Leaving Ithaca one day

Life is so weird. It's like it doesn't even matter. Like nothing really matters at all.

You grow up in a place or two, and then you move onto college, and then you move somewhere else. It's so weird. It's so weird to think that all my college friends come from different places and that half of us will probably go back to our original places, and half of us to new places.

Sometimes it's difficult to zoom in and out on my life like that and remember that my life is bigger than just this small time frame that my mind is focused on, and that this world is bigger than the engineering quad + collegetown + small section of new jersey. Whenever I go into zoom-out-on-life mode, I lose some of my rigor for things like school, and become unfocused. But I can't really snap out of it right now.

Today I thought of what one sister said to me a month ago. I was complaining about my feelings or about life, and how everything is so complicated and ugly. And she just replied: "[Jamie] You are very blessed". That's it. Just a one line reply in the email.

I looked at that line. and felt kinda ashamed.

And then I think of different people and their different lives. I thought of the young girl in Shanghai who was massaging my feet, --and our conversation, and how she said to me in Chinese: "ni hao xin fu o" (o, you are so fortunate). And how sad her eyes were so sad afterwards.

It's so easy just to think of all these things, and to think about the world and the brokenness, and then not want to do any academic work even though every motivated person out there will tell you that your academic work is necessary for helping people in the future. Either it's a training and discipline, or, it'll help people directly (through $$$). But somehow this isn't satisfying enough to motivate me.

Maybe because, everyone in the end always remembers that helping people in this life isn't as important as helping people in the next life (aka, to receive salvation). But, it's always easier to think about helping people practically than helping people spiritually. Because helping people spiritually means we need to help ourselves first, and then we realize that we are able to help people around us now/already, because everyone always needs prayer, to know God. And we ourselves need the most prayer to know God.

I don't think I'm doing well spiritually. Pray for me.

[EDIT]

I just found the answer to life in Psalm 102:11-12

My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass.

But you, O Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations

I need to look at God more. I bet if I saw Jesus and how beautiful He is, and how holy He is, I would have no more questions about anything in life.

I need to see Jesus. forreals

Love and Hope

You are the Father to the fatherless

The mother to the orphan child.

You are the open arms to the prodigal,

Grace to the harlot daughter

You are the kiss upon the widow's lips

Life inside the barren womb

You are the vision in the eyes of the blind

The song inside the ears of the deaf.

Shores of Grace by Nic Billman

We don't have the ability to love everyone in the world, but God does. Every time I sing this song, it makes me think of particular people. People who are on the verge of divorce, or the middle/highschoolers in hurtful situations. And it makes me love God even more, knowing that He loves those people and hasn't forgotten them.

And a tidbit about hope. Another favorite quote that popped into my mind today. (I never forget my favorite quotes).

And whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or a husband), I smile and think, There's someone who knows. Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don't have to make speeches. Just believing is enough.

-On Writing by Steven King

I thought of this quote when I was worshiping, so it must be related to the previous song. I was thinking that I'm so incredibly blessed to parents who really really believe in me. My dad always supports my decisions. My mom always tells me that I can do it. Even if she doesn't tell me that, even if she tells me the opposite, I still know she believes in me. It's like she believes in who I am, even if she doesn't believe in my abilities.

I think you can believe in someone without believing they will succeed in that particular thing. It's believing in who they are, and who they can become. It's believing in their potential in God's Kingdom. That God can use them, and that they can grow to love God obsessively and leak love everywhere. even if they fail in the immediate thing ahead of them.

And I just wanted to note that this is so weird that I'm thinking about hope and believing in people's potentials. Because a few weeks ago, I would have rolled my eyes at this stuff. When people told me "Jamie, I believe God will____[change]__ you", I was like okay thanks. but in my head I was sort of like whatever, that just sounds corny. The idea of hope was kind of foreign to me. And sort of disgusting because it was opposite of the pragmatic satirical sarcastic smart-ass comment mindset I had. Sort of like "don't be ridiculous and talk to me about hope. be realistic; I know how life works, and it works like this: just do it. Stop the psychobabble"

Amazing how a godly mindset is the opposite of a worldly mindset.

It's been a month!

It's been a month since I last posted! I decided not to blog for a month, for a variety of reasons, none of which I remember unless I look in my journal. The only reason I actually remembered during the month was that I told myself I didn't want to blog for a month, and therefore I was definitely going to keep my word. It was kind of silly, and there were definitely several times that I really wanted to blog, but didn't want to go back on my decision because I wanted my decisions to matter and my will to be powerful. I wanted to know that as long as I decided to do something, that it would be done.

Okay, so, it wasn't that big a deal. But the reasons for doing it, and the way I felt about it, reflects my heart and reasoning for many other decisions and aspects of my life for the past month. In other words, it's hard to let go of control. Not because of the control, but because of the things that fuel the control. fear, anger, hurt, pride, jealousy, selfishness, and the list goes on.

I just read on someone's blog "The reason we do not often receive revelations from God is because we are full of self. We resist revelations for it is often against our nature, ambitions, senses or emotions".

It's true. That is what I have been consciously aware of myself doing this past month. Because thinking takes up too much time. And being convicted makes you feel horrible. And really really loving God makes you count everything as loss. And I think I have a lot right now. But I guess, not enough apparently.

I realized this past weekend that I don't really believe that God loves me more than this. In my mind, I looked at something and was sad because I realized I don't have that and I didn't believe God loved me more than that. And then I looked to God and asked: "God, do you love me more than this?" I didn't wait for an answer. It wasn't a question; it was a complaint. I was sad.

Today someone prayed for me that God would convict me that I need to stop and spend time with Him in His presence, etc., and the whole time he was praying, I was actually afraid of the prayer. I was like: oh no, he's praying the prayer. I was like shoot, it's over. You prayed the prayer for me.

Anyway, this is the update of my life. It probably sounds worse than it actually is, because these are just my revelations, which tend to be convictions of what I'm doing wrong. I also have a lot of praises, like how God has been changing me this past month. How He always seems to know how to soften my heart. How He sends random people to pray for me and speak prophetically into my life. And how I've been learning so much more in school this semester and actually understand a lot of things and therefore enjoying it more, and how I'm making more friends in my major, which I think is absolutely exciting. and how He has healed my heart, except sometimes I forget He has and I try to use it against Him. hehe. Well, so there it is. The update on my life. A brighter conviction this week, was that I should stop using sarcasm to vent out my frustrating feelings towards life. and instead use my words to build people up. I almost felt sad that I was not treating people right. Like the people I see every day are the people that God absolutely loves. Like He looks upon them with fierce jealousy. They are His.

But it's still hard not to occasionally spew out sarcastic satirical vent-ish comments. It feels so good, as if I knew how life worked and how people worked and had the right to comment out of jest.

What comes out of your mouth reflects what's in your heart. If your mind is transformed, you won't see life the same.

okay this took way too long; I will limit my blogging, or limit my length from now on. This was like my 1 month garbage dump, trying to say a hundred things at once and connecting them all

Good quotes

From Ender's Game. Context: Peter and Ender are brothers and rivals;
Ender is talking with his sister Valentine, --the middle child!

"You don't understand", he said.
"Yes I do."
"No you don't. I don't want to beat Peter."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want him to love me."

This one is from Searching for God Knows What

And this is the thing about life. You go walking along, thinking people are talking a language and exchanging ideas, but the whole time there is this deeper language people are really talking and that language has nothing to do with ethics, fashion, or politics, but what it really has to do with is feeling important and valuable.

--

This is how I've been feeling the past week. I don't want what I say I want, and I don't want what I'm going after. It's not about beating Peter; it is much deeper, much much deeper.

Planning out my life

Planning out my life... is a very typical tendency I have. I actually sort of stopped doing this for at least a year. I have done it since high school. When I say "planning out my life", I really mean planning it out. If I'm thinking of orphanages, I'll really look up orphanages and create lists and find out the details and read discussion forums about it. In-depth planning. I want to be an informed decision-maker.

Planning out my life is so complicated. There are too many factors; it's like statistics. We learned today in class that SAT scores are correlated with height. This is probably because more nutrition leads to increased height. And because affluence is also correlated with height. And a million other factors, who knows? This is why there are too many factors to predict how my choices today will affect my tomorrow.

I want to predict what will happen, and so it's a game of probability. What is the most probable outcome of each decision? But somehow the spinner always lands on the least probable outcome that I never thought about. What up life. What up God.

Yet, though I know this, and though I know none of my freshman year forecasts came true, I'm too stubborn to stop predicting and planning. It's difficult to separate healthy planning and wise planning from unhealthy stressing out, because it's not like my heart rate increases when I stress out. How am I supposed to know if I'm stressing out, or doing wise planning? How do I know if I'm trusting in God? I used to base it off of my feeling, if I feel that I am trusting God, but I do not feel much anymore, or just recently...

Anyway, this is a very inconclusive vent-ish post.

A passage from Blue Like Jazz:

[P]"And I never thought after I got married there would still be something lacking. I always thought marriage, especially after I first met Danielle, would be the ultimate fulfillment. It is great, don't get me wrong, and I am glad I married Danielle, and I will be with her forever. But there are places in our lives that only God can go."

[D] "So marriage isn't all that it is cracked up to be?" I ask.

[P] "No, it is so much more than I ever thought it would be. One of the ways God shows me He loves me is through Danielle, and one of the ways God shows Danielle He loves her is through me. And because she loves me, and teaches me that I am lovable, I can better interact with God."

Not a completely unrelated passage; it all falls under the umbrella of life, and finding what you want in it (as in fulfillment). Except that as Christians, God comes first and what you want is what God wants, and what God wants is what is best for you.

And God wants you to want God.

What you fear

I journaled today. Like on paper and not on a word document. I think paper has a different effect; you ramble less because it takes longer to write, which gives you more time to think about what you are writing, which should make your writing more concise and meaningful.

And I realized.

that right now, (or rather yesterday/this past week), I was more afraid of losing what God gave me, than of losing God Himself. Not that we can "lose God", because God is constant; we are are the ones that get lost. But previously when people asked me what my worst fear was, I would say: 'Losing God'. (also a title of a great book for depressed people btw). So, when I say 'Losing God', I actually mean Losing myself.

I was more worried about losing the things God gave me, than about losing God. And I wanted the things God gave me, but without God.

But if you do not have God, you will destroy the things He gives you.

Or, the things you want and pursue will destroy you.

Too late

Yesterday, after 4 hours of being in office hours, there were 4 people left.

[me]: wow, I’m like making up for the past 3 years of not working so hard
[DY]: yea, but this is good; I’m understanding things. I like understanding things.
[me]: yea, I like understanding things too. I wish I had worked harder earlier; It’s too late now.
[DY]: It’s never too late.

Today, I replayed the conversation in my head a few times, and thought about whether or not it was true. That it’s never too late.

In a narrow-minded sense, yes, sometimes it can be too late--too late to meet a particular/specific goal. But in a broader, more general sense, no, it is never too late, never too late to start, never too late to change. If you are a father of a 25-year-old son and you never bothered to build a relationship with your son, then it is too late to create those childhood memories. And some may think you may never be able to win your son’s heart back after years of bad fathering. But it’s never too late to change. To start the process. The outcome may be uncertain, but it's not always about the outcome.

So, in the specific sense, yes, it is too late to make things the same again. Too late to meet particular goals, too late to turn back time. But it is never too late to change, to start over, to be forgiven, to forgive, change.

And that is why we say: “it is never too late” in response to someone who says ‘it is too late’. Because we are encouraging them to think in a broader sense.

In essence, we are saying to them: it doesn't matter, but think about what does matter.

It is too late--
It is never too late.