Guest blogger: Lily Lee’s “God’s Tapestry”

Lily Lee, who lives in Malaysia, is the second of three guest bloggers who wrote in response to this posted prompting from the book of Psalms: “When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place—Who are we that you are mindful of us, and a son of man that you care for us? Yet you have made us little less than a god, crowned us with glory and honor.” Psalm 8:4-6

Lily writes:

On April 10, 2011, I found myself on Waiheke Island, Auckland, New Zealand, attending the wedding of one of my nephews. He is a beautiful man, compassionate and loving, with a unique sense of humour. He tells jokes with a straight face, which often leaves his listeners baffled until he breaks out in a hearty guffaw. Intelligent and articulate, he is also very knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects, hence an interesting person to talk to.

His wedding held a special significance for me. Somehow along life’s way, he had lost faith in the Institution of Marriage. When I had met him a year earlier at another nephew’s wedding in Perth, we had discussed the whys and wherefores of his doubts. This was after he told me he had met someone whom he would consider marriage with but yet had continued to fight a raging battle within his heart and mind.

So finally, here I was on this beautiful island, on a vineyard, occupying a place of honour at his wedding dinner. Oh, how my heart soared with happiness for him and his bride. When he gave his speech, alluding to me as the catalyst that had led to this beautiful union, my tears flowed unabashedly and my makeup was totally smudged, but I didn’t care.

Later in the evening, as everyone became more relaxed and protocol was thrown to the wind, some of the guests decided to take a stroll up to a hillock nearby. I decided to join them. It was a cloudless night and the cold night wind upped its intensity as we trudged along. I couldn’t stop the shivers running up and down my spine each time a gust blew in.

When I finally reached the top of the hillock, most who were ahead were already lying on their backs looking skywards. I lay down in a tight space between two ladies, desperate for warmth. As I lifted my eyes towards the heavens, I beheld a staggering sight. For there, suspended high above, were millions, nay, zillions of stars like little silver, twinkling lanterns held together by some invisible strings. The lights blinked at varying intervals so they lent the impression of a colossal tapestry of continuous flickering lights.

Occasionally, there would be sudden disruptions in the firmament as shooting stars zoomed across the sky, ostentatiously displaying their magnificence. The silence on the hillock was deafening, each lost in the wonderment of the moment. It filled me with a breathless realization of the power of our Creator, of HIS great love for mankind, creating such beauty for us despite our shortcomings. I was assailed by a rush of emotion that there are those who would deny the existence of our God. How could they not believe, in the light of such stupendous exhibitions? Can man, with all his technological and scientific advancement, create a spectacle such as this?

About Lily Lee

Lily Lee, 66, from Selangor, Malaysia, says she has “dabbled in short stories, anecdotes about human behaviors, poems about love and life but nothing resembling religion per se.” She writes for her own private reading and collection, save a few recent ones that won her some prizes and even an all-paid-for holiday to Melbourne. “Writing and reading go hand in glove, like horse and carriage,” she writes, “but nowadays I do selective reading only, as the eyes tire out all too quickly.”

In her heyday, she was an active sportswoman, representing her company in athletics and a host of other games. Now, she loves flowers and plants and her little garden bears testimony to that. “There is such a variety in my ‘little acre’ that know I should get rid of some since indeed ‘less is more’ in such a crammed space. But I do not have it in me to kill off a plant unless it dies off naturally, hence the chock-full in my garden. My garden is awash with colours when all the flowers bloom simultaneously. Looking at their beauty always reminds you that indeed our Creator is an artist with HIS palette in hand dabbing the colours at will with HIS strokes of genius.”

Singing is another lifelong passion. She was a chorister from her teenage years but stopped when work and marriage occupied the bulk of her time. She is happy to say she is back singing God’s praises in a small choir at church.

“In my younger days, I was also deeply involved in the performing arts, taking part in stage and television plays, both in English as well as in our national language, the latter of which included themes that were slanted towards the mending and strengthening of racial ties in our multi-ethnic, multi-racial beautiful country, Malaysia.”

Her other passion for the past 20-odd year is both heart-breaking and gratifying, she says — caring for the abandoned stray dogs in her housing area. “Gratifying because you know that although they are exposed to the vagaries of the weather, at least they are not starving. Heartbreaking is when they get run over or caught by ruthless dog catchers and put down.”