Live Out Loud - Adventures of a mom

I had no idea what SAHM was until only a couple of weeks ago.  I was watching a talk show about stay at home moms and working moms.  I had no idea some people felt so strongly against one or the other!  SAHM means Stay at home moms, if you haven't figured that yet :)  So after watching that, I started thinking.  Why are we women fighting each other on which choice is 'better'?  Why are we so critical towards one another instead of uniting together to support each other in our unique challenges and triumphs? I am a SAHM now, I suppose.  But I work from home through Sandy's Sweets  too and before that I was working part time from home while Samuel was a baby.  So, what does that make me?  Was I right at one point and wrong at another? Perhaps part of the issue lies in that most if not all of us mothers, SAHMs or not, deal with feelings of inadequacy , judgment and guilt .  Whether we admit it openly or deal with th...

Matthew 25:34-40 The Message (MSG)   34-36 "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:     I was hungry and you fed me,     I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,     I was homeless and you gave me a room,     I was shivering and you gave me clothes,     I was sick and you stopped to visit,     I was in prison and you came to me.'   37-40 "Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to m...

Upon looking at the stuff my mom saved after Andy's passing, I stumbled upon this.  I later asked mom the story behind it as I was puzzled by it but she doesn't seem to recall much. This is what I know.  I know Ms. Chapman gave it to my mom.  She was a dear lady that loved all of us International Students at Prairie.  The letter was typewritten but the heading "Dear family" and the salutation "Until Then, Love Andy" has my brother's writing. So...though I have not discovered the entire story behind this poem (not yet!), I'd like to think it was something Ms Chapman shared with us and somehow Andy saw it and thought it spoke well of his feelings as he began to accept the fact that he was going to be Home sooner than us.  Thus the additional handwriting from him. Yesterday I tracked one of Andy's oncologists and in our email interactions he reminded me of something very important:   " While going back in time can reveal beautiful memori...

He estado leyendo muchas cartas viejas que tenía.  Durante este proceso he descubierto que mi memoria no es tan buena como creía.  Pero mientras re-leo estas cartas, las memorias del pasado regresan a mi mente. Me siente muy agradecida.  HUBIERON PERSONAS QUE SE TOMARON EL TIEMPO e invirtieron sus vidas en mi durante todos estos años.  Todo lo bueno que ha florecido de mí viene porque estas personas entendieron la importancia de tomarse el tiempo y tomarse el esfuerzo para comunicarse con otros.  Ellos invirtieron en mi vida y sabían que sí valdría la pena. Déjame explicar... Me mudé a Canadá en 1990 para terminar mis estudios de secundaria en el Prairie High School.  Tenía 15 años y viví en el dormitorio del colegio.  Naturalmente extrañé mucho a mis amigos y familia.  En ese entonces no tenía muchos recursos y las cartas eran la manera para comunicarse primordial. Lo que me sorprendió esta semana a medida que leía estas cartas que recib...

I've been pouring over old letters.  In the process I have discovered my memory is not very reliable. As I re-read these letters, memory brings me back to the past. I am very thankful.   PEOPLE TOOK THE TIME  and invested in me all these years.  All the good that has come out of me have come because these people understood the importance of taking the time and effort to communicate with people.  They invested in me, and they knew it mattered. Let me explain... I moved to Canada in 1990 to go to Prairie High School.  I was 15 years old and lived in a school dormitory.  Naturally, I experienced a lot of home sickness and back then my resources were very limited.  Letters were the main way of communicating with friends and family. What surprised me this week as I pour over the letters I received from friends during those 3 years is this.   People wrote me.  In my journals I have recorded countless times how the highlight of...

As I drop off the kids to school this morning and drive home I search in my mind...what do I remember about Andy?  What can I remember today? I think a lot of people tend to think I was the 'good' one of the two of us.  I was always the one abiding by the house rules.  You were always the one that challenged the rules.  I was the compliant and peace maker of the two.  You were the defiant and instigator of challenges. But was this always true? Of course not! Two memories come to mind... It must have been 1981 when we first moved from Hong Kong to Peru.  We were still living with my uncle's family.  Everything was so new.  New people, new language, new families I had never met before, new homes.   To this day I still remember the distinct smell from my uncle's kitchen.  I can't quite explain it but it was unlike anything else I had smelled before. One new thing I was fascinated by was the washrooms.  They were so big and ...

As I continue to pour over anything I can find about you, Andy, I am finding myself mixed with emotions. I promised I would continue to purposely remember and celebrate you.  I would ask anyone willing to share to share with us.  I am even trying to nail down the doctors and nurses that served you for 5 months.  Your teachers.  Your mentors.  Your friends. I found the sermon that was used in your funeral today.  I could not stop the tears from flooding through my face.  Though there was sadness, it was mixed with gratefulness for being able to remember both the good and the bad.  And I sensed a calm and peace in the midst of sadness over losing you. And then I remembered:   YOUR MUSIC. You were always better at music than me.  You always learned so much faster.  But I remember I used to say you were too technical.  You played with no heart.  I remember mom commenting you rushed through pieces and we had to const...

I was excited one of my favourite TV shows, "Grey's Anatomy" was back after the Christmas hiatus.  The show had left me hanging in December because Meredith and Alex had found themselves in an accident while inside an ambulance.  So with anticipation I settled into bed and started streaming the show on my laptop. I found out that Meredith and Alex were fine after all but instead an entire family had succumbed to very bad injuries from having hit the ambulance.  Grandma was dead.  The mother, father, a sister and a brother were badly injured.  Only Lily, the teenage daughter, had come out relatively ok. As the scene took me back to Seattle Grace Hospital, I find out that Lily had to witness her own mother's death and later on saw her father code several times.  She then had a dialogue with Meredith that hit hard home for me. Lily had just turned 18 while at the hospital that night.  She was now at a legal age to make decisions as the eldest of the...

Today was the last day of our family's Christmas break.  We woke up and started cleaning up old files.  I was stressed because we were looking at numbers, accounts, insurance policies...I hate doing that kind of thing but it is stuff I know we must do.  Imagine my relief when I bumped into a file labeled "High School-Sandy" This is an essay I wrote in 1991, on my second year (Grade 11) at Prairie High School, for my English 20 class.  I was only 16 years old.  As I read this I am amazed at my own writing.  I may not agree with every single theological point exposed here, but hey, I was only 16!!! :)  We can all learn a lot from the faith that came from this 16 year old, during her second year in a foreign country...trying to express herself in a language not her own.  Enjoy! Living as a true Christian, by Sandy Ho The Christian life is not easy, but it rings happiness and meaning to life.  I had a friend who was a new Christian.  H...

In 2011 our family decided it was time for me to step up to God's call to serve in our church leadership in the capacity of missions deacon.  This decision was not an easy one.  In fact, I had been struggling with this for over two years.  Every year, as the church asked me to consider, I would bail out and say I just wasn't ready or didn't have time (" Can't they get it that I'm a busy stay at home mom? ").  But last year was different.  We knew it was time to step out in faith. Here are 10 things I've learned in 2011 while serving at Scarborough Community Alliance Church : 1.  Compartmentalizing God.  As I prayed about whether our family could make this commitment, I found myself looking at my calendar.   How much time do I have left at the end of every day?  Would I be able to handle the commitment?  I realized that I had put God in a box - I figured I could serve only if I had 'extra' time.  Instead, God was asking me to st...

One thing I love about reading is that it really opens up my mind.  I find this especially true now that I am a stay at home mom.  Sometimes I feel as if I just go from one mundane task to the next and it is as if the more mundane things I do (e.g. washing laundry, pick up kids from school, buying groceries, filling up gas, making doctors appointments, brushing a toddler's teeth) the less brain cell are left in me!  I become numb to life, to my purpose here, to my senses ~ to the point where I no longer am able to taste, feel, smell and hear what life is all about.  I just simply go through the motions.... Reading challenges me to think about what I'm doing.  I suppose it is one way to force me to PAUSE and reflect on life issues and on how I am interacting with this world...and as I read I am finding I have 'stuff' to ponder on - to ask God about - to reflect on - and to perhaps change, if needed. So, tonight, I was reading the latest edition of Servant mag...

"One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him.   When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them,  “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.   I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.”  Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them."  Mark 10:13-16 (NLT) I had a great experience last night - well, you could even call it an experiment.  Our church held our first ever (I think) 6-hour straight worship service to welcome the new year. As Stephen and I discussed the plans for Dec 31st. we decided to try to attend.  At first we thought of attending just ourselves, looking for babysitting options for the kids.  But as we talked we somehow came...