It's happened so often, so many times, that I don't even blink an eye in surprise when it happens. If anything, I try to anticipate it - to brace myself for its inevitability.
But I still blink when it happens. I still need to take a moment or two to blink the tears away.
Because getting left behind feels bad enough once. But it's a whole different story when it's become almost like a routine.
In my heart of hearts, I know - just like those anticipating marriage, or a promotion, or graduation, or grandchildren, or hope for medical recovery - that God has a special purpose for every chapter of our lives. I myself have read and prayed and written thousands of thousands of words on the beauty of God's timing, of the importance of finding contentment in His will, and of seeking after Him with all our hearts no matter our circumstances.
But faithfully waiting for God's plan to reveal itself in our lives can sometimes be a very lonely journey.
I married young, at least within my cultural context. My now-husband proposed when I was still 23. We married when I was 24. In the unfair timeline mentality of the Filipino-Chinese community, I was somewhat "ahead" of my peers. It's as if I somehow managed to get to Level 3 in the Fil-Chi Game of Life, when everyone else my age was taking their time at Level 2.
Early marriage made me think and act differently from my peers. Suddenly, I had household and family concerns that they didn't have. They had career priorities that were different from mine. We were still close and still sisters in Christ, but our stations in life led us to have varying responsibilities and perspectives.
But then I got "stuck" - in a world where it feels that everyone else is moving ahead.
Looking back now, I woefully regret not having been more sensitive to the people around me when I was caught up in the whirlwind of young love. We had friends who had been dating people for years before their relationships fell apart. We had single friends who wanted to get married so badly - who had been waiting for three or four decades of their life without the Lord leading them to that next chapter. I talked about my engagement as if it were the most straightforward thing in the world - not realizing that I was in the minority for having been blessed to find my life partner at such a young age. I was a foolish 23-year-old, and I apologize to anyone who had been hurt by my insensitivity during that phase.
I've since learned what it's like to be on the receiving end.
I know what it's like to see people get married and be pregnant within one, two, or three months while our supposed nursery room morphs into a storage attic. I know what it's like to have friends post pregnancy announcement after announcement and flooding my social media feeds with innumerable daily pictures of their babies. I know what it's like to have a friend get married, talk to me about marriage, become a mother, and suddenly "outgrow" me because I am no longer capable of or comfortable with talking with her about motherhood.
I know what it's like to be left behind, even by people younger than I am.
What I needed to learn - was how to deal with it.
My more foolish and selfish tendencies want to resent those friends for moving on. I am tempted again and again (and sometimes fail to resist the temptation) to let envy poison my friendships with these sisters in Christ. Sometimes, I try to keep up - to be genuinely invested in their chatter about their newborns. But I am also ill-equipped to keep up. There's only so much that resonates with me when it comes to types of baby poop and breastfeeding wailing children in the middle of the night!
I love it when my friends tell me about their children. I love to witness them caring for their children and teaching their kids how to be good Christians. It can be hard for me to keep up, but it doesn't mean I hate any reference to children. I love kids. It's one of the reasons I love being a teacher.
But I have to learn to accept that it's inevitable that my friends and I may have different priorities at different times of life. Our friendships, if they are true, should be able to stretch to include all of our different life chapters and interests. And as I learn to be more open with my friends who may have "overtaken" me in the journey of life, I can also learn to be more sensitive to the people who may feel that I have "left them behind."
No one is ever truly left behind in life. There are times when God lets us walk His way with our peers on our side. There are other times when He lets us walk His way alone - at least, in an earthly sense. But when we seek His way faithfully, we can find comfort in knowing that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has conceived what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him. What He has planned is even better than what we think we want or need.
No matter where I am in life - no matter the chapter or the "level" or the station - I can minister to the people around me. I can still show concern to my friends who have moved on to other priorities. I can share insights and encouragement with people who share my current circumstances. I can strive to be more considerate of the people who may feel that they wish to have their life move forward in a way that it isn't.
Because God knows what He's doing - and He's placing each of us where we are for a reason He believes to be best. With Him, we're never left behind. In fact, we're always exactly where He wants us to be.
The goal of good homeschooling and good brick-and-mortar traditional school should be the same: the effective education of its students.
As human beings, we are sinful and imperfect. We can end up corrupting our true goals, cutting corners in the process, or even hurting the people we are supposed to help. I am a proud product of homeschooling. I am a primary administrator for a homeschool provider. But I have also been a classroom teacher. I have also witnessed the fulfillment and purpose to be found in the traditional school setting.
So very often, homeschooling families who are being unfairly vilified for their choice to homeschool can become defensive. I see all over social media people who are complaining about school in general (whether it's the schedule, or the teachers, or the classmates). Sometimes, the complaints are reasonable and true. They are reflections of imperfect people in an imperfect system. I am never the perfect teacher either, no matter how hard I may strive to be. Sometimes, however, the complaints that show up on my social media feeds feel more resentful and unreasonable than they are helpful.
Homeschooling done right has innumerable benefits.
Traditional school done right has innumerable benefits.
As someone who has benefited from both my parents and my school teachers, as someone who has been a teacher to both homeschooled and traditional schooled children, I embrace both.
They are not antithetical.
The unfairness can work both ways. Families who believe in their choice to homeschool can easily fall into the trap of accusing everything about school as bad. At the same time, individuals who do not prefer homeschooling can sometimes unfairly blame anything imperfect about a child on the fact that he's homeschooled.
Neither are true. Neither are fair.
Homeschooling in and of itself is not a magic potion. Just like traditional school, there are good days and bad days. There are easy subjects and hard subjects. There are challenges, and there are rewards.
Many of my dearest family and friends choose the challenges and rewards of homeschooling, and I am here to cheer them on and do whatever I can to support them. If the Lord allows my husband and me to have children of our own one day, we also hope to use homeschooling to educate them.
But I also know families whose children are being benefited by the traditional school set-up. Maybe, at some point, the topics truly are too hard, and the family believe it's best for the children to learn from professionals in a school setting. Maybe their parents wish to educate in a more hands-on way but are unable or unavailable because of other responsibilities.
Homeschoolers don't like their choice being dismissed or considered inferior.
They have every right to feel that way.
But may all of us who are involved in the homeschooling world be equally fair to our brethren who choose traditional education for their children, either for a season or for life.
Neither is exclusively superior over the other. The Lord can use both for His glory!
I've known about the existence of Chick-fil-A since I was a tween. As a homeschooled kid who socialized on online platforms with other homeschooled kids all around the world, I had my share of American friends who absolutely adored the brand.
I knew about it, though I never thought much about knowing about it.
Then, as a thirty-one-year-old adult, I walked down the 46th Street in New York City with my husband on a temperate early autumn day, and we both spotted the cute red font smiling at us at the corner of 6th Avenue.
We were both eager to try it.
But what struck me, even before we had a single bite of a single order, was that here stood a fast food restaurant we both knew about - but for reasons far beyond food.
We knew the company closes its stores on Sunday.
We knew the company did extensive philanthropy.
I knew all my college friends, before our campus finally earned its own branch, missed the chain dearly while they slurped down food in our cafeteria.
And here I was, a Chick-fil-A newbie, walking into the cheerful corner store hand in hand with my husband.
We took our time ordering, and we had to keep asking the very patient Chick-fil-A employee what she recommended. Then, ten minutes later, we slid on the high stools by the window, and ate our first bites of the famed Chick-fil-A.
And the food was amazing.
How is this restaurant not known for its food?
The chicken sandwich, the chicken nuggets, the sauces - everything about the food left a deep impression of happiness, and we made sure to squeeze in at least one more meal there before we had to leave New York.
But what impressed us even more was the people.
Despite all the gloom, the smoke, and the angry people walking outside in the urban jungle that was midtown Manhattan, everything inside the store was bright and happy.
.
"Have a great day!"
"My pleasure."
"Have a good one."
"Do you need a refill?"
"How can I help you?"
Every word said to us brimmed with graciousness. The manager handed out completed food orders with a bright, amiable smile on his face. When we waited longer than others did for our order, they threw in a free sandwich for us with a dozen apologies that we never even asked for.
The food was great - underrated great.
But it's rare for the atmosphere of a fast food chain to surpass the actual food it served.
This was a company that prided itself in its Christian roots, and it was so humbling to witness how those roots reflect themselves in every branch and every leaf, every bite and every word.
It was an honor to try our first taste of Chick-fil-A.
If we had our way, it would definitely not be the last.
On a cultural scale, I was a pretty young bride.
At age 24, it was easy to look nice. My skin and weight and hair were all relatively pliant to whatever beauty treatments I experimented on them. I had no health issues and no fears of the inevitable ageing process. On our honeymoon cruise, I ate and ate to my heart's content knowing that I could easily lose whatever weight I gained.
Time has done quite a number on me since then.
My weight fluctuates, sometimes beyond my control. My hair thins just a little more with every new chemical process I let it go through. My face is showing fine lines, and scars take much longer to heal than they used to.
And I thank God every day that I have a husband who looks at me and loves me for things that are more than skin deep.
Because when the standards are timeless ones, then it is possible to become more and more beautiful as the years go by.
No matter the amount of age-defying beauty products I use, it's not possible to actually defy the effects of time. There's no magic potion to immunize us from getting and looking older.
But there's beauty of the other kind.
Because, no matter what life throws at you, kindness and understanding never go out of style. Selfless love and a positive spirit can brighten any relationship through thick and thin. Unlike the money and time I spend putting on make-up that I will inevitably take off, any efforts invested in developing a strong and beautiful character don't just wash away.
I still want to look pretty.
I think I always will.
But it's comforting to know whenever I look in the mirror and see my flaws, whenever I realize that all that pile of skincare product won't exactly make me look like the vibrant models on the billboards, that there is a way to keep becoming more beautiful, that there's a kind of beauty that becomes only better with time.
It's the kind of beauty that comes from bearing the Fruit of the Spirit. It's the kind of beauty that's found in a Proverbs 31 woman.
I'm never going to be perfect on this side of heaven, but I am heartened that there is a beauty standard that I can keep striving for regardless of how long I have to scroll down the drop down menu to get to my birth year. I find encouragement and hope in the knowledge that, wrinkles or not, a daughter of the King can keep getting prettier as the years go by.
Because becoming more beautiful is always possible, when it's in the places that count.
It's been a year. It's been 365 days since we were told by our somber-faced doctor that the twins in my womb were decidedly, irretrievably gone. We knew about the pregnancy at the 3-week mark. We learned that we were expecting identical twins at the 6-week mark. Then, at seven weeks, our short-lived parenthood came to an end.
It wasn't a simple matter. The products of conception would stay stubbornly in my body, anchored to my system with ironic security, for another two months before we proceeded with a D&C. I suffered morning sickness, including all the sores and vomiting, without ever meeting our children. The journey before and after those three hopeful weeks ran the length of almost an entire year.
It took me time to open up about it. We tried to grieve privately, telling only our immediate family, closest friends, or people whom we knew had similar experiences. We were aware that there were people who would care and offer genuine, godly comfort in the face of our sorrow. But I also knew there would be way too many people who would react (intentionally or misguidedly) in unhelpful ways.
I saw my friends who'd had miscarriages before bombarded with judgment or demands: "Maybe it was something you did or something you ate." "Maybe you didn't rest." "You were too stressed." "You didn't do this." "You should have done that." "You should have known better."
Pregnancy loss is a keen, life-changing sorrow - and all these empty words just sound like "It was your fault. You killed your baby." to couples who are already grieving.
The length to which expecting couples, especially mothers, go for the benefit of their unborn children is immeasurable. It's heartbreaking that their sacrifices and adjustments could be so flippantly discussed just because the Lord has chosen to give and then take away.
So I kept quiet.
I chose not to tell people because I was so afraid of the inevitable condemnation that I would rather sacrifice the potential solace.
Thank God that His grace is always sufficient.
During one session of our shared devotional time late last year, the book Tim and I were using asked us to discuss what the darkest time of our married life was.
To our surprise, we realized that the loss of our twins - our detour into the valley of the shadow of death - was the time when the goodness, faithfulness, and sovereignty of the Lord shone the brightest in our lives.
Sometimes, it takes darkness for us to appreciate the light even more.
Three months after the miscarriage, an older sister in Christ pulled me aside after church. This was a mother of one of our close friends. I figured she might have heard of what had happened to us.
I braced myself for the queries and judgment - for the abundant unsolicited advice so inevitable in our tight-knit Filipino-Chinese community.
What I didn't expect was for her to hug me and whisper, "Wen, I admire you so much. To know what you guys have gone through and to still see you and Tim loving and serving the Lord so faithfully. I appreciate it so, so much. Praise the Lord for your faithfulness."
I cried.
Even now, as I write about the memory, I cry.
We don't know what the next chapter of God's story for us will be. We have our hopes and our wishes - but, most of all, we seek for His will.
And I pray, I pray so hard, that no matter what He chooses to give or to take away in His omnipotence and grace - that we would be able to show with our lives that, indeed, blessed be the name of the Lord.
Watching the recent wave of Facebook posts that contrast one's former looks and current one forced me to exercise some long-due introspection.
Age has definitely touched me in the last ten years. My skin and weight and general health are not, and probably never will be, the same as they were as a college freshman ten years ago. My life is fulfilling and happy and blessed, but it's also taken on a form that my "doctorate-degree-holder-and-world-reknowned-novelist-mother-of-three-who-has-it-all" younger dreamer self would never have pictured. God's ways are higher than our ways, and His will takes us places we probably would never have pictured ourselves.
For me, however, the most thought-provoking part of these posts was the way they compelled me to consider how much I've changed from a spiritual perspective.
If I were able to contrast my behavior from ten years ago and today, would the two images reflect two levels of growth - or the same immaturity, selfishness, entitlement, self-righteousness, insecurity, and fears? If these two versions of me could converse with one another, would my younger self be able to glean from added wisdom from the older - or would my older self just agree with all the follies of youth in which my younger self delighted?
And even if I've moved on from certain obsessions or habits of the past - have I outgrown them or merely replaced them with a new array of idols?
It's fun to play a game of contrasts. I've seen so many old and new pictures of my friends and family placed side by side to fun, cute, or even comedic effect. The "10-year-challenge" is a fun thing to do.
But these posts are also a chance for self-examination in the things the human eye can't see.
I can only hope that in God's eyes, He would consider this older version of me someone kinder, wiser, more dedicated, and more joyful than the person I was before.
