contentment, sermon notes

contentment may come when you lose the thing that you thought was necessary to fill your cup in order for your life to be full and that in reality was never meant to be there. i am learning that this season.

certain schemes of darkness used our circumstances to destroy us, but God re-engineered those same circumstances to deliver us. evil does as evil does, but God’s providence will prevail. in the short-term, it is unlikely apparent, but in the long-term, absolutely so. Joseph’s brothers did the unthinkable and sold him into slavery out of envy, and decades later, Joseph would save Israel from famine. 

I see how everyone has their unique set of challenges in this world. whether broken hearts, shattered dreams, death or disease-but God is in the business of redeeming us from the pit.

May He be our chosen portion who holds our lot.

And the lines have fallen in pleasant places.

my dad and metaphors

me: should I talk to his mom?

dad: let me tell you something I learned in life. You should only pick up a hot cup of tea if you know you are able to put it down, otherwise you will get hurt.

…

me: I feel a lot of pressure

dad: when I feel pressure, I think of a computer, because I see computers all days. I write down all the problems and save it on a disk on the C drive or D drive. One day I can go back and read the file. If it is too much pressure, I will delete the file.

gotta love my dad.

foray into academia: anxiety

Prof: why are you here?

M: I want to tell people’s stories, bring attention to those that aren’t being told with the end goal of shaping social policy. (I want to be a Christian in academia and be a resource for students in existential crisis, I want to be a damn good teacher exploring ideas, bringing real world issues to examine in the classroom)

Prof: that’s not good enough.

M: ok?

Prof: you’re here because you want to be on a tenure track position in the top research institute.

M: ok.

Prof: keep telling yourself that until it’s ingrained in your DNA.

M: ok?

 

 

 

sabbath rest-flections

In the Silver Chair by CS Lewis, there’s a scene where a man is under a spell. For an hour each night, he asks those around him to bind him and to ignore everything he says. He explains that he may start screaming that he’s been captured and bewitched, that he’s really a prince from another world. He warns everyone that he’s mad in that hour. Sure enough, when the time comes, his servants bind him and he screams to be freed. In the story you find out the twist that he is actually sane in that one hour and for the rest of the day, he is really enslaved to a witch, who has tricked him to believe that he is free when he is enslaved for 23 hours of the day and enslaved when he is free for that last hour. 

Anyways, I think I’m in the 1 hour stage right now so I’ll write this down before I forget:

I’m living right now with the expectation that when I have an eligible-for-marriage boyfriend, then my life can really begin. Then I can start serving people fully, go on mission trips and live mission-ally. Then I can be stable and open up my home to serve others. Then I can be fully loved and appreciated and complete.

But what if those are lies? What if life in abundance began when Jesus laid down His life for the church? What if I’m already fully loved and appreciated and all other loves are a lesser watered down version of this true love?

God, would you continue to lift that mist over my eyes that I may see how You have completed me.

dear stomach

emptying my insides out for the last week. I hope you’re ok by thanksgiving so I can stuff my face. Be stronger so I can visit other countries and eat food from street venders.

for acceptance

pre-thanksgiving thanksgiving meal with my life group. 

 
so thankful for this family and how they accept me as the sometimes-brooding, sometimes-reflective, sometimes-quiet sis.

i think of my former housemate many thanksgivings ago in Berkeley and how he once referred to me as that random cousin we have, who is just there a part of the fam.

God may we all rest on the security of being adopted into your family, the bond you have created through Jesus, none can break. We share in your inheritance, your legacy, and royalty forever and ever, amen.

my eyes are bloodshot red and I’ve been leaving things in random places- debit card, laptop charger, maybe other things. i feel oftentimes waves of insecurity piling on: “not good enough”, “dumb”, “not funny enough”, “incompetent”. And when  I get compliments for the work I do, I feel bad about owning them like I’m unworthy to claim them. 

even so, God got me through this week. I turned in my stats midterm, turned in a systematic review paper, gave a presentation on my fellowship experience to my sponsor, UCLA staff, my boss, and my coworkers; and gave a presentation on my evaluation work to staff in LA, Oakland, and Fresno. They seemed to love it. My boss offered to hire me as a consultant for next year’s evaluation project. I still feel incompetent. 

God opened a door for me to move out of my apartment and live with a Christian girl early next year, something I had thought I shouldn’t do because I need to share Jesus with my current roommates.  Part of me still feels guilty to leave and that I need to endure the manipulation and disrespectful way my roommate treats me, but the door to move-out is opening wider by the minute.

I wasn’t born with any health problems or in disadvantage neighborhood, but I see how I was born into a world of sin- where my thoughts twist good into evil 

and evil into good.

God, I just need to declare that You are good and through your goodness, I accomplished some amazing things this week.

nerves nerves nerves

Presentations presentations presentations

God, let me use this as a gift to talk on and on in front of a captive audience.

and so begins the cray cray week.

know your rights or be walked over

I think something my parents learned very quickly as immigrants to this country is that as a general model, people don’t seek out your interests so if you don’t ask for something, no one is going to give it to you voluntarily. It might not be because they are malicious – maybe they just have bad memory.

My new years resolution is: know my rights and stop getting screwed.

becoming robot

I feel like a part of me is dying as I spend all my free time doing assignments for class.