went for pastor haoran's sermon last saturday on the 7th day (aka Sabbath day) and he read us a poem that his wife, Aili 'Shi-Mu' wrote. it's in chinese. but over here, i'll try to translate it from whatever amount of fragments is left in my brain. will try to capture the essence, but dun expect much of a poem being left of it...

HOLDING THE SNAIL'S HAND

one day, God spoke to me.
He wanted me to do something different.
Something i'd never had done,
Had God not told me to.
and that thing that He asked me to do,
is to hold a snail's hand.

well it's nothing difficult at all.
or so i thought...
just to hold the snail's hand,
and walk with him.
minutes had gone, and hours had passed.
and yet we have barely moved a single yard.

i grew impatient and started to ask him to move a little quicker.
just a little quicker.
but no matter how much i rebuked him, nudged him, kicked him and shoved him,
he did not speed up a single bit.

i wanted to simply give up and let go.
but i thought again and decided not to,
before i tried a second time.
so once again, i rebuked him, nudged him, kicked him and shoved him.
and this snail still remains oblivious to all my efforts.

however, the snail has already done all he could,
every inch a tremendous amount of energy being expended.

i decided that this is the final straw.
i would let go.

on my way back to my own life,
however,
i noticed something.
oh yes! there it is!
it's a flower.
oh yes! there it is!
look at how the clouds changes its shape
look at the canvas painted across the sky
look at the birds that flew by.
and why haven't i noticed them before?
i wondered.

then it came upon me.
God did not want me to hold the snail's hand.
he wanted the snail to hold mine.
i was the one who needed the stroll.

Thank you Father.