watching the sunrise

Those that know me well know that I value my sleep very, very much. I will never stay up late working on assignments or studying and insufficient sleep makes me very grumpy. But my daily schedule has been overly hectic with work from 10-5 each weekday and loads of stuff to do in the evenings and weekends. So on Friday night (early Saturday morning), I finally had a chance to sit in bed and read an autobiography about Dorothy Sun, a Chinese Christian who survived the Japanese invasion and Cultural Revolution without denying her faith. Her story was gripping and I kept reading and reading. By the time I finished, it was ten to 5am. As I lay my head down to sleep, I noticed blue emanating from behind my vertical blinds. Curious, I jumped out of bed to reveal this from behind the curtain:

I stood in awe. It must've been the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen. I ended up sitting in my window (it opens up and is missing its screen) for the next 4o minutes, watching God's paintbrush slowly pull up more pinks and more blues and more lavenders. It was peaceful and quiet, and in that moment, I found rest.

I've been searching lately for what God wants for my life. I'm contentedly at a point where I don't have a specific goal, but whatever flows by my riverbank, I'll take. But reading Dorothy's testimony brought me back to realize my passion for the Chinese people. I care deeply about who my fellow yellows were, are, and will be. I'm glad my job at Across U-hub allows me to serve Chinese people.

As I look back at these photos, I realize how beautiful the sunrise was. For the past 19 years of my life, how many stunning sunrises have I slept through? How many blessings of God have I missed? oh, how I wish I could capture them back, but what I can only do now is to stop the next ones from rising away...