Munchieveggie

What to write… what to write.

So Tanny has been staying at my house this past week and I really just feel so blessed to have her live with my mom and I. Just the way she is and the way she treats people makes me examine myself and how I treat people. Everything she does is just done with such a humble gentleness. Perhaps it’s the Thai way, but Tanny is just so considerate and acts like a doting sister to me. She only has a younger brother so this week has been a lot of fun for both of us I think. For her, being able to share time and almost have another sister to be around and paint nails, go shopping, and pick out outfits for the weekend. Her favorite color is PINK! So my toenails are now a shade of bright pink, we went to a housewarming party at some friend’s place and we wore matching outfits pretty much, with as you can guess a PINK top. It’s been kinda funny. If any of my friends wanted me to wear matching outfits with them I would definitely say NO, but since Tanny’s so adorable and always says she wants me to dress more “girly” I let her make me feel nauseatingly cute this week. haha i’m just kidding. It’s not that bad. She always makes sure I have everything I need when I go to work, that I eat well, and she even cooks lunches for me so that I won’t have to go out and buy something. She says she enjoys cooking and will wake up when I do in the morning to start making me something and I feel so bad but I can’t make her go back to bed because she just continues sifting through our refrigerator for ingredients to make a new dish. I am so thankful for her. Did I mention she writes me a little note and puts it in my lunches? A note emphasizing that she believes in me and makes sure I am fed and having a good day at work. She even writes me emails during the day when I’m at work asking how things are going. It is the sweetest thing. I am definitely going to be sad when she leaves tomorrow. =(

I did want to mention though something I felt a bit discouraged by. My family had given me some crap about it in the beginning when Tanny was just coming to live at my house and I really just felt like it was something I could not turn away a friend from. I mean it’s true I have not known her long, but I didn’t think I was necessarily doing anything stupid and being absolutely naive about trusting in someone so easily. I mean I don’t think I have THAT bad of a sense of perception that I would trust anyone blindly. But just the fact that I had to defend myself when I felt like I was helping someone in need, really discouraged me. Is this not what it is about? I mean perhaps my family does not understand where I am coming from and my sister did share the other perspective with me, telling me how inconsiderate I was being for springing this on my mom, even though I asked her permission before but without any warning, and really forcing her to be put in an uncomfortable situation for a week with someone she does not even know and does not trust since I don’t know them well either. And I see the selfishness in myself by doing that as well, that I am just thinking about my friend only and not taking into account the feelings of my family, forcing them to put up with my actions and affect their lives for the week. However, despite that, how can I say no when I know that God has blessed me with such provisions and I have been privileged to live where I live so comfortably. My house is available and is large enough to definitely accommodate another, and it just would not make me feel right to deny another, especially from someone in need. However, I can understand that from my family’s perspective.

Nevertheless, I was a bit discouraged that more people from church did not offer to open up their homes for Tanny for the remaining weeks she was going to be staying in the US. I mean perhaps her situation is not DIRE and she does have some other people she could stay with, but the people she mentioned made me definitely a bit uncomfortable since I just would not feel safe letting her live with them. On the other hand, maybe I only see what I see and I DON’T know all of the background details and unseen emails that have passed forth from my initial emails to leaders. I guess I was really expecting many arms to be stretched open for her and several homes to be available to her. One family opened up their home to her. Yes, Tanny is not someone that has come to our church long nor developed deep relationships with many of the people there. Yes, she is staying for another month and it is a long amount of time to encroach on the lives of others. But, what are we going to church for then? What is this RELIGION supposedly trying to teach? What is the point of all this praying, learning, missions, what have you? I just could not help thinking like, okay. We are called to help our brothers and sisters in Christ, is this not an opportunity to show a new sister in Christ what this family body truly means in practice? Have we not seen on the mission fields how non-Christians have opened up their homes to absolute strangers and demonstrated hospitality at a level that is unheard of in the US? How quickly do we revert back to the “way we do things” in the US. And that is just such a discouragement. So engrossed are we in our daily SCHEDULES and our ROUTINES that the mere idea of adding someone to the mix of that would disrupt life as we know it. As I thought about it more, what Keeyoung shared during the last small group time really hit home. Call 2 All – Hong Kong conference. One side of the room are all of these pastors, what-have-you (mature Christians) and on the other side are the Chinese people who are from underground churches and don’t have any serious theological training but just have such a hunger for the Word and for more of God that they’re asking for more prayers from the pastoral side and crying out for more. Keeyoung said that one pastor’s heart just broke seeing this scene because the side with the American pastors, they were so consumed with their schedules which was probably lined up with all the other tasks they had to do in the upcoming weeks, while the other side was just seeking for more of God and asking for their prayers and the disconnect was something God was impressing on his heart. It is definitely something the Enemy has sneekily planted into our hearts as we live in this comfortable, all-providing, individualistic society. But once something comes up that could potentially disrupt it in the slightest, are we willing to act, to allow God to work in us and would he be pleased by our actions? It was just something that weighed on my heart this past week as I worried for where Tanny would go. And I know that I should not be making judgements either since I know I have given the blind eye to many people who have needed help in the past and even failed to pray when emails were sent out simply requesting people to lift up those in need. I guess I just had greater expectations.

So I was reading and came across a perfect passage for this topic:

“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

1 John 3: 17-20

And I love how this verse is written too. The first part of the verse tells us how we should act. But the second part of the verse also shows how God understands. He knows our heart. And even when “our hearts condemn us,” God allows us to set our hearts at rest in Christ’s presence. I love that. His love brings us to repentence. And it is so true. (That is on-going story and another entry.)

But perhaps I don’t know the whole story as I said. Maybe there was more going on behind the scenes. However, I do know that my mom was asking who Tanny would live with. And thankfully the night before Tanny had told me there was a family from our church that had offered up their home for her. Because I told my mom she had someone to stay with and she asked if it was a family from church. And I kinda mumbled yes, but she thought I had said no, while she said, “Oh so she is going to live with someone not from church.” And there was a look on her face that I took to mean, “Look at how ‘good’ your church is that no one would open their home for her.” But then I corrected her and told her no. She is living with someone from church next week. And that made me feel glad.

It’s Angie & Arthur’s wedding day today! I am SO EXCITED to go and I know I will be crying! Hahah I love it.

I realize I write a lot of like debbie-downer things in my blog, maybe? Clearly I like to write out my problems and put it on “paper” and the good things to be happy about I probably just bask in and don’t get to write down. =)

Ughh….WP is really frustrating me! What is the POINT of an “INSERT MORE TAG” if it doesn’t make it like a link that can expand and hide more? WHAT THE HECK. MAKES ME ANNOYED. Things like this makes me want to move over to Blogspot. Soon.

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My Utmost never ceases to amaze me and answer the questions on my heart. Today is another day of that and here is an excerpt from it below:

The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, “Don’t worry about whether or not you are being treated justly.” Looking for justice is actually a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will only begin to complain and to indulge ourselves in the discontent of self-pity, as if to say, “Why should I be treated like this?” If we are devoted to Jesus Christ, we have nothing to do with what we encounter, whether it is just or unjust. In essence, Jesus says, “Continue steadily on with what I have told you to do, and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance.” Even the most devout among us become atheistic in this regard— we do not believe Him. We put our common sense on the throne and then attach God’s name to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts (see Proverbs 3:5-6 ).

I have been struggling emotionally about living at home a lot for most of my life and this passage really solidified what it is that I need to be focused on. Not about whether I enjoy being at home or whether I think I should be treated in a certain way or another, but I should just continue doing what it is I am supposed to do, seeking after God’s guidance for my life and believing in His sovereign plan and not my own. What would it do for me to move out, except only to estrange ties further with my mom and provide myself greater “freedom” to do what I wish, for which would produce no real fruit but only to serve myself further. So though logically it makes more sense to move out (one, my mom would feel relieved of the burden of having to take care of someone and two, I would feel relieved of a lot of emotional discontent and allow myself greater freedom) from a big picture standpoint, I think there is more that can be done through God in my family by having my mom and I  stick it out living together. There is really no reason family should not be living together except that I think perhaps it is our own selfishness and our own sense of self-entitlement to a lot of things we think we deserve that prevents us from having a functional and healthy relationship. Obviously this is a big area in my heart where I have failed to surrender completely and is a source of constant struggle.

Work in progress.

I was talking to a friend from church this morning, which was quite a mental wake-up call because I am so not a morning person and don’t typically enjoy engaging in conversations with people before….noon? But so we were talking and eventually she was sharing her current living situation and it was making me feel really uneasy and worried for her. Before I know it, I am calling my mom and I think it caught her off-guard obviously but she managed to say “a week max” after I had asked for a month’s time. Then I call my friend back and tell her to come stay with us.

But now that I’m back at home, I feel panicked. I have not known her for a very long time and when I was trying to explain to my mom her situation, I couldn’t even answer the simplest questions that I had forgotten to ask her myself. So yeah my mom is pissed off and now I have to figure out what to do this week and where would be a safe place for her to stay the following weeks until she returns home next month.

=|

The Ministry of the Inner Life

June 21, 2009

My Utmost For His Highest

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By what right have we become “a royal priesthood”? It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God. Until we get into this right and proper relationship with God, it is simply a case of our “hanging on by the skin of our teeth,” although we say, “What a wonderful victory I have!” Yet there is nothing at all in that which indicates the miracle of redemption. Launch out in reckless, unrestrained belief that the redemption is complete. Then don’t worry anymore about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ has said, in essence, “Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints of God, and pray for all men.” Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus, not on the basis of this argument: “Oh, Lord, I have done my best; please hear me now.”

How long is it going to take God to free us from the unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves? We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. We cannot reach and understand the depths of our own meagerness. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. Once we are there, we have to pour out our lives for all we are worth in this ministry of the inner life.

I feel like the more I live at home, the more hermit-like I become and it is definitely not a path I want to keep going down. I am grandma-like enough as it is! And people don’t fail to let me know it already! What to do what to do. It is so comfortable living at home.

Baptism this Sunday! Had to go through the baptism class with Pastor Mo and everything and I had no clue NCFC only allows one baptism ever for each person. I guess I always thought since I’ve heard people may sometimes get re-baptized that it was also something we did. Guess I never really thought too much about it. But Pastor Mo obviously emphasized the seriousness of the decision. With all the weddings and engagements going on these days, baptism is essentially the same thing, is it not? A marriage with Christ. You may be willing to take that commitment already but baptism is that public display that your wedding day would be.

On another note, I am thinking about upgrading my phone but I hate paying a lot for a phone especially when I know they always have those special offers every so often.  I have been eyeing the LG envTouch as a major upgrade from my ancient phone.

Yeah small picture for you, crappy phone that freezes on me all the time.

I definitely don’t need all of the features cuz i refuse to pay a gazillion bucks on a monthly plan.  So I kinda feel like a phone like this would be wasted on me, but I just want something that looks nice, easy to use and has lots of organization tools cuz I put everything in my calendar and a keyboard for texting. =)

I wish I had more time on the weekends to find a good book and read. I haven’t read like a GOOOD book in such a long time. Okay yeah clearly I really have nothing to blog, so I will stop wasting time on this thing. =)

From WordPress to Blogspot I mean! I want to play music and it doesn’t appear to be easy to do with WordPress without upgrading. Also, I am a bit annoyed with some of the functions they have on here, though WordPress is 10030320233029032x better than Xanga was. But I’ll probably switch over when I get the chance to play around with Blogspot and see how it works. TBD.

No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him… No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

1 John 3: 6-10

Only when  you allow God in, then can you break the cycle of sin and glorify God. If you trust in God and allow his word to be exemplified in your life, you will be able to break the chains of sin that Satan used to lead you on the road to death. Never is it easy of course. If it were easy, everyone would be climbing out of their sin, but to walk with God and against the temptations and the current that the devil used to draw you is something to praise God for. When you surrender your trust in him completely will he be able to work completely to remove that sin from your life. And to be able to place your trust in God, is a clear demonstration of having seen and known God.

There are those sins that you know you are committing. And then there are those you do not realize you are committing but will be surfaced through God and if you ask God for wisdom and revelation to see them.

I’m not sure why I’m writing this right now, but praise God for helping me get out of situations and circumstances that were unnecessary and unfruitful. And once that was out of the way, thankfully it has pushed me to grow a lot more.

Anyone have this song that could send to me? 🙂

Hillsong United – Second Chance

You called my name
Reached out your hand
Restored my life
And I was redeemed
The moment you entered my life

Amazing Grace
Christ gave that day
My life was changed
When from my shoulders
Fell the weight of my sin

So it’s with everything I am
I reach out for your hand
The hope for change
The second chance I’ve gained

On you I throw my life
Casting all my fears aside
How can greater love this
Ever possibly exist?

Consume my thoughts
As I rest in you
I’m now in love
With a Savior
Bearing the marks of his love

So it’s with everything I am
I reach out for your hand
The hope for change
The second chance I’ve gained

On you I throw my life
Casting all my fears aside
How can greater love than this
Ever possibly exist?

So with everything I am
I reach out for your hand
The hope for chance
The second change I’ve gained
On you I throw my life

Casting all my fears aside
How can greater love than this
Ever possibly exist?

[Chorus:]

So I’ll wait upon you now
With my hands released to you
Where a little faith’s enough
To see mountains lift and move

And I’ll wait upon you now
Dedicated to your will
To this love that will remain
A love that never fails

Since the last post, I’m no longer in the slums with work as much lately this week. When you’re down in the pits and just lacking any sort of motivation whatsoever to pull yourself out of bed and drive your butt to work in anything besides your comfy pjs, it is like being between a rock and a hard place. And unfortunately, there are only 2 ways out:

1. Never go back to work again
2. Start learning what this “responsibility” thing is all about despite every pore in your body screaming to just let me be

Whereas….when you’re a student, there’s definitely more freedom with the responsibility and it is achievement on a personal level that does not necessarily affect those around you that you see every day (unless it’s like a massive project with classmates and is worth like 90% of your grade). But even so, it does not have the same weight of it as a regular bread-earning job for some reason. I guess just the fact that the possibility of having those nice direct deposits  you’ve been so accustomed to finding in your bank account be cut off by the threat of poor performance is enough to force someone to stick to Option #2 and suck it up–deal with this “BE AN ADULT” attitude. *Sigh* I wish I could be a Toys R Us kid again.

The beginning of the work week after a weeklong vacation and having a house full of people be emptied to 3 was enough to send me reeling back into complete displeasure on top of the lack of rest I had gotten. Then the next few days after that, my cousin went back to Taiwan for the summer and then it became a house of 2. And those days before she left was again tough emotionally. Just the glaring fact that I was going to become like an only child at home was a scary and sobering thought. And the fact that I would be living alone with my mom is (gulp) a big change to swallow. And then it reminded me of how I felt the summer after graduating and how it felt like so much was changing and people were moving away and leaving me behind. I’m tired of being left.

Desperate prayers of encouragement, strength, and God’s spirit really helped pull me through the rough work week as well with overwhelming projects and deadlines also harrassing us. And I was reminded again of how important, how powerful prayers are, how I need to continually be humbled by God to pray. I will never stop needing to pray despite how cumbersome praying can feel to me sometimes. It’s really silly actually. Why can it be so tough to just be still, think about God, thank God, and pour out prayers to God? Is it just a boring act of obedience as it can feel sometimes? It’s such a simple thing. Yet I make it sound like it’s pulling teeth. I guess it’s just difficult when you lack the Spirit, lack the love for intimacy and closeness with God. Anyways, so it comes at a great time to be reassured once again of the mighty way God listens to our prayers, which I think really helps mirror what’s in my heart TO  myself, helping me to process through the gunk in there such as bringing troubled areas more easily to the surface instead of letting trouble thoughts left lodged in unrealized, and it reminds me of the people I need to pray for. During my prayers this week, I realized that I fear the likely obstacles that will stand in the way of me and serving more wholeheartedly for God. And when I say that I mean…I have come to allow myself to use the excuse that if I served more for God, that I would have to deal with a lot of fighting and arguments with my mom about my priorities and spending too much time with church, whereas she thinks I should be spending it with “family” aka her. And it is definitely an issue that will no doubt be brought up but I cannot allow that fear of fighting with my mom prevent me from serving God more fully. I cannot be someone she always depends on to be there for whatever reason it may be, for company, emotional support, what not, because a) it’s not fair to me and b) i would get no where in life being always expected to stay where I’m at. I think God has really been showing me this week that that aspect of it is a chain in my life which I have to break.

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Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

Remove the roadblocks from the journey of discipleship. Remove the anchors that hold you back.

God calls us to give up those things that prevent us from doing the work of peace, justice, and service to others. Jesus knew that no matter how important the kingdom of God appears, things will get in the way—particularly things near to our heart—family, possessions, and even life itself.

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The problem now is figuring out how to balance it all. And can I just say how spot on “My Utmost For His Highest” has been in terms of providing the right messages at the right time… It’s pretty amazing.

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Wonder what’s going on in the lives of Manifest and Lyricks… Some of their individual songs make me think that they had a bit of a falling out. And I wonder if they’re still reppin for God like they were when they came to rap at concerts in CP or whether they’re just out making albums for themselves. Just curious.

This is a really good song by Lyricks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neZ4nxhiX3Y&feature=related

I got back late last night from a weeklong vacay to NY and Boston with relatives from Taiwan, and i feel exhausted. Real vacations are the ones where you get to do nothing and waste time but feel rested doing so. Otherwise, it’s just work with a different view. The good parts were getting to see and be with family for such an extended amount of time, not to say that every single moment was delightful but it was nice to be around so many family members, which is definitely a rarety for me. And it was also good to see friends that were in the city that I haven’t met up with in a while. During the trip though, I felt so far away spiritually and the staleness I think was definitely a continuation of the previous weeks before going on vacation with the stress and disconfidence in myself at work. Things at work have felt like a heavy weight, and there’s additional stress just thinking about what it is I want to be doing and where I should go. I have been praying recently for God to reveal my calling to me and thinking how it would relieve a lot of this burden of uncertainty and give me reassurance about where my next steps will be. However, God has seemed silent on that front, and I’m starting to think that perhaps being given a calling might not be as “nice and dandy” as it sounds but has its own stress and pressure from the actual knowing of your path. I wonder perhaps God lets some people in on where it is they are to go when they are spiritually and emotionally mature enough to handle it, otherwise it may completely skew how they set about the path. Or perhaps God doesn’t tell them immediately what their calling is but wants them to explore for themselves and maybe in the process break down barriers of disobedience until they are ready to receive it and He is ready to reveal it. I don’t know, I am thinking too much, but people tell me the 20’s are when you’re in limbo about where it is you’re supposed to go. I want to explore more options but I am fearful that opportunities may not be there, I may continue going down paths that I do not like, and I am worried about how to do so.

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Man oh man, sometimes it can be so hard not getting sucked into past memories/moments and so easy to forget why it was you had to take the steps you take to get to now. Does that make any sense? Makes too much sense to me. And it’s especially hard to see people change and hearts change so drastically yet so selfish when that’s exactly what you’re trying to do as well.