Last night I spent some time in prayer. I asked God why it was that I felt so far away from Him - I reviewed my thoughts and actions again and searched for any place where I might have sinned and not confessed and repented...or a well of anger or bitterness - something that might be like a wall. But I could not think of something that seemed to be the answer.

And I started to wonder whether I might be imagining it - or whether I was being fooled into thinking that God was rejecting me for some wrong I had done.

But then I realized something significant I'd never realized before. I realized that Jesus is inside of us, if we have chosen to follow God in faith and to confess Jesus as Lord, and to admit that with our sin, we cannot pass God's judgment without Jesus' help. We are in Him, and He is in us. And I realized that God will not reject His own Son.

I thought again of John 4:18 - "There is no fear in love...because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

And I realized that even if I have sinned and my sin has come between me and God, He will not reject me. If I think He has rejected me then I'm on the wrong path.

So anytime we feel rejected by God, perhaps we need to think again - as to whether the feeling of rejectedness is from Him or from our own imaginations or assumptions. I think that God does not push us away; we push ourselves away. He is always inviting us...to come to Him and to find safety and repose.

"Come to Me, all who are weary or burdened...and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

Note that it may not be the sort of safety or repose we think we want, but it will be what we long for most deeply inside. When we come to God, He often asks us to do hard things...but they aren't to punish us - they are to bring us, ultimately, to what we long for most and what will ultimately fulfill us.

And if He did not need to turn His face away from our sin, then He would not be the God whom we can trust and wholly give ourselves to.

I think that God is answering my prayers for more unity in our church. It really is amazing. There was a situation that caused me a lot of pain but because of it I started to pray for unity - and today I have realized that God is answering this prayer. I think others must be praying about it too...I think I will pray that God will continue to plant this desire in our hearts - not just in a couple people's hearts, but in many. And perhaps in the end...even people who didn't get along will heal in their relationships.

I am feeling happy because for the first time in a long time I feel like I actually friends again. I don't mean I didn't have friends, but it means so much to have physically-present friends that you can actually hang out with and tease and understand...in Thai you say "kuy kan rue rueng" - like you understand each other when you talk.

It really helps me to come out of my shell when I have friends like that. For awhile I had gotten terribly introverted and reserved in the sense that I was kind of trapped inside myself and didn't know how to interact with the world.

I'm definitely still an introvert, but it helps me to come out more when I have friends I feel I can trust and who I feel understand me. It is a terrible feeling not to know where you stand with people and always feeling that they're on the verge of hating you if you do something wrong - which, I'm sure that wasn't the case but I always felt that way.

I guess today (or maybe in the past week or so) something changed. I guess it's the fruit of long months of labor of hanging out w/ people and trying to understand them - what makes them tick, what makes them laugh, what they like and don't like - and finally the fruit of it all is...well...connection. Healthy connection - not dependency.

Interesting.

loss

There are many ways to experience loss. Sometimes...something doesn't have to disappear for you to experience loss. Sometimes loss is just finding out it wasn't there in the first place, or that what was wasn't what you thought it was.

There is a Thai pop song called "The One Thing That's Left." In the MV, a girl falls down the stairs and hits her head and contracts amnesia (classic MV melodrama). Her boyfriend is left with grief and sorrow over all the things that he didn't say to her before that happened...all the appreciation he never showed, all the times he took her for granted or paid more attention to his work than her notes or the orange juice she made for him each day. The fact is, she can't remember how they used to love each other.

I think this is a great song. I love playing it on the piano. It's definitely a piano song.

Verse 1:
"In the past I never noticed
What I should have done and didn't
I didn't understand your heart

I never used to listen
I did everything to drive you far away from me
And I only understood once I lost you"

The chorus goes something like this (and he sings it so perfectly):

"The one thing that's left...is my empty life.
Where there once was us, two have disappeared
I ask you to listen...I realized too late
I want to tell you so you can hear
Even if it's too late
...I still love you"

Verse 2:
"The opportunities I messed up
Everything that you shed tears over
Today I can understand well.

If there was a way
To help you understand, even for a second
I would give up everything so that you wouldn't leave..."

I really like this song.

English can't capture all the nuances of meaning held in each Thai phrase. [sigh]

facebook quotes april 08

God exists. Will we acknowledge Him?

"Life...is existence." - Andy



"The things about people that drive us crazy are the things that are keeping them sane." - Eugene Kennedy

"We are none of us invincible. Humanity is a fragile race."

"The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?" Psalm 27:1



"The best way to make a person behave is to make them feel loved." - me

"Ask not how little but how much can love give." ~ Amy Carmichael

"Why did they nail His hands and feet? His love would have held Him there." ~ Michael Card

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." - Jesus (John 13:34-35)

"And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." - Colossians 3:14



"If at first you don't succeed, try starting at the end and work your way backwards."

"Don't think yourself into boxes...think yourself out of them."

"If you want to change your mind, you're going to need a brain transplant." - Isra

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." ~ Isaiah 55:8-9



"Friday wouldn't be Friday if we didn't have Mondays thru Thursdays..." - me :)

"I don't know whether to be Edgar Allan Poe or Pollyanna." ~ Bethany

a lot of things make me want to cry...

like hearing a song someone likes and hearing that person so vividly in the song...just their essence - who they are, what makes them tick, what moves them...

One-year blog anniversary :D

I just realized, as I looked over all the posts I've made so far, that I started this blog around my 22nd birthday last year. And I just turned 23 a couple weeks ago...therefore this blog is celebrating its first birthday! This being a cyber-birthday, I guess it would be proper to send it an e-card. ;)

reactions

disagreements are disquieting
conflict is taxing
stress is exhausting
initiating/people interaction wears me out
when people I care for disapprove of me it saps my energy
finding incongruencies between my perspective and reality freaks me out
happy moods happen every once in awhile and are extreme
when people are friendly to me or initiate I just light up inside and out

Thai pop music vs English pop music

So...I am a huge fan of Thai pop music. Thai people are connoisseurs of not just food but feeling. Thai is laden with brilliant adjectives that would each take a paragraph to explain in English. And there is a pop song for every romantic situation you can think of...and somehow, they never sound dorky - they actually make sense, because they explain how you feel in each situation. They sound horrible when I try to translate them - especially the majority of them. Somehow the Thai manages to be specific yet relate to the listener and not sound mundane.

English pop songs have a different quality to them. Somehow they all sound the same to me...but it is funny because my brother says after listening to Thai pop songs for awhile they all sound the same. Maybe it's just that he doesn't fully understand the language. But then, I understand English and after awhile they all sound the same to me. English is a great language...so easy to write - very simple alphabet - I'm a fan. But it is so logic-driven that when it comes to expressing love it is very limited. I had a conversation with a Thai friend once and she explained to me how many words there are for "love" in Thai. I really didn't realize that, even after living in Thailand for 13 years. :P But it makes sense, given that most every feeling in Thai is expressed via its effect on the heart. Happy = "heart good" and sad = "sad heart"...

Thai also has a lot of compound adjectives which are virtually inexpressible in English. I don't really get them that well actually. But they are usually both expressive and lyrical...just like Thai pop music.

I listen to lots of pop radio nowadays because it mainly helps me not to be left alone with my own thoughts so that I think too hard. Sometimes I do tire of the Thai stations nevertheless so I listen to Western stuff for variety...whatever music is on. I am enjoying this sort of modern jazz they turn on a lot on the Western stations. But anyhow, I heard this one line in an English pop song yesterday: "I really want to touch your hair/But every time I reach out/You don't seem to care" I thought this was lame expression and lame rhyme. Not that all English pop songs are like that but even the ones that sound good don't express that much...they're very generalized and not very specific - for example, "Right Here Waiting" by Richard Marx - I feel like some songs are trying to say things but what they're trying to say is beyond what English expresses...a lot of extrapolation is left to the listener. Which can be good too. I do have an English pop favorite - "When You Say Nothing At All" - I used to think it sounded really idiotic but nowadays I think it makes a lot of good sense. I forgot to say that mainly the English love songs don't do that well. The ones that express everyday situations are great - like "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter...

I know I'm doing a lot of generalizing and not giving very many examples. But I have been thinking about this for a long time and I tend to generalize in general but if I have been observing quantities of data for a long amount of time and still draw the same conclusion it's probably safe to say it's a plausible conclusion.

I thought I would give an example of an expressive Thai pop song - romantic - that I really like. This one is actually a little bit different from the others...it doesn't express a very specific situation but more talks about love itself. For all the feeling-drivenness of Thai, I thought this song did an excellent job of expressing both the logic of feeling and love. It happens to be translatable so it still makes sense and sounds nice...maybe because there is logic in it...

More Than Love (Mak kwa rak)

This person used to feel lonely
...Really forlorn
I searched for that love - where was it?
The world is just so big
And filled with people
But my heart got lonelier with every moment

Yet once I met you
I don't know what it is you give me
That same big world
Never makes me feel lonely
So long as I have you next to me

You are more than love
Because you're half my life
And I've spent my whole life looking for you
And I've waited for you for so long
And in the end I've found that you're everything
that completes my heart
From now on every breath I take is you

If you are love
Then it is a love that is wondrous beyond words
I'm so fortunate to have you next to me
Your life has filled what was lost in mine

I must say I am terribly lonely for human interaction lately...especially artsiness and mildly academic discourse.

so I really really feel like blogging lately.

I get in these random moods where it seems like I should post every thought that pops into my head. Of course most of them never make it to the blog because by the time I have access to Blogger I have forgotten about them or else they no longer seem as significant as they did initially.

For now I will share this link:
www.eightysevenfour.com:%3Fp=14