30 days of joy - COMPLETED

Crazy as it may be but I did it. I actually completed my challenge. These past 30 days were rather interesting; A LOT has happened. It amazes me to look at these photos and reflect on how my month was spent and I have to say, God is a crazy God. This challenge came to me right before a certain reality hit and I really believe that God used this to prepare me to handle that. These past 30 days, I wouldn't say I spent them all joyfully but within each day, even the darkest ones, I was able to find light to keep me going. I think that's where the beauty lies. We live in a dark world and life is going to be tough. Our days will be hard and sometimes all you'll do is cry. God never promised that following Him would be easy but He did say it'd be worth it. Much of my month was spent in a darker place but it was His light that kept me going. There were love and hope to be found everywhere and since my challenge was to keep my eyes open for them, I wasn't able to close off my heart to them the way I would have. This made me realize that joy isn't hard to find; we make it hard, when we forget His promises, love and strength and just focus on how difficult life is. We were never asked to go through life alone but somehow we refuse to rely on him. We, or maybe it's just me, spend so much time trying to get by with our strength alone that we end up burning out which also led me to this challenge. It really helped me see how God's promises hold true. Maybe I won't be documenting my joys for the world to see from this point on but I hope through this challenge, my view (and hopefully others') on my day to day life will be changed. Joy and God's love isn't hiding from me, it's usually the opposite.

And just to end it off, a poem by the wonderful rmdrake:

"I made myself from all the photographs I never took, from all the love I never received and from all the moments that never happened. And it has been too real, it has been a beautiful struggle; one that has always reminded me of how easy it was to laugh."

My Strength is My Strength

I remember when my friend first sent me this poem, telling me that it reminded her of me. I was going through a really hard time, and to this day I can still honestly say that it was the worst season of my life. I was really honored by these words and the acknowledgement of my strength but I don't think I ever truly believed it. The words felt undeserving for someone like me. 

Strength isn't the first thing people would think of when they see me. I'm a very small person, I'm told I look like a child and for the most part of my life, I've only been treated as a delicate little thing. It's crazy to think that anyone would think of me as strong. 

And maybe it's crazy of me now, but I'm starting to believe them. Looking back at the 22 years that I lived, I have conquered a lot. 

I've willingly walked into many situations knowing that it will tear me apart and yet I still did so because I knew I had to. Some people find me impulsive, to even attempt to conquer the hardest paths (sometimes too soon). But today, I realized that sometimes you just have to. You never know when you'll need to face it and it's better to just get it over with. 

I've always wanted to be a princess or well, maybe just treated like one. I wanted to be loved well and taken care of and protected. It didn't have to be from a prince but everyone in my life. And I still want that but I also see how I was never meant for that life. I've been taught to stand up and fight for what I valued and I will never forget the day I realized I actually have that strength to. I learned how to give up everything I shielded myself with so that I can fight for those I love. And that strength, is worth more than everything I've lost.

Whenever people asked me "What do you like most about yourself?" I always had a hard time answering. It's not that I don't like who I am, I just don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. There's always something to do or someone to love and naturally I just push myself aside. But today I can proudly say that I love my strength. I love how I choose to walk into pain knowing that it will be worth it in the long run. I love how I can fight to protect and love myself, not needing anyone to do me that favor. And I love that I learned how to let go of my walls so that I can fight to love. 

This strength definitely doesn't come from me but I believe that God has made me this way. I truly believe that He has built it in my core to be able to withstand what I've gone through (given that He prepared and guided me all the way). I believe that He made me to fight like the warrior child that I am. And I'm absolutely in love with that. 

30 Days of Joy.

Do you ever get that feeling where your heart feels like its being torn apart and tears just fall from your eyes and you have no idea why? Well thats me...not all the time but sometimes. Sometimes its out of stress, sometimes its out of frustration and maybe more so recently, out of the uncertainties of life.

Not to write some sappy blog post after a year of being MIA but sometimes it be like that for me and I feel like my love tanks been running dangerously low these days. 

A doctor once said that if we view relationships as a shared bank account, we withdraw $5 every time a negative event occurs but we only deposit $1 for every positive event. Therefore, we should always try to create positive moments. This was meant for more of a romantic relationship context but I feel like it relates to our relationship with God as well. Many times 1 bad thing can happen to us on a really good day and all of a sudden the day is ruined and we completely forget all the blessings that came with the day. Ok maybe thats just me; I'm sadly someone who adds and withdraws very easily. 

So, I've decided to challenge myself to find my own moments or maybe even create them to deposit into this life/love bank of mine. I'm calling it my 30 days of joy and I hope to either capture or write down moments every day that fills my tank. Conveniently my friend gifted me with a new journal (that happens to be titled footprints..coincidence? I think not.) and I hope to fill it with the great things God has placed on this earth. There's always something to be thankful for, something to appreciate and something to remind us of His love for us. I want to remember those things and not drive myself nuts on the negatives. Maybe I'll share it with people, or maybe it'll be just for me. I'm starting this at a time of complete chaos, school is ending and finals week is creeping up and there are so many things I'm unsure of and though every part of me wishes to push this off til after I graduate, these are the moments I need it the most. Hopefully I'll be able to complete it. 

Winter's Been Over

I walked up to the door of my classroom and instead of walking in, I turned around and retraced my steps back to the bus stop I came from.

It was one of those nights.

There were thoughts processing in my head but I couldn't make sense of any of it. I knew I was thinking but I had no idea what I was thinking about. My heart knew, it felt stuffy and hurt a little, but my unconscious knew better than to allow me to comprehend those thoughts.

The bus brought me to the starbucks in my neighborhood; the sky had turned from a hazy blue to pitch black as the barista made my drink. The coffee shop was full of people and I couldn't find a seat anywhere. It was a cold night but I decided to sit outside; the hot cup of coffee felt nice in my icy hands. I sat there thinking about absolutely nothing, the silence felt good. I needed to get away from all the noise, whether its at school or home or even my annoying thoughts; I was finally alone and away from the world. It wasn't enough though, I was probably there for half an hour or less but my parents were expecting me to be home at a certain time. I was reluctant to leave but I finally got up, threw out my now empty cup and started walking home.

I always look up at the sky hoping to see stars when I'm out at night; I didn't see any that day but a tree caught my attention. It was fully bloomed with white blossoms that glowed like stars on a dark cloudless night. "Wow. Winter's been over," those words popped into my head. This spring has been so cold that I was still wearing the same things I wore all winter; jeans and sweaters, ugg boots and my grayish brown coat. Its not that I forgot the season changed but a part of me wasn't aware that spring had came because of the cold weather I was still experiencing. Seeing the tree full of blossoms, I realized that spring was already here; all I had to do was look up.

There are times in our lives where we feel stuck in a cold winter storm; lost under a pile of the snowy mess life decides to shower us with. We may try to get out but fail along the way and begin to mope in our failure. We lose hope that we can ever leave the situation that we're in. In psychology, that's called learned helplessness and I believe that is usually the reason why we're stuck in our storms. We start believing that our problems are too big to conquer and give up on trying altogether.

Pastor Carl Lentz compared life's problems to mountains in one of his sermons; sometimes, they really can be that big. He said that if we stand at the foot of the mountain and look directly at it, it will fill up our entire field of vision and all we can see is how big this mountain is. There's no end to what we're looking at and there is no hope in getting over it because we can't see a way to get to the other side. He said sometimes we get so caught up by the size of our mountains that we make the silly mistake of never looking up. When you look up, you'll see the vast sky above the mountain top; there is an end to these issues, there is a way of getting over it. God is so much bigger than our problems and all we have to do is turn to him for help. He'll take care of it... He'll take care of YOU. He promises to heal the broken hearted and bind up their wounds (Psalm 147:3), he promises to be our refuge and strength (Psalms 46:1). God is a man of his words; all we have to do is look to him for help.

There's hope when we look up and turn to God.
Sometimes, thats the only way we can tell that winter's been over.

Scars

I never actually expected them to make a mark.

I still remember the way the fresh wound looked on my skin, the way it stung; it wasn't a bad kind of pain, it was a kind that made me feel better. It was strange but all I could think of at the time was physical pain hurt a lot less than the ones I felt emotionally. It was an outlet, a desire to run away from life itself in the most ultimate way.

They looked like simple scratch marks that would fade in a few days, or maybe that’s just how I use to see them. But for a few years, they really did fade; I could no longer see the bright pink marks on my wrist. It was as if that portion of my past never existed. However, as time went by I realized that the scars were becoming more and more visible.

For a while, I avoided looking at them. They brought back memories of pain and who I use to be. I was ashamed of that person. The scars were just a permanent reminder of how crappy life was and how much I hated myself.

But that was before Jesus entered my life. My depression made me see him and helped me understand just how amazing he is. The scars took on a different meaning.

It's crazy how quickly we can forget the things we learn in life. Bad situations happen and we freak out, completely forgetting how we got through the prior crap. 

I randomly looked down at my wrist today and I saw the scars again. They look even more visible and it seems like more of them are starting to appear. It's funny how that works; the things we wish to hide always end up being revealed some way some how. Maybe this is the same concept with life.

As we live life, we go through countless experiences where we end up being hurt and wounded. We try to hide these scars by putting on masks in front of people, pretending as if everything is ok. We don't want to show our vulnerability to anyone, whether its out of pride or out of not wanting anyone to worry, we mold ourselves into this person who ultimately is very different from who we are on the inside. Our scars become more visible now than ever because we allowed it to change us. I've seen so many people become cynical and hardened by the hurt that others have caused them to feel. So many of them close themselves off to the world and some even to God.

I won't deny it, I'm one of those people. But today, looking at my scars, I was reminded of why they needed to be there. Had I not gone through all I had been through in the past, I don't know if I would come to understand and see Jesus the way I do today. My experiences made it possible for me to feel his love and the scars on my wrist reminded me of just that. I no longer remember the stories, the reasons behind each scar but I do remember what it brought me to and how I'm no longer ashamed of them.

I am covered in fresh new scars and for the longest time I tried to keep them hidden by hardening myself. The way we interpret these bad things in life greatly affects the way we handle life. Its so easy to get caught up in the mess and forget just how much God loves us. These things don't happen because he wants to see us suffer; he's making use of a bad situation to help us grow stronger in Him. He wants us to rely on him, to turn to him, to speak to him when we're having a hard time. He wants us to find our strength and hope in him. Just like how he carried us through all the crap in the past, he will do so again with the crap in our present and in the future as well. We may not understand why things are happening the way they are right now but everything will fall into place in due time, we just have to believe and trust Him. When we allow these scars to take on its true meaning, we can finally stop tormenting ourselves and be the person God has created us to be.

Loopholes to God's words

As a kid, I was taught that lying is bad...just like every other kid. So instead of flat out lying, I would bend the truth or even leave out parts of it. I can't be considered a liar if I didn't make anything up right?

Then I came to Christ and I was taught that lying is a sin and it makes God unhappy. I was set on avoiding situations in which I needed to lie. I must say though situations do come up where I can't be completely honest so I did the same thing as I did as a kid, I bend the truth or just leave out some parts.

But as I started learning more about who God is and maturing more myself, I began to realize that even though my words technically aren't lies, my heart was full of deceit. When I bend the truth or even when I decide to leave out certain parts of them, my desire is to deceive the person whom I'm speaking to and God sees that. There's no way to hide our heart's intentions from God, he sees beyond the surface.

There was this one discussion I sat through and we were asked what would we do if someone came in demanding all christians to stand up and step on the bible; if we didn't, then we'd be killed. One guy said "I don't know..the bible is just a book; its not a symbol of God that we worship" (something around those lines). It's true, the bible is just a book; we don't worship it. Other religions have statues and animals and other things which are sacred to them and they worship them but we have a direct relationship with our God and by no means do we ever worship the bible in his place. (Don't get me wrong, the bible is definitely an important book, I'm just saying its not interchangeable with God himself) However, in that situation what is the real intention for stepping on the bible? Is it not because of our fear of death?

So many times I feel people try to find loopholes to God's words. He tells us not to lie so we circle around different things to avoid actually lying. He tells us not to steal and we come up with a million reasons why downloading music is right. He tells us to love others and we can come up with thousands of justifications for being unloving. Yeah the words that come out of our mouth sounds right and I guess it can justify things...but God sees the heart. He sees how we're trying to deceive, he sees our lack of faith in him, our willingness to betray him once things go wrong.

By no means am I trying to condemn anyone, I guess my point is that there are no loopholes to the bible. God tells it to you straight what he wants, he wants us to let go of our past selves and be reborn in him..reflecting who Christ is. There's no way for us to look into God's words and try to find a way to continue living the lives that we led prior to accepting Christ...it just doesn't exist.

He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts" - Luke 16:15 

Walking with God

This blog post carries no lesson, no actual message but simply just a description of my (literal) walk with God today.

If you know me or read my testimony post (somewhere down there) you'll know that I had depression before. During that time period, a friend of mine told me that taking walks make you feel happier because there are antidepressants in the soil. Now, I don't know how true that is (being that it came from a middle schooler at the time) and I never bothered to check because from that day on whenever I have a hard time, I really do feel better after a walk.

As a kid, a walk was a walk. It just made me feel better and it clears my head. But after coming to Christ, its no longer simply a walk for me. My walks are times where I truly quiet myself and just bask in God's presence. I truly believe that God's fingerprints are everywhere; the sky, the trees, everything; if you were to really look, you can see just how beautifully they all come together.

I've been having a hard time recently and I've been wanting to go to Fort Totten for a while now for Quiet Time so I finally decided that I'd go today. I had this whole picture of what I would be doing there, I was going to sit on that rock pathway and just read the bible and meditate on everything that God is doing. So I hopped on a bus and 1.5 hours later the bus driver said "last stop, fort totten" so I got off the bus. "This is not Fort Totten" was the first thought that came to my mind. The last time I took the bus here was a few years ago and the bus literally dropped you off right by that rock pathway you see in my photo. But here I am standing in front of a street with a million houses surrounding me; that was when I saw a sign saying Fort Totten Park and followed it.

I walked in through the entrance of the park which I remember being right next to the rock pathway but I couldn't find the pathway anywhere (it was covered by construction stuff and I completely missed it) and I had no idea where the bus back home was because I half followed the sign and half just walked wherever my feet guided me to. My phone was also running low on battery. It was actually quite crazy but for some reason I was calm the entire time. From getting lost to not knowing how to get home to even the fact that my phone may just die on me before I find my way home; I was completely at peace.

This place was beautiful. I took so many pictures but none of them can do it justice. My pictures couldn't capture the beauty of the autumn sun shining down on the trees and the golden glow that surrounded me. The warmth of the sun felt like a nice big hug, it felt so comforting as if God was saying "its ok I'm right here." I kept walking and stopping to take pictures until I found these benches behind this fire department area and sat down to read. The wind was picking up and the pages just flipped to Matthews 14 and the first thing I saw was "Jesus walks on water" This was quite amazing to me because I've been obsessed with the song "Oceans" by Hillsong recently and its about this passage. Both the song and the passage has been bringing me a lot of comfort because of how well it relates to my struggles.

Although my QT turned out much different from what I had expected, from the second I got there I knew God had planned it all out. If I were able to sit on those rocks or freaked out about getting lost and my phone dying and just went home; I would've missed out on what I had experienced today. I left there with a lightened heart, joy and peace.

I must say though the next time I do this, I must bring a jacket and a spare battery. I was FREEZING.