If the events of the past weeks and months have shown me anything, it’s the tension of balancing many different, and at times conflicting, emotions all at once.

How do I grieve for a group of people who is enduring a type of pain I can never fully understand, and what to do about that pain?

How do I offer a compassion apart from a knowledge of suffering, and feel for them without becoming numb or fatigued?

What sorts of actions can I undertake when I don't have (or feel like I don’t have) the direct ability to change anything?

How does this affect how I am living and the people around me? How does this issue relate to my surrounding community, culture, and country?

It's the unfortunate and complicated paradox of life.

I recently got to thinking about my life journey, and I can't help but marvel at it all.

At the beginning of 2016 I had just gotten married, and fast forward five years later, I'm now celebrating 100 days with my newborn daughter.

In between that time, I've moved 3 times, bought my first house, switched jobs twice, co-founded 2 small businesses, enrolled in seminary, traveled to various parts of Asia, and served as a college & young adult counselor.

I don’t remember exactly the time, only the thoughts and emotions I felt.

In those long hours sometime between dusk and midnight, before my wife would go into delivery, I had a lot of time to sit there and think.

We were about to bring a little girl into this world, and I was overjoyed. It was a long journey to get to this point and we couldn’t wait.

There was another part of me, though, that held a fear and uncertainty about the future. What kind of world would we be bringing her into?

For weeks I had been processing through the anger, grief, and disillusionment over the recent spate of attacks and killings against the AAPI community. More than ever, I was fearful for my parents, fearful for my pregnant wife, fearful for my elderly uncles and aunties.

America
It is called mei guo in my mother’s tongue
It means beautiful country
What my mother and father,
And what their mothers and fathers
dreamed of
The endless promise of tomorrow
Freedom. Opportunity.
A better life.
Anything was possible.
It was the hope that came with every morning,
no matter how difficult the day
A beautiful dream for a beautiful country.

For 2020, I had prayed that I would be a fountain and not a drain. That I’d be able to be a source of life, joy, and kindness to those around me. Little did I know how that prayer would be tried and tested in the hardest of years.

I gave as best as I could until I ran empty or tired or numb. Then you gave to me…and now I understand fountains are only as useful as the water that’s being poured in.