Wednesday 10 August 2016

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A Letter to Pa

Dear Pa

My heart aches, when I think of you and experienced intimately the brevity and mortality of your life. My heart aches as I face the mortality of my own life. As I look at our children and Baby C, just beginning her journey, so full of promises, youthful and cute, my heart aches once more as I weep about the eventual mortality of our children's lives.

"What is the meaning of it all?" My heart cried out to God.

Each time as you come to mind, God uses the pain to remind me about the lessons of life and teach me to bring life's striving and pursuits into perspective.

I am slowly having a real heart understanding that the brevity and mortality of life brings us down to a level playing field. No matter how high we reach, in the end, we will all be brought down to a close. Whether you are the brilliant statesman Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, whether you are the CEO of a large MNC, whether you are the Queen of Denmark, whether you are the Secretary-General of the UN, or the President of the USA, whether you have won the gold medal in the Olympics or completed the Ironman marathon in record time, in the end, all our skills and achievements will be undone, as we will slowly and surely come to lose our human faculties.

The blog post by Dr. Kelly Flanagan puts it very well:

"In the end, pain and loss and suffering come for every one of us. Eventually, pain and loss always ring the final bell. They overthrow every kingdom."

"...every single one of us will eventually be equalized by pain and suffering."

What then is one purpose of suffering? It teaches us to be humble, to have compassion and empathy for others. That in our striving to achieve and to provide a better lives for ourselves, we learn to have empathy for the less fortunate and the have-nots, for one day, we will become like them, striped of everything.

The purpose of man is still to "fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man;" to know God personally and be in His presence forever, as our lives on earth eventually come to an end.

God wants us to excel, but in a right perspective.

This means I will still strive to excel, to be my best for His glory without competing with others - to be the best mom I can be without being a Tiger Mom, to do my best to help our children to reach their potential without giving them unhealthy pressures, to learn to humble ourselves and to learn to use our skills and resources to benefit others. To teach this lesson to our children.

Dear Pa,

Your leaving to be with God is not in vain. Every day, I am still drawing life's lessons from that experience.

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