This is Home

Mundy Park

What's the first thing you want to do after you have met with inspiration? Often, mine is to write whether it is after a good play, movie or book, conversion or sight. It begins as an urge, an urge that needs harnessing and one that keeps nagging at you if you ignore it too long. Sometimes when you ignore it too long, the words also become fuddled and one has to seek hard to find them. I have written little this summer compared to past partly because writing solidifies my reality and I wanted to be carried away instead on the wings, like Keats wrote, of poesy. But alas, laptop here we meet again.

For four summers of my short life, I have spent my August days away from Vancouver. I always say that August is the best month to be in the city because for a few short weeks, California's sunshine comes. When I stepped off my 21st and final flight from Asia at YVR, despite the rain, I breathed in the humidity-free air and I was incredible happy to be home. Did it really take me so long to come to this place of peace and contentment? A week into hitting up my favourite running spots, driving the scratched up car I learned to drive in, and eating with friends - I don't want to leave again. It's too good, too perfect for this aching heart and I have to smother the small still voice at the back of my mind that says, this can't last. Was it really 12 years (3 olympic games) ago that I avidly watched the games and would write about Donavan Bailey along with my astronomy books? From the movie theatre I saw built where I visited countless times during high school because friends worked there to the evergreen trees we planted at the back of the yard that only used to be knee high that now tower over my head. For all the times I have 'left', I have also finally let go off all the blame and resentment against my family for not being the 'perfect' family for a 'perfect' me. In the future, another battle will arise, but this time, it will be fighting for my family.


A younger Molly and I | Apple tree in backyard

My first car accident | SR2K


Family 2005


God hasn't allowed me to cry for more than two days though sometimes I still want to cry. Too much good sense, I say to myself. There's more worthy things in this world to cry for Anna, the other half replies. Yet, instead of the feelings of being unwanted, unloved and failure, He has bombarded me with affirmations of who He is and who I am in Him. Indescribable. Unexplainable.

I am so scared and I don't want to go but I know it is time. Time to pursue my destiny, without distractions and hindrance. Time to enjoy God, to enjoy simply being. Time to make the stories that I will tell my grandchildren. I wasn't able to attend church often this summer because of the travels, but I was able to attend a service in Hong Kong and one in Singapore. Both speakers spoke on Micah 6:8, which I had declared earlier this year to be my life verse. Lately, I've heard that often, that something big will happen in my life, in that way. I remember the first time in the summer of first year when I went to Iona Beach with Mark (still one of my favourite places in the world) I said I wanted to be the prime minister and a missionary. How young, how naive, how fresh. Four summers later at the jetty, I told Mati that I have no such dreams anymore. A husband would be nice. I'm not sure all things are done by our own choosing. The phone call on Sunday shocked and devastated my heart, but maybe sometimes pain is the final notice.


Iona Beach

20 months. One cold city. Toronto, what do you have in store for me? More than I can imagine for myself? God you have allowed this door to open, please walk with me.

As always, there is a Switchfoot song for every and any occasion and this is no exception.

This is Home - Switchfoot

I’ve got my memories
Always inside of me
But I can’t go back
Back to how it was

I believe now
I’ve come too far
No I can’t go back
Back to how it was

Created for a place
I’ve never known

This is home
Now I’m finally
Where I belong
Where I belong
Yeah, this is home
I’ve been searching
For a place of my own
Now I’ve found it
Maybe this is home
Yeah, this is home

Belief over misery
I’ve seen the enemy
And I won’t go back
Back to how it was

And I got my heart
Set on
What happens next
I got my eyes wide
It’s not over yet
We are miracles
And we’re not alone
Yeah

This is home
Now I’m finally
Where I belong
Where I belong
Yeah, this is home
I’ve been searching
For a place of my own
Now I’ve found it
Maybe this is home
Yeah, this is home

And now after all
My searching
After all my questions
I’m gonna call it home
I got a brand new mindset
I can finally see
The sunset
I’m gonna call it home
Home

This is home
Now I’m finally
Where I belong
Where I belong
Yeah, this is home
I’ve been searching
For a place of my own
Now I’ve found it
Maybe this is home
Yeah, this is home

Now I know
Yeah, this is home

I’ve come too far
And I won’t go back
Yeah, this is home