Sometimes it is sufficient, just to hear a whisper and affirmation of His everlasting love for a daughter.

You are higher than the heavens, brighter than the sun
Yet You love me, still You love me

Imagine the privilege I had of listening to worshiping alongside Merchant Band a couple of years ago, basking in the glorious truth of death on a cross. After so many conversations about God and the validity of the Bible and knowing God’s presence… all these questions other interns seem to have, and it takes all of the rationale I can muster to not yell out“Do you not see His great love for you?!”

So many years after Christ first stepped into my life, yet I’m still caught in the wonder of seeing how a Father like Him could love a girl like me.

One of the coolest parts about an engineering internship is that I get the hang out with people that I would never ever have the time nor opportunity to hang out with at college. Some of skills I’m currently practicing: aggressive driving, beer pong on makeshift table, beaching without burning, and learning to love on people… amongst many others.

Currently spending the 4th of July holiday @ San Diego — remind me to blog about my freak-Intervarsity Staff run-in this past weekend. And long-conversation with ST!

I must confess I have been rather lacking in keeping up with this blog, save random thoughts that have managed to be published throughout this past semester. There actually have been moments where I think, “Wow, I should totally blog about this later…” but alas, time has gotten the best of me…

A brief summary, then maybe I’ll retro-post a couple of thoughts & events from this past semester =)

Highlights of Spring ‘08 –

1. Reconciliation. There’s no better word to describe my spring. Being reconciled with one another in the Body, with Christ as I’m starting to learn finally what it means to simply be His and not His slave in ministry.

2. BEING in a small group! Prior to this semester, I have been leading sg non-stop (whether at home or at school) since I’ve been a junior in high school. What joy and blessings it has been to wrestle with my own pride of being a ‘good leader’ and submitting to His authority and control.

3. Satellites. Potential launch in the summer = a LOT of work this semester! But being able to see how secular leadership really parallels servanthood, and getting to know the others on my team and reaching out… completely worth it.

4. Prayer! Being involved in prayer ministry once again and leading Monday prayer meetings, challenging and being challenged into what it means to pray boldly and expectantly for our campus and our lives, and trying not to hide in AT 123 behind closed doors at prayer meeting :P

5. Ivy League Congress. Sounds a little snobby, but was really a great way to open my eyes to the presence of missions in the classroom and job force. Also super cool just to get away for a weekend at Yale :D

6. Basileia. Kingdom come… took Prayer Track — a little heebie at first, but in the end I really enjoyed it. Learning discipline that worship nor prayer is a spiritual/emotional high then plunge, but rather a constant of being attached to His vine. Thoughts of staff (eek!) and really beginning to pray for calling and wisdom in the last year of college. It’s crazy knowing that in one year, I could be working at Boeing again — or prepping to do my Master’s degree — or raising support for staff!

But anyway.. I’ll def. elaborate on each of those throughout the summer =) Things to look forward to!

1. Newsong Conference yay!

2. Soobs and Mike’s wedding this weekend.

3. Wed. night’s frisbee.. just like the midwestern days =)

4. Pinkberry.

5. jj coming to visit! :D

G.Jao’s idea for the next three years of my life:

Work for a few years at high-paying enginerding job. Save up $$. Send parents off to nice vacation in Hawaii. In their hotel room, leave vase of flowers with a note saying, “Dear parentals, enjoy this vacation on me! By the way, I have just changed my job — please change my email address to w@intervarsity.org… “

!!

Back from Chapter Focus Week and trying to learn what it means to trust…

I sit at my desk with nine prayer letters in front of me… places in need of gospel, of aid, of Jesus. from brothers i’ve known since before we knew the Lord to sisters i’ve only met this semester,… despite the reluctance for some to believe in the effectiveness of STMs, I still want to believe, believe that the Lord can use them for His good, for their good,…

From Benin to Israel to Gabon to SE Asia to the inner city to Brazil to even our own coasts and nation,… the kingdom is everywhere.

On the other hand, I’m falling in love with this song — http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=212938853 go to Used to Be. There’s also the remixx which is growing on me. It plays on repeat as I cram for quantum mechanics tonight.

A few days ago, I had a somewhat memorable dream. I was sitting in an older, wood lodge cabin,… one of the ones you’d find at a ski lodge, with a huge fireplace. All around me were CCMC (now LWEC) college kids, asking how each other were, loving on one another, catching up, talking, laughing,… I was talking to someone new on the side, asking me what this community was like, and myself answering with a smile. It was home, I replied,.. what else could it be?

Then I got a phone call. “W… are you coming? We saved a seat for you.” I get a sudden glimpse (through my dream, go figure) of cornell. of my cornellian friends sitting at a large table, with one empty seat, with c.hung on the phone asking about where I was…

Then I woke up. feeling torn.. homesick.. lonely.

All this time,… I couldn’t, can’t let go of Chicago. Of the roads driven and places eaten and people prayed over, those who took the time to disciple and grow me, the time to talk to and teach and mold,… more often than not I’d feel, I do feel a void of that here.

Yet a couple of days ago at Mini-O’s, a brother of mine got hurt playing the snake game (think the cheap java game but with people). And as he was lying on the ground, blood gushing out of his left temple, and me and several alumni fumbling with first aid kits to bandage and clean,.. he says, “haha,… w, you know why I bought that first aid kit? it’s ’cause last year, you kept telling me to bring it,.. haha…”

And at that very moment, though I didn’t know it until today, that’s when our Father, my Father who had before only shown me family in suburbia illinois,… said this is your brother. He was suddenly the timmie’s, the tommy’s, the jon’s,..

And maybe it is because the junior class and I just spent the last.. almost 12 hours working on felly dinner food & presents in my dinky little apartment,… playing the pen game with toilets and aslan. But somehow, in the midst of the delirium,.. it’s there… You’re there…

edit: bandaged little bro & myself:

]]> http://collisive.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/numbers/feed/ collisive http://collisive.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/wedding-mania/ http://collisive.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/wedding-mania/#comments Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:45:37 +0000 collisive http://collisive.wordpress.com/?p=117

And,… there is it — the first wedding I’ll attend, to quote John, ‘as a grown-up.’ The last one I attended was when my discipler from my home church got married summer after high school…  but since that one was in Wheaton, and planned out accordingly so with the slew of other girls who were in the wedding, I’m not sure it counts as a ‘wedding’ persay.

But now,.. someone from college is getting married. I know the bride a lot better than the groom — she and I met up every week when she was a grad student and I was a dumb freshman,… sharing about our own walks and scripture and God’s heart for missions and praying, many hours praying at the fading wooden tables in Ivy Room. I’m so excited to see her start a new chapter of life with her hubby :)

And so it starts! The weddings, the scrambling for plane tickets and gifts and dresses… ahhhh. It still seems surreal that I’m old enough to start going to these things,… just the other day it seems like I was still seventeen and prancing around in the parking lot outside the wedding rehearsal dinner, wondering what the future would bring outside of suburbia Chicago…

A phrase (or, I guess, moreso a collection of words than a phrase) I hear tossed around a lot is, the church.

The Church isn’t meeting my needs right now.

I’m so dissappointed sometimes in The Church for being so hostile to nonbelievers.

I can’t believe The Church would make such an outrageous statement on homosexual marriages.

The Jesus behind it all is fine,… I just don’t really like The Church.

Sometimes, upon hearing such phrases — and knowing that I myself have used this illustrious phrase more than once — I wonder… who am I actually talking about? Is it a group of snotty people sitting somewhere, reciting their memorized bible verses and shunning the lost & poor? Are they people you hear about the news, or people whom seem to wrong those you love, or those whom seem to say the wrong thing or make the wrong decisions? Are they those you see on the news, the fundamental or mega-church congregations?

To those issues, I hold this challenge… You are the church. Jesus proclaims one Body, one resurrection, one church that He will call His bride and rapture prefix to the second coming. Yet… we impose such judgments, divisions on ourselves.

If we wish to truly see a change in The Church in our generation,… well,… I think we need to become the church first. And until then, we have no excuse to blame issues that are caused by the sinfulness that is oh so ingrained into our own bodies as others (to quote Relient K, I’ll point one finger at you, and four back at me.)

For those of you who don’t know, Tuesday night was the showing of American Idol Gives Back — an overall attempt for hedonistic activism, but nonetheless a noble cause. I had only watched part of it, but it mostly consisted of the remaining 8 contestants singing feel-good songs, showing celebrities vouching to raise money for certain causes, and videos of actual celebs visiting certain areas (Miley Cyrus, Brad Pitt, etc.) and helping out. I must say that, watching the rich and the famous prance around in their $$$ outfits and designer glasses while trying to reach out is amusing (in the satirical way) in itself.

I didn’t find out this until later, when I read a Joshua Harris’ reflection of the night, that the last song sung was Shout to the Lord (an original Darlene Zschech/Hillsong song). But, instead of the normal first line “My Jesus, My Savior,” American Idol had changed it to, “My Shepherd, My savior.” Now, I’m still not really quite sure why this was done, because 1. In a failed attempt to be PC, it’s pretty clear which Savior you’re talking about when the next line says, Lord there is none like You. And, 2. The producers know that right after the showing, you’re going to get evangelical christians nation-wise asking themselves, where did the Jesus go?? (A question I ask myself often when looking into the media/culture today..)

But that’s not it. On Wed. night, American Idol started the show off again with Shout to the Lord — except this time, with the correct lyrics of My Jesus, My Savior.

Compare for yourself:

Tuesday Night: http://youtube.com/watch?v=chXEraRnE4o
Wednesday Night: http://youtube.com/watch?v=i6G0U8Vg6nY

This whole American Idol controversy has already stirred up a good mount of debate on both the Christian and non-Christian fronts, which tend to revolve around, “i feel so offended… why does American Idol want to convert me?!” to, “…. How could they leave out Jesus?? Is American that pagan?” For more thoughtful critiques, feel free to read Joshua Harris’ follow-up post, or Michael Giltz’s comments from the Huffington Post.

Now, for some of you, this whole matter might seem trite. I mean, it’s just using Jesus one night, and Shepherd another, right? They’re technically the same name for the same Savior, right? But… what is it about the name Jesus that is so seemingly daunting that a change to a sheep-herder would make it seem more innocuous? Why would producers let a unquestionably Christian song be sung on national television, only to offend those to whom it might appeal to?

One week ago, it was still.
There are a million and one things I should be taking care of right now. Studying for tonight’s exam. Doing my quantum problem set. Taking care of the document for my project team. This and this and all of these urgents that really aren’t important in the long run. Packing for Ivy League Congress…. maybe a little more important.

This was how it was before CUP, I remember. A heart confused and tattered, mostly through masochism. Windstruck and thoughts of what could have been and what was lost and what I didn’t have. Into the next day with my mask pulled on, only to see Daddy cares about my fragile heart more than what VBS I could do.

What is to come? What does the future bring? I stare into May and June and July and 2009 hesitantly. God on my side? Always,… is that enough for you? Am i enough for You?

My flesh and heart may fail,…. yet I still try to do it on my own.
Dad,… please give me the strength to see the light of tomorrow.