The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the
Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore
the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was
not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not
in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in
the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. (1Kings 19:11-12)
Flew to Taiwan for my aunt’s funeral in September. When she fell into the
downward spiral in the last week of August, Apostle Maldonado was holding an "Encounter" conference in Taiwan which was web broadcasted. Just seeing him praying for
people to get lots of money pissed me off big time. However, I still prayed
along pleading for a miracle to occur upon my aunt, because I knew that in her
situation, nothing other than a miracle can help.
In the broadcast, I did not feel the presence of God. And neither did
any miracles occur. In the middle of September I flew back to Taiwan for my
aunts funeral with an extremely heavy mood. Strangely enough, when I first
stepped out of the Taoyuan Airport, I felt a change in the atmosphere in the
air! It became a lot lighter and fresher than before. No, I don’t mean the pollution
level itself, but the actual spiritual atmosphere of this land. This is very
strange because many crappy things had just happened to this nation, and I was feeling
extremely unhappy at that time.
The funeral went smoothly. The following day my mom and I went on a
trip to Penghu to lighten our mood. Coincidentally we had a pair of sisters in
the tour group with the younger sister suffering from terminal cancer. She was
very yellow in colour and could hardly walk. This reminded my mom of her
sister.
This week, there had been a Puyama train derailment tragedy in Taiwan. And
I heard a great sermon on 1Kings 19 in the introductory sermon class from a
classmate who had just lost his sister to cancer, reminding me of my aunt's
recent passing... that this time, he did not find God in some
wind-shattering/earth-shaking/fire-burning miracles even though he really
wished for one for his sister, but encountered God in the silent times... This
week’s events had stirred up a lot of emotions for me...
After class, I went for coffee, and got given a smiley faced mocha... like an
encouragement from God!
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