck it all up, take God's hand and keep walking towards the promises He has spoken over my life.
I refuse to go back to that prison of lies. I don't like where I am right now... so by the process of elimination, that only leaves me with once choice. I MUST keep going forward. Regardless of how scared I am, or how unwilling I am at times... it is the only choice that makes sense. It is the only path that is lit up... the only path has teeming with life and hope.
The irony of it all at the moment, is the fact that I will be returning to Edmonton next week for a visit. I will be returning to the place where most of my pain and disappointment lie. To be honest (sorry to everyone at home..) but a place... where at this moment in my life, I really don't want to be in. HK is freedom, Edmonton is prison... but I know that I must go. I also know that I must go joyfully with God as my strength. He will go before me, He will go with me, and He will continue to be there after I leave.
I will not go back with my head low, but I will walk into that place with my head held high, my heart on my sleeve and the Spirit of God in me. I will not let my past dictate who I am, and I will not be a prisoner to my past. I'm not that person anymore, God's made sure of that. I will cling to my identity in Christ... and that alone is who I am. What God has given me, no one can take away!

The trap...

Lately, I've been feeling like a fly caught on fly paper. Alive... but stuck.

I knew that after sharing that God's work was not done. I knew that God still had more in store for me... and I also knew that my opening that door that my past was gonna come knocking. Yet, as the past comes knocking I find myself getting caught up in it. I'm starting to feel the weight of it once again... I don't like it, but I'm too proud to admit that I'm struggling.

I've fallen back into the trap... of lies from my past. I know I'm being pity... but maybe I need to throw this tantrum at God first. Maybe I need to tell Him how I really feel about all of this. Well... it sucks, and I don't think it's fair!

My head knowledge struggles with this.... because I KNOW God's ways are higher than my ways. I already know that HIS timing is better than my timing. I don't need the head knowledge, and the quoted Bible scriptures... thanks but no thanks. My head's already full of that... but the head knowledge is not helping the pain that is in my heart.

I am alive... because God already gave me a new heart... I just need to get rid of this fly paper which is pulling me down.. and pulling me back from all the promises God has for me.

Wow... I really had to.

So, everyone's been asking me how I feel... I think I've figured it out enough to put it into words. So here goes:

I feel like a little girl who just got everything she wanted for Christmas and so so much more! I feel so loved and I feel so blessed... and I'm just simply basking in how great God is. I feel so small but so privileged.

Do I really have to?!?!?

About a year ago, I wrote this:

This weekend, He taught me that I need to be patient. I need to let Him complete His process of fine-tuning, to let Him finish the cleaning out of all that displeases Him in my life. He came, put His arms around me and said "Hold up there, I'm not done yet, so I can't let you go out there. I need to stay put right where I've placed you, and trust me. I'll get you there when the time is right. But for now just chills right here and do what I've asked you to do."

Lately... God's been saying the opposite.
"If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" ~Esther 4:14

God's been telling me that it is time. I keep hearing that the time to break the silence has arrived. The time for me to speak has come... I cannot sit on this quietly any longer. The time has come for God to use my story. I have gone through everything, and ended up in Hong Kong for "such a time as this." This is exactly where I am suppose to be right now... and this is where God is going to use my story to impact others.

I don't know when and how this is all going to happen. I know that He's preparing me, and that it's going to be crazy! I am so not ready, but it's burning in my heart. I've taken about half a step out in obedience... and been hit with confirmation left and right that my time has come. It fuels the fire and makes my heart burn even more!!!

I am soooo terrified right now! But at the same time, I am so excited! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH... the time is coming!!!!

Discipline

³Just think of Him Who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and bitter hostility against Himself [reckon up and consider it all in comparison with your trials], so that you may not grow weary or exhausted, losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.

⁴You have not yet struggled and fought agonizingly against sin, nor have you yet resisted and withstood to the point of pouring out your [own] blood.

⁵And have you [completely] forgotten the divine word of appeal and encouragement in which you are reasoned with and addressed as sons? My son, do not think lightly or scorn to submit to the correction and discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage and give up and faint when you are reproved or corrected by Him;

⁶For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes.

⁷You must submit to and endure [correction] for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not [thus] train and correct and discipline?

⁸Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all [of God's children] share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons [at all].^B)">(B)

⁹Moreover, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we yielded [to them] and respected [them for training us]. Shall we not much more cheerfully submit to the Father of spirits and so [truly] live?

¹⁰For [our earthly fathers] disciplined us for only a short period of time and chastised us as seemed proper and good to them; but He disciplines us for our certain good, that we may become sharers in His own holiness.

¹¹For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness--in conformity to God's will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God].

¹²So then, brace up and reinvigorate and set right your slackened and weakened and drooping hands and strengthen your feeble and palsied and tottering knees,^C)">(C)

¹³And cut through and make firm and plain and smooth, straight paths for your feet [yes, make them safe and upright and happy paths that go in the right direction], so that the lame and halting [limbs] may not be put out of joint, but rather may be cured. (Hebrews 12:3-13, The Amplified Bible)

God has definitely been disciplining me lately. When it first started, oh... how it hurt! But then I read the words in Hebrews... it's only because GOD LOVES ME!!! This gives me joy...

It's time!

"For everyone who continues to feed on milk is obviously inexperienced and unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness (of conformity to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action), for he is a mere infant [not able to talk yet]! But solid food is for full-grown men, for those whose senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good and noble and what is evil and contrary either to divine or human law. THEREFORE LET us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ (the Messiah), advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works (dead formalism) and of the faith [by which you turned] to God, With teachings about purifying, the laying on of hands, the resurrection from the dead, and eternal judgment and punishment. [These are all matters of which you should have been fully aware long, long ago.] If indeed God permits, we will [now] proceed [to advanced teaching]. For it is impossible [to restore and bring again to repentance] those who have been once for all enlightened, who have consciously tasted the heavenly gift and have become sharers of the Holy Spirit, And have felt how good the Word of God is and the mighty powers of the age and world to come, If they then deviate from the faith and turn away from their allegiance--[it is impossible] to bring them back to repentance, for (because, while, as long as) they nail upon the cross the Son of God afresh [as far as they are concerned] and are holding [Him] up to contempt and shame and public disgrace. For the soil which has drunk the rain that repeatedly falls upon it and produces vegetation useful to those for whose benefit it is cultivated partakes of a blessing from God. But if [that same soil] persistently bears thorns and thistles, it is considered worthless and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. Even though we speak this way, yet in your case, beloved, we are now firmly convinced of better things that are near to salvation and accompany it. For God is not unrighteous to forget or overlook your labor and the love which you have shown for His name's sake in ministering to the needs of the saints (His own consecrated people), as you still do. But we do [strongly and earnestly] desire for each of you to show the same diligence and sincerity [all the way through] in realizing and enjoying the full assurance and development of [your] hope until the end, In order that you may not grow disinterested and become [spiritual] sluggards, but imitators, behaving as do those who through faith (by their leaning of the entire personality on God in Christ in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness) and by practice of patient endurance and waiting are [now] inheriting the promises." (Hebrews 5:13-14, 6:1-12, The Amplified)

It's time... time to start "inheriting the promises" that God has in store for this generation. Except this will only come through our spiritual maturity. It's time to stop being lazy, complacent, indifferent, ignorant, etc. I say NO MORE to being spoon fed the gospel. NO MORE to going around the same mountains. NO MORE to the same messages of repent of your selfish ways and turn to God. Let's get past all this which we already know and go deeper! How many more times do you want to come crying to God about the same issue? How much longer are you going to wait for God to chase you around for?! Let's do away with the spiritual highs and lows that we love so very much to talk about!

It's time to stop singing empty words, making useless vows. "When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. ... Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God." (Ecclesiastes 5:4-6a, 7, NIV) We've all sang the words, we'll stand in awe of God. We're standing with hands high and heart abandoned, souls abandoned, giving our all to Jesus. Let our lives reflect what we say. We proclaim that greater things are yet to come and to be done. Now let's ALL start living like we BELIEVE what we're proclaiming!

Everyone, I think it's time we shake up this planet with our Faith! The question is are you ready and willing to help with the shaking?!?!

I was having a hard time this week... and by the end of this week, I found myself listening to these words over and over again:

"And I'm so filthy with my sin
I carry pride like a disease
You know I'm stubborn Lord and I'm longing to be close
You burn me deeper than I know
I feel lonely without hope
I feel desperate without vision
You wrap around me like a winter coat
You come and free me like a bird

And my heart burns for you
And my heart burns for you"~Obsession from Delirious

I want my heart to burn for God. I need my heart to burn for God. He must be my Obsession, and nothing else!

it was just TOO funny!

I've decided that it was just TOO funny to NOT share. I actually had trouble holding in laughter during service when this happened, so I'm gonna share it.

So this morning in service, we played Mighty to Save for worship, and then we also played it again as response. We played it last week for service as well.... and then at 4pm we sang it again as the response song. I had just been talking about how many times I've played/sang that song in the past week that morning. So when it started... I really just couldn't contain my amusement with God... and with our worship leaders!

All amusement aside though, I think I may have found myself in a very uncomfortable storm. It is small, but it is there and I feel it. God's been speaking lots in the past several weeks, and I've started to walk out some of what He has called me to do. So I actually find much comfort in these words:

"Savior, He can move the mountains
My God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save.

Forever, author of salvation,
He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave."

Nothing can stop God from fulfilling all that He has spoken over my life. Nothing will stand in the way if it is His will. If He can move mountains and conquer death, He can and will make sure that what He has promised will be fulfilled.

I admit I don't understand at the moment. I admit I may not like any of it at the moment, but I will wait in expectation that God will see it through. I will wait obediently because I know that at the end of it, it's gonna be immeasurably better than I have ever thought of imagined!! I'm sooo excited to see how God is gonna meet me in this storm!

God's given me so much joy lately that I'm having trouble holding it all in! Even in the midst of the storm, all I can do is sit there and smile, because I KNOW that God's in control and that He loves me sooooo much! He is gonna take me where I have never been, and it's gonna be AMAZING!

oh the Joy!!!

MTR Ride out to Kwun Tong - $11.20
Korean food from food court - $50.00
The PURE JOY of finding the giant rubber ducky - PRICELESS!!!!

random train of thoughts...

So... 3 things I've been really pondering on lately.

1. I just got home from my trip to London and Paris several days ago. I think one of the best parts was just to get out of town, and to just be far far away from work. (Despite the fact that HSBC is UK based and that there are more ads for HSBC out there than here at home...) Work has been very stressful for me lately, and I've gotten to a point where I have troubles waking up and getting ready for work. I just don't want to be there. I feel so insignificant at work, and this fact was further affirmed by the fact that by 2 in the afternoon, my supervisor still had noticed that I was NOT at work. This really makes me wonder, "Why am I still there, then?!"
I love being on vacation because it makes me feel so free. Free from the stress and demands of work. Free from feeling like I have to confirm to the ways of the corporate world, free from everything my job demands me to be. Free from the degrading comments of my supervisor and the unspoken demand that I need to pull many hours of OT. Being on vacation I was free from all this, and that is simply why I love being on vacation, where what I do with my time is for me to dictate and not not work.

2. I threw myself a pity party the other day. I had an attack of just really horrible thoughts. My heart was filled with pain and sorrow, and all I wanted to do was cry. It all suddenly made me feel so insecure, and insignificant. These thoughts are still haunting me... I keep finding my thoughts wandering to "It's NOT fair!" Such selfish thoughts... but at the same time, a part of me still wants to demand justice. The logical side of me screams "Grow up, get over it, and move on already!" Except the emotional side of me wants to demand answers and aplologies still.
Some days it still hurts, and it still seems unfair. This was one of those days. It's not that I don't want others to be happy... I mean, I certainly don't want to be haunted by this forever... and therefore do not wish this to loom over anyone else either. But in my immaturity which leaks through at times, I still just want to sulk in a corner and whine about how "it's just not fair!"

3. Culture shock. I think I still suffer the most from culture shock when I step foot back into the HK International Airport. Or perhaps it's simply the immense amount of Chinese people that I'm constantly surrounded by that causes culture shock in me. Going to the Philippines did not cause culture shock, going to a Native reserve did not, London and Paris... nothing. I come back to HK... culture shock. That's seriously not even a joke... I always find that I have to readjust back to HK life no matter how long I was away for.
.... perhaps I have some sort of culture identity issue... *sigh*

"This wasn't the plan... but it turned out so much better."

Haha... it resembles my thoughts so perfectly. Hong Kong was never part of the plan. The plan was Vancouver. It has always been Vancouver. That's been the plan since I was like 14! Except time and time again... it just never happened. Circumstances caused me to not take my acceptance into UBC. Then... God opened the Hong Kong door.. and Vancouver was lost yet again. I tried one more time this past year with my desire to go back to school... but somehow that just never felt right either. So here I am, signed up for another year in Hong Kong.

Working in HSBC was also never part of the plan. I studied math.. in order to finish some sort of a degree. I took the job, with the hopes of getting away from Edmonton and getting my foot into the door for a bigger bank... and dreams of just climbing the corporate ladder through it somehow.. to find a way into an investment bank through it. Actually, bank work was never part of my plan period. I don't know what I had planned for myself... but this definitely was not it.

Nothing in my life at the moment was how I had planned or imagined it, but it's all turned out so much better. God's taken care of every tiny little detail of my life... now how do I get rid of this one last thorn in my heart?

the new year...

I can't believe that it's been a year since I've left Edmonton and started a new life in HK. This past year has definitely been interesting... (you'd have to ask if you want to know... too much to write all on here.)

A year ago I had no idea what the year would bring, and what would happen when the year ended. Now the year's coming to an end, and I've found myself signing a contract for another year at the same job. So I will be in HK for another year... and feeling the same as I was a year ago.

Same in the sense that I don't know where I will be after this year is over, but different in the sense that I'm very confident that this next year is gonna be another amazing year with God.

friends

I saw this picture in the Standard the other day. It reminded me of friends... 'nough said.

at the bottom...

Home by Micheal Buble... the song that makes me sad. It reminds me of one the most surreal days in my whole entire life up to this point.

~The first time I heard this song was in your car. The first time I heard this song, I started to cry... but no one knew. It was the morning after I found out... the morning when everything in my life came crashing in on me. The start of my long climb back up the steep slippery slope I had fallen down.

I cried because the words were the cry of my heart. They were the words I was crying out to God.

"Maybe surrounded by A million people I Still feel all alone I just wanna go home Oh I miss you, you know"

I wanted to go home to the Father. Never in my life had I ever been so disappointed, so devastated, so lost and so confused. ~

God's been digging deeper... I feel like He's ripping me apart from the inside out. Somedays the pain is so unbearable... and I just hurt. Don't know how to express the pain... not even through tears. So I just hurt.

A Prayer for You

this is actually titled A Prayer for the Ephesians in the NIV, but I thought it was good... so wanted to share it with ya'll.

"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." ~Ephesians 3:14-21

*note: During Paul's time, Ephesus was a major commercial centre. It was one of the greatest trading centres in the Eastern Mediterranean. A large extent of her prosperity was due to its geographical location.

my prayer...

strip me of my friends
strip me of my family
strip me of my dreams
strip me of my desires
strip me of all that i hope for
strip me of my music
strip me of my ministries
strip me of basketball
strip me of hockey
strip me of my academic achievements
strip me of all my head knowledge
strip me of my fears
strip me of my anxieties
strip me of my doubts
strip me of my money
strip me of my pride
strip me of all that pains me
strip me of all that brings me joy
strip me of all that i believe ME to be

what remains will be a slab of clay waiting for the Artist to come and turn it into a beautiful work of art.

what's in a name?!

My 2 worlds have collided lately... with the influx of visitors... and to be honest, it feels rather strange. When I left Edmonton 8 months ago, I didn't think very far ahead. A part of me simply saw Hong Kong as an escape, because in my tunnel vision, I had but one thing on my mind. I needed to get outta Edmonton. I needed to be gone from there... for my sanity's sake! So upon arrival... I made a decision to leave behind the "old me" and start fresh... and one of those things was to stop introducing myself as Cel (pronounced Cil.) This name of mine, is what leads me to this blog entry...

I've been known as Cel for so long now... my family calls me by that name! Call my house and ask for Cel... and you shall get me... (most of the time... given you get the right number and that my family can hear you... hahahaha :P) With the influx of visitors and hearing my friends call me that once again.. (not just online, or in emails but outloud) it feels nice. It's familiar... and it feels right. hahaha... Cece (with the Chinese accent) or Cec... or Ce... is not. They are honestly very foreign and strange sounding to me... sometimes I think to myself... "That's not my name... I have a nickname, I don't need a new one..."

Anyways, that's still not the point. The point is that I can't run away from myself. I can't pretend that a part of me doesn't exist. Haha.. trust me, I've tried pretty hard. The truth is that, everything I've tried to leave behind is a part of me. Always has and always will be. Me going by another name, doesn't make me a different person. :P I'm slowly learning to embrace everything for what it is... part of God's plan for my life. Ultimately it will all be used for His glory. Yes, there are parts that were painful.. and events that I'd rather pretend like they didn't exist in my story... but they do. All these things combined, is what makes it MY story and no one elses.

God is so gracious and compassionate... and as I learn to embrace all that he's given me.. good AND bad... I know that greater things are yet to come! :)

"When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other." ~ Ecclesiastes 7:14a

A new door?!??!

8 months... and counting. I can't believe that it's been 8m months... just like that! With 4 months left, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what's next. I've also been doing a lot of thinking about what's happened in the past 8 months.

As I near the end of this contract... I find a potential new door before me. It could be an amazing opportunity if it all works out. Yet, I'm scared that I'll still be miserable. I know that I have a choice to make... and neither of them are easy. Neither of them are set in stone, neither are for sure. They're just possible things that I could do. They are very different from each other. Basically my choices are 1) stay on my current career path and 2) make a career change.

It's doing something familiar in a new place, or doing something new in a familiar place. Bah! I don't like being put in a position where a decision needs to be made. Perhaps this is why God keeps putting me in positions where I have to... I need to learn where my heart lies and where my passions lie. I need to figure what I love doing more. I need to really look into my heart, and into God's will for my life... and see what I need to do.

Prayers please! Thanks!