What’s a song that changed your life?
I neither have nor know any song that can change a life once and for all—”changing a life” is too large a thing for that.
Yet I know songs that inspire, that move. In my teens I loved the romantic songs and novels every sentimental soul loved. None of them changed my life.
What truly changes a life, I believe, is a lived experience that gives birth to faith, belief, and values alike.
Today many invoke “family of origin” to explain broken people. Pop psychology concludes that how one was raised moulds one’s adult life—that family trauma can torment a life entire. Who, then, can heal from generational trauma? Who can truly break the cycle?
I grew up in an ordinary, healthy family—tough but not in want—where my life took shape in one belief: the stronger the challenge, the stronger I became. There was no secret, only love—the anecdote that held us together and kept our family close. I still recall how our mother spent nothing on herself because she spent it all on her children: new clothes for New Year, no torn shoes on our feet, a special treat on each child’s birthday. She was the anchor of our family—indispensable in my life.
And more so for me, the love and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. In faith I anchor my whole life in Christ—for He is everything and in everything. I live with deep gratitude for having my mother till the end of my teen years, and even more grateful for the Lord who came to seek and save me, and who since then has become my life.
May the poem below shed light on your reflection on who or what steers your life.
—
“Awakening”
Wind strikes me, rain beats upon me—
yet why am I still calm, secure?
Light calls me, darkness keeps me—
then suddenly You call me with Your saving grace.
I resolve to come, yet having come I hide within Your tender love—
sighing over my own weakness.
Spur me on with Your crown of thorns, Your pierced hands, Your covenant blood—
put my drooping hands to shame, make my faltering legs blush.
Open my heart—
awaken me to the truth that the Lamb gave His life for me.
So that I am no longer “I for myself”—
“Righteousness” becomes my life, the Lamb and I made one—”義”.
