Redefining Double Whammy

Since the beginning of this school year, my Bible Study class (called BSF) has been going through the very familiar section of the Bible where Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt into the Promised Land of Canaan. Despite the familiarity of this story, as we focus on the Life of Moses it has been bringing out different levels of understanding the same story from a new perspective. So, I've been enjoying these lessons so far.

On this Saturday (11/1/2008) morning I began my usual routine of attending the BSF leadership meeting at 6:55am in Menlo Park and then had to head out early to my son's 8am soccer game in Palo Alto in the first rainy day of this winter season in California. I pulled over a hooded rain jacket to keep myself dry while the boys ran hard in the light rain on the artificial grass field. Then I got a call from my aunt.

She conveyed to me that my first out of five uncles passed away in Korea. He never woke up from the night's sleep. In recent months this uncle and I were very actively exchanging email mainly because he loves to take & send pictures of my parents and others almost like a picture journalist would. And my last email to him was that my family should be the next one spending time with him so we can be in his pictures too. Not only that his children (my cousins) and I are close in age we used to hang out practically like a family when I grew up. Needless to say he and I were pretty close.

My thoughts:
Wow, I guess I am getting old now that I am facing more deaths than weddings and baby showers; and this is the first encounter of death for someone very close to me ...

... so I thought until I got the next phone call about an hour later while watching my daughter's game.

The caller ID was my sister's # but her husband was on the line. He conveyed to me that about 9am ET, my sister did not wake from her sleep rest she took in the morning because she did not get a good night's sleep. She was fighting breast cancer but we thought the condition was not critical. My first response on the phone was: "What? Can you say that again because it's a bit noisy here and I might not have heard you correctly."

Don't you just know the moment when you could stop the time or even reverse it a little? This was that moment. How can this be?

Talk about an impact. Many thoughts rushed through my mind but I put them on pause and watched the rest of the game just to settle my mind a little so I can reflect on the lessons from the Life of Moses which are fresh in my mind because deep inside I knew God was still in full control of my life as well as my sister's and uncle's lives and He had allowed these events to happen for a special cause.

Remember that BSF leadership meeting I attended earlier? There I had shared my lesson plan for my high school class which focused on an introductory concept from how eagles train their eaglets to fly:

As eagle's position their nests on high elevation the mother eagle basically pushes the young eaglet off precipice while the father watches from above and before the eaglet hits the bottom he swoops down with incredible speed to catch with huge wings. The eaglet cannot fall faster than the father can fly. We are going to see a similar training carried out by God where He tests his people's faith on His amazing power through what seems to be deadly situations to His people.

Could God have prepared my mind through my preparation of this teaching lesson? That even though I would be experiencing the free-falling myself that I would be prompted to the picture of the father eagle swooping up the eaglet and that's exactly how God was going to do with me? Yes, I believe so!

All these, however, does not remove or lessen the pain going through me, but allow me to get my bearings straight while getting comforted. And that's where I am right now.

I will be flying to Korea tomorrow so I may attend my uncle's funeral service as well as to comfort my parents' grieving process. And because of the time constraints my brother will attend my sister's funeral service in East Coast. I would be a liar if I said I know exactly what I'm doing now but with all the prayer support from many friends/families, I am quite certain God knows what is best for me in this situation and is guiding me every step of the way.

I'm so grateful for my own family -- my wife, my three children -- which God placed me into because we are all encouraging each other to look to God during this time of confusion and pain in double whammy capacity!