The color RED will be important to you

Greetings!

Continue from A Fight against Poverty in Black and White

On June 6, 2003, I sent out a letter to place an ad on a Chinese newspaper to sell the restaurant.  The newspaper published once a week.  I enclosed a check to cover the ad for four weeks.  I prayed, "Please let the advertisement draw serious buyers this time.  Let us sell the restaurant and move into the next phase of our lives.  Thank you."  The ad appeared on the newspaper a week later (i.e. June 13).

On June 14, 2003, our family went to eat dim sum to celebrate Father's Day.  (On Sat. and Sun., we used to open at noon.  After our sons went to college, we opened at 2 p.m. on Saturdays so that we could go to see them or pick them up.  That was why we celebrate Father's Day on Saturday instead of Sunday.)  My fortune cookie message for the day was -

                                   The color red will be important to you.

When I read my journal, I found that I had actually glued the cookie insert onto the page of that date.  At the end of the entry, I wrote - What does my fortune cookie message mean?

Ten days later (June 24), a couple came to look at the restaurant.  The wife wore red. Could they be the buyers?  I wondered.  From our conversation, I learned they had good white-collar jobs.  They wanted to buy a restaurant as an investment for they had relatives who were experienced in the restaurant business.  There were others that showed an interest in our restaurant.  At night, sometimes I saw a red car parked a distance away watching how our business was.  Occasionally, I also saw a green car with someone inside watching us for hours.

Soon summer was over, and there was still no buyer.

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One afternoon, Nancy (not the real name) walked in.

Nancy had been our customer since we opened.  She usually ordered carryout after the lunch rush hours were over.  One day, I took the initiative of talking to her.  She said she ate Chinese food once every few weeks; when she did, she always ordered from us.  In time, we talked some more whenever she came.  She told me she read palms and gave tea-leaf reading at night.  Gradually, I told her that our business was slow, and I really wanted to sell the restaurant.  She went out of her way to buy some items that symbolized prosperity.  She gave them to me, and refused to accept any money.  One afternoon, she performed a ritual outside of the restaurant hoping to help us to have more business.  We had good business that night, but it did not continue.  She always paid for her food, and never accepted any money from me.  I was very grateful for her pure intention of helping me.

Nancy said she came to talk to me.  She said, "I know you have been trying to sell the restaurant.  I am supposed to tell you that there was a man in your family that does not want to sell the business.  It may be your son or your husband.  You can only sell the restaurant when the two of you have the same determination of selling the restaurant."  Then she left.

Coincidentally, Joan (not her real name), another customer who had become a good friend of mine, came at night.  She was in her 70 s.  She and her husband lived in a house near our restaurant.  They loved our food.  Her husband passed away a couple of years ago. She believed in angels and the afterlife.  She liked to dine in.  When I was not busy, sometimes she stayed for hours to talk to me.

That night Joan said, "I know you want to sell the restaurant.  I have to tell you this story.  My mother-in-law died a few years ago.  One of the assets she left behind was a vacation home.  She left it to her grandchildren, i.e. my children.  In other words, it was for them to decide if they wanted to keep it or sell it."  From our conversation, I knew Joan's children were doing well, and some might have their own vacation homes.  My friend continued, "After a discussion, they decided to sell the property and split the money.  Many came to look at the property, but it remained unsold after many months.  Other vacation homes in that area were easily sold within a short period of time.  One of my daughters went to see a medium.  She learned a couple of her siblings did not really want to sell the vacation home, a place they visited often and had much fun when they were small.  My sons and daughters sat down and talked again.  Together, they set an intention to sell the vacation home.  Within a few days, it was sold.  You have to talk to your husband for he may not want to sell the restaurant.  I know I will miss seeing you..."

After she left, I knew it was not an accident that I heard the same message from two friends on the same day.  The Divine had sent them in to deliver the message that answered my prayer as why I could not sell the restaurant.

After the Dec. 2001 reading, I told my husband that the Divine would help us to sell the restaurant.  I saw the light in his eyes dimmed.  It bothered me a lot.  Part of me had lots of compassion for him, yet part of me knew we had to sell the restaurant.  As a result, I sent the Divine contradicting messages when I prayed for the future.  (Re Do you really mean what you pray for? )  In 2002, I had talked to my husband several times about the situations we were in before I placed ads on the weekly Chinese newspaper to sell the restaurant.  My husband never voiced his opposition.  I thought he understood we had to do it even though he might not want to sell the restaurant.

That night I realized it was true that my husband did not want to sell the restaurant. For instance, the people who called about the restaurant were Chinese, but my husband always asked me to answer their calls saying he did not know what to say.  I understood I must talk to my husband again.    

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The next day, I told my husband about what happened the day before.  He said he had never stopped me from placing ads on the newspaper.  I said, "Yes, you do not stop me, but  in your heart you really do not want to sell the restaurant.  Can you say it is not true?"  He was silent.

As his wife, I understood he was afraid others would judge him after we sold the restaurant.  On a few occasions, he had said he did not want to work for others anymore.  He used to take pride in his work.  Most of his former employers appreciated him and respected him.  Everybody reacted to adversity differently.  It was easy for us to think (or judge) how one should deal with their situations, but we had to understand we were not them. ***

***Please do not think I am any different from most of you.  In my own relationships, I had been sad and angry.  I had judged and wondered why he did not see what I saw.  However, at the end, I found this to be true. 

When we look at others with love and compassion, we are looking at none other than our own selves with love and compassion.  

I talked about the situations we were in.  At the end of our talk, my husband finally realized it was time to let go of the restaurant.  I placed another ad on the newspaper some time in Sept.

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One day, a woman called about the restaurant.  It seemed she had come to our restaurant before.  She asked many questions as if she was ready to make an offer.

On Oct. 11, I was reading by the table near the window.  It was a Saturday.  Orders normally came in the late afternoon.  From the corner of my eyes, I kept seeing a seagull or two flew close to the window.  I was into reading the book, and I did not look outside.  The seagulls kept flying within my view.  I found it strange.  I finally stood up and looked outside.  In the parking lot, a large group of seagulls, big and small, were flying in circles.  As I watched, they put on a spectacular show right in front of me.  I stood there in awe.  After quite a while, all of them flew away.  All these years, I had never seen that in front of our restaurant.  I bowed and thanked the angels and the Loving Divine.

On Oct. 13, two men came.  One wore a red T-shirt.  There was a big red van, and a woman was inside watching us.  Later, the man and a woman came in a few more time.  They were actually the same couple that came in June.  (I was not good in remembering faces.)  The woman liked to wear red.  There was another couple who showed an interest in the restaurant.  Since the potential buyers were watching us, the woman who liked to wear red came in to make an offer.  Near the end of the year, the couple put a down payment saying they needed some time to get the rest of the money.  We sold the restaurant to them in Feb. of 2014.

Here is one final story about fortune cookie insert.

In Dec. 2003, our family went to eat dim sum.  My fortune cookie message was -

                                Get off to a new start, come out of your shell.

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I want to take this opportunity to wish all of you A Joyful, Prosperous New Year!

Love and blessings,
Q of D

P.S.  Some days before Christmas, my husband changed his mind.  We went to our younger son's house, and had a merry Christmas.  (Re Compassion, allow others to be, and more **)  **When I edited another post, another post had accidentally replaced this post.  I tried to retrieve this post to no avail, i.e. this post was gone.

 

A Fight Against Poverty in Black and White

Greetings!

In my last post The message in a fortune cookie, I wrote I would share with you another story of a fortune cookie insert.  In order to write about the story, I went through my notebooks of 2003.

I did not write on a daily basis.  There were days I did not write anything even though something significant had happened.  I noticed I wrote down some of my dreams in details because I recorded them when I woke up.  However, during the working hours, I had to take care of the business.  Sometimes I only wrote a brief account of a special incident or a meaningful conversation.  I did not write down the details for I did not know I would share my experiences someday.

After going through my notebooks, I found out the cookie insert incident occurred in June of 2003.  However, I wish to share with you an experience that happened a month earlier first.

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In my post Writing Is Healing, the sentence "On a cloudy, gloomy morning, I go looking for the sun" came to me as I woke up from my sleep.  I could not get the sentence out of my mind.  For about four weeks, I expanded on the sentence.  Before the writing, I used to worry a lot.  I allowed the weather to affect my mood.  I also had fear looking at the night sky or dark ocean.  Unexpectedly, I no longer felt fear seeing the night sky or sea after I finished the writing.  In many ways, I also had less worries than before.

Below was another interesting story of writing.

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In 2003, the business was very, very slow.  In addition, some of the equipments began to have problems.  From time to time, we needed money to fix the equipments. The cost of fixing or buying new equipment was very expensive.  When I talked to my husband, he did not seem to hear a word.  I was left to handle all the situations. Month after month, I struggled to pay for the bills; meanwhile, I knew my husband still did not want to sell the restaurant.

One night in early May, I was crying in the restaurant.  My mind was flooded with frustration.  In the midst of my pain, I picked up a pen and wrote "Poverty, a humongous monster".  Thus started my fight against poverty in black and white.

Whenever I had time, I sat down to write and re-write.  All the while, I had no idea how I would win the fight.  When ideas came, I dropped them down on paper.  Since English was not my first language, many times I found it challenging to figure out the right word to express what was in my mind.  I never thought of giving up.  I might stop writing for a couple of days, but would resume once new ideas came.  When I really did not know how to continue, I prayed for inspiration.  On May 19, with divine inspiration, the fight was finally over.

May 19, 2003 was a Monday.  Monday was usually a slow day.  After I finished my fight against poverty in black and white, as if God / the Divine was congratulating me, we had exceptional business at night.  To top it off, an elderly customer walked in while I was copying my fight against poverty onto another piece of paper.  The total of his order was

$4.44  (444 The Power of God's Love, a very significant sign / number in my life)

Below was my fight vs poverty in black and white.

P O V E R T Y

A humongous monster

A massive black energy

Seemingly boundless

Powerful and unbeatable

Silently looming

Without me ever knowing

In its blackness

I see no light, no sun, no day

Frantically, I search for a way out

To my greatest dismay

I find myself running into walls and walls

Of terrifying chilly energy

Blocking me wherever I go

To regain my calmness

I stand still and listen

Only to the pounding of my heart

The pressure is mounting

The air murky and suffocating

Whatever it is, I can feel it is closing in

Paralyze with fear, I freeze like a statue

In the deadliness, I hear a faint cry

It gets louder and louder, and eventually

Like thunders that rock the earth

And shake me out of my paralysis

"I want to live! I want to live!"

It's the desperate cry of my heart, and

My Declaration of War

With all my might, I charge

But off I bounce by a force far greater than mine

Up in the air

Down on the cold hard ground

As if broken into thousands of pieces

I lie lifelessly and hopelessly

Waiting for the final moment of darkness

Sure of its soon-to-be victory and

The collection of yet another victim

The monster breaks out of its silence

Shrieking, dancing,

Celebrating

Mocking mercilessly at this weakling

Proclaiming its invincibility to all

Hearing that, my long buried memory is evoked

I remember now I am a loving creation of God

A soul everlasting

A being of Light

Immediately, my inner spark light up and expand

In a flash, the blackness retreats and completely disappears

In the beautiful sunlight, my tears of joy glisten like gold

I shared with you the words to show how I got stuck in the fight.  For instance, when I wrote "I freeze like a statue", I did not know how to continue.  Later, it came to me "I hear a faint cry".  I wrote I charged with all my might.  Then I thought I could not win by charging.  "As I lie lifelessly", I figured the monster that had been silently looming would break out of its silence to claim its invincibility.  Still, I did not know how to win the fight.  On May 19, I suddenly said, "Oh, I am a light being!"  That afternoon the fight against poverty in black and white was over.

Since 2002, we had tried to sell the restaurant to no avail.  There were callers, but no serious buyer.  The business in 2003 was even slower than 2002.  The situation was overwhelming.  Many times I had to pick myself up.  In the afternoon of May 19, I felt a renewed sense of hope.  The fight might be on paper, but I had fought the fight.

Why couldn't we sell the restaurant?  What message did I get from the June 2003 cookie insert?  I will write about it in my next post.

Many blessings,
Q of D
     

The message in a fortune cookie

Greetings!

In many of my posts, I had mentioned music (e.g. 'Night Vision - Pieces of a Dream'), numbers (e.g. time on the clock and license plate numbers), and birds were signs from the Divine in my experiences.  However, I had forgotten to include the fortune cookie inserts / messages.  On quite a few occasions, the Divine / my guides / angels had used them to communicate with me.  In fact, my first post  A Story of the Touch of God published on March 25, 2011 was about such an incident.

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On Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 26), I brought a pan of dumplings, a pan of stir-fry asparagus, and a small bag of fortune cookies to our younger son's house.  When I was about to leave, I suddenly thought of getting a fortune cookie.

There were more food than the table could hold.  My daughter-in-law had put the cookies, pies, and cakes on the kitchen counter.  Later in the afternoon, we ate pies and cakes.  I had forgotten about the fortune cookies.  That was why I did not think of getting one earlier.

I asked my daughter-in-law if I might get a cookie or two.  She said, "Of course. Get as many as you want."  I went to the kitchen and got a cookie.  Here was the insert -
  

       Sever the ignorant doubt in your heart with the sword of self-knowledge.

It had been over three years since I moved back to the state that I used to live.  I had gone to some churches and spiritual gatherings.  I had some positive experiences with a group or two, but the meeting only took place once in a long while.  I also had some unexpected experiences.  For instance, I went to a small spiritual circle.  The facilitator played a recording from YouTube about some so-called channeled message on symptoms of ascension.  Afterwards, the facilitator said she had many symptoms as said in the message, and was glad to have the confirmation that she was in ascension.  She then repeated the symptoms, and asked us if we had this symptom or that symptom.  There were over 50 symptoms!  Personally, I thought some people were too concerned if they were in ascension or not.  Besides, we should not believe everything that was under the label of 'channeling'.  Too many people were into channeling nowadays, but sometimes what came through could be nothing more than our logical mind at work.

On another occasion, a woman said she had learned a healing modality (not energy healing).  She had completed the advanced course, and was now a certified teacher of the healing system.  She said her life was changed for she had finally found peace. Then something no one could have expected happened.  We took turn to introduce ourselves.  There was a man from another state.  He said something neither rude nor offensive.  The woman got mad, and stormed out of the room yelling loudly all the way down the hallway that she hated all people!  I looked at the woman with compassion.  What happened to the sister happened to us too.  Sometimes when we thought we were 'there', we were shown we were not.  That was part of our journey on earth, and the challenge / situation came from none other than ourselves (or our higher self).

About 12 - 13 days before Thanksgiving, I looked back at the last three years.  After living in other states for five years, I was very glad to came back to the state where my loved one lived.  I also tried to sit among people because I knew this was part of my life purpose.  (Re My journey as a channel of spiritual healing energy and subsequent posts on healing published during June - July of 2013)  However, so far I had not found a church / spiritual group that I would want to join on a regular basis.  I thought it might be the main reason we were back was to reunite with my loved ones, and I should let go of the idea to go among people.  On that day, I thought of not going to any church or spiritual gathering for the time being.  Indeed, doubt had risen in my heart.  The guidance / the message in the fortune cookie was timely and important.

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When we were in the restaurant business, we had boxes of fortune cookies.  We served the customer with a cookie at the end of a meal.  However, I never cared to have a cookie for myself.  At that time, our family went to Chinese restaurants that served dim sum a few times every year.  Those were the only times I read the inserts if fortune cookies were served.  (Some Chinese restaurants did not serve fortune cookies.)  My husband and sons did not eat the cookies.  Oftentimes, we read the inserts for fun.  (My older son sometimes did not want to read the inserts.)  We did not take it seriously, and it was supposed to be.  The inserts were not any different from the daily horoscopes published on the newspaper.  It would be ridiculous to think all Taurus would have a similar day based on the horoscope.

In other words, I did not mean all the fortune cookie inserts were messages from the Divine.

In my post Divine guidance is not just for a selected few, I wrote

If we pay attention, all of us do hear (or receive) divine guidance from time to time.  It may not be the roaring voice as described in the bible.  It may not be something so powerful that triggers an immediate transformation.  They can be the simple words on the TV, radio, from a stranger or a friend.  What is significant about those occasions is the words seem to come out of nowhere, and they do not mean much to everybody else except YOU.  When it happens, you are touched in a way beyond you can imagine.

It was the case with my experiences of fortune cookie inserts on a few memorable occasions.  The first time a message that caught my attention was about a personal matter that had troubled me greatly for months.  Face it, lots of times when we prayed for a solution / answer, our mind was full of the problem / question.  We were in no position to hear an answer.  Our guides and angels had to come up with a creative tool to guide or help us; in my case, fortune cookie message was one of their tools to communicate with me.      

I will share with you another story about the fortune cookie insert in my next post. The message was "The color RED will be important to you".  It was an interesting story.

Love,
Q of D