Saved

A young child, a stranger, and an avenger savewd my life.

How?

Well it's quite an interesting story!

In 2011, I met a young boy named Caleb who had cerebral palsy. I volunteered to assit him throughout vacation bible school that year and got to know him and his family. I remember one night he asked his mom "can she come over to our house?" It was so sweet. Sadly in 2012, he passed away while recovering from surgery. It hit me hard bbecause I wasn't even home when it happened. I was on my way to a famiy outing. It took me along time to get over it and move on. I even separated myself from the children's ministry at church because it reminded me too much of him. His was the first funeral I ever cried at.

In 2014, rejoined a website called fanfiction.net and found a partcular author's story and started reading. Upon finishing, I messaged her through the site's private messaging system. Throughout the rest of the year. we comunicated back and forth about each other's stories (I began to write my own and would ask her for help. Fast foward to January of 2015, she joined Twitter and we started direct messaging each other just about every day, talking about our stories, things in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which is what both of our stories are about), and a few personal items. In November of 2016, I was dealing with some personal issues regarding my writing and reading of fanfiction. Because of this, I couldn't talk with her on twitter with her as much as I used to. It's a long and complicated story that is still at some points hard to talk about. Not a day goes by that I don't miss reading and writing. Sadly in January of 2018, she decided to no longer communicate with me, and chose to not say why she was stopping. This hit hard because we had been talking with each other for 3 years!

WARNING: THE NEXT SECTION CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME

In the movie, the avvenges travel back in time to collect the infinity stones to undo Thanos' sanp from the previous movie. Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff are sent to a planet called Vormir to retrieve the soul stone. In order to take the stone, one of them had to sacrifice themself so the other could take the stone back to the present day. Clint and Natasha fight over who was going to be the one to jump and in the end, Natasha ended up being the one.

This scene didn't hit me till after I left the theatre. I remember walking out shaking, then coming home and screaming in my room. I have loved Nat ever since she was in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (she appeared in 2 other movies prior to this one, but this was where I really got to know her). She is even the center character of my fanfiction stories. We also share a few things in common: we were both born in a different country (me China and her Russia), neither of us know our birth parents, and we're both ballet dancers.

So you're probably wondering, how did all three of these people save me? Here's the answer.

I believe that God uses tragety to bring people closer to Him. All three of these people I had grown close to and really got to know them. When they all were gone, I was hit hard and I struggled to come to terms with each loss. Why did Caleb have to die at such a young age? Why did Maggie (the stranger who became a mutal friend) leave me? Would this have happened if I wasn't forced to leave her? Why did it have to be Nat? Whhy couldn't they send someone else to Vormir?

Since the third loss, and after a concert in July (see previous blog post) my number one passion, which is worship, feels stronger than ever! I’ve joined the choir and I'm falling in love with new songs that I hear on the radio and learning valuable lessons:

"Yes I Will" praise God in the midst of tragedy
"While I Wait" I will worship and trust God
I will "Raise a Hallelujah" with everthing inside of me
He holds me through the storm and I will "Fear No More"
He is my "Shelter" in a time of storm
He is "Highter" than any mountain I face
He is an "Unstoppable God"
He is the "Keeper of my Heart"
Nothing can overcome my "Indestructable Soul"
I was a "Dead Man Walking" till he lead this dead man back to life
He reminds me every time that he's "Still Alive"
I can face my giants with "Confidence"


As far as the other spiritual diciplines, I'm working on them. I'm partcipating in a 4-year bible plan called Cover2Cover and am loving it. It's refreshing to slow down and focus on one chapter of the bible at a time whereas in previous plans I had to read multiple chapters a day. My prayer life is also growing again. I find it easier to spend more time in prayer at night before bed than in the moring before work. During running season, I would pray along the way to my early morning group runs, praising God for who He is and everything He has blessed me with.

So the short answer: God used all three of these loses to bring me back to Him and to reignite my passion for worship!