Desert Time Part 1: My Way into the Desert

Written by Theresa Nhật Lai Ngô on Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Published on December 18, 2024

Into the Desert: Fast & Stealthy

First of all, I would have to tell you how I ended up in the desert in the first place. A place with no life, no water, no prospect of growth. Drought and emptiness. Yes, how did I get there? The year is 2023. I've been converted for two years, baptized for one year. I thought I had it all figured out. My relationship with God was good, He blessed me with plenty of grace, incredible experiences, moments of light. All undeserved and all a bit vulnerable to being tempted to think that I've already figured everything out and am on the right track. That's exactly when the devil seizes his chance and attacks. I was on the right path, but I unconsciously became a bit arrogant and didn't yet know the dangers.

point of attack: Jesus

This is how my first painful lesson and my journey into the desert began. The point of attack: Jesus. I had trouble talking to God the Father, everything was about Jesus. I was able to see Jesus, He is the answer to all my questions, He is my redeemer and savior from a sad, meaningless life. I thought I had a good relationship with him because we had already experienced so much together in the last two years. He saved me several times from situations where I thought I was going to die. Of course the Holy Spirit was always involved and God the Father. They are one. And yet it was much easier for me to turn to Jesus. It's logical, actually, because he is also a human being like me and therefore seems closer than the other two persons of the triune God. My relationship with God was mainly with Jesus. I believe God intended it this way for us humans, an easier entry into the mystery of God and at the same time the cornerstone that everyone stumbles against (cf. 1 Peter 2:6-8).

In any case, Jesus was and is the center of my life, who leads me to the Father. (Mary has now joined me and is helping me to become more like her and thus more like Jesus.) Then there is the fact that God wrote my life story in such a way that He wove Jesus into my life through events and facts without me having anything to do with it or initially being aware of it.

Heavenly Father, let people know what miracles you have worked in my life from the beginning, how you want to and do write a unique love story with each and every one of us.

In the following I will tell you about two formative facts from my childhood that connected me to Jesus even before I was born: the hole in my heart and the name.

The Hole in the Heart

I have already told you that my first encounter with Jesus happened in a car on the A5. Why in a car? Why not in church or in nature? Why it was the car for me became clear just a few months after my conversion, when I finally dared to tell my parents about this experience...

With Jesus everything is different...

It was the first visit to Germany after the encounter with Jesus in the car, which changed my whole life completely in a short moment. My parents were worried because I left the house every morning and attended Holy Mass. They said: “Christians only have to go to church on Sundays. Why do you go every day?” I answered full of enthusiasm (which was probably too much for many of my fellow people. I apologize to everyone I surprised with my exuberance in the early days of my conversion): “I don’t have to go because someone is forcing me. I will go. There is nothing better in the world!” Understandably, they no longer understood the world. Their daughter, who previously seemed normal, who loved to travel, do sports, make music, things that everyone likes to do, is suddenly only interested in Jesus. (I still love to travel, I still do sports, even if not enough, and I love music. I still think these things are great. In that sense, nothing has changed. The only difference is: Jesus. Jesus is much, much, much greater.) In any case, I felt a certain fear that my parents would think I had been manipulated in some way or, at best, had fallen on my head.

I have to tell them...

As I was driving back from visiting my parents, thinking about all this, I decided that I had to tell my parents this story about Jesus in the car. I thought that they already thought I was crazy, so it couldn't get any worse. On the contrary, if they knew that the key experience took place in the car, where I was alone, then they would understand that it was not something dangerous from outside, but my own free decision and conviction.

The day came when I called my mother to tell her the story. I prayed a lot beforehand and sat on a lawn under the cross. I needed all the support I could have because I was about to it moment of my life with my parents and had no idea how they would react, so I prepared myself for anything.

The car ride of a lifetime. And another one.

So I told how it came about. About the praise in the car, about the traffic jam, about the cloud, about the angel, about the radiant light in heaven, about the overwhelming presence of Jesus. Then there was silence. My mother then said: “I also experienced something like that in the car. When you were little, I also saw a light in heaven. It was something divine. You and your brother were sitting in the back of the car. Your father was driving. I prayed for you when I saw the light in heaven that the hole in your heart could be closed without opening your entire upper body. We drove to Berlin, to the heart center, so that the heart surgeons could operate on the “heart defect” differently. (Spoiler alert: This prayer was not answered. God had a better plan with my hole in my heart.)

Surprise:

With God everything is different than you think.

I had prepared myself for all kinds of reactions, but not this one. The fact that God had given my mother an experience almost 30 years earlier that she would remember on the day her daughter told her about a similar experience was simply unbelievable! God's stories are unique, wonderful and so detailed. No scriptwriter in the world can write such stories. And I was overcome by indescribable gratitude. God loved me so much that He cared for me even though I didn't know Him. From the very beginning, He had a plan for my path to Him, even though I didn't grow up in a Christian family. That gives me so much hope for my family. Because I'm convinced that it is the same with each of us. With you and those you love who don't yet know about Jesus. God cares.

God writes his love stories with us

This hole in my heart was an anchor point in my childhood to search and ask myself existential questions at an early age. I only found out shortly before Easter 2022 that Jesus also has a hole in his heart. Pierced and open to everyone. A heart from which life and love flow inexhaustibly. The hole in my heart had thus taken on an additional dimension. I was grateful that God had inseparably connected not only my mother and me, but also me with Jesus through this hole in my heart. Thank God.

Everything is related. God connects what belongs together.

The name

More than a means of calling

I have been interested in the meaning of names since I was young, when I think about it. The name of my friend Gülay, the rose moon, also became the basis and inspiration for a drawing. We used to have several students with the same name in the class, for example Tobias, Philipp or Christian. I saw an underlying pattern in their personalities, but then I thought that I was probably just imagining it. After my conversion, I became more interested in the meaning of names of people from the Holy Scriptures. Jesus means "God saves" and Abraham means "Father of the nations" and Isaac means "He will laugh".

The Meaning of Names

In the 2nd grade class in September 2023, this time as a teacher, shortly before my trip to the desert, I gave each child an explanation of their name. The lesson topic was creation (God allowed people to name animals). Many did not know what their name meant and one student asked me in amazement when I explained the meaning of her name: "Is that like horoscope?" I tried to explain that just as the word "water" is a name for this flowing thing that we need to live, the word "Christian", which is a name, also has a meaning. It comes from "Christ", which means "The Anointed One". I added that the name shapes the person or is inspired by God. We Christians pray "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." God's name has special strength and power. The name is something special that is at the same time an identity or says something about the identity or calling of the person and highlights characteristics of the person. It is not just a means of calling or a word without a deeper meaning.

The Discovery of My Name

My parents chose an unusual name for me. Not a name that was very common. Since Vietnamese names often consist of at least two first names, my name was also a compound name: Nhật Lai. But everyone called me Lai my whole life, including my parents. That was easier for Germans to pronounce and it is also common in Vietnam that the last first name is the first name. At some point during puberty, my mother wanted to change my name, or at least remove the first part "Nhật", which translates as sun and from which words like Sunday "Chủ nhật" (= Chief Sun) or Japan, the land of the rising sun "Nhật Bản" are formed. In common parlance, we say “Ông mặt trời” (Lord Face of the Sky) to the sun, so I didn't really understand the meaning of Nhật until recently, although my mother used to say that the sun is very hot and that's why I'm so hot-headed. She wanted to change my name and replaced Nhật with something else, calmer, but I can't remember what it was right now.

The name is life program

I always considered my two first names separately because the two parts didn't make sense together. Nhật, sun, and Lai? Lai is an adjective and is attributed to a person who comes from two different countries, for example because the mother is German and the father is from Vietnam. We call such children "mixed-race children". As a child and growing up, I often felt like this: Lai. In Vietnam I was the German one (primarily because of my behavior) and in Germany the Vietnamese one (simply because of my appearance). I thought Lai suited me well, neither one nor the other.

My perspective changed as an adult. I learned to accept both sides. I was no longer 20% Vietnamese and 80% German, and sometimes the other way around, depending on who I was talking to or how I felt, but I felt and knew that both cultures had shaped me down to my very core and bones and that I could neither deny my origins nor the influence of where I grew up. I finally accepted myself completely.

In my calculations, that meant: 100% Vietnamese, 100% German. Not mixed, but completely both. This process of acceptance was only fully completed when my name was discovered again...

With mother and brother in Vietnam before emigration

100% Me: Completing my Identity with, through and in Jesus

The seemingly incompatible words Nhật and Lai suddenly found a deeper meaning together as I got to know Jesus better. I was amazed, touched and shaken to the depths of my soul. Nhật, the sun. Lai, from different cultures, species, beings, substances, natures... The sun from two natures. My goodness! Jesus, you most holy one: 100% God. 100% human. Am I really named after you, Jesus? I was incredibly happy that my God had given me such an undeserved gift again. From birth, even before I knew Him, He called me by name, and at the same time I was overcome with awe at having this name. I also showed my gratitude to my parents, who were inspired and so creative. Without knowing what they were doing. Because according to them, it was a pure coincidence: "The name just sounded beautiful" and it matched the name of my brother Nhật Linh, the sun spirit, who is seven years older than me. Since I have been on the road with God, I no longer believe in coincidences.

Blessed are you, beloved Most Holy Trinity, perfect love. Blessed are you, God the Father, who chose us from our mother's womb. (cf. Psalm 139) Blessed are you, Jesus, Son of God, who comes to all people, not just to those who know you. Blessed are you, Holy Spirit, who leads us into communion with you, with God, and makes us witnesses of your love.

When I got to know myself better, I got to know God better. And vice versa.

In any case, the most beautiful thing about this story is that God is always close to us and carefully keeps everything ready and prepared for us. His teaching for us is masterful, excellent, sublime. The more we accept and know all parts of ourselves, the more we get to know God, and the more we know God, the more we see ourselves as he sees us and created us: perfectly beautiful and valuable. Above all, we understand better and better how much he loves us.

Praise be to you, my God, forever and ever.

The name is a constant struggle

This discovery was in 2023, a few months before the journey into the desert, which began with me questioning the divinity of my beloved Jesus, until by the end of 2023 I had reached the point where I no longer believed that Jesus was God. Now imagine someone who is a Christian and celebrates Christmas without believing that Jesus is God incarnate who came into the world to save humanity. The whole good news would simply be gone. I "celebrated" Christmas accordingly on the outside, but inside I no longer had the deep joy that had been so supernatural at Christmas the previous year. A disaster. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to believe, but I couldn't anymore. Why? What happened? There were certainly strong, incessant attacks from outside that caused doubts to grow in me, but what is even more important is the fact that my belief that Jesus is true God and true man was only superficial, despite the relevant experience at the beginning of my journey with Jesus, where he revealed himself to me as God, visibly and invisibly, himself with all his love and supernatural peace. This showed me that I will never be safe from falling and must always remain vigilant. No matter how many extraordinary experiences and signs God still wants to grant me undeservedly.

Doubts, torments, mistrust

And then a strange acquaintance from social media actually led me to plan a trip to Egypt on my own to meet this person who obviously had very different ideas about Jesus. I now risk jeopardizing my credibility for the rest of this story, but the truth must be said that I had illusions and made little movies in my head about what and who was actually behind this Egyptian person, and I was so deep in my wishful thinking that I did not perceive any dangers and skipped sensible steps. I no longer trusted anyone. Not even my closest friends and confidants. I felt like a traitor and was afraid of being caught. I should have been alarmed that I was afraid. Fear never comes from God. God, love, drives away fear. I was afraid... Woe betide anyone if they find out that I no longer believed that Jesus is the Son of God. I was isolated, alone, and cornered. Exactly where the devil wanted me to be.

Truth, God and I are inseparable. All or nothing.

But what is most important to me is this realization: my stubborn clinging to a false idea, to an earthly, selfish dream, drove me further and further away from reality. And further away from reality is further away from God, away from the truth, away from Jesus, away from life. Into the desert. God alone knows how painful this realization was for me, but also how healing and cleansing. And how necessary it was in order to enter into a deeper truth about myself and about God as quickly as possible.

God's best gifts are hard

For the first time I experienced what God's gifts can be: hard to digest. Like gold that has to go through fire before it shines, God allowed me to go through the desert so that my trust in Him could take strong root. I had to go through fears, dangers, obstacles, tests and trials. All my securities had to dissolve. Every support had to be taken away. So that I could only rely on Him. These were the hard graces that He gave me. All out of love.