Worry Wort

Yesterday I attended The Bridge Markham Pentecostal Church and heard Pastor Brian Childs speak on Worry- part one of the "Stepping Up" series.

Definitions of "worry"

- To choke or strangle (Old English)

- A divided mind (Greek)

Myth: I can control my life by worrying about it.

Truth: Worrying makes us miserable in the moment.

The words he spoke hit home for me. These past two months has only been about worry. I question as to how I've been moving through the days. I look back and see that although my worries may have driven me here to this day, it comes with consequences. I cannot trust the things that are so easy to trust and he explained it perfectly saying that "worry and trust cannot coexist in the mind".

I know God has been telling me lately that I need to enjoy each moment and that worrying about yesterday or tomorrow forces you to forget about the blessings of today. I owe unending thanks to my Lord but at most times I cannot help but fret and be a worry wort. I do not know how to feel thankful because I have not been able to trust in God. Pastor Childs also mentioned that "worry is unchristian in a sense that although we are God's children, we act like orphans!".

Have we been acting like completely lost and foolish sheep? Have we forgotten the implications of our salvation? For Christians, our roots lay as children of God and it is inherent that we become stewards of love, joy, peace...

The Painting Competition: My adaptation

There once was a king who commissioned a painting competition among his people. The chosen winner would be the one who accurately depicted the image of peace. After thousands of rejections, it came down to two very different paintings. The first painting was of a serene river leading to a soft mountain, with clear blue skies, angelic white clouds, and animals resting. All the people praised this image and said it perfectly depicts peace and should win first prize.

The second painting, on the other hand, showed violent raging waters leading to a dark and ridged mountain, with stormy skies and lightning in the clouds. Off in the corner of the painting was a wind-struck tree and among the branches was a mother bird caring for her babies, feeding them.

The king decided that the second painting was the best depiction of peace and the confused people asked for his reasoning. He responded, "Peace is not the absence of conflict, rather peace is a state of mind amidst chaos."

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? --Matthew 6:25

The Stand

You stood before my failure
And carried the cross for my shame
My sin weighed upon your shoulders
My soul now to stand

So what could I say?
And what could I do?
But offer this heart, Oh God
Completely to you

I'll stand
With arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the one who gave it all

Final Year Begins

I can't believe I only have one more year left of undergrad and then I'm done. I still feel incredibly young to be graduating, to be working full-time career mode. Feels like life is moving very fast. When do I ever get to just soak in the moment?

This is a picture I took early morning trying to catch the sunrise at the Grand Canyon.

God is beautiful and He makes beautiful things. How can I not marvel at this phenomenon?

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Here's a song I've been emotionally attached to for the past while. Haha, when I find a song I feel I can connect to, I obsess over it and have it on repeat for days and even weeks at a time. Below are the lyrics.. hehe.

Above the Golden State - The Sound of Your Name

I tried and tried
A thousand times I tried to get to You
But I could never move
I had to lie
I’d fall behind and blame it all on You
‘Cause I still hate to lose

Towers fall and kingdoms crumble
Mountains bow and the earth will tremble
At the sound of Your name
The strong man falls to Him who humbles
The plans he made were bound to stumble
And only You remain

I cried and cried
A thousands tears I cried because of You
I lost my one excuse
I had to die along with everything inside of me removed
But now I live with You

What does he/she bring out of me?

"A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your posibilities." - Allen Ward

Booster Juice

Lately I've been dreading at the fact that I will be entering my 4th year university.. I do not feel prepared for what is to come.. the end of the tunnel is far but near and there's no more shying away.

So I met an old acquaintance the other day and was introduced to an interesting spiritual gift- soul peering, reading, or however you call it. You know how they say you can see a person's soul their through eyes? She could do that!

Over dessert at my friend's birthday party, we were off to the side in our own deep conversation about life. I was telling her that I wanted to exercise my efforts on a path that will better lead me to my potential. I expressed to her my crave to help people, to write novels, and for being a deep-thinker and an abstract. I'm taking this summer school course on Psychology of Women and I shamelessly love it. There is something I love about understanding how our cognitive ability works and why certain emotions come in play. There is something about the way society behaves and influences us and how, as Christians, we are dragged into a tug-of-war. I know I can never grasp this all fully but I want to learn. She concluded that I possess the quality of teachability, which is crucial because Stubbornness never finds its way- it's always chasing its tail.

At one point, she asked me a very frank question: "Do you know who you are?"

I couldn't give her a definite answer and it wasn't because I don't have a grasp of my identity. I am still trying to figure out in the best words what I feel in my heart. So naturally I told her about my experience in the Grand Canyon and that I, without a doubt, felt the sovereignty of the Lord. I described it as a very emotional feeling.. but she insisted it was rather spiritual. That had been the Holy Spirit in me. I didn't really realize until I felt it that I missed it. It scared me that I could actually forget this feeling, what it is and where it comes from.. you know, that incredibly humbling and empowering sense when God is giving you a "moment"?

Finally she told me, "I am not worried for you one bit."

This was the first conversation we had other than a "Hi, hello, how are you." It was really great.

I suppose my confidence for 4th year has renewed..

I just need to remind myself that if I meet God there, He will meet me with armour.

Soul searching in the desert

I just got back from my 5 day trip to Las Vegas.

I know it doesn't sound much like a place to "find your soul" but I guess you can never underestimate the Lord's will to speak to you whereever you go. Maybe it was the vastness of the Grand Canyons, the time spent away from home, or contrarily the sin-city that got me believing more in my faith in God. For the past few months I've been failing at upholding my beliefs and values. That blurry line between faith and doubt has set me up for a viscious cycle that I could not physically, emotionally, or spiritually get out of. This is why I chose to go on this trip, thinking it would be a short 'getaway' to 'get away' from chaos and drama. But of course, a person should never expect that running away from their problems means it's not there anymore- because if there's one thing that will continuously follow and taunt you, it's your emotional baggage. So really in reverse, instead of leaving it all behind, you kind of come to face it.

When you're put into a different setting (I was in a desert), you're given this outside perspective and time. With no agendas or deadlines, you have the ability to soak in everything around you and about you. It makes sense to me now why we're so ineffective when handling our problems.. because while everything piles up, the time is ticking and there are a hundred other things needed to be done. We feel like we are responsible for every action and essentially we want control over whatever we do. So when I left Toronto to come to Nevada, I felt like I just left that "responsibilty" to God... I still had my baggage to claim but still, I was free.

The roadtrip to the Grand Canyon was 4.5 hours. Bina and I upgraded to a convertible so we could live it up like in the typical movie scene- cruising through the desert on a winding dirt road with painted blue skies and endless valleys of rocks and trees. Pictures or words really won't do justice in expressing how beautiful and peaceful it was. For once in my life I felt like I was going with the wind without complaining and without looking back. I hardly knew what to expect of the place we were heading to... but two pitstops and 300 miles later, we arrived. Honestly, you really have to see nature at its best and most majestic to understand how sovereign our God is. I went on a morning hike to watch the sunrise at5 am and that alone took up a quarter of the photos I took this trip (400 total). The feeling that I got just walking the trail in the canyon.. I felt like in that moment, everything made sense. Really, I was in awe of everything surrounding me. The canyon has an incredible stretch and vastness to it. You just can't take it in all at once. I'm hardly emotional on the outside but this was completely overwhelming because I knew that my problems and insecurities were absolutely nothing compared to how big and great our God is. This may sound silly but I really believe that God did just take me thousands of miles across the country to stand in the Arizona desert not by random or without purpose but to kind of prove to me that He is all real. Lately, I've been too caught up in self-help books and mainstream Christian ideologies that it's been eating away at my faith. I've been trusting more in authors and generational trends than God himself. It's about time He made me realize that I've been putting too many eggs in the wrong basket.

I haven't felt the grace and love of God in months and months.. and I finally felt Him there in my heart during this trip. He really is there underneath the distractions, the joy, the sin, the shame.. He is underneath it all.

Sometimes the Lord is just asking us to pick up and go.

"It is a wonder that those exposed to such beauty forfeit the great questions in the face of this miraculous evidence." - D. Miller