This is a late review of 2015, but being late is better than nothing.
2015 is a memorable year.
I had the first change of jobs - last time I left a position, I took a 3-month leave and then started studying.
I attended kindergarten interviews with my daughter. What an interesting experience!
I published the most in a year in my academic career so far - 9 refereed papers.
These were what happened overtly in the past year. But what's most exciting was what happened in my heart. I felt that I was blind and now I see. I experienced what it meant by "God is for me! Who can be against me?" I felt that my burdens were lifted from my shoulders - and those include not just my career, but also my family, my health, and everything...
One interesting thought - I felt that most of my transformation came from my deeper understanding of God, which was predominantly cognitive or intellectual in nature. My change in the past year supported my belief that one can have deep, spiritual change with intellectual understanding (thinking). God has given us the intellect to comprehend His love and promises, which form the basis of one's happiness. In other words, while I was deeply moved and it was a very emotional experience to be filled by the Holy Spirit, who gently or firmly told me that He has been watching over me and that I would not be trampled, it was not at all a vague fussy feeling but a powerful voice that spoke to my mind in a language that I can understand and resonate with.
Through my own transformation in 2015, there's a strong desire in me to tell everyone about the hope, joy and peace that I found in Christ; it is the kind of hope that transcends circumstances, the kind of joy that breaks through darkness, and the kind of peace that quiets the most disturbed heart. I had always believed that psychology is a tool for us to understand people and to handle our emotional, cognitive and behavioral problems. It would not replace faith as psychology will not tell us the meaning of life. I used to be able to resolve or reconcile the secular nature of psychology and my Christian faith through this kind of mindset. However, as psychology becomes more and more "aggressive" in claiming that it has a lot to offer about things like "virtues", "values", "happiness", "meaning" and even "spirituality", there is a growing sense in me that my old conception of the role of psychology, that it was just a tool to think and understand about people and to help people was outdated. With the unceasing joy that I have been experiencing since the fall of 2014, I really wish to form a thorough understanding of how Christianity means in one's mental health. Yes, Christian faith, not spirituality. It sounds dogmatic but I feel that if I were to say anything other than the fact that our only hope and joy is in the Lord, I would be lying. May God give m strength and wisdom to share His amazing grace.
"But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither." (Psalms 1: 2-3)
