When bad things happen, it is natural for us to ask why. Orchard experts say that occasionally a fruit tree will give all its energy to growing wood and leaves but stops bearing fruits. To correct this, the farmer takes an axe and makes a deep cut in its trunk close to the ground. That almost always stimulates a change. The next year the tree gives an excellent yield.

I do believe that sometimes God uses a trial as an axe, or suffering as a pruning knife, so that we may stop channeling all our energies into the pursuit of temporal things. Sorrow, tribulation, ill health, and disappointment have a way of stimulating spiritual growth and fruitfulness. Our attention is then redirected toward eternal things. I don’t know about you, but if I had a choice, this is not my preferred way of bearing fruits.  If we can bear fruits the easier way, lets just do that.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” ~John 15:5

Only lucky girls get a bag each year on their birthdays. I am lucky enough to be one of them. Last year, a Shootsac. This year, an Epiphanie bag. I think I should start shopping for next year’s bag. Thank you my dear for spoiling me. I love to be spoiled.

I almost missed reading this email because the subject line was blank. It was from someone named Rebecca whom I didn’t know. She stumbled upon my blog when she read my post to sell an old camera on the Two Peas photo forum. This is what she wrote:

Hi Iris-

I stumbled onto your blog through two peas in a bucket.

I am reading your December archive about your mother and grandfather’s new faith and weeping.  What a wonderful story!  God is an amazing God, isn’t he.  I’ll keep your family in my prayers!

On a side note, your images are breathtaking!  What a talent the Lord has given to you and it looks like you are using it well!

(-The hardest thing for me is color cast and all your images are perfect!)

In Him-
Rebecca

The December blog post that Rebecca mentioned above is titled Amazing Grace. Getting an email or comment like this just made my day, and my week as well. It is very encouraging for me to know that other people can see the works of God by visiting my blog. So please don’t be shy to leave me a blog comment or two, or three, or ten… It always makes my day (spam comment does not apply!).

Photo below: my mom found this while we were walking on a trail. It looks like a pea but it’s  not a pea.

When Annabelle goes to school and Christian does not have to play dress up with her, these are his playmates. I was so glad that I caught these frames, because I can’t stop smiling when I look at them.

Credits
Director: Christian
Casting: Squeeze Toy Alien, Woody, Buzz Lightyear
Narration:  Christian
Backstage crew: Rex
Photographer:  Iris

Ricky and I have been both buried with work lately but we still went out to dinner to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary. I couldn’t remember the last time when I laughed so hard that my stomach burnt. Laugh tears filled my eyes and people were staring at me like, “C’mon behave.” I had fun playing iphone games with him. He was funny. Not the game.

It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I met him at our high school. Counting the years, I’ve known Ricky for half of my life. Crazy, but I don’t mind.

Sometimes I run out of new things to feel grateful for. Partly because I pray for the important things, but always forget to pray for the little things in life. The more we pray, the more miracles God will do, the more grace we will receive, and more new things to thank Him for. How can we pray for little things in life?

It is a false sense of security we have that we are in control of ANYTHING. That is a lie from the depths of hell itself. We may THINK we are in control of certain things, when in reality we are not. That’s why we should start to pray about everything, no matter how insignificant it seemed. If I would pray as I was looking for a parking spot. That didn’t mean a spot up front magically became available, but it did mean I got the exact spot God wanted me to be in. If I would pray about what camera to buy, it didn’t mean that Canon will give me a Mark II for free, but probably God thought I looked cooler with a Canon hanging on my neck. Oh well, I made this one up.

The point I want to make is, if we don’t pray about something, we leave it up to chance, instead of what God wants for us. To me, God is much better than chance, or me. And since God has given us the ability to communicate with Him at any time about anything, we are fools when we don’t take full advantage of that opportunity. We are only making our lives more difficult when we live any part of it apart from God. We are carrying unnecessary burdens when we don’t take everything, even the little things to the Lord in prayer.

To help myself learn to pray for the little things in life, I bought this book on the internet – Paper Bag Prayers.  It is a cute little book that contains prayers about many random things the author has in her paper bag. Things like a map, a banana, a q-tip, a paper cup etc. She showed me how we can open up conversations with the Lord on just about anything. So keep praying about the big things in your life, but now, start even praying about the little things. Pray on!

The following are from my church’s vacation bible school last month. The songs from there are still the greatest hits in my  household right now.

Don’t mistaken that I am talking about my kids. Even if that’s how I feel once in a while, I dare not to say that before God. This post is about my experience last night. As much as I know the health benefits of tea, it’s always a mistake for me to drink. After drinking three cups yesterday, I woke up at 3am last night wide awake. Instead of lying in bed and count the sheeps, I listened to some experts’ suggestion – read a book. But here’s the second mistake I made and I blame it on the expert who didn’t warn me to choose the subject carefully. I read the wrong book! I grabbed a photography book that was sitting on my desk — Learning to See Creatively, and read for an hour. When I went back to sleep after that, I felt my heart was beating fast and I was catching my breath. It seemed like I had an inspiration attack. Lessons for me? Never drink more than one cup of tea per day, and never read a photography book before bed.

Speaking of mistakes, Annabelle thinks my black and white photos are mistakes. She pointed to one of them on my computer screen and told me, “Mommy, I  think you need to fix that photo. Something’s wrong with it.” She got me thinking on that one! Is it a mistake, or a classic?

I ask God each day to give me strength and wisdom to do all my tasks efficiently and effectively. This morning, I did the same, but a thought came to me afterward, “Why didn’t I pray for God to help me love someone I’ve never loved whole-heartedly.” Then this bible verse from 1 John showed up in front of me, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.” Are you living in love today?

On a side note, I feel so grateful for the many of you who commented on my facebook status last week about Christian’s tragedy. Your love for him is overwhelming. Thanks for the prayers, well wishes, candies and gifts for him.  To him, it’s not such a bad thing after all.

Last night was a scary night. It was before dinner time and I was putting clothes away in the closet. I heard a big bang behind me followed by a loud, hurtful cry. When I turned around, I saw half of Christian’s face covered with flashy red blood. It was a lot of blood. And the bright red color was the scariest I’ve seen in my life. His forehead hit the corner of the bed when he was playing with Annabelle. Annabelle was so terrified that she wanted to cry but no voice was able to come out of her throat. I carried Christian down the stairs and yelled for my mom. Annabelle was holding his little hand, so worried that she would lose her little brother. Gratefully, we were able to stop the blood after a short while. But my heart got stabbed when  I saw the deep wound and his blood-soaked shirt.

Stitches. Yes, stitches. Scary but that was flashing in my mind.  I called Ricky at work and we went to the urgent care with him. Christian was still crying when we got into the car. And Annabelle started crying out loud with him. There were times when she would hit him in the face, but at that moment, she loved him so much.

Christian stopped crying when we were waiting in the surgery room. But he could not hide his nervousness. It was funny to see his little finger kept sliding on the iphone but his eyes were fixed on what the nurses were doing. It was indeed scary to hear the two nurses’ conversation. One of them said, “You hold his head and I hold his feet.” The other said,  “Oh may be I’ll hold his head and you strap his body down with a blanket.” Oh God, what are you doing to my boy!

So the doctor came. Christian was swaddled up with a blanket as planned. They covered his face with a piece of paper only showing the wound for the doctor to work on. That of course made him really upset.  It took Ricky and two nurses to hold him. My job was to talk to him and find ways to calm him. That was no easy job. He was hysterical. Even though he was held by three people, it was impossible to keep his head still when he kept crying and struggling furiously. I talked. I sang. I prayed. I counted. I played games with him. Nothing was working. But whenever I mentioned Annabelle, it seemed to catch his attention. So I called Annabelle and asked her to sing songs for Christian. I put her on speaker and there she was singing her favorite VBS song, “Ha-la-la-la-la-la-ha-le-lu-jah! Ha-la-la-la-la-la-ha-le-lu-jah!” YES! HALLELUJAH! It worked! Christian stopped crying and listened. But only for five seconds. Okay, next song Annabelle. “Today is the day You have made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. And I won’t worry about tomorrow and trust in what You say…” Christian stopped struggling again, and everyone in the room smiled.

Whew! After forever, five stitches were sewn onto his forehead. There was only one thing the doctor said afterwards. “He was strong!” The receptionists and patients waiting outside in the lobby could all hear his crying. As I was still putting together my heart that was broken into a million pieces, Christian was already playing again. He said proudly while poking at his forehead, “Daddy, I got bandage!”  What a fearless little rascal.