THANKSGIVING

I can’t believe the whole pandemic thing has last long for almost a year, and there’s a big chance for another year. Thank God there is a progress of the vaccine developments. I feel like there are so many things that I could complain but instead, I’d like to share some of my stories and gratitude for everything that I’ve been through.

Let’s talk about work.
Is it good or bad to work from home for almost a year? I don’t have a clear answer to that, there are always some good and bad sides to it. I can’t imagine how did I wake up at 5:30 am and took the train all the way to SF for work every day before SIP, believe me, I don’t think I can do that now. However, there are things that I’m grateful for.

1. Caltrain is clean, I can sleep all the way to the end of the station without worry about missing the stop.
2. The baby bullet train is fast (if you have experience in taking the local train, you’ll know what’s the difference between a bullet and a local train :) ).
3. After SIP, no commute!! Well, technically there’s still commute but it’s only 2 seconds! I can spend time working out, catching up with brothers and sisters from church, hang out with friends, etc…
4. I’d be able to have a job and work! I’m a DevOps engineer and I do things related to cloud and infrastructure (I’ll stop here, I don’t want to take it deeply because it’s so nerd :D ).

I wonder how can you use your daily job to please and glorify God. Does package deployment can really glorify God? Hmm, I doubt it. However, I was in a book club with a couple of brilliant people and we read “Every Good Endeavor” by Tim Keller (highly recommend this book, so many good points that I’ve never thought of), Pastor Tim Keller mentioned in the book

Your daily work is ultimately an act of worship to the God who called and equipped you to do it — no matter what kind of work it is.

Wow, that was a mind-blowing moment for me, there were certain times that I don’t feel the passion for the work that I have (shame on you Andrew :D), however, this book brought me a different motivation and perspective of occupation.

I was always expecting to work from home because I could save tons of time doing something else and living my life. And now, there’s a chance for me to really live life but not the way I expected - learning how to deal with my own emotion and feelings through the ups and downs in life.

So, let’s talk about life.
There are always some good times and bad times throughout life. When good things happen, all is well. The air smells fresh, the sunshine is warm, the breeze is soft and gentle… Wake up Andrew, this doesn’t happen all the time. The real challenge is, how to deal with the negative thoughts and also the things that I’ve done wrong. Well, be thankful!

There were few times that I sit on the chair, all I could think of was the things that bothered me went bad, situations were heading to the point that I couldn’t handle, the wrongdoings that I’ve done, etc… Unfortunately, none of them was positive. I could hardly breathe and I became super anxious. Thank God, me as a Christian, reading Bible, books, which could calm me down, and helped me to get out of those terrible moments. However, there was a limit to me, the negative thoughts came back, anxiety came back, I never thought I was this kind of person that had so many emotions going on in my little head. But God was encouraging me to reach out to people and to really focus on what He had to say. One of the Sunday sermons spoke to me a lot. It said

Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, character produces hope

That’s basically what Romans 5:3-5 is talking about. What a strong statement, right? I mean, isn’t usually the more suffering, the less hope? It seems like it’s the other way around. Until now, I’m still struggling with the difficulties and the consequences of my wrongdoings. I’m a sinner, and constantly making mistakes (sigh, there are a lot :( ).

I’m thankful that I’d be able to repent. Doing the morning devotion time, self-reflections, prayer meetings, the encouragements and prayers from the church community, brothers and sisters, friends that keep each other accountable, I’m truly thankful for having the support that I don’t have to fight this battle alone. That’s the grace and mercy from God, that’s the love that I constantly have from Him. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, this is a really famous verse, it inspired me a lot because I certainly need to repent and there are too many mistakes that I made and I definitely need to be restored and redeemed by the Heavenly Father so that I could become a more godly person (at least be more patient towards everything… ).

Well, I believe there are still lots of things that I could talk about, but I’ll stop here, it’s already too long :)

Stay safe and healthy!