A series of events

Today was a stressful and eventful day. Normally on this blog I don't bother recording every nitty-gritty detail of my day-to-day living, unlike some blogs that I have came across where it is just about this or that day in in bed with a cold or that day out going to this mall that the person has been everyother blog post only THIS TIME, its different, somehow. No I don't bother with that sort of blogs, nor do I intend to make this one of them. Sorry to the folks who do, but I don't.

Today was a stressful and eventful day. Still in HKSAR, where the weather is FI-INE~! with the usual smoggy haze (or hazy smog?) covering the islands. I was going to a museum on Dr Sun Yat-Sen, the first successful Chinese republican revolutionary, who in 1911 successfully initiated an uprising in Qing dynasty Wuchang province (I learnt that today!). I recieved a phone call while I was walking, and it turned out that the flight I was on the waiting list for has became available to me and therefore I can stay in HKSAR for an extra five days. I had previously wanted to do so because of my grandmother who wanted me at her birthday dinner which would have been after the 1st when I was supposed to leave. But now that the dinner was moved forwards in order to accomodate me I did not need to. But I did it anyways and so now I leave on the 6th.

Half an hour or so later, when I was in the museum, I recieved another phone call. This time it was my mum. She wanted to ask me to buy something extra to bring back, and I took the opportunity to tell her that I will be back later than expected. Now she was a bit annoyed. No she was not very happy. Actually she was a bit below furious. Ok maybe not so extreme but she was otherwise not fully supportive of my decision to stay longer than needed in HKSAR; I had of course other things that I could have done in Melbourne such as work and also some house chores that only a guy can do. Sorry ladies, no offense. She was telling me that I should keep the family in my head more often, and should have thought of the family before I decided to postpone my flight unnecessarily, which was rightly so coz I had only wanted to stay because I like it here. But my family is in Melbourne, and do need me and I was a selfish jerk. Not my mum's words exactly, but my spin on it anyhow. She told me that it was my decision, that I can still decide, but that I should decide with family in mind that's all, and so she left it at that.

After the call, I immediately tried calling the airline, but they were on lunch break. I went on to lunch myself and called back later to see whether I can reverse my decision from before. At this point only an hour and fifteen minutes have past from my mum's call, but already there was no seats which was to my expectation. I asked to be waitlisted again for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th. I doubted, though, whether I would be able to get on any flights in those dates.

With my flight details uncertain, I still decided to call my mum back just to update her. So I called the office only to find out that she had left already. When I got her on the mobile I told her everything about the flights and the waiting list. She nodded her way through, and then she suddenly dropped a bombshell: my sister was just involved in a car accident, exactly half an hour before. I'd thought I heard wrongly with all the earwax in my right ear or something, but it was true, she drove through a stop sign and didn't spot a car coming from the left. The collision pushed the car to the right and she slammed into a parked car on the right. God be thanked that no one was injured badly, but it was rightly a shock for all. She's only just gotten her probationary license for a month. Her name was not in the insurance policy. She was at fault. I found out later that there could be an excess of AUD$2050 to pay to the insurance company.

My mum told me this and broke down. She said that she tried calling my dad when she found out but couldn't reach him as usual. Ever since the break-up my dad never picked up if he knew it was her. She told me it was more than she could handle, and told me that this is exactly the reason why she was telling me to keep the family in mind; don't be a selfish jerk like my dad. She broke down as I told her that I will, and I will try to change, and that she'd need not worry too much; all the usual crap that I say but never much more than that I am ashamed to say. She'd told me that as well in the first phone call at the museum. She'd told me a lot more, and now this has happened, right when I had just postponed my flight out of selfishness, right when she had just told me to think of the family, right when we don't have much money, right when the family has lost its head and is now walking on purely by faith, and new found faith at that. And here I am overseas having my holiday.

"God speaks in the language you know best— not through your ears, but through your circumstances." (My Utmost, 29th Jan) I was sitting in the tram (yes, HKSAR has trams, but only on Hong Kong Island) pondering these words which I had just read a couple of days ago. I was wondering what God was speaking to me. I told Him I don't know what the point of all this is, why one thing after another, why all in the last ten months. It is exactly like the Chinese saying 'Falling into a well, only to have a stone come down after', or literal translation 'Down well throw stone'. I was wondering all this, all with only one single answer that I got from my head: God is Sovereign.

I am currently reading Job. Such a great book. Elihu puts it wonderfully:

"Why do you contend with Him?
For He does not give an accounting of any of His words"

There is nothing that God does without a valid reason. But when He does something, He indeed does not need to explain it to mere mortals like us. Do we tell a car why we need to go to some destination on a cold winter's day? Do we tell a dog why it needs to be put down? Neither the car nor the dog would understand our reasons purely because we are on a level higher than they.

"For God may speak in one way, or in another,
Yet man does not percieve it."

Why then do I contend with Him?

I felt like hitting myself. I felt like I had wronged my Lord Jesus yet again, and He shakes His head at my folly. I am not sure if He really did, but that was how I felt, sitting there in that tightly packed tram, unable to stretch out, unable to talk, hardly able to concentrate.

Later on a bus up to the Peak, the highest point (obviously) on Hong Kong Island where I had spent most of my day today, I was thinking back to the start of Job, when he had just lost his property, and his sons. He said those famous words:

"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
And naked shall I return there.
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Job wasn't a fool all the time, even if he was for much of the book. I shall not be made a fool as well.

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there is pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You poured out,
I turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say:

Blessed be the name of the Lord!