San’s family journal

I came across this issue that psychology is not of biblical truth and when Christians applied psychology, it is an unholy alliance. It is rather interesting to learn about this issue, as I never thought of psychology in that sense thought I was interested in it while I was in high school. So I started to read some articles and I am not able to go deep into the research but it seems to me those whose are for the idea are those against the way that psychology was built. I guess it is kind of superficial to talk about such issue here, but I guess just putting up my view is not harm… after this is my blog :^)

So, if a system of knowledge is built on some ideas that go against biblical teaching, I guess fundamentally that system of knowledge is not biblically sound. The method that has been applied to build up the psychology for me is somewhat quasi-science but not actually science as the results cannot be 100% reproduced and the environment that set for psychological tests cannot be controlled 100%. Nonetheless the empirical studies on all the psychological tests have given us a lot of useful information to come out with many psychological principles and theories. Those principles are being applied to help people. For Christians who are against psychology, I believe the reason is God is not in the system, which forms psychology. They believe only God can change and renew a person and psychology cannot and may even doing the reverse.

For me, psychology is biblical if you would like to think it is. Jacob before meeting his brother Esau applied psychology to his brother. And I also believe that Paul used a lot of psychology in his effort in preaching the Gospel to the gentile. Than people may argue that God is working through Paul and did not need any psychology. Well, if God wants to do his work, He doesn’t need anybody is you are asking me. So, I guess Christians have to reject those fundamental ideas that are unbiblical but should be neutral to those fundamental principles that work. Well, saying “Good morning!” is a psychological thing or not? How about Proverbs and Ecclesiastes?

I guess it is the darkest time in my life that I really don’t know what to do next. I thought of starting my PhD this year and somehow there are reasons around to keep me stay put. Since I have been dragging the thing for so long, whether those are reasons for not going forward or just excuses for procrastinating is really vague to thing about.

Yen just started to work fulltime again beginning of this year. Not even one week in the office, she already felt sick. She already has a study to worry about and now there are many backlogs left in office for her. Our schedules have to be readjusted and everything seems okay so far.

My brother-in-law is adopting a girl baby of about 2 weeks old. A lot of people wonder why he is adopting a girl instead of a boy since he has no children after married for more than 15 years. I guess that is a typical conservative thinking of Chinese.

This reminds me of the time when Grace was born. She was sent into ICU just after birth, as she was not breathing after coming out of Yen’s womb. When my mother called to check on the status and asked was her grandchild a boy or girl. Then I only realized that I forgot to check with the doctor the sex of my baby, as my only concern was that whether my baby will survive or not. Boy or girl was not an issue at that moment. The only thing matters was that my baby was in troubles.

Isaac in Chinese bible was translated as 以撒 (Yi-Sa)。I have been intrigued by this fact for quite a while as we planed to name our first child as Issac but was having problem in getting a Chinese counterpart, as Yisa is rather an odd name to have. Luckily our child was born as a girl or else I would be really in a dilemma in naming her.

I guess why would those translators put Isaac as Yisa and yet other names were closely matched the English version like Reuben as Liu-Bian, Levi as Li-Wei and so on. So, after some thoughts, I guess it has to do with the way those translators pronounce Isaac. It was probably pronounced as Is.aac instead of I.saac back then. That should explain why以撒Yi-Sa appeared instead of 艾萨克 Ai-Sa-Ke.  

Anyway… Grace Low is always better sounded than Isaac Low !)

It was a rather tough year end for me as I was having a cold at the same time Grace was having her year-end nursery break for more than a week. There are two good news for year 2008. Firstly, Grace is going back to her nursery. Secondly, Yen is still not in the 67% yet. We visited the doctor this morning and according to the doctor, the test results are rather inconclusive whether the cervical cancer is developing.

Yen will be on medication and has to undergo periodic observation and we will see how the thing goes. According to the doctor, if a person immune system is strong, it will destroy the cancerous cells without being noticed. Hopefully with all the tonic and supplement that Yen is taking, we will be about to shun the worst case scenario. Of course, a little bit of divine intervention is most welcomed.