i know better

All I can keep thinking is just: I know better.

I know better!

I know better than to doubt and worry and despair, I know better than to harbor misconceptions, run away, and repeat mistakes, I know better than to think the way the world thinks, feel the way the world feels, want the things the world wants.

LORD, have mercy on my soul. Lead me in Your righteousness!

remind my soul

There are so many times that I have clicked on "New Post" and given up writing an entry halfway through because I realize I don't really have that many words left in me for this blog. It's kind of sad, really, because I don't mind sharing and I generally have a lot of thoughts, but I don't know why I get so speechless (figuratively speaking) when I sit down to type something out. It's kind of mirrored in that there are so many passing conversations these days where it's just a lot of "Hey, how are you, where do you work again/what are you studying again, okay cool" type exchanges where I just wonder if I've become a terrible conversationalist or relationships have changed too much because of distance and time and I just get sad but what can you do that's life you have to move on because there's so much to see and do here and now and waxing and waning is the normal rhythm of human interactions. (Now I can see how someone like Faulkner could write on and on without using punctuation marks...)

But the real problem is, sometimes I feel like I have those passing conversations with God too— hi, how are You, thanks for meeting with me, You know, this piece of news/comment/incident really broke my heart and can You believe the injustices&brokenness of this world? and I am so tired right now, I really wish I had gone to sleep an hour earlier yesterday, and please take care of this person and that person, and okay, gonna get back to what I was doing before, I'll catch You later. And it's not that I don't care, because I do, and it's not that I don't know that being in His presence is the best thing, because I do, and it's not that I don't need Him, because I so totally definitely do. What it really must be is that my heart doesn't really flutter at the sound of His voice or the warmth of His presence. And as cheesy as that sounds, I realize more and more it's something I really have to work(?) on as I grow in my faith. Of course, I cannot manufacture excitement and giddiness and pure delight (hence the question mark next to "work"), but there has to be some sort of attitude adjustment in how I see God and how I view our relationship. Lord, yes; Father, yes; Creator and Master of the universe, yes; but Lover of my soul? Mmm...yeah. I guess? Love as in like...Jesus's "greater love has no one than this"? No? Something different? Basically, it's a confusing road and not one that I have yet been taken down, I think. But as I have been tentatively opening up, He has been so good to me even in the smallest of things (like how He "magically" kept me dry Monday-Wednesday so that I wouldn't have to be walking when it was pouring rain and how beautiful it has been during this long weekend) to reassure me of the biggest of things: e.g. that I am forever His.

So yay, I have finally completed a post. But something I thought I should share? especially being that it is one of the main takeaways from AMI last weekend. I'm kind of rusty at blogging so I will sign off with an "okay cool." Okay cool.

out of sight, out of mind, no more rewinds

Time to stop feeling like I was never good enough,

this bildungsroman isn't quite finished yet.

Jesus ain't just yo' homeboy

We were going through part of John 15 today and I was suddenly reminded of those t-shirts from like the early 2000's (or I actually don't remember when they became popular) that said, "Jesus is my homeboy." When I first saw those t-shirts, I thought it was kind of funny and not necessarily incorrect because hey, doesn't Jesus call us His friends?

14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  

(John 15:14-15)

I don't know about y'all, but my friends don't necessarily command me to do what they tell me to do as a condition of being their friend. Sure, there are things they might request of me from time to time, and maybe there are implicit commands like "Don't tell the whole world the private things I share with you" or "Don't steal my things, lie to me, and/or punch me in the face", but it's not quite the same as Jesus telling His disciples: "You are my friends if you do what I command you."

That sounds kind of demanding...so what does He mean by the statement that we are His friends if we do what He commands? Jesus draws a comparison in the subsequent verse - if we were simply His servants, Jesus would just tell us to do things without sharing why, how, for what purpose. Plain and simple, we would have a duty to Him, our master, as servants who are to know nothing but do everything He commands. However, Jesus says, He calls us friends because He has made known to us all that He has heard from the Father - He shares His vision and His purpose, He sometimes even asks for our opinion! So basically, we have the privilege of being called His friends when otherwise, the most we would have become from following His commands are servants.

Note that because Jesus is Lord and Jesus is master, our friendship with Him is not a peer-to-peer-type friendship that we are used to as human beings. We can't demand His obedience to our commands as a condition of us being His friends. And so, while being a friend of Jesus/God opens us up to a relationship of intimacy with the King and Creator of the universe that just isn't possible in any other religion, it's important to remember that Jesus ain't just one of yo' homeboys because He is nothing like us. He is sinless and perfect and fully God (i.e. in addition to fully man)...what else is there to say? lol

But He does understand us, and He does love us, so what a blessing it is to know that as His followers, we are also called His friends!



P.S. A good verse to remember if you ever feel unloved: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you" (v.9) - Jesus loves us to the same extent (now and forever, without holding anything back, for our good and for our joy) that the Father loves Jesus...boom.

greenness and turkeys

Just two points before I head off to sleep:

Envy

Recently, my church heard two messages on envy - one with the main passage as Psalm 73 (envying the godless) and another with the main passage as Galatians 5:16-26 (envy within the church) - but the underlying theme was the same: envy hinders us from pursuing and experiencing the glory of God. Envy is us saying to God, Hey, I don't think what You're providing me with right now is enough. I don't and I can't trust You. And while it's true that Christians can definitely be shaken by how those without God seem to get by just fine (sometimes even better) during this lifetime, I think the tougher struggle/sin is actually envying other believers; there is no obvious gaping disparity (i.e. being with God vs. not being with God) that prompts us to be thankful and secure no matter what the other disparities are. When other believers seem to have it "easier" or seem to have "it all" while we ourselves are struggling or lacking in a certain area, it's tempting to think that God is a finite parent with limited resources of love and attention. But as my pastor reminded us: God is not finite. God is infinite, and He gives us all exactly what we need. He also pointed out that the blessings that other believers receive are blessings for the body — the most obvious biblical example being spiritual gifts. It's easy to look at someone who seems to be more spiritually gifted and think that God especially favors him/her for his/her sake; however, with the exception of the gift of tongues, every other spiritual gift is for the church's sake. So, when we stop comparing and start trusting God, we are able to view other believers' blessings with rejoicing and praise, not the icky feeling of discontent and left-out-ed-ness. Therefore, we should actively seek to combat the sin of envy and never dismiss it as just a passing feeling because it causes strife in the church and strains our relationship with God.

Thanksgiving

That being said, I personally feel this struggle/sin so acutely more than I'd like to admit, and the only way to combat it is to keep returning to a place of repentance and then thanksgiving. 

I was taken aback by something I was told a few weeks ago - I told them that I was a very difficult individual to surprise (e.g. for birthday celebrations) because I am just too quick on the uptake and I just can't hide my non-surprise, and while most people have just laughed/waved it off upon hearing this, this person told me: "That seems to show that you're not a very thankful person." (Don't worry, it came from an authority figure, so nbd, I accepted the rebuke lol) And while at first, I was like "well, that escalated quickly," I thought about it and I realized that it was true: I fail to appreciate the time and planning because it doesn't achieve the result that the surpriser/I expect(s). But extrapolated further, while I am definitely thankful to God for many, many, many things, I so quickly forget in less-than-desirous circumstances. 

I can say confidently that I am so thankful for my health, the opportunity to learn and work, my family and my friends, the food I eat, the warm bed I get to sleep in very soon, the ability to worship freely and even write this blogpost — the list goes on and on. But I am also aware of (and God knows so well) the other things that poke at me from time to time, turning my gladness into discontent and discouragement. And it's an ongoing battle for my heart, honestly, and even if those things are later filled or forgotten, I'm sure new things will threaten to take root. So, as I mentally sing along with Starfield's "Heart and Flesh" ("And I am satisfied, satisfied in You Lord") until it truly, truly becomes the cry of my heart, I will keep returning this weak and frivolous heart before Him so that He can restore it and so I can increase in my thanksgiving each day.

social media sympathy

Whenever a tragedy occurs, I suddenly feel like I'm not allowed to post anything (on Twitter, FB, Instagram, blog, etc.) because what does it matter what the weather is like where I am or what awkward/funny incident happened on my way over to X building or how I feel about a comment Y said in class or some random thing I overheard when people somewhere else in the world have suffered immensely? It doesn't. It really doesn't at all.

So I keep quiet, partly out of respect&reflection, but also partly because I feel guilted into it. You know, the whole "don't leave food on your plate because there are starving children in Africa" kind of guilt-tripping. 

But whenever a tragedy occurs, so many people I know (and don't know) post trending hashtags (like #prayforZ) or short little statements about how their hearts are breaking or how they can't believe such-and-such happened or how we all need to pray/keep victims in our thoughts&hearts, and I guess that's definitely the upside of this whole community aspect of the online "community" facilitated by social media — the encouragement, the solidarity, the public display of sympathy/empathy so that everyone remembers that the human experience is sometimes about taking on shared grief — but I'm not sure that this kind of response is always better than my self-conscious silence. 

Tragedies happen every single day, every single second — the unjust go unpunished, the helpless are overcome by more powerful natural and human forces, the hatred and bitterness and brokenness of people stifle attempts to love and heal — but there aren't daily hashtags for these events reminding people to pray or even donate 5 minutes of our thoughts. Yes, I completely understand that some events just hit much much much closer to home, and if we had to keep track of every single injustice and hurt and disaster in this world every single day, I think we would be overwhelmed and perhaps even desensitized. 

But I guess what it is that I want to say is not that social media should not be used to encourage and support those who are hurting — it should because it should be used for greater purposes than re-posting funny cat videos or #firstworldproblem statuses about having to wait too long in line at Starbucks or the air conditioning being too cold — but if it's just a fad, if it's because it makes you look like a caring, compassionate, socially-conscious person for that day, then I think it's better not to comment in such a public space. Whether we declare it to the world or not, a tragedy will take root in our thoughts and hearts and prayers if we truly care. We will not be able to keep ourselves from privately asking God (whether one believes or not) as we walk from point A to point B or as we lie in our beds at night staring at the ceiling: "Why?" and "Where is the good in this world?" and "How can we make this world a better place?" And though we will often forget as time passes, we will also remember from time to time as well. That's for us to know and feel and internalize. No one else has to know. But when it comes time to share, face to face — where we can see the tears gather in each other's eyes and hear the halting voice that carefully emerges from a broken heart — then we will share.

where passion is lacking...

...excellence is impossible.

There's an old saying that has become extremely familiar to me (roughly translated from Korean):

A person who is naturally smart will never win over a person who works hard.
A person who works hard will never win over a person who loves what he/she does.

I don't know why I have always been the person who works hard and not the person who loves what she does, but I have often asked the One who made me as I am.

blind date

It was both delicious and nauseating at the same time — that is, the cheese platter was, the $17 platter that he had insisted on ordering because it would have been a waste to order a large portion of only one type of cheese for $8 when the platter would offer smaller portions of three different cheeses for only a little over double the price. She knew he wasn't a cheese connoisseur (though neither was she) from the way that he had stiltedly read the names off the menu, like each syllable was an inconvenient pebble in his mouth. So, she agreed to leave this most awkward dinner in the hands of a capable chef.

"So," he attempted, carefully wielding the cheese knife, "what kind of music do you listen to?"

"I listen to whatever's on the radio at work," she answered. "The girl I share an office with keeps something on all day." 

He nodded, fumbling with the knife as he attempted to spread the cheese on a slice of bread. "So no favorite singers or bands or anything." 

She took a sip of her water to fight the nausea. "Guess not." 

He got up and excused himself to use the restroom. She took the opportunity to do a phone check — text messages from her mom, work emails, the obligatory scan of friend news on Facebook and real news on Twitter — and hastily put her phone away once she saw him walking back towards their table. It killed her not to have it on the table where she could better see updates buzz in, but she knew quite well that it was bad manners. 

The next dish was an asparagus and brussels sprout appetizer that had been repeatedly recommended by the online community. 

"What do you think?" he asked.

"It's pretty good," she responded. "Crunchy."

"Yeah." 

-------

He wasn't sure how to make things better. Despite glowing recommendations from mutual friends, she wasn't quite as engaging or friendly as he had thought she would be. She was pretty, with long straight hair and a dash of freckles (unusual for someone of Asian descent), but so far, that's all he knew about her. And it had been almost an hour already.

Their respective main dishes appeared before them without much fanfare: crab cakes for him, catch of the day (trout) for her. 

"To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of seafood," he offered.

"Oh." 

She didn't look all too puzzled, but he continued, "But I'm trying to diversify my tastes so I'm not forty years old and still ordering chicken nuggets and spaghetti at every restaurant I go to." He was joking, but she didn't even bother smiling.

"How do you like the crab cakes then?"

"They're better than I expected, actually." He paused before asking, "How is your dish?"

"A little dry," she stated. "But flavorful." 

-------

She regretted agreeing to the date. Not because he wasn't agreeable or polite — it was painfully clear that he was trying to make it an enjoyable time — but because she knew she wasn't being fair.
She was waiting on a text message. Or phone call. Or social media update. Or something. Anything that would indicate how a different date was going that evening.

-------

He saw her fidget, then realized she had placed her phone on the edge of her seat so that she could at least feel the phone vibrate against her knee when an update came in. He wasn't sure whether to feel offended or sorry.
"You can check your phone if you want to," he said, smiling as gently as possible to show that he wouldn't think poorly of her or be angry with her.
"Oh no, it's okay," she said, turning slightly pink. She tossed her phone back into her purse. "Sorry about that."
"No, don't worry about it. Really, if you're waiting on something or something at work came up, you can check if you need to."
"No, no," she repeated. "It's fine."

-------

"So," he attempted again as the waitress cleared the table, "have you been keeping up with the [insert politician here] story?" 

"Not particularly," she admitted. "I should, since it's all over the news. What stance has he been taking?"

"Well, at first he said the government shouldn't have been liable for what happened, but it seems that public pressure has made him change his mind, at least, outwardly so."

"I see."

"It's unfortunate, he should have just started and stuck with the right stance."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "What is the right stance?"

He tensed up visibly. "Well, I don't think the government could have done anything differently to warrant these calls for liability. Even if people think government should handle instances such as this, it can't. Practically, it can't. It doesn't have that kind of power."

She had to refrain from staring at him too openly in half wonder and half disgust. "What do you mean, it doesn't have that kind of power? It could definitely support a particular policy and work to change the laws and that would send the message that, hey people, this isn't how things are supposed to be. We're not a backwards nation. We care about our people. We're a democracy." 

He laughed, surprising her. 

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just that those are the most words you've said all evening." 

-------

After her outburst, she went back to being relatively reticent. He wasn't sure if he should have laughed, but he couldn't help himself. He could see why friends had thought they would get along well, but that had only been the first glimpse, and it wasn't all that promising.

-------

It was her turn to excuse herself to use the restroom, and she took her purse along with her (to fix her make-up, of course).
She took her time washing her hands, letting the lukewarm water run while she peered into the mirror. She felt a mixed sense of disappointment and dread and weariness weigh down on her as she prepared herself to return to the dining area. She willed herself to smile, practicing a few different expressions, then reapplied the lip gloss she had bought yesterday on impulse.
He had told her to have fun, that he hoped this guy would be able to match her in wit and style — people didn't say things like that to someone if they secretly harbored feelings for her/him, right? All this noble sacrifice of true feelings to defer to someone worthier was stuff that only existed in novels and movies, right?
Right, she reminded herself.

-------

Surprisingly, she suggested they take a short walk in a nearby park. He had to get back to the office to do one last thing before the weekend, but because it was on the way back, he agreed.
Considering it was almost April, the weather was still too cold to walk around without a jacket, but she held onto hers instead of wearing it. He also noticed that her right shoulder was slightly higher than her left shoulder, perhaps out of a habit of always carrying her purse with her right shoulder, as she did now.
"I love coming here whenever I visit," she said quietly. "Lots of memories."
She looked like she had more to say, so he kept silent.
"One summer, I saw a cellist here. It was incredibly hot outside — you couldn't take two steps out the door without sweating — and most of the people in the park were either sunbathing or quickly passing through, but he played like he was in Carnegie Hall or something. Of course, he was wearing a wife beater and sandals, and there were all these strange floral patterns in the wood of the cello, but he was more convincing than any concert cellist I've ever seen."

-------

She smiled at the memory. He had been there with her, taking photos of the cellist from all different angles even as she complained that it was too hot for any non-sadistic human to subject others to the rays of an angry sun. He waved away her complaints, telling her to drink from the frozen water bottles that he had packed, promising to treat her to ice cream in a minute.
"Just one more shot," he kept murmuring.

------

"Have you been to a lot of orchestra concerts?"
"Not a whole lot. Maybe about a dozen or so."
"That's a dozen or so more than me."
She turned to him and gave him a pitying(?) look. "You're missing out," she said.
"Classical music makes me fall asleep, unfortunately," he admitted. "My mom used to turn on a Yo-Yo Ma c.d. every night when I was a kid, for years, probably until I was maybe twelve years old? It was a good c.d., I guess, but it's made me associate classical music with bedtime for my whole life."
"That's terrible." She sounded genuinely disappointed, but instead of feeling apologetic, he suddenly felt very annoyed.
"Well, to each his own, right?" he managed to articulate before clamping his mouth shut and belatedly realizing that he had been feeling this way all evening.

-------

He almost never took shots of her, she had noticed over the years. Whenever she happened to accompany him on a photo shoot, he took hundreds of pictures of their surroundings — a random bench, a construction crane in the distance, ornate clocks, high schoolers playing hand ball, street vendors, broken glass, the clouds on all sorts of days — but not her.
Except once, when he asked her to be a part of one of his photography projects. Despite her best modeling efforts, the photographs turned out terribly in her opinion. It wasn't that he didn't have the skill; she believed it was because he didn't have the heart.

-------

Though he desperately hoped for someone from his office to call him so that he would feel less awkward or rude about making his imminent getaway, his phone remained uncalled. Luckily, they were reaching the edge of the park again, so he tried to think of a different topic to smoothly end their "date," if one could actually dub it a date after the way the evening had gone.
But before he could toss out the subject he came up with (whether she had made an NCAA bracket) she came to an abrupt halt.
He turned to look at her, and she wordlessly lifted one hand and wiped away at her face. He blinked.
"I'm really sorry," she said unexpectedly. "Coming into this, I really wanted to make this work if at all possible, but I just haven't been all..." she made a circular motion with her hand around her face "...here tonight."
"I noticed," he blurted, surprising himself. She too seemed startled by his honesty.
"I mean," he shifted his weight from one foot to another "it's okay. It was supposed to be pretty low-key, low pressure. Or actually, no pressure at all."
"Still," she rested on the word before she became silent.

-------

She had noticed a photograph that he had posted on his blog a few months ago — a girl reading a book. He had posted several portrait shots before, some from gigs and others from simply walking around the city, but there was something different about this one particular shot, and it bothered her.
She then found out a couple days ago that he had been interested in her, and that they were planning on going on their first date during the weekend she would be in town.
"Awesome," he responded when she told him she would be around. "You can help me decide what color tie to wear."
She laughed it off, then declined to do so, explaining that she had to get ready for a date too.
"No way," he said. "Well, if our dates are going awfully, we should plan to fortuitously meet in the park and turn it into a group date."
"What, and then try to set up our dates with each other?"
"No, just make it so awkward that they both feel compelled to leave early."
"Okay then, we'll have to time it right. Let's say two hours in?"
"Deal."

-------

They seemed to linger for a long time (in retrospect it was likely five minutes or so) in silence before she finally spoke up again.
"You know what, let me make it up to you," she started.
"You really don't have to," he assured, not sure what she had in mind and not sure if he wanted to know.
"I'm actually not this terrible of a person," she laughed nervously, "so can you do brunch tomorrow? I'm leaving on Sunday, but I don't really have particular plans for tomorrow before six o'clock."
He thought about it. Sensing his hesitation, she added, "It'll be even more low-key and definitely no pressure at all. But I understand if you don't ever want to see me again. I just feel like I've done a huge disservice to you, as well as our mutual friends."
She seemed genuine about it, but he wasn't sure if it would be worth it. He had planned to do some chores he had put off for the last two weeks tomorrow, and while he mentally conceded that those were some pretty lame excuses, he just felt more resistance the more he sat on the idea. He had just experienced first-hand what it meant to strive to keep the attention of someone who clearly did not want to be around him.

-------

She was big on commitment and big on responsibility. And she felt responsible for making a nice guy's evening difficult, committed to rectifying the situation.
But he ultimately declined, saying that maybe it just wasn't meant to be and that she made things easy for him, in fact, because he had actually been somewhat worried what would happen if things did work out — the distance, the mutual busyness of work and life, the artificiality of communication through technology.

-------

He felt uneasy about turning her down, and he felt uneasy about leaving for the office.
"I should probably walk you back, actually."
She shook her head. "No, it's fine, I'm not too far from the next block over anyway."
"So, even more doable for me. It'll just be a few extra minutes for me. I would probably have just spent it staring at the computer screen blankly anyway. It's been a long week."
"Well, it's the weekend now, so you should catch up on rest."
They passed by a rowdy bar and then a few trinket shops and then waited for the crosswalk to turn.
"Thank you though," she said.
They were three simple words, but they sounded strangely defeated. Maybe he was projecting, maybe it was the growing certainty that she had been wiping away tears earlier, maybe he thought he would regret not giving someone a second chance. But they did, and he sighed as the "walk" sign lit up and she started making her away across the street.
"Hey," he called out.
She reached the opposite side of the street and turned towards him.
"Low-key, no pressure, right?"
She nodded slowly.
"Let's do it. Round two? Or round one if you don't feel like counting tonight." The crosswalk started to count down so he quickly crossed and met her on the other side.
She smiled. "Okay."
He smiled back.
"Maybe leave your phone at home though."


© 2013 by Sarah R. 

2012

It seems so very incredibly wholly totally strange that this year has come to an end. Today is the last day of 2012, a year that I anticipated would be a momentous year for me, as well as many peers around me.

And in many ways, it was - or so Facebook says: events on my "2012 in Review" thingamabobber  show that I 1) went on one of the best trips of my life with some of my favorite people in this world, 2) completed a senior thesis and graduated from college, 3) vacationed with my family (and possibly for the first time with my grandpa too?), 4) visited the motherland after a four-year absence, and 5) started law school and successfully(?) finished my first semester.

I wrote in the beginning of this year:

As I look towards the rest of this year, it's really all up in the air what will go down. Where will I go? What will I do? What relationships will I form, strengthen, keep, break, lose? What ideas, projects, goals, dreams will come up and come to fruition? A lot of questions, not a whole lot of answers.

I guess I thought that I would get answers by the end of this year, and I did get some temporary answers (e.g. I am now in city X, I have strengthened relationships with Y and Z but not so much A and B, I have started to dream of seeing C and doing D) but what I have come to find is that there will always be these questions and there will always be only temporary answers - at no point will they ever be completely answered ahead of time because each day spent living my life, guided by His voice and His hand, provides an answer for that day or part of an answer for that month or that year.

God has been faithful, no doubt, but like I told a certain snail and fruitbat this morning, it feels weird that tomorrow will be 2013 because I feel like I've only really been living towards 2012 (no, not because I believed in the whole Mayan end-of-the-world hulabaloo) and everything from here on out is new stuff to me. Sure, I have yet another graduation date to look forward to, but that date doesn't seem quite as momentous to me right now because there's so much else that needs to get done before that date that it almost just seems like a formality. I feel like I'm swimming out into uncharted territory and I am neither excited nor terrified...I just feel strange.

But I do feel like it's time to grow up, which also means that it's time to expand my knowledge of God with kind of like a firm step up, rather than this slow upwards crawl that I've been doing over this last year. What is God's heart, really, towards me? Towards this world? Towards issue E and idea F? In this way, I think/hope 2013 will be a lot about trying to pick God's "brain" and as I know Him more, hopefully I'll feel more secure and optimistic about what's ahead, not because I'll come to know what is ahead, but because I know and trust Him that much more.

Happy New Year!

note

Thought at 12:45 AM - random, and I should be sleeping, but I wanted to jot it down before I forgot or I changed my mind.

There are some things I can't say right now, given the circumstances. Maybe I'll never be able to say them.

But this one I will:

I'm happy.