Ruth Chou Simons will be a main speaker at the Asian American Leadership Conference, which takes place on April 23-24, 2024, in Orange County, CA. Learn more and register here.
Ruth speaks with Aaron Lee on a variety of topics regarding faith and culture. She talks about her testimony as it comes to being an Asian American Christian, switching majors from biochem to fine arts, our callings and careers, serving Christ and stewarding our gifts, and shares encouragement for Asian American women authors.
Editor’s Note: Below is a lightly edited automated transcript of their conversation. There may be typos or grammatical errors. You can listen to the audio here.
Aaron Lee: Hi, everyone. This is Aaron. I am the Social Media Manager for SOLA Network. And I have a very special guest today. This is Ruth Chou Simons. Ruth, I’ve been waiting so long to talk to you. And I’m so excited. Thank you for coming on.
Ruth Chou Simons: Oh, it’s so good to be here. So nice to meet you, Aaron.
Aaron Lee: I believe we connected initially on social media. And I want to say thank you for showing support to SOLA. You are an author, a mom, an artist, an entrepreneur, and a speaker. I’ve seen you do different interviews. And so I did want to craft our interview to be a little bit more specific for what we do at SOLA. And specifically for Asian Americans. Would you please share about yourself and especially your background or your testimony as it comes to being an Asian American Christian? How do you see your culture and faith coming together?
Ruth Chou Simons: Ah, such a good question. And I wish we had all day.
I was born in Taiwan, my parents were raised in Taiwan as well. My dad was born on a boat between China and Taiwan, their family escaping communism in ‘49. And so I came to the US when I was four and raised in a home that knew about Christ, but didn’t walk with Christ. And I think my mom was invited into Bible Study Fellowship when I was in kindergarten or something. And she started reading the Bible, and she became a genuine Christ follower.
And then years later, it took a long time for my dad, who was a moral person, but kind of self sufficient, it took a long time for him to finally realize he was not the god and hero of his own life. And so that happened around my eighth grade year.
And then, by my sophomore year, he gave his life to full time ministry. And so we moved out to seminary in Northern California. But in there, my eighth grade year was when I made a profession of faith. I knew that something obviously, I didn’t grow fully into understanding every aspect of the gospel, but I knew that I needed Christ. And so I made that profession of faith, I was baptized. And my growth, my journey to sanctification began there. And it wasn’t until college that I grew more into understanding, truly understanding what it means to be saved by grace through faith, not by works.
And so when I think about my entire journey, and as an author, and when you say I’m an entrepreneur, it’s that I started a website that became a business later on called GraceLaced.com.
And so Grace really was the foundation. I wanted to discover, find grace, namely, God’s grace in my every day. So this journey to understanding, being saved by grace through faith, not by works, really comes out of that season of my life. And now is the cornerstone of everything I write, everything I try to speak on, and all the work that I create. I’m also an artist. And so through that website, I get to paint and create works that hopefully reflect God’s glory and adorn the gospel and help people, point people to Jesus.
But this idea of God’s grace, really doing all that we can’t do for ourselves, really is the cornerstone of all the stuff that I do. And so most of this has not happened until about the last… The blog has been around for 15 years. I’m a momma to six and so there was a season of life where I raised these six boys as my full time job. I was a pastor’s wife, so did a lot of counseling, and a lot of mentoring while making dinner, a lot of premarital counseling after kids went to bed. So you can imagine different seasons. I am in my late 40s now, and I’m grateful that God is not through with me yet, and gives me multiple seasons of working through this topic in different seasons of my life. So is that a good and quick and short version?
Aaron Lee: Yeah, I love your testimony. It’s super encouraging. And the work that you’ve done has been amazing. I really enjoy the art that you create and share online. And you talked about that, or I heard, or I think it was in one of your interviews – that you were in your last two years of college, and you suddenly switched majors from biochem to fine arts. Our website has many collegian and young adult readers – can you tell us that story? Because I think that’s super interesting.
Ruth Chou Simons: Sure. And I, I assume my, you know, Asian American brothers and sisters will understand what I say, you know, you sometimes grow up with a pressure or a, with a sense of what it is that you ought to do with your life. And that “ought” came with being the perfect daughter, being the perfect student, not settling for anything short of A+ and, you know, maybe be a neurosurgeon, if you can, and if you can’t, you know, be an engineer or anything that would be the top of the possible options. And so did I really love biochem, or the idea of studying medicine? I don’t think I really was in love with that, it just seemed like the right thing to do when you’re good at math, or you’re good at science, or you’re getting good grades.
And so I just was constantly under this pressure of achievement and performance. I knew Christ, but I did not fully understand how it is that I was accepted and loved, and that I could find fulfillment apart from what I achieved. And so these were running parallels in my life, like, I want to know Jesus more. But really, I want to make sure that I have the approval of others. And that I achieve, achieve, achieve.
And so that’s really why I was in that profession now in that degree field. And ultimately, so for some people, it’s truly fascinating for me, it wasn’t, I was really just forcing myself into a category that I felt like would get me further in life. And so I tell the story a little bit in my most recent book, When Strivings Cease. So I probably can’t recount all of it. But the truth is changing to be a fine arts major wasn’t necessarily for the right reasons, I just came to a, I just came to a breaking point, a point where I was like, I’m under so much pressure, I don’t love my life. I don’t know who I am. And I feel like I’m doing everything for the pleasure of other people like wanting to please other people, wanting to have approval from others.
And so somewhat in an act of rebellion, it was like just kind of going, forget it, I’m just going to stop doing all the things. And you know, and when I look back, Aaron, I could have used some counsel in that time, maybe I didn’t need to throw away a whole… all that I had worked for. But in that moment, I think it was just a humbling, the Lord really humbled my heart and for whatever, you know, Romans 8:28 is really true, He is at work to make all things work together in our lives, right?
And so the truth is, in that time, I thought, well, I’m just gonna throw it all away and do something that comes more naturally to me. And even then, there was a humbling because it wasn’t the study of art that was going to fulfill me. In the end. It was ultimately giving my life fully to Christ, and seeing that my worth, my value, and my belonging won’t ever come from what I do or don’t do and what I achieve or don’t achieve. That’s when it all came together. And it didn’t matter whether I was studying science or studying art. Ultimately, it was where my heart was at. And so years later, I get to use that beginning in my art, but ultimately, it wasn’t the degree, it was the journey in which I learned about him in that.
Aaron Lee: That’s beautiful. You kind of answered the next question. I was going to ask you about how our faith and culture and upbringing impact God’s calling on our lives. But from what I’m listening to you, it sounds like it’s not necessarily a calling, like, as a career, or in your case, you know, as an artist or a biochem major, whatever, but it’s more our calling is to Christ. Is that correct?
Ruth Chou Simons: I think we, especially in maybe some of the ways in which Asian American communities can function, I think it’s really easy for us to think that we are what we do. Or we are the level of achievement at our university or what we graduate with or what career field we’re in. I’m not saying that’s not important. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use everything that God’s given you in your academics, your brain, your skills, your ability to discipline your mind, use all those things.
But I think the trouble comes when we start thinking that we’re defined and our identities come from, what it is that we do, how much we achieve, or the letters behind our names. And I think God works in a way where he says, truly your identity comes from Christ. And until you are settled in that, you will constantly run on the hamster wheel of trying to achieve more and feeling like you’re not enough. And so you could be a neuroscientist with everything that everybody’s applauding you for and it’ll still not be enough unless you find your true identity in him.
Aaron Lee: So good. You are an artist. And so I do want to talk to you about that. But like you mentioned, you said that your first 15 years or so of marriage, you and your husband were church planting pastors. Teaching pastors. And so I wanted to ask you, especially for our current moment, how do you see art impacting our faith with everything that’s going on in the world right now?
Ruth Chou Simons: There was a time when I thought that art was secular. And the sacred was church ministry work. I really separated those two things, thinking there’s no way that these two things could combine.
You know, my husband was a collegiate pastor for some time, youth and collegiate work. And then he became a teaching pastor of a church plant. And so as a pastor’s wife, I did a lot of behind the scenes work. I wasn’t the one who was filling the pulpit. I wasn’t the one leading all the counseling. But I was behind the scenes, raising my kids and wondering, how can I use my giftings in writing, and painting, and all this creative energy I had?
And so sometimes, we think that the way we must use our giftings, for God must be on a stage, or somewhere where there’s a lot of downloads showing us that we’re getting somewhere. And as an artist, I kind of thought, oh, people need to be able to buy my work, or I need to show in a gallery, or I need to be published. But you know where I started, Aaron? I just started from my kitchen table with babies on my lap.
Just be faithful with what I had right then. And that was about 30 minutes a day. And I thought to myself, Okay, if I’m studying God’s word, and I’m reflecting on it, if something I create comes out of that meditation, I’m going to share it with the world. And that happened to be on Instagram, or through my blog. And I started ministering to people, Aaron. And that became what you see of GraceLaced today.
So it wasn’t that I was trying to become famous and being known for my artwork. I wasn’t trying to get a financial gig where I could supplement my family’s income through selling art. I simply wanted to be faithful and say, as an image bearer, if it’s true that we are the Imago Dei, and we are, if we have been created in his image, and each one of us gets to reflect something of God’s character that somebody else isn’t going to be fully reflecting, we all have opportunities to reflect in our unique ways.
So for you, Aaron, to say, Okay, I’ve got a day to day where I’m created uniquely. So whatever I create, whether it’s putting food on the table, or interviewing somebody for this podcast that I’ve been given to steward, or if I’m an artist, I’m going to paint something, whatever it is I’m doing, I have an opportunity to step into this moment, as somebody who’s an image bearer, put on this earth, on purpose for purpose.
And when you think that way, then you realize, serving Christ is… serving the kingdom isn’t just when you go to Africa, or when you stand and prepare a sermon, and you preach to thousands. It’s when you’re faithful to steward your gifts today, right where you are. And God gets to grow that. And so it’s your theology, it’s your theology, at play. It’s your theology of what you believe about why God has you here, and why he’s gifted you. So it’s how you steward the talents, right? The parable of the talents. When you have that theology right, it doesn’t matter what you do, or what season you do it in, you’re being faithful with it, and God is going to be pleased.
Aaron Lee: Ruth, you’re super relatable. I appreciate that about you. And you’re really wise. You talked about your book, When Strivings Cease. And here at SOLA Network, we try to feature Asian American women writers. The person who reviewed your book, Heidi Tai, she’s one of them. I want to ask you, do you have any encouragement for Asian American women authors, especially as they write about their faith and culture, and try to steward – like what you’re saying – the gifts and what God has given them?
Ruth Chou Simons: Yeah, well, I keep thinking about the fact that sometimes we feel like we’re coming from such a unique perspective, and we truly are. But we really are more alike than we are different. And so as a writer, always think about how the ultimate goal is not purely even if we want others to understand our cultural heritage and where we’re coming from, we want to see or we want others to understand our unique point of view.
But as Christ followers, my number one goal is to point people to the kingdom of God, citizenship in heaven. And so when I get that right, then the pressure is off. I don’t have to tell the perfect story of my Asian American experience. I don’t have to speak for every Asian American on, you know, on this continent. I don’t have to tell you the burden of telling each person’s unique story. I can just tell mine, in my own. And when I think about how each of us have a unique story and our families are unique…
But when I tell my story as an Asian American, well, clearly Aaron, you and I have something in common where we might be like, oh my goodness, we ate that too. My mom said that too. And we have an opportunity to encourage one another and say, but as brothers and sisters in Christ, our heavenly Father is the ultimate father. The kingdom where we’re headed is the ultimate kingdom. And our citizenship is ultimately… we have a belonging even if we feel like sometimes we don’t totally belong in Asia, we don’t really belong in America, but our belonging is ultimately with Christ. And that really helps shape the way we write about our experiences.
Aaron Lee: Ruth, I want to respect your time. Thank you so much for sharing with us. But I did want to ask you what current book or art projects do you have coming up?
Ruth Chou Simons: Yeah, so many! Well, you can always keep up with… I run a company called GraceLaced. And there’s always new artwork and new products to help us preach truth to ourselves, to help us stay focused on the Word.
But I want to show you, I brought this along. Nobody’s even seen it yet. I don’t actually – I posted the cover. But this is coming out in September called Emmanuel: An Invitation to Prepare Him Room at Christmas and Always. And if you know me at all, Aaron, which I think you do, I love to write about ways in which Christ can permeate our lives every day. So this is not an Advent book simply just for us to celebrate Christmas. It’s so that we might think about how the Gospel transforms our lives, 365 days a year. And so this comes out in September. It’s the Christmas journey. It’s obviously available for preorder. I’d be so honored for any of your listeners and viewers to pre order that book.
And I actually have, I’m currently working on a book that’s coming out, Fall ‘23. That’s called Pilgrim. And it’s about the doctrinal truths about who God is and how it affects our journey with him. And so that’s coming out.
Aaron Lee: So exciting. Awesome. Well, thank you, we’ll definitely share the links to everything. Ruth, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for speaking to all of us. And who knows? Maybe I’ll see you around.
Ruth Chou Simons: I hope so. I can’t wait. So thank you for having me.