I ponder and THEN I forget...exactly!

I totally forgot I had this blog, until I tried to write a comment on my friends blog and it asked for me to sign in using my account. YIKES. I concurrently have another blog about my adventures in Vietnam as well here.

I am going to have to some how consolidate all of this. Feel so scattered. Will probably stick with blogspot.

Updates coming soon!

Prepare for Promotion

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 1 Peter 4:12-13 NIV

A good friend, who I call Mama really helped me awaken to something that I've been distracted to remember about God. She pretty much reminded me that since the first patriarchs, we along side with them were made to glorify God. Wow! Why do we expect things from God? Why do we think He owes us something, as if He was made for us, and us not for Him? Why do we have such a sense of entitlement?! *Sigh* I tend to fall short all the time, and forget that I wasn't brought into this world so I can demand of God things that I believed I deserved, but I was brought here to fight for Him and bring glory to His name.

So, with the trials the enemy or God has placed before me, I cannot demand of anything from God, but I can only ask for Him to teach me to be more like Him. I realized from talking to my Mama that I also do not have the biblical view of forgiveness. I am use to the Asian-forgiveness way which is don't ask, don't tell, don't remind, simply put, forget and move on. I struggled with this thought and asked God, how do I forgive, what is the biblical way, what is best represented by you to be forgiving. God answered and said:

Those who are ill-treated and suffer in accordance with God's will must do right and commit their souls to the One who created them and will never fail. 1 Peter 4:19

And so what is right? I must honor these people who harmed me and still love them through Christ. I will forgive them and hand them to God, asking that He take care of them and convict them of their sins.

My soul is at peace, "Unto you, O Lord, do I bring my life." Psalm 25:1.

Amen

Side Note: I have two blog readers! How exciting!! Thank you for reading. Granted I just feel like I'm journaling my thoughts, so now you know what I think of sometimes! Love you!

Be Transformed, Not conformed

Do not be conformed to this world...but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind...so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12.2

WOW! I love how this simply speaks to me sooo well. Daily we are in the battlefield and are walking testimonies/witnesses of who God is to others.

I pray we become a community of leaders and soldiers in the battlefield of such a secular world that reflect the beauty, splendor, perfection, righteousness and glory of our father God.

God is sooooo good and I pray for the salvation for my friends and family.

Amen.

Good Riddance

The Lord spoke to me this morning as I awoke and read, Isaiah 30:18-26 and Matthew 6:14:

¹⁸ Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!

¹⁹ O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.²⁰ Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. ²¹ Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." ²² Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, "Away with you!"

²³ He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. ²⁴ The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. ²⁵ In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. ²⁶ The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

After reading these verses, I was full of reverence for the Lord as He spoke to me through them. I realized that although I receive challenges from the Lord, "adversity + affliction," God has a paved path for me, and He wants to use these experiences to direct me, build my character, and help me learn to trust Him.

From undergrad when I first decided to trust in God and accept Jesus as my salvation, one thing that never went away was...God will NEVER give you anything that you cannot handle. Moreover, scripturally, He says He will send a messenger out to direct us, and He gives us the tools to battle them.

Yesterday as I attempted to take a photo of myself for my Columbia Uni ID, I had difficulty smiling correctly. Mainly because of my horrific dental experiences at Western Dental, I came to dislike what happened to myself and became saddened at my ruined smile. In vain, I walked out to Dominics to purchase food for my siblings, yet as I walked out, there was a mother/sister/aunt (not sure) walking this younger girl, who had a covering over her mouth from some illness. In chagrin at how I dare to challenge the blessings of God, God revealed to me how much more thankful I should be, and I was ashamed.

In addition, although my father has sinned against me, God gave me the verse from Matthew 6:14-15

If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.

I am trying to learn to be a witness/salt/light to my family. However, only through God's strength can I learn to be that way. Shattered and destroyed by the sins of my father and mother as I grew up, I am learning a spirit of forgiveness in which only my heavenly Father can teach me. I ask of that from Him and want to learn to dwell with Him and be a manifestation of it.

Amen.

Walloped, yet I arise and rejoice in Him

Picture below of a moth, chilling on a glass window of Starbucks Coffee on Madison street in Chicago, Illinois.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. Phillipians 3:12-13

Rejected, persecuted, displaced and thrown into the pits by one so dearest to me, this verse spoke to me greatly. As I move forward to a new place, a new community, a new connection...a different environment, God will never change and has stayed constant. It is because of You, my God, my Lord, my Father, that sustains me. I give you my life, take hold of me, as I let go of what I've left behind, and move ahead for what you've already sent your messenger to set before me.

Like a moth wrestling in the wind,

on a stained piece of glass

An ever changing environment,

Yet, alone, it rests in peace.

Undisturbed, unthreatened from its establishment

United and in awe of its creator.

I miss everything about you California...the people, the community, the friends, the family, the environment... but onwards to Chicago, I go, and my next adventure begins in New York.

Au Revoir!