AMI = Adjusting My Identity

The AMI Revolution retreat was absolutely amazing, and I really want to write a post about it because I think writing it down will keep it straight for myself. I also want to share the experience with other people, assuming that other people actually stumble on over here. If you only want to read about the Revolution itself, skip to the middle because I'll probably have a lengthy lead-in.

When I finally met up with the rest of the GCC people headed to Atlanta, I felt genuinely relaxed for the first time in a while. I had really missed the Christian community thing being back at home, and under my breath I happily thanked God for the millionth time for bringing me to a place like GCC. Legit, I was happy to see everyone, even Jessie (hahaha, this is a joke, because in real life I actually love Jessie, get it?). I straight up pounced on Priscila (hilarious), and waited patiently for a Kevin that never came (devastating! gah! It's okay, he'll just have to be my family group leader in the fall). I was so excited to see everyone that I only slept like 1.5 cumulative hours on the trip down to Atlanta, a fact that everyone, especially JP, was thrilled to recount to any listening ear at JCA. People that I definitely did not know were like, Oh wait, I know your name. Didn't you like, not stop talking the entire way down here? Hah, Wrong. That is an untruth. I stopped talking for the 1.5 hours that I was asleep and the 3 hours that Sunny was busy calling Jabez "J-Bez", thanks so much.

The first day of AMI, we got our room assignments. Honestly, my roommates helped define AMI for me. Angela by being not at all put out by my wackness, Priscila by being a familiar presence and also limiting my contact with the opposite gender the entire weekend ("No boys except for ministry purposes!!! Don't talk to them!!!"), and Esther in a way that I'll explain later (P.S. God bless her for being the most adorable grown woman I have ever seen). To be honest, I think I must have been more tired than I realized, because even with my note-taking I only walked away with one thought after the Thursday night sermon, and that was making Christ my identity. I honestly don't remember much else without the help of my notes, and even they're a little sketchy. Regardless, that was the first thing I started praying for as a consequence of AMI: that I would make Christ my identity. For me, all of the other services just sort of fed into that initial idea, as well as other things that had been on my heart for a while. The message that Pastor Ulysses preached also really struck me because it went so perfectly with my life. I've mentioned before that I tend to compare myself with other people, mostly in ways that result in my being on the losing end. The other times that I make comparisons, though, I compare myself against people that I assume are weaker than I am, and that makes me feel stronger. I feel like I'm similar to Pastor Ulysses based on what he shared, which was that due to his fear of failure or fear of failing others, he compares himself to people in terms of service or morals so that he can make himself feel as though he's doing all right. He also addressed the fact that so many people lurk behind their environments as an excuse for their attitudes, and I while at the time I thought that that portion of the message didn't apply to me as much, it came into play later in the retreat. The second message of AMI contained more things that I was determined to address in my life, but it still had a core message that I added to my list: What is overflowing from my heart. Are you still reading this incredibly dry post? Remember that, it'll come back. The Friday night service was the lead-in to my real shake-up. It all really started during the worship. I was singing, but at the same time I couldn't help but notice the other people around me. I've never really been much of a clapper, or an emotion-shower in general. This is partially due to the way I was brought up in the church, partially due to the way I was brought up, and partially due to my general character (ooh, look at me focusing on my environment right there). I think that during that particular worship time I didn't sing much at all, I just prayed that God would fill me with His spirit the same way that other people seemed to be getting filled. I've been praying for a while that God would make Himself real to me, personally, and I think this was just another offshoot of that. Then there was the actual service. Pastor Sam preached on how we are God's children, not merely His servants. If we spend all of this time performing acts, hoping to improve our relationship with God based merely on performance, we're like canaries that have to flap their tiny little wings like, a freaking million times just to get off of the ground. If we wait upon the Lord, however, we'll soar like eagles. God's love is already there for us; He's already giving it to us and all we need to do is receive it. During the time of prayer, I pretty much just planted my face to the ground (not really literally, because I'm not very flexible, but you get the point) and tried to find out why I don't love God as much as I should. I held God up against my parents and against other people that I value and tried to convince myself of the obvious, that unlike any of these people, God won't hurt me or leave me or reject me. So why can't I just love Him more than I love these other people, more than I love people in general? One of the strongest things I felt was that I really need to spend more time in God's word and in prayer. I've gotten so much better about doing my devotions every day, but I know that I've started to settle into an attitude of complacency, of let's get this done so I can sleep. I thought back to how I am affected by the overflow of my heart, and that I can't love others if I don't love God. I took a minute to really pause and pray for the ability to love my family. My family situation is this whole gigantic can of worms that I really hate cracking open, but suffice it to say that I really find it difficult to act in a loving way toward most of my family members. I could blame it on a million things, but something that was reinforced in me from Pastor Ulysses' morning message was that I am responsible for my own responses. So I prayed to God that He would help me love my family despite the junk that goes down on a nearly daily basis. When I finally finished praying by myself, I got in line to be prayed for by Pastor Sam. Waiting in that line was one of the most stressful things ever. I was so anxious about what God would do, but eager at the same time. I had only been prayed over once before, so it was and still is one of those new things, you know? I don't think that I breathed regularly the entire time that I was waiting. When I finally got up there, it was completely worth it. I felt like Pastor Sam's prayer for me covered everything I had been feeling since even before the retreat. I'll go ahead and paraphrase, but he basically said that God was telling me that rejection (and a handful of other sad sounding words) was not my identity, but that He was my identity (ooooh, did you CATCH THAT?). He prayed that God would fill me with His anointing (thaaaank you, I wanted that), he prayed that I would know I am God's child, and he prayed that I would basically just be internally healed. Then he was finished, and I went right to the back of the room and just like, lost my mind for a minute there. I was so overwhelmed because I was like, GOD HEARD ME. I feel like I know all of these things about God, like, yes, He is there and yes, He is listening, but it was the first time in a really long time, if not in forever, that I really experienced it for myself. The rest of the retreat was just like, frosting on my Friday night cake. The Saturday morning service had Pastor Mark talking about how the Holy Spirit was like, a gift, and not an answer to morality, which was really a huge encouragement to me since I was trying so hard to be moral enough and good enough to be as Spirit-filled as other people that I know. Pastor Young preached on Sunday night, and it was a good message but totes def the same one from May 16, hahahahaha. It was the prayer time afterward that I really appreciated, where Esther prayed for me and really just confirmed everything that Pastor Sam had prayed for me as well, so I just felt really secure with what God wanted for me after I prayed with her.

This post is completely wack, in that it lacks coherence and there is a distinct shortage of wit happening. It's honest, at least, so I'll give myself points for that.

My Apologies to Xanga

But I have finally grown weary of it. It seems far more convenient to me to use Blogger, and Xanga and I have been drifting apart for a while now. We had a mature conversation, and both of us agreed that this was for the best. It understand that my moving on to some hot young thing does not mean that it is any less valuable. We just are no longer right for each other. I transferred all (five) of my tavimarie Xanga posts to this blog, so that I could still have a little piece of Xanga with me to remind me of some of the beautiful memories we did share once. Please do not feel the need to read them, eh heh. Although, I did post them, so I guess go ahead and try to love me anyway.

Transferred From Xanga: Sunday, 16 May 2010

This is something that I posted to the GCC2013 summer blog, but I wanted to post it here, too since this is my for real blog.

Something that I really struggle a lot with is acceptance. Not so much my acceptance of other people, because I tend to think that I'm all right at that, but rather whether or not I feel that other people are accepting me. On my Xanga I talked about this as well, and how a woman I met for like, two seconds prayed for me and asked God that I would learn that I am accepted by Him. Even though I really appreciated and saw the truth in her prayer, I've still been having difficulty applying that to my life. The past week and a half has been mad stressful for me. I had to wrap up the last of my five horrible finals, pack my entire room into a handful of boxes, and somehow get rid of all of my crap without paying with both arms, a leg, and the soul of my firstborn. That was all finally finished, but I couldn't even rest after all of that because I had to move on to College House Alumni Ambassadors, which wound up being a lot of fun but nevertheless required me to help out with various projects when I would rather have been chilling with friends, and in some cases forced me to wake up so that I could be at a specific place at a single-digit time, something that I do my best to avoid whenever possible. Then, on Friday, I got my grades. Let me tell you, my GPA took a direct hit this semester, and that, on top of everything else I felt like I'd had to deal with, finally got to me again in between Friday night and Saturday night. I began to feel like a complete and colossal failure. A stressed-out, washed-up complete and colossal failure. We'll get back to this later.I've made a list of things that I want to accomplish by summer's end, designated the Self-Improvement-Summer List. Some of the stuff on the list is more private, but others are more public, like learning how to play guitar, whatever. The point is that I made this list in the interest of improving myself, but last night I was thinking about the list and linked it back to my constant problems with acceptance. I was in a bookshop perusing the aisles, trying to find something that both interested and challenged me. It was late and I was tired, and when that happens and nobody is around I tend to talk to myself. Sue me. I was in this bookshop and I was searching around muttering under my breath, I need to be better, I need to be better. I'll be honest, things started to get a little schizophrenic up in my head, as I alternated between trying to comfort myself ("You'll be just fine. You're an okay chick.") and berating myself ("You need to be good at something, you need to be better than this."). In the midst of my personality's argument with itself, the part of me that's been growing in Christ since I got to Penn kept butting into the conversation saying stuff like, "Who do you need to be better for? Other people, that's who. Who are those people to you? God accepts you the way you are, remember?" This part of me, my voice of reason, so to speak, was obviously right. That, however, did not keep the rest of me from continuing to complain about myself. I started to involve God in my internal dialogue: "I know that you accept me, but I need these other people in my life, too, and I'd really prefer if they could like me more rather than less." So here I am in this bookshop, wandering down the aisles with three different conversations happening in my head. What I learned from the end of it was that God is clearly not the most important person in my life yet, because I'm still terribly concerned about what other people think of me, despite the way I may act or even what I may claim in real life from time to time. Remember when, one paragraph ago, I was talking about how I felt like the world's biggest failed child? I swear to you, Asian parents have nothing on my mother, and when my dad decides to make a critical contribution, it's a wrap. I haven't talked to my mom in like, three days because I don't want to have to talk about my grades, and if I try to talk to my dad he'd just be thrilled that I only got a B+ in COMM because he'd rather have me major in rocket science anyway, which is far from being mad encouraging. I started comparing myself to everyone else I knew, knowing in my heart that there was no way that this one girl I knew had gotten as low a grade as I had in my least favorite class of the semester, Greek and Roman Mythology, and that getting a sucky grade in that class was worse than getting a sucky grade in STAT by far. This whole failure feeling also fueled my three-way conversation with myself and God, and though it was pretty much at the back of my mind by this morning it was brought to the fore again by Pastor Young's message. Very rarely do I feel as though a sermon was crafted through the will of God for my heart's current state, but today was one of those times, I think. Pastor Young just totally hit that part of my worries on the head in an attempt to completely obliterate the darn thing when he said, "You can't focus on your failures. Don't let yourself become your failures." He went on to say something like this (I'm just gonna paraphrase since I don't remember the exact wording): Stop comparing yourself to other people. You should compare yourself to yourself so that you become a better version of yourself. Good gosh that was a mouthful of 'yourself'. I've decided to make this another public addition to my Self-Improvement-Summer--that I would learn to make Christ the most important person in my life, and that in the midst of everything that I hope to accomplish over the summer I should adjust my priorities so that I'm doing things for God and for His glory, not for anyone else, so that I can become closer to the version of myself that God intended. It's not something that I'm going to be able to fix in like, thirty seconds. I still get really irritated if people only give me like, five seconds of their time, and then I set off to become more interesting to them so that I can get more attention from them later. I'll probably still compare myself to people that are smarter than I am, prettier than I am, and more talented than I am, and I'll most definitely still be annoyed with myself when I consistently come up short. I suspect that this will continue for quite a while. Nonetheless, I hope to make a lot of progress over the summer, even if I can't get this problem eradicated completely. I'd appreciate if you guys would pray for me, and if you don't than it's okay because I won't know about it, hahaha. See you all in the fall (ooh, looky, an unintentional rhyme!).
Hearts,Tavi

Transferred From Xanga: Wednesday, 28 April 2010

Something that I've been struggling with for a while if not for forever is this whole acceptance deal. Not my acceptance of other people--I think I'm okay with that (maybe even too okay, if you've read that one lengthy verbally diarrheal post)--but with my personal acceptance of myself, and whether or not other people accept me. I think that one of the first memories I have that can trace back to this was when I was in fifth grade, where I had this super kiddie-traumatic experience when my "friends" told me that they didn't like me anymore. Their reasons were, of course, pretty basic: you're annoying and you laugh too loud. These things are probably more true now than they were back then, but suffice it to say that I was pretty devastated, and it actually changed the way that I laughed for at least a year. Ever since that time, I've always been really nervous about the way that other people perceive me. It doesn't help that I'm already an overweight African American girl--my thoughts on how the world would see me were practically destined to be tragically low. On top of that, however, were little encounters such as the one mentioned previously that made me worry that even what made me "me" on the inside wasn't good enough for everybody else. I swear, you would have thought I went to Satan's Darlings Elementary with some of the kiddie-drama I endured there. Really, kiddie-trauma is worse than adult trauma, because it sticks with you longer and you carry all of the results of it into adulthood. If the trauma had happened in adulthood, I probably would have been better equipped to deal with it. Re-boarding my train of thought, acceptance has been something that I've always sought after, and rejection is something that I've always feared. Contrary to what I would have thought, growing stronger in my faith has actually added new facets to the problem, mainly that now I constantly worry about how my Christian friends will perceive me. At SCS, it was pretty much enough just to be a Christian. If you stay quiet during class and keep to the dress code and avoid showing any signs of a bad attitude, everyone assumes that you and God are "tight like this" and hardly anyone ever challenges you on your faith. Once I came to Penn I got a lot more self-motivated, driven by this fear that I wouldn't meet many Christians on a secular campus and that I would be alone with God for the duration of my years at Penn. That was helpful in my walk for the first semester, even after I started going to GCC, but second semester I was driven by a more honest desire to know God more. Insecurities started creeping in from that point onward. I couldn't help comparing myself to other girls, noting all of the strengths in their faith and all of the weaknesses in mine. I got to the point where I started to think about how God sees other people and how He must see me, and from then on I felt as if I were playing this impossible game of catch-up to all of the other people at GCC, whom I felt that God must love so much more than He loves me. Recently, though, I've been thinking about all of this and talking through various related topics with people. I've realized that I put God into this little human-sized compartment, that I have this idea of a God that thinks the same way that a man would think. This just isn't the case. During family group one of the guys shared a parable in which workers come to a field at different times, but they all get the same reward at the end of the day. I took that to heart because it was almost exactly how I had been feeling, like I had come to work late and I had to catch up to all of the work that all of the other sisters were doing or else I would rewarded less. But God is not a respecter of persons, and I forget that so often. I have this legit issue where I constantly worry over people liking other people better then they like me. This is almost always true, but regardless, my actual interactions with people aren't helped by the niggling little voice at the back of my brain that makes me try too hard to get people to like me. Now in my faith I feel as though sometimes I try extra hard to get God to like me and I worry that He likes everyone else better than He likes me, but that's the human-box I've put Him into. Last night after the documentary screening that I went to, I prayed with this woman that I met two seconds earlier, and when she asked me if I had prayer requests I just told her no. I mean, I'm not even sure why I told her no because it's not like everything is peachy keen over here, and I've gotten so much better at just being open, but nevertheless I told her no, so that poor woman had to just pray what she felt about me, after having met me for two seconds. What she prayed inspired this entry, and roughly what she prayed was this: that I would learn to view myself the way that God views me, and that I would know that I am accepted by God, and that I would understand that God has a plan. Two-second-Soo (her name was Soo, or Sue, whatever) had pretty much pegged one of the most prominent issues in my heart. After two seconds. Look at what a strong relationship with God+prayer will do for you. This isn't some issue that I'll be able to fix overnight. I recognize that I've got a bit of a problem here. On the flip side, I also recognize that there is a solution in learning to view myself the way that God views me, and in recognizing that God has a gigantic plan that I will play a tiny part in. So yeah. There you go.

Transferred From Xanga: 1040 Documentary Viewing=180 Degree Transformation

6:05--

Peter comes down to take over the front desk, upon which I realize that it's 6:05 and, therefore, five minutes after the time that he's supposed to come down and take over for me. I don't get evil about this for three reasons: 1) There's no reason to compromise my testimony over a lousy five minutes, 2) I was late taking over the shift this afternoon, too, so it'd be pretty hypocritical of me to get annoyed with Peter, and 3) Family group ended last week, so I'm not in a hurry to be anywhere at six anyway. Then I remember the 1040 documentary screening with Jaeson Ma, which I've been intermittently forgetting and remembering all day long. According to the Facebook invitation it started at six, it was 6:05 and I hadn't even left my dorm, which is at least ten minutes away from Claudia Cohen Hall at a decent pace. I briefly debated over whether or not I should go. Some of my reasons for my eventual departure were decent--I knew about the 1040 window from a missionary that came to speak at Bethel a while ago, and since I tend to tuck things into my Bible case and never throw them away, I had just revisited the piece of paper that contained information on the 1040 window and a little calendar with each country in the window so that you could pray for them through a month. I did have an interest in hearing more about the 1040 window and what was happening over there since, let's be real, I'm an ignorant American and I don't know much about anything not American. I had also clicked attending on the Facebook invitation and had told friends that I would be there. I'm kind of a stickler for following through on things, so I wasn't quite able to convince myself that it would be okay if I skipped. My one not-so-decent reason for attending the screening was Jaeson Ma. The pastor himself wasn't the draw--it was the knowledge that if I were breathing the same air as Jaeson Ma, my six degrees of separation from Choi Siwon (the imagined and unrequited love of my life) would be effectively reduced to one. And so, with all of these reasons working together, I hurried off to the screening, pausing only to dump my stuff in my room and buy some snacks from the vending machine since, again, it's a movie. You just want to snack, it's natural.

6:17--

I walk into the building and try to remember where G17 is, since I've only been in there a grand total of three times and I seem to undergo some sort of memory wipe every time I leave the building. God made it easy; I went down to the ground level and there was a giant hand-printed sign tacked up leading the way for people that were there to see the screening. I got into the room and it hadn't actually started, so that was a blessing because walking in after missing a chunk of a movie just sucks and you feel out of it for the rest of the time you're there. I saw this girl from my church who had apparently walked in just before me and sat down next to her. She looked up and realized that she couldn't see, which made me look up and realize that I couldn't see because of this giant freaking pillar planted directly in front of me, doing an excellent job of holding up the ceiling but not making my film-viewing experience any better. We relocated and settled down.

6:23-ish--

Jaeson Ma comes up and starts to break down what we're about to see in the documentary, so woo-hoo, mission accomplished--Choi Siwon and Octavia are only one degree apart. Then I start to actually pay attention to what he's saying and, I'll be honest, I started to feel belligerent on the inside. What he said was roughly this, that Asia was becoming the new spiritual leader and that leadership was passing from the West to the East. He said that faith and Christianity was different in Asia than in the United States or in other Western countries. I knew it was true even as I listened, but still a part of me was thinking, So what, God's new favorite people are the Asians? What about me, then? I'm not Asian, I'm not Jewish, so what's God's awesome plan for me? In short, I got all heated up before I even saw the movie. I felt like this random pastor had popped up and had just told me that I wasn't what God was looking for, and by the way, here's this super cool documentary about how their faith is so much better than yours, I can't wait for you to see it and tell me what you think.

6:35-ish--

The movie starts. Even within the movie, I'm still hearing all of this stuff about how Asia is the new spiritual superpower, even as they become stronger economic powers. I'm still getting angry. The movie goes through China, Korea, and Hong Kong before my heart starts to soften to what God is actually doing in these nations. As I watched the movie I asked God to humble me, so that I would support what was happening in Asia. You have to see this documentary to understand. I watched this movie and I got challenged in so many different ways, and I have so many things I want to say to certain people.

Whatever point in time it was that Indonesia popped up--

Holy crap, Indonesia. Listen, those of you who went to Bethel with me know what it's like there. My experience from the last time I was home could only be described as grey. Indonesia...listen, some of what I have to say regards my shifts in faith from last year until now, but I can tell you that I believe in what God is doing to those people in Indonesia that I saw in that documentary. I got chills, and I got jealous. I don't know if I've ever wanted God that badly in my life. I kept thinking about this even during the movie, how Asia was rising up. I wanted to know who was responsible for losing America's chance to do what Asia is doing. Was it me? Was it my parents? Was it my grandparents? What happened to us that we don't want God that much, that we think we don't need God? Is it opulence? Can't be, because people in Korea are almost as well off as we are if not better off and they have the biggest churches in the world up in there. Where's my country that hungers after God? It's gone, apparently, and I'm so angry with whoever ruined it. Was it me? I am completely losing track of this timeline because my mind is still going in so many different directions.

Whatever point in time it was that those Korean missionaries to Afghanistan came in--

I can't remember who was at Northland with me that summer, but I took that seminar called "Love Me to Death" on the day where you get to pick what message/class you want to go to. This is what I was reminded of when this segment in the documentary rolled around. This whole film was filled with people who had completely given over their lives to Christ, and the whole time I was thinking, Hey, I can do that. I want to do that. I can just live for God and everything will be coming up roses (notice how I temporarily forgot how freaking HARD this is). Then this portion of the documentary kicks in and I have my "Love Me to Death" flashback. These people went to Afghanistan to offer medical aid and slip in some Jesus on the side (or probably the other way around). They knew when they went that it was going to be dangerous, since Koreans had been specifically warned. They got taken hostage and two of them got martyred and I kept flashing back to "Love Me to Death" because I don't think I love God that much, and that shames me to no end but I'm being honest so I'll say it. My life here in America is so easy that I don't think about persecution or giving over my life for God in ways that hurt me. Most if not all of my friends here know that I'm a Christian and that I'm a pretty strict churchgoer and that I don't swear and that I do my very best not to touch boys ever under any circumstance until they're so deeply in friend territory that I won't have to feel uncomfortable about it. So all of my friends know these things about me and then I call it a day, tossing out a quick devotional and an even quicker prayer before going to sleep at night. I pat myself on the back for this and feel secure in the knowledge of this ritual and then I go watch this documentary where some guy is like, Listen, let me die for Christ because it's WHAT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED. Oh, my gosh. What do I want? I want money, I want friends, I want to get married (to Choi Siwon, please, Jesus) and I want to live in a big house with my family and my yard and a nice church right down the street so that we don't have to travel too far and what the heck is wrong with my life right now? I've turned into one of those people that's made their Christianity an accessory for their lives and just puts it on and forgets about it until someone comments on it. "Oh nice earrings you have there." "Why, thank you, I just bought them last week." "Oh, so you don't drink. You some kind of Christian?" "Well, yes, yes I am. How nice of you to notice." I invite my friends out, true, but I'm so timid about it, so worried that if I invite them to come to something where GCC is going to look too weird (and, come on...) that they'll never come out again. I was talking to a friend the other night and she told me that I'm too accepting of the way things are and that I don't try to change things, and it was so true that I kept thinking about it even later. I look at my unsaved friends and my unsaved family and think, Well, there's nothing that I can do about that. And then there are these Korean missionaries who decide that they're just going to hop on over into Afghanistan and try to witness to people who hate Christianity. What would I have done? I probably would have taken one look at Afghanistan and said, Well, there's nothing that I can do about that.

7:51 (I actually saw the time at some point)--

The screening ends and Jaeson Ma comes to the front again. He talks about his calling and about the ways that God spoke into his life and what do you know? I'm jealous again.
There are a few times when he's talking that I sort of ignore him a bit to think about what I could do in my life that could possibly benefit the work of God in the 1040 window. I have no idea, but sometimes I feel like everything is there, you know? I've got this thing with Chinese and this thing with the talking and sweet old Mr. Wisnat telling my mother that he thinks God is going to use me+Chinese to=something awesome.
I had to keep asking God to humble me, because I think so much of my annoyance at this Asia=awesome new spiritual power business was this mentality of, What makes them so much better than me? But it's not about me, and God's plan is so much bigger than me. Besides, if I want a piece of that Great Commission, God isn't going to stop me, so shouldn't I just do something already?
Jaeson Ma just tells us to pray for a while, and as I stand there and pray I tell God that I'm challenging Him. If this life isn't for myself and it's for Him, then He needs to give me a purpose. I stood before God and I demanded a calling, because I want to live for Him, but what am I supposed to do if I don't know how? At one point I ask God for something that shames me into crying harder (the tears were welling before when those Korean martyrs were talked about and they didn't completely dry up, anyway). I ask God for a heart that really desires Him and really desires to serve Him, because right now I don't have one. I re-surrender everything that I have taken back into my hands, because I want to be like the people I saw in that documentary tonight.

I'm giving up on this timeline crap, I don't care anymore. It's late and I'm tired--

Jaeson Ma (how many times have I typed this dude's name, anyway?) asked if there were any people who would agree to go somewhere in the 1040 window for at least a couple of years in the next ten years, and I stood. I don't know what I'm doing. I've always wanted to go to China, I've certainly planned on it, but for a semester, not for a freaking two years. I'm making this public because I want people to correct me on things, to argue with me on things, to help me arrange every feeling that I felt inundated with today into something of usefulness. I feel like I wrote this post and I lost track of all my thoughts and started verbal hemorrhaging all over the place. I think I brought up like, five idea threads and lost three and brought in another two that were completely unrelated, so I apologize but I'll also say this: I didn't write this post so that people would read it and say, Wow, that girl can really put a paragraph together and stick with an idea. I wrote this post so that people would say, I think that chick might just love God and wants to love Him a whole lot more so how can I get behind that?

Thanks.

Transferred From Xanga: Sunday, 28 March 2010

After Devos

While I was waiting for a friend before church today I did my reading for the day. I'll edit this post later so that it includes the exact verse, but it was in 1 Corinthians 10. In the verse, Paul says that he shouldn't feel as though he's receiving any glory in bringing souls to Christ because it isn't something that he's chosen to do of himself. It's his job, according to God's commandment. That made me think about myself. I for sure wouldn't call myself a fiery fisher of men, but I know that the few times I've managed to bring people to church with me or whatever I'm inwardly always looking for a little pat on the back. I get that this makes me look super ugly inside, but this is my blog and I choose to be honest on it. Reading that passage really called me on that attitude, so from here on out I'm going to try to watch myself. If I see any of that business coming on...*makes threatening noise w/ gesture*. It's curtains.

T.T

Transferred From Xanga: Friday, 26 March 2010

• Today in sisters' prayer we briefly started talking about boys. I'm not even sure how it happened, but let's be real--in a group of girls, is it really a surprise? Anyway, I was the only non-Asian girl there. This isn't a problem, I knew that GCC was predominantly Asian when I found it and it was something that I didn't care about from the beginning. I'm in the minority every time I do a church activity unless I'm with Army of One, which has almost all of the other GCC black people from Penn in it. The point of my bringing up the race thing was that each of the other girls said that they could only conceive of dating within their race. At the very least, they would settle for dating other Asians, but they all preferred to date people with the same ethnic background. It was at that very moment that I thought, "Well, I'm screwed." I have no plans to start looking for anyone to date until much later in the future. Even if I were open to the idea of dating right now, which I'm not, there's nobody that's interested anyway. The reason I inward-freaked a little bit is that church is the only place I could see myself finding a Christian guy. That's the only kind of guy that I would date, GCC is really the only place where I've met other Christian guys with the exception of one guy during PFP and two guys on my hall that aren't strong enough in their faith for me to possibly consider anything happening with them. That leaves my church. My wonderful, godly, fun, FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH ASIANS church.
  I feel like right here would be a good time for an interjection. I love all nationalities and races and ethnic groups. I would date anyone of any color as long as they were Christian and preferably older than me so that they would have a better chance of being more spiritually mature than I am. The problem is that after I heard all of these girls, I realized that the guys at GCC, whenever I start to think about them as potential dating prospects (which, omgosh, I cannot even begin to fathom at this point in my life, I just shuddered a little bit) will only be looking for Asian girls, or at least a good chunk of them will. I also feel like I should be a little more honest here: I've never really been attracted to black guys. It's probably just the way I've grown up, surrounded more predominantly by other races, but there you go. If, however, I meet a black Christian guy who's more spiritually mature than I am who's interested in me and who I genuinely feel attracted to, I'll probably jump at the chance. I just don't feel like that's going to happen, though. Who knows? God works in ways that some people call mysterious, I just go ahead and say "opposite from anything you ever expected to happen." If that pans out, I'll marry some dude named Tyrone Davis and live happily ever after. Whatever God wills, I'll take, because I know that if it comes from God it'll make me happy. Right now, though, at GCC, I've started to realize that nothing romantically related will come out of any of those guys for me. It's a tiny bit frustrating, because even though I don't have feelings for any of them I've started thinking, "Then how do I find anyone?" I was walking back after prayer and talking out loud to God and I just started thinking that maybe I just need to change my mindset or something. I'm not even trying to look at guys until at least a year from now, but here I am already worried about something that God has on lock. I don't know what I'm trying to say anymore, but I'm sure I'll have more to say about this later.

  
  

  
  

  I cannot believe I am publishing this. Gah.