It’s a little funny.  Right now, merely four miles separate us.  Still, it takes an hour to get from Point A to Point B, because of a pesky river and the width of this small-but-congested island.  In ten weeks, Point B will relocate itself to a point 215 miles away.  That’s 50 times further away — but it will take somewhere between 4 and 6 hours to travel between Points A and B.  50 times further, but the trip is only 4-6 times longer.  It doesn’t seem so bad.

But it’s not just distance.  Other things will change.  Weekday dinners, for instance, will cease to exist for thirteen months.  Every other weekend visit will be erased from the calendar.  And the ones that remain will be truncated significantly.  The phone and webcam will substitute for actual presence.  The number of shared experiences will decrease. And all the while, a whole new world will open up in Point B, filled with new people, new duties, new surroundings.

People ask how I feel about this.  To be honest, I’m not really sure.  It makes me a little sad.  It makes me a little nervous.  But I know it’s not throwing me into a panic.  And that surprises me.

Usually, I like knowing what’s going to happen to me.  Somewhere in this otherwise-calm exterior lives a little cartoonish-looking character who has a nagging habit of jumping up and down while banging a wooden spoon on a pot.  She yells and screams for attention, all at once begging and demanding to be informed.  WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? she yells.  WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME?  She causes such a ruckus and stirs me so much within that I often give in to her urgent cries and join in her noisy fray.  And I become her.

But curiously, she’s quiet these days.  Maybe she got tired the last time around, from all that screeching that caused me a couple weeks of misery.  Or maybe she learned her lesson.  In either case, she’s sleeping like a heavily-sedated patient in a hospital.  Because not only is she sleeping, she’s resting.  And yes, there is a difference.

One can sleep without resting.  Sleep can be induced by the exhaustion caused by unending worry and anxiety.  Resting, though, involves relinquishment and giving things up so that one can be actively inactive.  Sleep alone is merely collapse.  Resting requires trust and faith in the midst of uncertainty.

The character inside is resting, and so am I — at least for the time being.  I don’t know what the future holds.  Things may not work out.  The 215 miles for 390 days may prove too great a burden for us to bear and too lengthy a challenge for us to survive.  If that’s the case, that will be sad.  It will be disappointing.  It will even be depressing.  But.  There’s one thing it will never be.  It won’t be a matter of chance.  It will be a matter of God.  And because of that, whatever “it” turns out to be will be okay.

I just got off the phone with Mom an hour ago; it’s really good to have her back in the States. While I was in the thick of the cardiology stuff, she was overseas, and there were many moments when I just wished I could hear her voice on the other side of the phone line. Of all the people in this world, my relationship with my mom is one of the strongest. She knows me inside and out, she understands almost everything about me, and she has unconditionally loved and freely provided for me in physical, intellectual, and emotional ways for my entire life. I owe so much to my mommy.

One of the awesome things about Mom is that she knows the right questions to ask. She expressed her concern this evening about whether I’ve thought of any strategies for dealing with the stress at work that has caused my recent heart problems, and what my future plans are. Only Mom knows when to ask these things, and how.

My answer is that I actually don’t know what is the right thing to do. When I think about my options – as well as the potential sacrifices and the possible opportunities that accompany each option – I am left with no more clarity than when I began. But while I am concerned and admittedly preoccupied with these questions, I can safely say that I have not yet succumbed to overwhelming worry, because in a strange way, I feel like I’ve been here before.

I’ve been at the place of seeing my dreams seemingly evaporate into impossibility. Seven years ago, I walked down State Street and wiped the tears rolling down my cheeks because for the first time, I had reason to believe that I might not have a chance to become a lawyer. Circumstances beyond my control led me to that conclusion, and it was devastating. In the weeks and months that followed, I kept working in the general direction of law, while exploring other options and keeping them open just in case. And slowly over the next years, God untangled the problems, lifted the burdens, and cleared a path for me – one that led me all the way to Harvard Law School and beyond.

I have seen God deliver me (in this respect, and in a big way) at least once before. So this time it’s less scary, because I have the faith and confidence that I gained from the last time around. What I learned through my past experience is that God’s plans are bigger than ours; His foresight is infinitely greater; His wisdom is so much deeper; and His glory is most evident when all the usual distractions that charm and entice us are removed and we see that they are as reliable as gales of wind that appear powerful, but are here today and gone tomorrow. Only God and His vast love remain. And that’s what I’m banking on in the current crossroads.

So here I am, again confronted with a serious health issue, and not sure of what it means for the future of my career and of my life. What do I do? Well, sometimes I think hard about it, and it gives me a headache. Sometimes I swat away the questions and leave them for another day. But for the most part, I am walking in the general direction of where I still believe I’m called to work. At the same time, I’m looking into backup plans. And most of all, I’m praying for God to guide, and trying to trust and have faith that He will get me to where He needs me to be…

I just need to keep walking step by step. The little steps that I take every day will turn into feet and miles over the years, and one day – I hope to pause mid-step on the road that I’m taking, look back behind me, and see that all the twists and turns made sense in the end. And then, as now, and as in all the moments in between, I plan to give thanks to God for this life.

On Sunday, my heart started doing funny things — it’s not pain, but it’s definitely pressure, or abrupt movements interrupting the usual slow and steady pattern. These sensations just aren’t natural. It’s weird; our bodies are built so that when the heart is functioning well, we’re not supposed to notice that it’s there. It just does its job, and if we don’t notice it – that means everything is okay. It’s one of our most important organs, but it’s designed to go unappreciated.

The cardiologist ran an EKG and did not like what he saw; he said that someone my age should not have an EKG reading that looked like that. He also drew seven (SEVEN!!!) tubes of blood for further testing, and suggested that I check into a hospital tonight so he could run an echo and other tests. In the end, we decided that another office visit tomorrow would be better, so that’s what I’m doing, and hopefully we’ll know more twenty-four hours from now.

In the meantime, I feel oddly fragile. I feel like God is reminding me that all life belongs to Him, nothing is for certain except that which He commands, and we don’t set the courses for our own lives. Young people tend to feel like they’re going to live forever, that their health and vigor will last well into the horizon that is oh-so-far-away… I feel like that wind has been momentarily been taken out of my sails, because apparently, some cardiologist thinks that my heart’s condition deserves great concern at this moment in time.

* * *

Part of me — I think most of me — is fearful right now, but knows deep down at some point beyond the layer of fear, that things will be okay. God has plans for my life, and He wouldn’t have brought me this far, only to let me tumble… would He?

… Or would He? This is a good opportunity for me to test my beliefs in a sovereign God. Like many other people, I have trouble reconciling the suffering in this world — but mostly my ending point of analysis becomes simply that God is God and I am not, and His ways are bigger than mine, and He in all His infinite wisdom, love, and might has a much better and holier picture of the world than I do. So who am I to question Him, when all I am able to see with my human mind and eyes in this vast universe is my little smidgen of a corner?

Applying that view to my situation, it’s harder to swallow. I guess things like that are more difficult to accept when they become personal … but that is the test of true belief. And I think… I think I can still say, that even if God never let His plans for me materialize for whatever reason — I wouldn’t like it, but I would still believe that He had some greater purpose, and I think I would still try to trust that when I got to heaven, I would look back and it would utterly defy logic, but up there, from that view, it would make total sense.

The last few days have been a huge blur of unpacking gigantic brown cubes of corrugated cardboard secured by bands of long sticky lengths of tape. The floor plans of Home Depot and Bed Bath and Beyond have become familiar in just five days, such that I can walk into either store and find what I’m looking for within five minutes. Scary. And my feet, for the first time in who-knows-how-long, are begging for rest. In this season of moving and transition, I am so grateful that I have the capability to walk, to climb stairs, to lift boxes, to strain my muscles — it’s not fun, but I can’t imagine the frustrations I’d face if God didn’t equip me with the physical health to get me through.

This evening is the first time I’ve settled down at this desk without chaos around me. Finally, we have a couch out in the living room. Finally, our kitchen is unpacked and all the pots and pans have safely found their new cavernous homes in cupboards or on our newly-constructed shelf. Finally, I have reduced the mess in my bedroom to a livable standard that is bordering on neat. I like living in this space; I am grateful to have found not just an apartment — but a home — here in the City.

As for friends, I’ve been flitting about on mandatory breaks from moving. Since arriving here at the end of last week, I met up with eight friends from law school over the weekend, a dear friend from college, and new friends from the church I’ve been visiting. Then tomorrow I plan to have lunch with a former colleague and then have dinner with another new-ish friend who I met this year. I love being with these people, and I feel so blessed to have them here with me. The large network of close friends I have here certainly makes the city feel smaller and more like a home.

Still, I know that this busy schedule is more than just a happily cluttered calendar. I can be honest with myself — I’m darting around. I’m keeping myself occupied. I’m rushing from place to place, scheduling the minutes from waking until sleeping. And all of this — because I’m not at peace. Much as I look at my new apartment and its ambitious vibe as a neat and organized environment… much as I see familiar and well-loved faces… much as I construct list after list of must-dos, would-like-to-dos, and should-dos… I know I’m not really settled here. I may be settled on the outside, but I am hardly settled on the inside — not in all ways, at least.

I’d like to be 100 percent settled on the inside. That certainly would be nice. I’d like to have that feeling that I get when I go home to see my parents and visit SINE… or that feeling that I had in Hong Kong when I visited my brothers and my sister… or that feeling when I saw C in Cali for a week. During those times, it wasn’t the fact that I was on vacation that gave me rest. It was the assurance of complete and unconditional love that gave me rest in my heart, and hence rest in my being. In those environments, in those places, and around those people, I know I am completely and utterly surrounded by love. There’s nothing I have to do to earn that love; it’s mine for the receiving, and mine for giving. That’s a very freeing type of environment, and it frees me to just be.

But here — and everywhere apart from those places — I have this nasty habit of doing-doing-doing that starts to kick in. On one hand, of course, it makes me a successful professional and a dedicated friend — and it keeps my life moving and interesting. On the other hand, I know that I am driven to resort to that nasty habit because I feel like I need to earn my keep here. And even though I have friends whom I love and who love me here, it’s not the same. It’s not that deep and unconditional love (yet?), and that deprivation inspires the need to impress, to earn, to prove myself.

…I wonder what the next three months will bring. My life will change significantly again next week as I head into the workforce again and take on cases that promise to offer challenging issues and challenging hours. I keep remembering what Oldest Brother said to me in HK — he said that life in NY is an adventure that God will walk through with me. I agree, and certainly look forward to having God take my hand and guide me through each day’s joys and trials, unexpected bumps and mercies.

And gradually, I hope that my heart will settle down, and I hope that God and His love would become even more real to me here. I’m guessing that if I could just palpably sense His unconditional love for me, then that would be enough to calm me into contentment and a less frenetic pace. Maybe?

But… all in His good time. I’m sure He is teaching me, even here and now within my self-imposed express lane lifestyle.

For Erin Gruwell, the teacher who gathered the mettle to guide her at-risk students over perilously troubled waters, such victory came at an enormously high price. It cost her the security of her relationship with her husband, and eventually crumbled her marriage. Still, she valued the children and continued to invest in their progress and their futures. In a particularly touching scene, her father — who evidently made a 180 from his initial opposition to Erin’s endeavors — said to her, “You have been blessed with a burden, my daughter. I envy you that.”

Since I was very young and not yet into my double-digits in age, I’ve had a burden on my heart to be a lawyer. Then, in college, I met KW — a professor who I determined was “so left of the left of the left that he looks like he’s from the right.” It’s because of KW that I received an uber-liberal education about the criminal justice system. I wrestled with 100 percent of what he offered in the curriculum (which I mockingly referred to, sometimes to his face, as “leftist propaganda” at first), and came away accepting maybe half of it.  It was enough; that half that I decided was worth something real left me stunned, and forever changed. Over the years, KW and I have remained in touch, and I have realized that God probably sent him into my path to spark in me a fire for compassion.

Since college, and since KW, my view on my life and career — and my burden — have taken a slightly different aim. I’m still headed toward the same goals, but with different intentions and with a different heart. More than ever, I believe in the importance of hearing an individual’s story, and making sense of it as part of the overall evaluation of one’s life and behavior. And I believe in not giving up on kids — if we don’t believe in them, how can we expect them to believe in themselves?

I have plans for where I’d like to end up; I want to be in a position similar to Erin’s in the future … though not necessarily as a teacher. I wonder if God will provide another, more law-oriented position for me to work through. I don’t know. But I can feel the burden within. Most times, I am very glad for it, and I almost envy myself too, as Erin’s father envied his daughter. It is a wonderful blessing to have a God to serve and a mission to live for.

But I must admit that sometimes, it feels like the burden is too heavy to carry around. Or I wonder how much easier life might be without it. I look at movies like “Freedom Writers” and see the sacrifices that the Erin Gruwells of the world must make, and while from the outside it’s easy for me to say it’s worth it — I know that if I were in their situations, the sacrifices would be extremely difficult for me to swallow and endure. Then I wonder what sacrifices I will have to make, and what costs I will have to pay. And who, besides God, will stand and walk beside me as I carry the burden around. I don’t know the answers, and sometimes that scares me.

Mostly, though, I still feel really lucky. I agree with the dad — it IS a blessing to receive a burden. And I’m reminded of how Jesus says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30). And I’m reminded of what I read just last night in I Corinthians 10:13 — “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” God walks with us all the way, and He is enough.

Mom tells me that when I was fourteen years old, she sat by me as I lay in bed, and I looked up her and said, “When I grow up, I want to defend justice. And when I die, I want God to say to me, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”

I’m over a decade away from that moment now, but the desire still rings true. I just find that as the world becomes more and more grey, rather than black and white, I see how difficult it is going to be to know exactly what my goals entail. But… God will help me figure it out. He’s faithful.

Philippians 1:6 – “…He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

* * *

Memorable, challenging, and resonating passages from the “Freedom Writers” script -

Scott: If you have another glass your gonna have a headache
Erin: Your bags are backed and you think the wines gonna give me a headache? Why are you doing this?… Because I don’t pay enough attention to you?
Scott: No, that’s not it. I just feel like I’m living a life i just did not agree to, and it’s just too hard
Erin: Your life is too hard?
Scott: I think what your doing is noble and it’s good, and I’m proud of you. I am. I just want to live my life and not feel bad about it.
Erin: Well, I’m not trying to make you feel bad.
Scott: You don’t have to try..
Erin: Scott, I finally realized what I’m supposed to be doing and I love it. When I’m helping these kids make sense of their lives, everything about my life makes sense to me.. How often does a person get that?
Scott: Then what do you need me for?
Erin: Your my husband. Why can’t you stand by me and be a part of it?
Scott: Erin, if you had to choose between us and a class, what would you pick?
Erin: If you loved me, how could you ever ask me that?
Scott: Erin, look at me, this is all there’s ever been to me, this is it, I’m not one of those kids. I don’t have anymore potential.. see you don’t want to be here, if you did would you be in the classroom every night?
Erin: That’s not true. I want to be here. I love you.
Scott: You love the idea of me.
Erin: But it’s such a great idea.

* * *

Erin: The evaluation assignment was to grade yourself on the work you’ve been doing. You gave yourself and F… what’s that about?
Student: It’s what I feel I deserve.
Erin: Oh really? You know what this is? It’s a **** you to me and everyone in this class. I don’t want excuses. I know what your up against. Were all of us up against something. So, you better make up your mind, because until you have the balls to look me straight in the eyes and tell me this is all you deserve, I am not letting you fail… even it it means coming to your house every night until you finish your work. I see who you are. Do you understand me? I can see you.. and you are not failing. So, take a minute, pull yourself together and come inside. oh, and I want a new evaluation. An F? What? Are you trippin’?

Two of my brothers told me this recently, and I realized what power this phrase has, because their saying it meant the world to me. In expressing such confidence in me, both provided an a priori blanket of security. Their expression of devotion, regardless of the circumstances, was both moving and empowering.

• “I love you.”

This phrase isn’t really said in our household, but some of my closest friends say it. And it’s more than just a simple, thrown-around phrase in my book. It means all the things that love should mean: unconditional acceptance, undying loyalty, incredible care and concern. It is good to be told that we are loved.

I should tell people whom I love that I do love them, more often. But it’s kind of hard to get the words out of my mouth, since I’m just not used to saying it. So in the meantime, I hope that they understand through my actions alone.

• “Bei bei.”

My parents call me this all the time, and explained it to me for the first time today. I always thought it was just another word for “baby,” and since I’m the youngest, I figured they just called me that out of convenience. Not so!

Bei bei is derived from bao bei, which means “precious,” and bei bei is a step up — it is a term of endearment that reflects something more along the lines of “most precious.” I’m my parents “most precious” daughter!

Lucky me. It is good to be someone’s bei bei.

• Because it is, far more often than not, constructive.

• Because it is also, far more often than not, healing.

• Because it is redemptive.

• Because it demonstrates to people their value as fellow humans who are loved by God.

• Because whatever it is that we think we might lose in extending compassion — is not really a loss.

• Because really, there but for the grace of God go you and I.

My mind is stuck in a jungle of thoughts, a tangle of vines — each strand of which is a stream of consciousness without an identifiable beginning or a discernible end. This mental mess so fully occupies and overwhelms the grey matter in the northernmost region of my cranium that I begin to suspect that I’m actually thinking about absolutely nothing, even though I know deep down that the opposite must be true.

I gaze for a long moment at the reverse tattoo that I have acquired on my feet in the last several months. The sun was so intense, the hours in said sun so long, and my negligence in applying sunblock so gross, that one might guess that I had spilled an entire bottle of henna on these feet. One pale and thick criss intersected by two thin (but equally pale) crosses provide irrefutable evidence that the similarly patterened sandals on the doormat outside are mine.

These feet have taken me to many places since they first reacquainted themselves with the sun in late May. As they have baked and browned over the summer, I feel like my soul and spirit have likewise ripened a bit during this season. The changes were imperceptibly subtle as they occurred, but now enough time and sufficient distance have intervened, and things are beginning to slip into focus. We may not be able to read books when they are right up against our noses, because our eyeballs get all cross-eyed and funny… but when we hold things out a bit further, the visuals kick in and we are able to read what was there all along. So it is with life, I think.

Back to the baking and browning and other food analogies towards which I tend to tend. Where was I? Ah yes, ripening. Looking back, I see that it was difficult for me to leave law school — in large part because so many significant things happened during those three years. Finally, I met a sizeable group of like-minded Christ-followers with whom I could not only fellowship, but also earnestly love, and be sincerely loved by. Finally, I was given opportunities to see the insides of courtrooms — and from the other side of the bar, the side where attorneys and officers of the court write, speak, move, and think. And finally, I visited Zhong Guo, and began not only to accept — but also to embrace the heritage that had sprung a thousand tears when I was younger.

The end of the year, graduation, and the bar exam flew by in a blur that seemed, at times (i.e. during bar review lectures), to move in agonizingly slow motion. While I was trapped in the middle of that whirlwind, I still found time to contemplate and reflect, but none of those precious spare moments could compare with the power of ten full weeks of vacation, half of which I have already consumed, and with great progress to prove it.

I’m grateful that I was able to book a ticket for a plane that would whisk me away to a distant land on the other side of the world, twelve time zones away, far from cell phones, laptops, the daily dose of the New York Times, the English language, and the American culture that I know and (mostly) love so well. Only by leaving everything that I knew and thought I understood, and being subsequently dunked / doused / immersed / submerged entirely into a wildly different universe could I step back and make a far more accurate assessment of what my world back at home looked like.

Let’s revisit the food analogies. My life in America is like good, solid Dove chocolate. It’s smooth, it’s good, it’s familiar, and common. But all around me, so it would often seem, people live lives of Godiva chocolate, Lindt chocolate, imported Swiss chocolate, and the like. Fancy chocolate — in shiny golden wrappers, some with delectable surprises of gooey caramel or airy amaretto tucked inside. And those whose lives aren’t like chocolate still live good lives of… sugary gum drops. Creme brulee. Mint chocolate chip ice cream. Even Jell-O. All are pretty darn sweet, but in a land of sweetness, even the sweetest among sweets (a.k.a. chocolate) start to seem flavorless.

Imagine that Miss Dove Chocolate gets transported to a land of rich vegetation. Life is harder in that land, but in many respects, just as good (or dare I say, better). There — instead of candy — cucumbers, carrots, cabbages, green leafy things, and all sorts of other makings of a delicious salad grow and thrive. (If you feel like this analogy is taking or has long taken a wrong direction, remember that it is 4am by now). That’s what happened to me. Chocolate doesn’t and cannot fully understand the meaning, significance, or role of its sweet existence until it relocates, however temporarily, to a wholly different environment, where the big-picture comparisons and contrasts that really matter become glaringly apparent.

That’s what happened to me. And for me.

And something about understanding what I’m really about helps me move on to the next chapter with more boldness, more enthusiasm, more optimism, and anticipation. I believe there is a great adventure ahead, and more than any other time in recent memory, I’m excited to go and live it out.