I am simply a woman

I didn’t like《红楼梦》(Dream of Red Mansions) during my early years. Thought it was just a boring tale of a guy dithering in a bunch of girls, aka Bella Twilight style. That was till this year…

I don’t think I’ve been through a lot for this past three decades. I know of people who have been through more challenges and ordeals. This is not a blog of grumbling or ranting, but of intimate talk and reflections as a woman.

Yes, I’ve become a woman, not a girl anymore. Somehow when I was ploughing through the abridged version of the book,《吴淡如新说红楼梦》, at full speed ahead, something within me tugged… It was like God holding up a mirror to me, showing me what constitutes a woman, the good the bad and the ugly. I could see parts of my current self in all the females, and parts of what I actually wished was my future better and more godly self. Considering that the author of the book is a male, I find this amazing… But then, again, God’s ways are out of the world, completely objective and just, aren’t they?

I wouldn’t say I got this eureka moment when I finished the book, more of a long sigh moment. I couldn’t even identify the emotion behind the sigh. All I understand are these few insights:
· You can’t keep anything. In fact there’s no point and no good in keeping it. What falls under “anything” then? It’s practically everything we’ve been given by God in our life in this world.
· Whatever’s happened to us on this world, good or bad, it wasn’t a waste of time. It was a necessary journey to learn to love.
· When one person loves another, it is really is that one party owes the other. No, I’m not advocating belief in karma and reincarnation. A Christian way of reconciling this would be that we’ve sinned to God, and he’s telling us to fulfill our part of repentance by loving others. However, the nature of the love we're supposed to give the other party is not for us to control but for us to obey according to God's orders. Only then do we show love for God, and totally let go of this worldly life.
· I do believe that only Jesus, son of God’s love saved us from sin. However, contrary to this linear one-dimensional interpretation I’d like to inject in another angle. The previous type of love we bore towards others was idolatory love. We loved those others more than God. We forgot they were gifts bestowed to us by Him. We either thought they were God, or we thought that we were God. Thus the journey on this world is for us to realise and grapse this truth.

Of course the overarching theme behind this novel is fate. However I believe fate and God are mutually inclusive and the same actually, thus explaining God’s omnipotence and omnipresence. Afterall, when the author wrote the novel, I don’t think he was aware of Christian principles. As I’ve said in a previous blog entry in another separate blog, the written word is God. We just need to look and reconcile, to recognise Him there.

I’ll just sign off this intro entry with what I gleaned from my first reading of the novel. I’ve identified what I’m supposed so display as a woman of Christ after reading the book. The next entries will touch on the characteristics I’ve to learn to display and their corresponding contexts.
Amen!

红楼所悟
工作认真须像探春；对家人长辈谦卑须像宝钗；对命运释怀须像迎春；辨别是非对错须像尤三；求自保须像惜春；对同事忍让须像平儿；表白心态坦白须像晴雯；对待朋友义气须像湘云；对爱执著须像黛玉；言出必行须像鸳鸯，不枉此生为女子…