Lent

"Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." - Romans 3:20

What a semester full of peace, love, and joy.  So many blessings, I don't know what to do with them.  God, thank you.

Matthew 6

Things at Stake...

... whenever a tempting "bowl of stew" (like Esau's) presents itself to me:

• Good relationship with God
• Health & fitness
• Capability to love to the fullest the perfect life partner
• A loving community of family and friends
• A life's work to make the world a better place

These are the things I want in my future.

Every time I come across a bowl of stew, I will think of these things instead of my hunger.  Then I will go find some other food that won't take away the things above.

Nothing Can Separate Us

Yesterday's sermon by Justin Grunewald talked about where God's love is when we are facing hardship.  The point was that, bad things happen to everybody, even His own son, and we just have to know that God's love is with us even when we are facing hardship, even when we can't feel it as readily as we can when everything is going well.  Sitting there at church, I thought it was a nice message but not one that was too relevant to me at the time.

This morning at work, my boss sent me an email saying that I am losing a tutoree because he's improved so much that he doesn't think he needs my help anymore.  That's three less hours a week.  I'd already been dealing with the blow of someone withdrawing from a math class because he found it too difficult (that was minus two hours of work), but this?  Aren't they supposed to reward tutors who significantly help a (star) student-athlete improve his grades?  Am I supposed to tutor people fearing that, if I help them too well, they will quit on me?  Five hours a week is a lot of difference to someone who started out with 15 hours.  I went and pleaded to my multiple bosses to keep me in mind if any replacement hours become available.  Then, worries about how I will pay my bills shadowed over me, along with how I will help pay for next semester's tuition, and when I will pay back what I owe friends.

I felt a strong urge to do my usual thing for when "hardship" hits:  text Logan, who is no more than a friend to me now.  But I remembered that I'm supposed to be learning again how to get through life on my own and felt so downcast, thinking, "Life's just too hard to get through on my own.  I wish I still had someone who knows and cares about all my problems."  Shortly after that I remembered yesterday's sermon.

God's love is with me, and nothing can separate me from it.  Today I have just as much blessing and love from God as on those days that automatically cause me to proclaim hallelujah.  Maybe He just wanted to remind me to rely on him.  Maybe he is giving me time to focus more on schoolwork or other good deeds while he takes care of the money.  Maybe he won't take care of the money in my time; quite possibly more "hardship" will come from this.  But one thing I know, he woke me up and led me to church at noon yesterday so that I will be prepared for today and whatever else that may strike in the future.  And that is already an evidence of His ever-present love.  He is in control, and I will never lose hope.  Thank you, God, for your love that is the only constant...

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.... Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

- Romans 3:22-39

See Beyond the Future

I still love life.

Full of uncertainties, it is.  Full of uncertainties most people I know do not have.  But I know so few people.  Full of relative certainties, my life is.  Where I am getting my three meals tomorrow, where I am sleeping tonight.

Moreover, the uncertainties do not make life worse.  If I keep comparing my life to those of "others I know," I will never be able to appreciate and enjoy it.

I am so thankful my parents brought me here, and that as of now I am studying at the University of Georgia.  All of a sudden I am filled with genuine thankfulness.  I am thankful for my uncertainties.  I have to see beyond this school project, beyond my math grade, my hazy summer plans, my empty bank account, etc. and see... see my core.  See my beating heart and the life of my soul.

Uncertainties are so little, so temporary.  In what seems like a blink of an eye they will become indelibly certain marks in the past, and my only option will be to deal with it and move on.  What is certain is that God allows me to be beyond all this.  What matters is my soul.

What good for is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit the soul?
- Mark 8:36

Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.
- Mark 9:35

Blogotherapy

Being a college student is too tough, too expensive.

Would I rather drop out of college?

No.

Life is tough.  Would you rather die?  No.  See?  So shut up and keep on.

Quit worrying.

Your life's so good.  Look what's under your fingertips -- you own a MacBook Pro.  You live in your own apartment.  You got a job.  You live in the United States.  Dannnng you privileged girl you!  Shut up and smile!!

Don't compare yourself with people who show up to math class less than you do.  Don't compare your life to the lives of people more spoiled than you are.  Live your dang life and be thankful for it because this is exactly what God wants you to live.

No more, no less, for now.

Be Jonah!  And if your friend gets a paper cut and cries, be thankful that there is no dry piece of paper in the fish.  Even if you manage to get a paper cut inside the fish, be happy that God will give you the strength to put up with the paper cut AND the fish.

And then the fish will barf you out!  Hooray!

Fish is temporary!

Lose My Life

If I commute from Lawrenceville, I will lose my independence and social life.  Also, I'll be "home."  Yuck.
If I graduate early, I will lose one of my majors and my academic dreams.
In the extreme scenario, if I get kicked out of the country because I'm not good enough to stay here, I will lose practically all of my life.

Well, that's a great opportunity.

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?
- Mark 8:34-36

We studied that in Small Group just Monday night!

Would I want to do any of the things above?  Not if I can help it.  I want to save my life.
(I guess that's why I will lose it!)
But if I have to... I won't fight it.  We don't get that many chances in life to lose our lives for the good of others.

That alone gives me peace today.  Or is it resignation?

Jonah

He was stuck in a fish for three days.  He didn't complain.  Instead he thanked and praised God for His grace.

Now, I'm not stuck in a fish.  I'm not even stuck in an underground mine.  Dang, somebody please slap me if I ever complain about something.

I wonder if the fish would have vomited Jonah back out if he had been complaining and moping for three days.  Probably not.

Mike's message today was so timely and touching.  Oh thank you God for this life full of blessings!

Ask, Seek, Knock

Ladies and gentlemen, as of today, I am employed.  Praise the Lord.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
- Matthew 7:7

It's my first real job.  Well, it will be, after this mountain-pile of paperwork.  I'm excited and kind of nervous.  Relieved on top of it all.  A little surprised, and especially thankful for LeAnne, Logan, and Geology Club!

WWJD

What would Jesus do?

Many times, I don't really know what to think.  Yeah, He would be altruistic, yeah, He would be forgiving, yeah, He would be clean, yeah, He would be truthful.  But I know these things because something, someone---pastors, books, Apostle Paul, etc.---has told me that He is all those things.  Almost every time I ask myself WWJD, it hits me how little I know of Jesus's life.  I know that He told a lot of parables, many of which I (along with half the world) am familiar with.  I know the stuff that The Passion of the Christ covered.  I know His birth story, hark the herald angels sing, yeah... but I know so little about His life.  Not enough to think of examples of what He would do in such and such situation.  If He were here in 2010 as one of my classmates, I don't think I would have the right to say I really know Him.

I know there's a limit to the amount of things I can learn about what Jesus did 2,000 years ago.  Not even deep, analytical, spiritual things to learn... just facts.  Stuff that's spelled out in the Bible.  If that limit was the ceiling, I am only at the level of the feces of a dust mite on the bottom of the carpet....

It's a shame.  This is one of the reasons I need to regularly hit the Bible, especially the Gospels.  WWJD is not so useful if I never know the answer.

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I'm going to the National Conference on College Student Grief (dang, what a mouthful) this weekend.  I hope to learn and bring back a lot.  I'm going to need a lot of WWJD... and that's when the above kicked in.

That 1 Corinthians Passage Revisited

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

But first of all, it is patient.  What a test this is.

Peace

100%.  Peace.  I'm filled with peace.  All my worries are all of a sudden gone.  Everything is going to work out, and possibly work out well.  God, how do You give me such peace?

I can't wait for God to come find me.  I have to physically seek Him.

Luke 10:38-42
To be not Martha, but Mary.

1 Corinthians 1:17-31

... Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.  Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.... Therefore, as it is written:  "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

The Story of Martha and Mary

Luke 10:38

I really needed to hear this.

I've been Martha all along.  I should be Mary.

Easy to say...

Love

The "most nourishing weekend" of last summer...  Since then I've been thinking back to the church youth conference continually, and I've had this entry in my head all along, but now that I look back and try to come up with stuff to write, I've lost so many ideas.  So before I lose any more...

Pastor Bryan came with a dozen kids from a church in Virginia.  He was uber inspirational.

"Choose the hard right, not the easy wrong."
"You can't change the world if you're just like them."

And he centered one of the sermons on this verse:

"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity."
- 1 Timothy 4:12

Pastor Bryan went over each of the five aspects, but honestly I don't remember much at all about speech, life, faith, and purity.  In the pitiful scribbles I call notes, I have down something like:

Set examples through speech (positive), through life (watch actions), through love (selfless/unconditional), and through faith (that leads to miracles).

As that 90's song goes, "What is love?"  I think that society puts too much emphasis on the veiled identity of love.  Like... "Love can't be defined," "You will just know when love comes around," etc...  And you know, in the midst of analyzing everything that your first "lover" says you can't help but ask yourself, "He said he loves me!  What does that mean?" and "What's different now, now that we're supposedly in love?"  And I, years ago, felt the need to define it as well.  And I said that love is a mutual absolute trust, and I left it at that for a while.

You know what, though?  It's really not that complicated.  Now (or more like "after that conference"), I have a new take on it.  It's so simple if you just separate lust and love.  The way I love my dad is exactly the same as the way I love my girl friends and the way I love a romantic interest (at some point in time).  There is just one love.  There's no family love, friendly love, and romantic love.  "Romantic love" = love + lust (or, to put aside the negative connotation of lust, physical attraction).  As sad as it is, you can have physical attraction toward anyone of the gender of your preference.  And if you've had experience with someone, it's just more comfortable to repeat with the same person.  And then, if you've had too much with the same person, like for over a decade, you're bored.  It's sorta like eating food.  Hence there is nothing special about physical attraction.  (Disclaimer:  Of course I'm not speaking all from experience.  But if you disagree... well... sorry.  This is a highly personal take that is of course subject to change.)  Not even close to how special love is:

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, a passage that everyone's probably heard.  I used to think that you can't love alone.  But you can.  I used to think it's a big deal to tell a guy you loved him.  But it's not.  Not in the way that you think, anyway.  The thing is, he will think it is.  So you will have to clarify what you mean, but then you may sound like you're just making excuses to prevent awkwardness... at which point it is already awkward.  There is only one type of love:  what Jesus has for us.  And the love that humans have for each other... is (or should be) an attempt at emulating His perfect love.  So... when I say I love you, I mean that I try to be as close as possible to the description in the above passage to you.

"Don't forget I love ya" - Vera

I'll be leading youth "Bible study" tomorrow morning.  Please pray for me!  Our pastor called it Bible study, but since I'm not a real Bible scholar myself it's gonna be more like a discussion-testimony lecture.  I'm nervous because half of these kids are only one or two years younger than me.  But more than that, I'm thankful and excited for this opportunity.  I've always wanted to get our youth group together and talk about this stuff!  Ahh I've never anticipated a Sunday so much before.  God I pray that tomorrow will be an enriching day for all...

But really, a whole hour to talk and deliver a message to a group of people?  And I'm not being timed for a five-to-six-minute window?  This is a dream come true!!  Maybe, I should really consider teaching.  Hmm.... I'll hold that thought until after the Bible study tomorrow.

I need to stop cussing.

This is the excuse I've always had in my head:

"The Bible never said that I shouldn't cuss.  It just said I shouldn't say the Lord's name in vain.  I try to abstain from oh-my-God-ing, I never say the d-word, and I stay away from saying 'hell' as an expletive.  But the f-word or the s-word, though vulgar, do not directly offend God.  So I don't mind using them frequently."

I know that it's stupid to categorize cuss words as "God-offending" and "not God-offending" because if I project a vulgar image, then I offend God as a self-labeled representative of Christ.  But I project a vulgar image, all for fun, in ways other than using the aforementioned words.  So does that mean I have to stop all of it?

Does the Bible say anything about vulgar language in general?  Somebody please show it to me?

Church Sweet Church

He kept asking me this morning, "What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? What can you possibly be afraid of?"

Oh Lord. Nothing. Nothing in the world. Thank You for the reminder.

"... He created you

He understands you better than anyone..."

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

- 1 John 4:16

Mmmmm.

I've been soooo absorbed in myself. My life, my weight, my future, my grades, my money, my space, my thoughts, my time, my flaws... even my God. Today I finally realize where my focus has been off, and it's that I haven't been thinking of things and people as groups. I've been thinking how to get closer to my God, when it should have been to our God. I've been thinking too much about how I can live a better life, and none about how we can live a better life.

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

- 1 Corinthians 12:12-13

I am only a part, albeit an important one, and I need many others as parts to form our spiritual body.

Hello.

The automatic save and archive search sounded just too good.

I continue from my beloved Xanga.

Hello.

I don't feel very comfortable yet. Weird, huh, how you get attached to some online thing that you write on? Oh well, I bet this is just like running out of an old journal and writing on the first page of a new one. You feel kind of awkward in the beginning, but as you go on it inevitably becomes your best friend. Except I had that journal for 5 1/2 years, and now I feel like I'm talking to a stranger who knows absolutely nothing about me in comparison. Which was actually also true with the Xanga. I was always writing to some stranger out there. Actually, I take that back. Public or private, I always wrote things there that I wanted to tell a good friend. So I will do the same in here. I will always be talking to a mysterious someone who, for some reason, cares to listen to me.

"Carrotlover" was taken. "Karrotlover" was available. But you know what? As long as I would have liked to continue the legacy, I don't love carrots anymore. I mean, they're good, but I don't remember the last time I devoured a bag of them. So why not just something new? I didn't even check if "schoinh" was available. That's too formal. My Xanga's, er... blog is not a formal space. So what does lightonblue mean? In a way it sounds a little cheesy, I think, or reminds me of some cute Asian thing, but it's actually not like that. I like light. I like blue. Put them together.

God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
- Gen 1:4