Grace.

I've been wrestling with the Bible for, well, ever.

But in one of my deep, disappointed-with-God moments a few weeks ago, I turned to the Bible to find answers.

And it was quite a heart-wrenching shock to find that reading Romans didn't give me the peace I thought it would.

The peace that everyone says you get after reading the Bible when you've had a bad day.

In fact, I fell into this restless tornado of confusion that I have yet to get out of. And the question that has been nagging me for so long:

What is grace?

What does it mean exactly, to be saved by grace? What about mercy? What's the difference between grace and mercy, if any? What the heck is Romans 5 even about? And most importantly, what does this mean for me in my life right now, for my familial situation, for my struggling with doubts and beliefs?

Maybe I'm looking for a set definition of grace, and there just isn't one.

I understand that, because Christ died for us, we are not subject to the law, and therefore have grace, which is a righteousness that compels us to do what He asks because of what He did.

Or maybe I don't.

Maybe I see the logical intricacies of it, but don't believe it. Don't really, truly understand.

Or maybe I have the whole thing wrong and don't understand what grace is.

Either way, I know I haven't got it figured out. And this struggle compels me to continue searching for the Truth. Thank God I don't give up so quickly.

New Lessons.

I feel like God has been teaching me a lot these past few weeks.

Yet the more I learn about myself and about God, the increase in the number of questions that tag along.

- I've realized that I have put my trust in the wrong things. But what should I put my trust in? And how do I do it?

- I've realized that I may be undergoing what St. John of the Cross termed "the dark night." But what do I do now? Where do I go from here?

When I feel like I've finally firmed my relationship with Him, He pulls the rug out from under me, shakes me, and reminds me that the search for the narrow gate isn't easy. Reminds me that I'll never figure Him out. Reminds me that I'll always be struggling.

The J side of me finds it hard to come to terms with that uncompromising fact.

An Attitude Change.

I turned in my first college paper today.

Four pages of my genius written in an hour and a half of class time. As you can tell, I have come to gloat about my triumph. Just kidding.

But in the paper we had to compare and contrast two poems (thank you Mrs. Malott!). I chose "One Art," which is about a woman who denies that the loss of a loved one is difficult, and "Desert Places" (I absolutely love Robert Frost by the way), in which the speaker deals with his sense of loneliness. Unlike the woman in the first poem, the speaker in the latter accepts his situation without reluctance.

I basically pointed out that there are some things in life that are inevitable (such as someone dying or feeling alone) ...that will happen whether you like it or not. what determines how the outcome will be is in the attitude with which you respond.

Which got me thinking.

There are so many things in our lives that we choose to deny because the pain just sucks so much, or we don't want to be in a certain situation and begin hating it. And yet, no one said life was going to be easy. The guy in the latter poem...he knew this loneliness was inescapable, that sometimes, you can search for something and not find because, well, you're meant to feel that suffering. So he accepted it. He hated it, but he still submitted because he couldn't change his circumstances. And although he was still lonely, there was a tone of peace and calm.

Continuing with this whole transition phase, I've been feeling alone and depressed for a while now...and in an attempt to change my current situation, i've been in a constant search to make close friends. but for the last couple months i have significantly failed. don't get me wrong; i still have close friends here that i can talk to about anything, at any time. i simply mean that, at this point in time, i feel detached and apart from everyone else..and that's something i just can just wake up one morning and change. yet now i'm coming to accept that, yes, i am in a situation where i am alone, and though i've tried to change it, i can't. and maybe, instead of beating myself down for not succeeding, i should ask myself why. why am i in this situation right now? what's the point of my seclusion?

and i came to understand that this may not be the time for me to create friendships, but rather work on the ones i already have...most especially my relationship with Jesus. While it is a period of my life where i am seemingly detached from the rest of the world, it's not so much a time of seclusion as it is a chance for introspection.

while i may not be able to change certain situations in life, i can definitely change my attitude towards them.

Something I Forgot.

Sometimes, I forget that this life isn't about me.

That this life, my existence, was not created in any way for my benefit, to make me happy, or so that i could live in comfort.

God is love.

Some have a heart for giving,

Providing for the needy so great.

Others have a heart of understanding,

Knowing the comfort empathy creates.

Some have a heart for teaching,

Educating the youth with life's tools.

Others a heart for justice, equality

Epitomizing the Golden Rule.

Some have a heart for the mysteries of the world

From the seven wonders to the hope of glory,

Others the heart of a child,

Innocence captured in picture-book stories.

Then there are those with a heart for the lonely

Those who feel others' pain,

Those who see the drought in desert lands

And whose tears cry for healing rain.

A heart for the widowed, weak and weary,

A heart for the angry, bitter, lost.

A heart for the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists,

A heart for the women struggling to survive at all costs.

One can have a heart for many things;

One can have a heart for all the above.

But what is a heart without a purpose?

What is a heart without love?

what am i living for?

it's not that i'm afraid to fail.

i just don't want to be successful at the wrong thing.

back me up.

i guess it was an answered prayer.

i rarely get anything out of church anymore. i sit in the pews and find myself contemplating what happened last night or scheduling what the rest of my day looks like, or wondering if i got a new text message or facebook comment. now, your response to that may be that i just need to open up and stop being so skeptical, or that i can always get something out of church if i just try.

but i've tried, really. and whether it's that i've heard the essence of the message before or it doesn't apply to me, i just have stopped listening in church. i try, often so hard that i turn my attentions to attempting to focus rather than truly focusing. and over the years, this lack of spiritual feeding has built up so much that i've just become apathetic in my Christian walk. i've lost my way, and i don't know how to get back on the right path. i've been at the point of questioning by beliefs for a long time, and without anyone to answer them or even just a direction in how to, i've been on a downhill path towards apathy, impatience, ignorance.

yet somehow today, a pastor managed to catch my attention.

he asked if anyone ever has felt oh so on fire for God, so excited to be reading the Bible that s/he couldn't get enough of it and read everyday.

-- i looked up from my phone.

then he asked if we ever missed a day or two of reading, and before we knew it, reading the Bible every day became hard to do.

-- i smiled embarrassingly.

then he told us that basically it was a lack of accountability; that without someone there to back us up and make sure we're staying on the right track, we fall apart.

-- i nodded my head in agreement. he was right.

granted, it's not like i've been left alone in the world without friends and people who care. on the contrary, i am surrounded by people who genuinely care about me. while asking how i am is mostly just a formality people begin a conversation with, there are those few that truly want to know about my life. and, either because i don't want to talk about my troubles or am in a hurry to get to the point of the conversation, i say that life is fine (and i'm sure you do the same). and if someone sees right through and asks me what's wrong, i tell them that i'm just tired (and, i'm sure you do the same).

but it's true. i haven't been doing well because no one has been there to keep my accountable. people ask me how i am, and i vent for half an hour. but i've had no real direction or help. or, if i have, it's only lasted a few days, and then my motivation burns away, leaving me back at the beginning or worse off. for the last year, i've been desiring to get my relationship with God back on track, and i believe God has kept me here another semester before i go to Berkeley so i can do just that. but although i've been searching relentlessly, can't find a way to do it, and haven't found a person to help me out of this ditch.

until today. as i walked in to Christian Assembly church, i was greeted by a woman i met a few months ago on an inner-city missions project. vanessa. i was surprised that, after not seeing her for months, she still remembered me. even though i met her for only a brief moment at the service project, she asked me how i've been, and i could tell that it wasn't just an opening line; though i gave my nonchalant, everything's good response, she told me she wanted to speak to me after the service.

as i sat in the pews, I listened as Tommy Walker prayed about a person in the congregation who was far away from God, who had desire to come back to Him but didn't know how, and that God would provide that way. and i thought, was he talking about me?

when i met up with vanessa again, she asked me to join her life group, a fellowship of college girls who just talked about life and their Christian walk together. i readily agreed.

as i drove home, i thought about how worn down i've become after all the struggles.

how i have been searching for a way to get on track with God right again.

how the pastor had spoken this morning about accountability.

how vanessa offered me the chance to join her life group.

how God answered Tommy Walker's prayer.

choices.

i made a choice today.
i pray to God it was the right one.
i sincerely hope that everything will turn out for the better, and what i'm feeling currently is just temporary.
i hate second guessing myself, and wondering if i had done what is right, and thinking how i could have handled things better, and worrying about how i affected who i affected, and wanting to just not think about my decision... and wishing for oh so much more.
i hate psyching myself out and telling myself i was wrong.

a note more to myself than anyone else: i have a lot of things to sort out in my life. i've been struggling with so much for these past few years. now is the time to make a choice and stop standing on the sidelines being indecisive. right now, i have made the choice to stop complaining, stop waiting, stop running away. i have made the choice to seek God and seek help from those capable of guiding me towards the right choices in my life.

i need to make a few more choices today; i pray that God would help me choose the right ones.

question.

Why did He save us?

waiting on me to change.

over the past couple weeks since i've returned from africa, i've battled with change.

i can't count how many times i've heard phrases like "africa will change you" or "when you come back, you won't be the same." and i took those ideas to heart.

except that didn't happen. at least, i haven't realized a change in me from my experiences on the trip. i've gone on mission trips and seen the poverty, homelessness, and hopelessness before. i remember going to mexico four years ago and playing with children, teaching them about Jesus and singing easy camp songs with them. i remember it wasn't the hard work that made me appreciate the trip, but just being able to sit with the little kids in a tight circle and roll a ball around the inside. and i remember how different, new, happy i felt when i came back. i remember being changed.

and over the following years, i lost my close relationship with Jesus. i've been having trouble with the idea of, to be perfectly blunt, God. i've questioned, believed, cried, praised, devoted myself, and walked away from Him...back and forth, back and forth.

so i believed that my trip to africa would bring me back. it would break my heart; i would not only see the need for God in this world, but also the need for God in my life. although i was in a very skeptical and questioning (and still am) period in the weeks (or months, or years...i stopped counting) before the trip, i asked God to "heal my heart and make it clean; open up my eyes to the things unseen," as the song by Hillsong goes. when i got back from africa, i promised myself, things were going to be different.

yet after returning, i felt as if everything was the same. i looked at my life: church, friendships, family, relationship with God, even my broken car, and became angry that nothing had changed. i became so frustrated with everything and everyone that i withdrew from the world in an attempt to understand what exactly was bothering me. and as i took a step back from my life and began to see things from an objective perspective, i came to understand that my irritation wasn't a result of the fact that nothing had changed; in consequence, everything around me was changing.

but i wasn't. i hadn't.

africa didn't change me like i thought it would.

and now, as the world surrounding me moves on,

i'm left struggling to catch up.

half full or half empty?

i have a shirt with this picture on it.

it's pretty easy to understand the artist's view on pessimism and optimism: if you see the glass half full, then life's good; if the glass if half empty, then welcome the grim reaper and rainy days. how you measure your cup is an age-old question people have been trying to use to pinpoint someone's view on life.

and i think we've come to the conclusion that those who are pessimistic view everything through a dark lens, that pessimists are so obsessed with the bad aspects of a situation and will bring everyone's spirits down with them. and yet, a so-called pessimist would argue that they are being realistic, not fatalistic.

on the other hand, optimists see everything in a good light. this is what everyone wants to be: the hopeful and happy who has such a good outlook on life. and yet, to be truly optimistic and see the good in everything without taking into account the bad, a person would have a hard time getting their head out of the clouds.

i have trouble deciding which side of the fence i stand. i mean, i choose to view things in realistic manners, and there have been times where i choose not to look at the good possibilities for fear that i will be disappointed. but i certainly realize the beauty in the world and understand that blessings come from bad situations. and where a pessimist would call my humor sarcastic, i would call it witty.

so what am i? neither. you can find me skiing on top of the water, and swimming underneath.

metamorphosis.

sometimes, i forget that i am constantly changing;

that who i was isn't who i am;

that i am a human being who makes mistakes;

that i am not infallible, not perfect;

that i have struggled, am struggling, and will struggle to figure out what's going on in my life;

that there are things about me i can change, and things i have to just deal with;

that, everyday, i am learning something new if i just pay attention;

that who i am isn't who i will be;

i forget. you forget. we forget.

we are constantly changing.

...but isn't it weird that we were made perfectly the way we were supposed to?