This week is a busy, busy week for me. Palm Sunday I spoke twice in the morning, and led an intense ninety-minute meeting over lunch with a leadership team of twenty. On Tuesday, my colleague developed a persistent cough. I covered for him to lead the Tuesday evening prayer meeting at church. Somehow the church leaders nominated me to speak on Good Friday. To top it off I’ll speak in one Easter service, and baptize a member of our English congregation at Davis Chinese Christian Church after lunch. Whew.

While it’s a busy week for me, I’ve also looked forward to this week. It’s a special time not just for the church, but also for me.

My psoriasis story connects to my faith in my teenage years. I didn’t grow up with any kind of religion–except the odd mix of occasional ancestor worship and a prayer at a holiday dinner. But my teenage years turned quite tumultuous with conflict in the family, high levels of anxiety and pressure to succeed at school, fear of failure in both social situations and academically, and racial discrimination. I became depressed and borderline suicidal during my high school years.

Psoriasis obviously didn’t help lift my mood. I experienced severe psoriasis without much by way of treatment. I didn’t start taking any systemic medications, like methotrexate, until I attended university. Back then I used tar, topical steroids, and a wooden light box constructed by my dad and me. Phototherapy in a cold garage mid-winter isn’t pleasant. At least it warmed me up some. But it didn’t help suppress the psoriasis as much.

My dad became depressed during the Reagan economic recession, worrying about losing his job. His six-month disability added immense pressure on the family. He didn’t break out of his depression until he started going to church. Family members followed him one by one. I finally relented, the last one in the family, accompanying him one Sunday to a small Chinese non-deonimational church. Turned out the youth didn’t like me much as I engaged in a wrestling match during a pick-up football game after the Bible lesson.

But the emptiness in my heart persisted despite the rude welcome by my peers. I knew I needed to hold on to something that wouldn’t let me down or suddenly change. On an Easter Sunday in the mid-80s I responded to a call to go forward at the end of the church worship service to learn more about Christian faith. My life really changed after that.

I look back at that time over thirty years ago as an anchor for my soul. Times are busy as a minister on a team overseeing a church of almost four hundred. As I write this I have a Word document open with the Easter message in progress, a shower cap on my head while I apply a low strength steroid on my scalp for four hours, and a daughter with bipolar disorder who continues to recover from a nasty episode. With the pressure I feel from work and at home, and the ever-pressing need to keep up psoriasis treatments and advocacy/writing, I need that anchor every day.

It’s also a crazy time in our world. I watched the press conference with the Secretary of State in Russia talking about Syria. San Bernardino, not too far from where I used to live in the Los Angeles area, was hit again with tragedy. North Korea is in the news again. It’s a stormy time.

Easter hope started when I was a teenager in a stormy time. It’s windy outside now. I didn’t see this spring storm coming. My life feels like a ship in the sea–storms coming and going, I bob up and down, but with a strong anchor I hold on to that hope for when the sun will shine again.

Hebrews 6:19-20: We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, ²⁰ where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.