A dish and a story

Recently I've been super addicted to this 包子(bun) that is rather common in Taiwan. It's called 雪菜包子,a bun that's made of vegetable filling aka pickled green mustard. Now what exactly is so good about this bun that's made me quite nauseous now after having had so many at one go last night? Gee,I don't really know. But it is pretty healthy because the entire bun is made from vegetable filling and a mix of some fried beancurd skin,and the steamed dough of course. I had about 4 yesterday,and they were huge. I was tempted to finish the 5th,but I think I had so much carbs it was making me a little crazy with all that energy.

Anyhow,buns in Taiwan are really awesome and much bigger too.I never liked those when I was growing up in Singapore,but then this does not mean that the ones in Singapore were bad,I guess I just learnt how to appreciate things later on.

I wanted to share about this story I heard on Sunday at church. It moved me to tears.

The pastor was talking about his dog and how he had come to adopt it. The dog was a former stray,later named Charlie. When this nice quaint pastor was coming home one day to his abode he met a dog that followed him out of nowhere. This was Charlie. The pastor walked home where he was heading and noticed that the dog was following. Whenever he glanced at the dog behind his shoulder,the dog would pause and intently stare back at him. The pastor found this a little amusing but he kept walking anyways. Until he reached home,he noticed the dog was still at his heels and at the gate even when he had gone in. Now what do u know,the dog was still at the gate some hours later and eventually our nice friendly pastor decided to feed the dog some food and thrust it into a nice warm bath. This,he chuckled regrettably became a terrible move because he had to wait some 3 ,4 days before the bath tub stopped reeking of odor. The dog was frisky and happily jumping around in his marvelous shower and enjoying every bit of it.

The pastor recounted how he wanted to take the dog around the neighborhood in the hope that the dog might somehow recognise his previous owner if he had one or return to where he was familiar with. However the funny thing that happened was when the dog leapt excitably into one such house,it was because there was the appearance of another adorable female dog in there. HA. Eventually our pastor realized that the dog must have had been a stray and so out of the goodness of his heart,he decided to adopt the dog and named him Charlie.

Charlie was slightly injured with a noticeable scar on his nose and signs of extreme or tightly imprinted indents on his face were prominent. One day,the friendly pastor received a really pleasant gift from the neighboring German restaurant next door. Now we all know that German restaurants love serving pork knuckles and other delicious dishes,so it was more than a welcome when they gave our friendly pastor a bag of 20 huge knuckle bones and some other huge pork bones for Charlie!

The pastor was more than happy to reward Charlie with this gesture of kindness from the neighbor and when he slipped one such huge treat, a huge pork knuckle bone that is,onto Charlie's dish,he expected Charlie to yelp and leap for joy. Charlie did fly and jump with huge drops of saliva hanging on his mouth but he took the bone and disappeared out of the house. The pastor followed hot on his tracks and to his amazement found Charlie digging a hole in the garden and burying his bone! The pastor thought this was puzzling and even attempted to retrieve the embedded bone for the dog,to "let him know" that it was meant for him to enjoy ,not to keep hidden! The reaction from Charlie was strange,he was fierce and even barked loudly at the pastor,preventing the latter from touching his bone.

With this,the pastor had a sudden revelation dawned upon him that Charlie had indeed been deserted or left to stray for a long period. Charlie didn't understand that he had 20 huge bones stored for him! He was so afraid his priceless bone that he had been given would be stolen or robbed he was fierce ly guarding it after burying it in the garden. He didn't realize how he was meant to enjoy his treat. And for what u ask? Nothing! Just because his owner,the friendly pastor like his parent was taking care of him and unconditionally loving him.

This story reminds me of how most of us have or had the Stray Dog mentality. We just think anything good we receive,even if we did earn them,or if we just receive them out of the blue,we might lose them or something. We then go into panic mode and try to think of ways to preserve or safeguard our treasures,fiercely guarding them like Charlie and missing the point that they were meant for our enjoyment. We don't realise that we have 19 more bones or EVEN better things stored for our interests later on. Instead of being happy and enjoying our treat,we lapse into worry and anxiety wondering when we might actually lose what we have.

I don't think that is the sort of life anyone should have. I've been happy everyday since I left my former depressive condition. And I realise that the fear I used to possess of people,of their judgment or how they might hurt me does not harm me anymore. The trick is to wholly and entirely entrust the fears,hurts and past onto the Lord and He will heal u like He did for me.