Day +239 : Appreciate Life - Part 2

I am fine today. Continue from yesterday…

Appreciate Life – Part 2

Someone would like to take away other’s life
Recently, we learned from newspapers that some parents concluded their life after experiencing certain setbacks in life. Not only they did this to their own life, they also took away their children's life. We might treat these as extreme cases. In fact in our family life, husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters (church life) often tend to ‘take away’ others life. Whenever conflict arises, no one is willing to make concessions and everyone insists that he or she is the most reasonable being in this world and thus others must give in to him or her, resulting in unnecessary disputes and grudges. Because of these disputes and grudges, their life is a little bit shortened. Whenever we heard the unfortunate news that some parents while giving up their life also took away their children life, we tend to condemn their cruelty strongly, but do we realize that in fact we also tend to ‘take away’ other's life, especially the life of our close ones such as couple, children, siblings – in a chronic way?

In this New Year, let us learn to be more understanding, tolerate and patience, focusing more on others strong points rather than their weakness. Make concessions in disputes. Our life in this earth is short, when the time comes, we can’t bring a single thing in this world away with us. Our eternal home is heaven.

The audio file of the sharing in Chinese can be downloaded here. I was experiencing dry and sore mouth-throat at that time due to GVHD.

The Chinese version of the sharing is as follow.

珍惜生命

去年今天我在医院里化疗，今年今天我再这里分享，明年今天，我在哪里？我不知道。但我非常确定的一件事就是耶稣天天亲手领我。

无论如何，我再一次的感谢神赐给我生命在这里与大家分享。我再说：生命是可贵的，我活着是神迹，不只如此，你活着也是神迹。没有人可以‘自己’活着，其实神的恩典每分每秒都在托住我们的生命。

谈起生命，我看到三种人：有的人要命没有命，有的人有命不要命，而有些人却要人家的命。

有的人要命没有命
在这个世界上，许多人为了要活久一点在医院里接受医治，争扎求生。因为他们知道没有了生命，什么都没有了（其实基督徒不是这样想）。这包括亲情、爱情、财富、功利等。所以我们今天还好好的活在这个世界上就要珍惜我们所拥有的。在人与人交往中，凡事不要坚持见，要忍耐、包容、让步、体谅与自制。好好享受及珍惜神所赐的今生。

有的人有命不要命
许多人遇到一些挫折就不要命了，因为他们把一些身外物当他们的命根子。这包括爱情、财富、地位等。若我们看这些东西轻一点，看我们的神重一点，我们就不会有命不要命了。我们反而会觉得生命多可贵，我们的神多美好！

有些人却要人家的命
我们听到有父母遇到一些不如意后自寻短见，还要玉石具焚，带子女同归与尽。这是极端的例子。在我们家庭生活中，配偶之间、孩子与父母之间、兄弟姐妹之间其实很常都要对方的命。在关系冲突中，没有人要让步，所有的人都觉得自己做的很有理，以至硬要把对方压下去，产生许多不必要的争吵和积怨。也因为如此，彼此之间的命就短了一点。当我们看到不辛的新闻时，我们大声的谴责为何一些父母这么狠，自己不要命，也要孩子的命。但我们可曾察觉其实我们也要我们的配偶、孩子、兄弟姐妹的命，慢性的。

新的一年里，让我们一起学习，多一点体谅、多一点饶恕、多一点忍耐、少看别人的弱点、多看别人的优点，在争论中退一步，海阔天空。生命如过往云烟，时间到了，我们挥一挥衣袖，不带走一片云彩。我们永恒的家园在天上。

See you next post :-)