Tag Archives: Blessing

It Takes A Village

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karen 2

My group of ladies is specialized in one thing – showering our daughters and daughters-in-law with love and blessings. We do that consistently to each other’s girls.

We give bridal showers to bless the marriages of the brides and grooms. The bridal shower gifts are enough to help the new couples to start the new homes with bedding linens, bathroom items, kitchen pots and pans, utensils and more.

When these princesses are expecting their babies, we give them baby showers – showering the new parents with warm wishes, cute baby gifts to support their new parenthood.

Even though my daughter lives 1000 miles away, and her baby shower is in Portland, Oregon. This group of ladies shows their love and support by contributing a sum of money to get several large items of baby gifts for my daughter.

This afternoon I went to a bridal shower for the daughter of a lady in this group. The party was elaborate with beautiful decoration and delicious food, sandwiches, scones, different kinds of tea and dessert. The gifts were generous. We enjoyed so much sharing the happiness of the bride-to-be. The groom-to-be showed up at the end, helping to carry the gifts home. We had a chance to congratulate him.

We will continue this tradition. It takes a village to support a child and the child’s child!

~     ~     ~

Daily Prompt: Traditional

Daily Prompt: Tea

Handel’s Messiah

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Daily Post: Song

Music speaks to my soul more deeply than written words, or speaking voices. Inspirational songs and hymns are my favorite. I started singing and taking voice lessons when I was a late teenager. Solo singing was my regular engagement. Several major classical music performances I participated in are:

Felix Mendelssohn’s “ELIJAH,” Johannes Brahms “A GERMAN REQUIEM,” and G. F. Handel’s “MESSIAH.”

This year’s Christmas concert of Handel’s MESSIAH rehearsal has already begun last Sunday, October 30, 2016.

The last song in MESSIAH is “Worthy is the Lamb.” The lyrics and the music touch my heart and humble my spirit:

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and

Hath redeemed us to God by His blood, to

Receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and

Strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

Blessing and honour, glory and power be

Unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and

Unto the Lamb, forever and ever. Amen.

 

Good to be Back

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It has been two years since my last blog. So many things have happened during the last two years. But I just wanted to talk about yesterday, and catch up eventually.

I went to a group that meets on Wednesday mornings. This summer topics are derived from the favorite hymns of many great Christians and ministers. The speaker for this meeting spoke on the hymn “Make Me a Blessing.” This hymn reminded me of at least two things:

First, it reminded me that this hymn was the first music I learned to sing in my voice lesson. Ms. Helen Chen was my first voice teacher. She wanted to instill in me the desire of serving others, through my talent of singing, maybe! I was about seventeen years old. My talent of singing was discovered by a short term missionary in Hong Kong. He was sent to Hong Kong by the Free Methodist Church Headquarters in United States. Through his sponsorship, I took voice lesson until his one year was up and returned to United States. Ms. Chen, my voice teacher encouraged me to continue with my lessons, because one year of lessons just barely got me started. With her encouragement, I decided to continue taking voice lessons, off and on for almost ten years. I had three other teachers besides Ms. Chen.

Secondly, the hymn reminded me of my decision to dedicating myself as a servant of God by studying in a seminary. Even though I encountered great opposition from my father who was a non-believer at that time. He was greatly distressed and erupted his anger at me the night before my seminary journey. Somehow my mother woke up me early next morning and urged me to go before my father woke up. The first year of seminary study, students went home once a month. During that year, I was afraid to go home, I went to stay with my older sister instead. I prayed and asked God to bless me and make me a blessing to my parents and my siblings. From the second year on, I went back to my home every weekend. My father had calmed down after not seeing me for a year. Through prayers, God changed my father’s heart. During my senior year, my father saved a little bit of his breakfast money everyday to buy me a graduation gift. He and my mother were proud to come to my graduation. I along with my Christian siblings continued to pray for my parents’ salvation. After 20 years, when my parents were 70 years old, they accepted the Lord and were baptized. God blessed my siblings and me, and made us a blessing to our parents. God is gracious and merciful!