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| the endfears of my past. pain. hurt. sorrow.
abandonment. betrayal. disappointment after disappointment.
loving god. hating the world. losing the solid hope i had in the goodness of man.
finding it difficult to truly trust someone. to lay my heart bare open without doubts clouding me.
with my heart so torn, brittle, and tender. that intimacy, though appealing, made me cringe.
one big insight i have been given is that not everyone is meant to be truly happy.
it's a weird thought. but most people do not have the capacity to experience true happiness.
to be truly happiness you have to have great discernment.
you have to chose loneliness over the fleeting anesthesia of general company.
discernment will come as one experiences everything else that is wrong
in order to learn, wait, and hold fast to being true to yourself at the expense of temporary fun.
finally i am capable of loving and trusting again. and been given discernment.
but of course not after making tremendous mistakes, unhealthy relationships, meaningless and devoid encounters, taking on too many obligations, making myself feel better through spiritual disciplines and church, rather than figuring things out for myself entertaining the thoughts of many other's opinions only to be dreadfully tired... and the list goes on.
much of my life has changed during the last few months to my liking.
the latent fears, doubts, and pain still lingered in the back of my heart.
all my life i was taught that i cannot trust man.
that in the end they are all out for themselves and will hurt me in the end.
some maliciously, some because of insecurity, some because they can't stand up for you.
and boy did i experience this. so painfully. that i did not feel emotion for a good while.
only when it came to god did i love, feel pain, worship, remorse, awe, praise, fear...
but as people, unexpected people, entered my life.
they took me by surprise. that i may trust again. but of course with doubts following right behind.
wow. the last few days have been an emotional roller coaster.
nothing really bad happened but something triggered everything from my past.
i literally spent the last two days in bed crying, wailing, sleeping.
entertaining every doubt. every pain. every fear. every hurt.
went psycho for a bit. but after a bit i realized how i was scared more than anything.
that i can truly trust the people in my life (two persons specifically, my girl Jen and my love  )
i know the road ahead is bumpy. but as god has knocked sense into me
and has brought the right people into my life, he will safeguard me.
which means so much to me. because my greatest fear was that i was meant to hate the world because of all the things I've gone through. but deep down inside i know god wants me to be happy. in him and also for making me and enjoying the blessings in my life.
and during the last few years i was strongly convicted of the earlier. but now i'm far more convicted of the latter 
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| Reality of Spiritual Growth"It would be even worse to think of those who get what they pray for as
a sort of court favorites, people who have influence with the throne.
The refused prayer of Christ in Gethsemane is answer enough to that.
...He who served Him best of all said, near His tortured death, 'Why
hast thou forsaken me?' When God becomes man, that Man, of all others,
is least comforted by God, at His greatest need. There is a mystery
here, which, even if I had the power, I might not have the courage to
explore. Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are
sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw
hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might
be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far
less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle."
C.S. Lewis, The Efficacy of Prayer
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| valueGod values himself
our understanding of his value is tremendously underestimated
Christians (including me) feel the need to give God extreme worth
listening to the sermons of his greatness, having experienced moments of extreme bliss
and we feel wrong, guilty, and self-centered when we don't and we condemn ourselves for our lack of faith.
and rightly so... we are weak and do not value him for what he's worth. that's why we need god that much more
instead of going before him in humility, many of us try to give god worth on our own
we try to understand god, getting self-consumed on his purposes for us
and pushing ourselves to do "christian" things to alleviate our guilt
when all he asks is for us to bow before him and simply worship the god of such grace.
i'm learning what it is to give god worth.
stop with the whole "purpose-driven" thing
because you know what.
yes there is purpose in what we do
but that's not what we were made for.
we were made to simply worship god,
love him and in that sacrificing according to the measure he gives us.
and purpose is fulfilled in our worshipping of Him
a unique, one in a trillion (+? the sum of mankind--past, present, future) form
as he knit our innermost parts in our mother's womb.
utterly fearfully and wonderfully made.
we do not have to prove ourselves to god
we dont need to figure out the purposes he's made us for.
He has a purpose and we need to simply trust that and trust him
because we are all valuable in His eyes. From the great apostles to the simple minded
all have the same value to god. some are meant for greater things, other for more common purposes
but all of same value to Him who gives life. no comparing, no need to prove ourselves
but simply valuing god...
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| Fearyou are quite the formidable foe.
i did not consider you to be.
your hold on me has become stronger
as the brokenness of this world becomes clearer
and i survive situations of grave pain
but also your hold has become weaker and clearer
as the Lord sustains me to still hope
to push myself beyond my cynicism
to hope, and wait upon the day of the Lord.
fear.
you consume me more than i know.
i did not know you had such a hold on me.
and i do not want you to control me.
i have been given life.
to live, to laugh, to mourn, to fight, to be me.
and thus. i will fight and win,
for the great One of eternity will uphold me in his right hand.
nothing do I have to fear for He loves me and
He truly would and has done the inconceivable for me.
at once i was foolish
i thought that you were on my side
you had the guise of wisdom
and i thought you were good
keeping me from foolishness
as i categorized follies of this world according to the standard to which i was raised
and that standard, i viewed it to be the Lord's
i self-imposed myself guilt, judged others and felt entrapped by those standards
my socialable qualities i found it to be sin, as often times church culture and others impose
but no. the true folly is you.
god has given me an appetite for life
given me talents and abilities
and my soul it hungers to grow, to expand my horizons and to be free
but yet you have this latent hold on me
as i still feel guilt, shame, confusion, judgment, and fear
Truly the Lord has wonderfully and fearfully shaped me and leads me everyday
i thought that if i were to suppress desires that seemed to contradict what was perceived as good
that one day they will all dissipate and i would adopt what was accepted,
not to live in dissension and in a ball of frustration, struggling within myself.
and once i did try to eradicate all that did not seem right, the right-standing Christian thing.
but no. god loves me no matter what. and he wants me to be free and be as he made me.
what beautiful and liberating freedom I have in the great abundance of his love.
I will live, love, laugh, dance, socialize, think about what I want to do,
filter those who are detrimental to me, assess and look out for what I can handle;
i will embrace who God has made me to be and dedicate my life in worship...
as simple and confusing that term may be in definition
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| in the tides of life, having the faith to walk on waterin the midst of all this planning, dreaming, hoping, studying, thinking, moping, struggling,
my heart is a vacuum that only the Lord can fill.
how strange it is that a man would search for sweet honey to taste and satisfy its soul
but upon tasting such sweet honey is tormented to desire for its glorious satisfaction once again.
so it is with my heart, so fully and abundantly blessed, yet hungers, desires, and wrestles with God
thus is in such anguish because ephermal things that once placated the soul fails to compare
and in its absence, cannot help but to desire for such grace once again and pains
as glimpses of such glory only teases the soul to hope that grace would be even more gracious
as it is grace even to have tasted and to know of the glory and beauty of God.
all in all, i can only hope that I will remember all the days of my life
that my life means nothing without God being in the center.
for with dust I was formed and into dust I will become,
my name will only be drowned by the numerous great names of the past
and will be soon forgotten by man
but the Lord will remember.
and I will rejoice to have spent my life devoting myself to him
so may I not get blinded by such passions, desires, anguish, pain, and ambitions
but as the Lord has trained my heart and mind to seek for him
may he search my anxoius thoughts and lead it to his path of righteousness
to live devoting everyday, every person, every experience, to the God who shows grace.
being able to remember the sacrifice of Jesus and forgetting the petty things that consume me
ultimately that is the life I want to live
but to live such a life... quite a struggle
but as Jacob struggled with God and was named Israel
(Israel: He who struggles with God)
may I fight to win the Lord's favor and blessing
for He is glory, He is majesty, He is beauty
He is all that our hearts dream and desire to lose itself to.
as Jesus' glory was greatly undermined,
we too lack the senses to see the beauty of the cross
and become disheartened and lose faith at what our earthly senses interpret.
and only in humility does God sharpen our heavenly senses
to go beyond what we feel, what we think and just to simply experience
faith beyond doubt, hope in the midst of despair, and growth in stillness.
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