My Own Lesson of the Cherry Blossom

So things have been pretty quiet when it comes to life in Saitama, it’s quiet and peaceful, and has an isolation that one can appreciate.


At first I was terribly lonely, I felt like I was so far away from church and so far away from the city. Daichi was again impossible to reach now that I had moved out and life seemed to turn into an endless cycle of work and sitting around home, with church being the only highlight of my weeks.

I was afraid that maybe I had begun to lose faith, maybe now that I was sitting comfortably in a new secured job with a permanent address and a growing understanding of the public transport system I no longer felt the need to delve so deeply into my faith.

I’ll be honest, and say that for a day or two my bible sat on my desk untouched, the pages that had only a few days ago breathed life into a weary body now seemed to rub like sand paper against the skin.

Even when we enter into these states of laziness we always have this niggling thought in the back of our minds, little moments when we’ll be out having fun, and things seem to be going perfectly, and our mind will flash back to the untouched bible lying on our bed side table.

During the last two weeks I had many such moments, I would become so encompassed in my bible one day but then the next I could linger for no more than a minute on its pages.

I took my life group leaders advice and began to read my bible with my journal lying open in front of me, the blank page crying out in yearning to be touched by ink. I would start by writing simply “In this verse, I think God is trying to tell me this....” from this I could sometimes write with ease, pouring out revelation after revelation, other times I might sit there raking my hands through my hair, straining for something to write about.

I had once again began to grumble to the Lord, the internet in the apartment i.e. the only point of contact with my family in Australia had begun to disconnect, sometimes not coming back for hours. And with Asa gone to Australia and me living in a quiet place like Kotesashi, the isolation can be quit maddening.

I felt pathetic as one day I slammed my lap top closed and in fit of frustration and threw one of the couches cushions onto the floor. I felt frustrated that in such an isolated place as Kotesashi I couldn’t at least be granted the luxury of outside communication with my friends and family, but I also felt petty at the way I was so childishly acting.

I stamped my way to the front door, kicked on my shoes and went out for a walk.

I was walking furiously, with an angry determined pace, I barley even knew where I was going. I was annoyed praying in my mind “Oh Lord why don’t you just....I don’t know, fix the internet! You know how lonely I am, I mean, you of all people should know! THEN WHY DONT YOU FIX IT! I know you can, so why don’t you? Well then if you’re not going to fix it, why? Why won’t you? At least give me a reason for this predicament”

I slowed down as I passed a little man made canal, even though the water was low and the canal seemed to be a little bit dirty it held an antiquated beauty about it. A beauty that would make me stop in my tracks, take a breath and realise “I’m in Japan”.

Arcing over the little river was rows upon rows of cherry blossoms, or Sakura. Being summer they were simply coated in thick green foliage, awaiting their springtime gowns to blossom.

As I looked upon these beauties in waiting I realised how patient they must be. All year round they stand green, like every other tree, without their iconic pink blossoms they really are not even the most spectacular trees, they actually look quite ordinary. But all through the year they stand waiting, silent and tranquil, unlike humans they don’t complain to the Lord to speed up the seasons, they do not grumble when winter strips them bare and exposed, they don’t urge God to do things according to their own timing, and unlike so many humans, just before spring is about to explode, they don’t fall and sin at the last minute, the impatience manifesting as sin conquering them at the last moment. No, instead they wait, they stand strong and still, rooted to the earth, and only when God says it’s the right time, do they burst forth with colour.

But unlike humans, a Sakura tree’s beauty lasts only a month, and then fades and waits again for spring to come, with humans, Gods’ blessing can be continual, and if we had the stability in our lives of a Cherry Blossom tree we might just have that continual out pouring of Gods extravagant love.

I sighed and stopped, watching the wind twirl through the leaves, leaves that would in a few months make way for beautiful flowers that would be the crowning glory of Japans springtime festivities.

It was in Gods time that these trees bloomed, what might happen if they willed themselves to bloom earlier? Into the frozen heart of winter, or the unforgiving temperament of summer?

What might happen if I tried to bloom before my time? I remembered my own advice I had given to Lance on how Gods timing was perfect and always for a purpose. How hypocritical was I being now?

I laughed, God was never mundane in the way he sent word to his children, I’d walked passed these Sakura before, but this time, they held a message from the Lord.

“Wait, just wait, and at the right time, all things will fall into place”

I agreed with God, I understood what he was trying to say, and I continued to walk on, slower now, with an appreciation for the beauty around me.

I spoke at length on the phone to Mum and Nanny about how I felt, and I found that it was so much better to talk things over than to let it stew on the inside.

As God always promises he gave me peace, and an answer to my prayers at the same time. I found that being in such isolation I could turn whole heartedly to my faith, my bible became my best friend, and I found that God was willing to take me on journeys to far away places, to a time when cities were evaporated into dust leaving a salt ocean in their wake. Times when I could see first hand that isolation was not necessarily a bad thing, how many people had gone off into the wilderness to pray, Jesus himself had isolated himself from people so that he could be closer to his father, now it was my time to get closer to God.

If you haven’t read the bible, it is the most amazing book, but before you go believing the garish claim that the bible is just a collection of “Jewish Fairy Tales” take a read of it yourself.

So many of the characters and places in the bible are confirmed by history, these people really did exist, these places had once stood as a real as any town today.

The sinful city of Sodom and Gomorrah once stood where the Dead Sea now stands, history records that after the city was destroyed by god in a hail of brim stone and fire, salt deposits heavy with salinised matter burst onto the surface and started out as a salt marsh, by the time King David was on the throne the marsh had reached the size of a small lake.

People don’t often see the Bible as something historical, while it is wonderful, and some of the occurrences may seem too fantastic to be real, history often points to the reality that these things did happen.

I recently just finished reading the mini novella, “Unspoken” which is one of five books in the “Lineage of Grace” series. This book follows the tumultuous conflict between a man and his lust for another woman. The story is well known even in secular circles, the man was King David, the woman was Bathsheba.

I loved this book, although I couldn’t choose a favourite out of the Lineage of Grace series I guess I hold a special bond with the main characters of this story.

Basically, King David was the second king of Israel, he was handpicked by God to replace the current corrupt king, Saul.

David was a king like no other, he was faithful and always would seek to glorify God. However he was but a man and made a mistake that would bring destruction on his household.

One evening he was walking along the roof of his palace, he often did this when he couldn’t sleep, as he was strolling the roof of the palace he saw a woman bathing out in the courtyard of her house. In those days, after a woman finished her monthly cycle she performed a purification rite that involved her taking a series of baths in order to ready her to conceive a child. However her husband was Uriah, a Hittite soldier who was one of thirty elite warriors in King Davids army. When David enquired about the woman he’d seen bathing he found out who she was, and as her husband was away at war, he summoned her to his chambers where he slept with her.

From this one night of sin, she conceived a child. David of course tried to hide the pregnancy by calling Uriah home for a night, thinking that war would make him hungry for his wife. The bible states that Uriah refused and could not when his country men were sleeping on the hard ground under the weight of an impending battle.

Francine Rivers, the author of “Unspoken” elaborated claiming that by this time there were already whispers flying around the palace of David and Bathsheba’s affair, and that these rumours had already reached Uriah. This is said nowhere in the bible but I would not be surprised, for centuries right up until present day palaces have been places of intrigue and rumour.

The sin was not hidden and so David had Uriah put in the front line of battle and told his men to withdraw when Uriah charged, letting him be killed alone while fighting a battle for a king who sat at home lusting after his wife.

Of course this sin was punished, David was told that because of the sin that was committed in the dark his punishment would be done in the light, in full view of all Israel. Bathsheba’s first child, the child born of the night of sin was taken by God after falling deathly ill. David’s own son Absalom rebelled against him.

When David fled the kingdom with his people and his household he left behind ten concubines to keep the house in order, when Absalom returned to the kingdom he took the ten concubines onto the roof and slept with them, as the Lord had promised “in full view of all Israel”

Although the punishment seemed to bear down upon Bathsheba and David the Lord forgave and blessed them, the young baby the Lord had taken had been lifted from a viper’s nest of treachery, and he was replaced by four more sons, sons that Bathsheba reared under the guidance of the very prophet who delivered the message of punishment to her, Nathan, she even named her last son after him. These sons who were forever spurned as the son of the adulteress became the only sons of David who were men after Gods own heart. The eldest son being Solomon, the son whe although wasn't the eldest, became the next king of Israel, a king who was recorded throughout history as a King of wisdom and impartiality.

From a woman who history has forever labelled a woman of sin, God gave Israel a great king, and as always he forgave Bathsheba and continued to love her with a redeeming grace that only God can give. Like the blurb on the back of the book states about Bathsheba “Her beauty stirred the passion of a king, but her pain moved the heart of God”.

In my life there were times when I had fallen to sin, during that time I often was afraid to ask God for help, I remembered back to more innocent days when I was not followed around by a cloud of shame. Even today, I sometimes find it hard to rid myself of the ghosts of the past, but like Bathsheba, the beauty we may possess as men and women might be taken and twisted into something ugly by this world of hurt, but never forget that our pain moves the heart of God.

As I walked along the quiet and quaint streets of Kotesashi I marvelled once again at the goodness of God, Three years ago when I did not even want to have anything to do with the Lord I could not imagine in all my days that I would be living in Japan. Yet in the same way I had been adopted into my family, God had adopted me into his and showed me that I was destined for greater things.

I didn’t try to fool myself into thinking that it was in my own strength that I was now living in another country.

This week had been an up and down week, some days I would be very busy, other days I would only have one class. One day I decided to go window shopping in Tokorozawa, it was about two stations away from Kotesashi, I also needed to go to a Softbank store to buy a cable for my phone.

Tokorozawa’s main street was nothing compared to places like Shinjuku or Harajuku, but that in itself was something to be grateful for, you could still shop and have coffee and do all the other things that go with being an urbanite dweller but you weren’t confronted with the crowds or hustle and bustle of a larger place.

I purchased a take away iced coffee and sat on a bench and watched people pass by, wondering about the lives they led back home where they lay down their glossy shopping bags and set aside their diamante studded sun glasses.

I remembered times when I and my best friend Maia had done this back home. We would sit with an iced juice from the juice bar in Kingscliff and watch people walk passed and make up stories about their lives.

Or we might sit together on the bus and look around at the people near to us and analyse why that girl seemed to look out of the bus window with a look of longing in her eyes, or why that boys eyes were downcast constantly, was he really browsing through the songs on his iPod or was he actually trying to hide his eyes that were filled with tears over a broken home he was about to spend one more hurtful night in.

In our little world of imagination our creativity not only included ourselves, illustrating on our minds canvas a more adventurous version of our own lives but it also extended to anyone who came into our line of site. In our minds everyone, could be anyone.

I missed Maia terribly, for us it was passed the point of friendship, we were brother and sister. I was often stunned that I had been accepted into her social circle, she was so beautiful, so popular, so intelligent, so talented, and she chose me to be her companion? She could have chosen anyone, but she chose me.

Maia is Italian Creole (African and French) and is regarded by many as one of the most beautiful girls in our grade. She didn’t have that typical conventional beauty that school girls have, but an un-usual rare beauty, she wasn’t just another pretty girl, she was beautiful, a face you would remember.

Her features were dark and had sharp angles, like me she had almond shaped eyes, but hers had a distinctive Persian flare at the corners that she cleverly accentuated with dark eye liner. She was curvaceous, but not in the uncomfortable pubescent way of most girls her age, but in the way of a fully grown woman. Hard and dark it was like the famous seductress Carmen had stepped out of a painting and donned the apparel of a twenty first century youth.

She made my other wise intolerable school days bearable, they would start with the both of us greeting each other out the front of school, loud and laughing we would strut into our classes in our own little world of hilarity. English was one of our most memorable lessons, we’d sit up the back of class flicking our long straightened hair over our shoulders remarking on how well the other had done their hair that morning.

We had a remark for everything, we joked brazenly about the things others only thought. We weren’t afraid to admit that the physical education department quite obviously were the rulers of the staff faculty, they had the longest section at assembly, every week you could expect a five minuet report naming and shaming the students who dared not show up to Wednesday sport (after all it was a case of life or death). We weren’t ashamed to admit that some teachers “seemed to spend more time cat nipping about whether their belt matched their scarf which matched their shoes which matched their head bands”.

At nights we would lay in bed laughing long into the night time hours, our laughter’s had grown to be almost identical and I loved listening to the hearty bounce of our inflections.

I remember one lesson in drama we were dancing, there wasn’t any music playing we were just dancing to our own laughter, mimicking the silly antics of dance floor try hards. The routine ended with us rolling around on the ground laughing, but this was quickly stopped by our drama teacher walking into the room and reprimanding us for wasting time. Panting with exhaustion and still giggling at ourselves we straightened up and pretended to start working, only to laugh and continue to joke when the teacher turned her back.

I missed her so much, I missed how after our sleepovers we would stand in front of the mirror together with our straighters and hair products clamping the irons over our locks, lacquering our layers in hair spray and rubbing in special coconut oil so our hair shone (an old Fijian hair care technique).

I missed the way we would bounce into school side by side, the way my home was her home, the way her home was my home. I missed the way we revelled in the pride of our ancestry, hers Italian, Creole, mine Fijian, Chinese. Our togetherness, our twin existence.

I missed her.

As I sat in Tokorozawa I thought about how much she would love this place, I thought about how strange it was being simply “Tyson” and not “Maia and Tyson”.

But thinking made my heart yearn, so I turned my attention to visuals passing before me and blanked my mind from the hurt that absence and distance birthed in ones soul.

The next day I awoke to a call from my mother, she was letting me know that my Grand Father, Dad’s Dad, had passed away. After a long battle against many health ailments Pop was finally at peace, and I took comfort in knowing that he was in the arms of Jesus.

Dad asked me to write something to be read out at the funeral.

Here’s what I wrote.



“A note from afar.



To my family, how I wish I could be there with you today. But being in the situation I am, I know now, more than ever that love is something that can be carried across miles, and felt as fiercly in your heart as if we were all there together.



I was going to write a poem for Pop, as I have on so many an occasion, for so many people.



But for today, I think I will simply send these words of encouragement.



Before Pop passed away I remember him saying to me on the phone the night before I left for Japan that he was just unceasingly releasing his life into the Lords hands, and through that he found peace.



I could talk about all that Pop was, all that he had been, but I think Pop might have liked me to talk about what he wanted for all of you.



In his last days, he lived a way that even in the most desperate of circumstances enabled him to live with a peaceful spirit.



A peace that can only be attained through recognising the love of the Lord. I take comfort in knowing that Pop gave his life to Jesus, but I take even more comfort in knowing that he left this world leaving behind him a shining example of something that this world lacks. A content heart.



Pop, in a time that may send most into a state of mental chaos instead found that even in this situation, where he faced the most daunting reality one can face in their lives, God gives hope, he raises the helpless up to fly on eagles wings, he takes the unspoken and gives them a voice, he takes a widows cry and gives her heart cause to sing.



and as in Pops case, he took a man who faced death, and made him stand strong where others may fall.



So family, as we come together to remember Pop, do not remember him in longing, for he is somewhere where his suffering ceases to exist, instead, remember the dignified way he left this world, remember and be encouraged.





Love Tyson.”

Again, it wasn’t until a few hours later that I wept, I felt isolated, I wanted to be there for my family, to stand beside my father and show him that he had the support he needed in these difficult times. I felt so helpless that all I had to offer was a few words from a distance.

But once again the Lord reminded me of the lesson of the Cherry Blossoms he taught me, Even though the chill of Autumn had begun to invade the mornings, in my heart God had planted the beginnings of spring.

Pops seasons may have ended, but it ended on the Lords time.

My season is just beginning, and when Spring comes, I won’t let it end.

I’ll blossom, and I’ll keep on blooming until the Lord says times up.

I thought of my own words that I had said to my family, and I took my own advice.

I remembered, and I was encouraged.