Bummer

Well, yesterday was a bummer.

Due to personal reasons, my vacation to Italy is being called off.  :(

BUT!  Somehow, an overwhelming peace has washed over me about the whole thing.  It's awesome how that happens.

Unfortunately, the airline hit me with a pretty hefty fee, so I'm not going to be able to go abroad for this vacation, but I've been incredibly tired.  It will probably be good for me to relax at home and get some sleep.  I'm going to see if I can get some work *edit: at my old Saturday School* to make up for that fee as well, so it'll all end up okay.  Plus, I haven't explored too much of Korea, so I might go do that; we'll see how I feel.  :)

In the words of Homer:

"Endure my heart, for you have endured worse than this." (The Odyssey, book XX)

It's true.

I found myself wanting to write about how yesterday was "the worst day ever," but it wasn't.  Those of you who know me can wager a guess as to what my worst day was.  I don't really care to detail it again, so if you don't know, just think about your own.  In a way, it's a blessing that I have had such a horrible experience in my life.  Every time something happens that I don't like, I can always think of Homer's quote and that day, and I have something against which to gauge myself: Have I endured worse than this?  Did I survive?  Did it help me in some way?  I have yet to not be able to answer "yes" to those questions.

There's that silver lining, my friends.  I knew there had to be one somewhere...

Lots of love to you.  I'll try to post about my staycation when (if) I do something interesting. :)

The Demon-Possessed Man: Part 8 - Leave

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So he got into the boat and left. - Luke 8:37b

We've all been taught that Jesus stands knocking on the door to your heart, waiting for you to let Him in.  We've grown up staring at the picture in rooms where elderly people gather (I don't know why only older people hang this picture up, but it must be a rule somewhere).  I could write about how I'm not sure that's quite how it works, but that's another post for another day.  My point today is that we were given freewill.  We are free to follow after Christ, and we are free to send Him packing.  The beauty of this, though, is that we now have the ability to legitimately love.  Love is a choice that one must make, so if we did not have the choice to not love, we would also not have the choice to love.  It's a little bit of a mind twister, but I promise it makes sense if you let it sit for a moment.

None of this is to say that Christ ever stops loving us.  I don't believe that He does.  But it's just like any other relationship.  A man may love a woman, but that doesn't mean the woman will return his love.  She may actually hate him.  No matter how many things he does for her, no matter how many times he professes his love, she only pushes him further away and tells him to leave her alone.  Eventually, someone will take that poor man aside and say to him, "If you truly love her, let her go."  Jesus loves us more than any man can love any woman, and He chooses to leave when we ask Him to, because He wants us to experience the fulfillment of loving Him freely and wholly.  

Some of you have been reading my blog since it was a Xanga (whoa.) or it was a LiveJournal (Can you believe those websites still exist?) or it was in the notes section of Facebook.  (The only one of those that still exists is on my Facebook.  I was going to try and link you to the old ones, but they've been "purged".)  If you're one of those people, it may surprise you to hear me take this view, since I vehemently espoused in the past the Christ will never leave us.  I still believe this.  I truly do.  Let me take an excerpt from the Facebook rendition of the blog to help me explain.

We talk about how we "walk away from G-d" or how we need to "return to G-d."  But I don't like it.  G-d promises that he will never leave us.

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of [your enemies], for the L-RD your G-d goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”  -Deuteronomy 31:6

"G-d has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'"  Hebrews 13:5

This is not just semantics.  The Bible is not saying, "G-d will not leave you, but you can leave G-d if you want."  The Bible is saying "G-d will not ever leave you."  So what of our times of sin?  What of the times that we fall short of the glory of G-d?  I answer this question with the parable of the ant.

I have always been fascinated by ants.  They're really cool.  They don't seem as dirty as other bugs.  They're so strong but so fragile.  They are incredibly organized and seem to appear out of no where.  They climb up the steepest angles and make it seem like no problem.  They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors... some breeds also have incredible super powers.  I could sit and look at them all day - perhaps that's why I've been attacked by them so many times.  Regardless of the reason why, however, I can now add to the list one more fact about ants:  I am also allergic to them.  Yes, one bite from any kind of ant - red, black, brown, big, little, it does not matter - and my body is red, puffy, and annoyingly itchy.

Think of G-d in terms of the person watching the ants, and us, in turn, as the ants themselves.  We run around and fascinate Him.  He could sit and watch us all day.  In fact, He does.  Sometimes we run away from Him as fast and as far as we possibly can.  When we realize what we've done, we say, "I've come so far!  Look at me, I'm a thousand ants away from G-d!  How could He possibly be with me now?  How could I possibly get back to him now?"  But think about this.  If you stay still, and an ant runs away from you a thousand times its length, you can still reach it.  The same is true with G-d.  No matter how far from G-d we run, we are always within his reach.  This is the joy of having a G-d who is so much bigger than us.  He truly never does leave us, even if we attempt to leave Him.

 

But that's not the end of the parable.  See, I didn't talk about my allergy for no reason.  Just as I am fascinated by the ants, G-d is fascinated by us.  Just as the ants get scared and bite me (and in turn, attempt to kill me), so do we turn and bite G-d, and we succeeded in killing Him.  Every sin is another bite, another strike to the nail.
I went to visit Kyle [Funke's grave] while I was in Raleigh recently.  There were ant hills all around his grave, and I saw them.  While I was talking to him, I allowed some of the ants to climb on my arm.  I like them a lot, so I didn't think much of them.  It wasn't until after they got scared and started biting me that I realized the sound of my voice, though I was talking softly and tenderly in the moment, was probably too much for them and their tiny ant senses.  So I returned them to the grass.  I watched my arm start to swell, and thought, "It wasn't their fault, really - they didn't realize what they were doing."  So I didn't hold it against them the next time I ran into some ants.  I still sat there and watched them go about their lives.  I know the same is true for G-d, because He said so.  As He watched his arms and legs swell around the nails that had been driven through them, He called out:

 "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."  -Luke 23:34

 Don't think that the situation is any different for you.  There is no grudge that is held.  The fascination has not been tapered.  G-d absolutely adores you, and chooses to be with you, knowing that you may very well bite Him.  He has already forgiven you, so forgive yourself and move on.

He leaves, but He doesn't leave.  He is G-d, after all.  We are always within His reach.  I know it sounds like I'm contradicting myself, but I'm not.  I'm going to show you how this all fits together, but you're going to have to give me just one more blog post to do it, because this is getting entirely too long.  I will wrap it up in the next one and tie it with a nice, pretty bow.

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All Saints Day

Today is the day that we celebrate the saints that have passed into the arms of G-d, who are no longer on this earth to bless us with their physical actions and presences, but who continue to bless us with their memories and our continued actions because of them.

I'd like to take advantage of this post to remember the saints from my life who have passed on.

George Royster, my father's father.  Even in the hospital, he would have my father read him his Sunday School lesson.  In life, I worried about his faith in G-d, because it didn't look like mine or what I was raised to think faith should look like - "Big Church" is more important that Sunday School, play Christian music all the time, try to bring conversations back to G-d, etc... Now that I'm older and have experienced more of the world, I just realize that my grandfather was a man of few words (his experiences in World War II left him feeling like a lot of things were better left unsaid), but his actions spoke very loud.  My grandfather loved Jesus, his family, and baseball, and I know this, not because he spent all him time talking about them, but because he spent all his time with them.

Kyle Funke, possibly the hardest one for me to write about.  Kyle attended college with me and was a light on our campus.  He had struggled with cancer for ten years, and, thus, knew how to take advantage of life.  He studied hard, but, when a life opportunity presented itself, he lived it, regardless of what class it might occur during.  He lived HARD and FULL, and is often my inspiration when I do things that scare me.  He's taught me to grip the bull by the horns and dive headfirst into everything life has to offer, keeping Christ at the center of it all.  It's painful to know that G-d took him back when he was so young, but I know that there's nowhere else Kyle would rather be.

Norman Schanck, my mother's father.  It takes little introspection for me to know what my pop-pop meant to my walk with G-d.  He was my rock of faith.  Whether that came from his being a pastor, his faith itself, or some of both, I'm not sure, but, nonetheless, I felt secure in my faith, knowing he was secure in his.  To be honest, I couldn't tell you his beliefs on a lot of the debated dogma, but I do know that Jesus loves me truly, deeply, and unfathomably, and I know it because my pop-pop taught it to me.  Even as he left this world, he was teaching it to me.  That is a lesson I cling to, and always will.

Feel free to share with me about your saints.  I'd love to hear all about them and what they taught you.

Who is this man?

This morning's passage in church came from Luke 8.  We actually had a service based around the Parable of the Sower this morning, and it was too good to not share some quotes with you, so here's your dose of Pastor Yoon for today:

"If you're busy and are going through a hard time, you need to pray more... This is how we come out of the thorns... We all have a lot of drama in our lives these days. This kind of drama will become poison." 

‎"We need to wash away the poison in our bodies and in our souls. If we do not, they will become bad things in us... Prayer is the only way to soothe our trauma and poison." 

‎"Satan does not like for believers to pray. The most strong [demon] is the one who stands [outside] the prayer room."

It was like John Wesley came to him in a dream and said, "Pastor Yoon, I want you to talk to the people."  It was definitely hard-hitting, and something I need to do more.


BUT, that's not all.  You see, I decided I wanted to read on past verse 8, and I eventually came to the passage where Jesus meets Legion.  I was astounded by two old truths, that I've known, but it was as if I was reading them for the first time today.

Luke 8:30-37 NIV

The first this that I immediately thought was that Hell must be a horrible place, if even the demons don't want to be there.  I think it's easy for us to downplay Hell.  A lot of us have it rough on Earth, and we think, "It can't get worse than this."  I mean, I have a measuring rod.  I assess each bad situation this way: "Is this worse than that one time?  No.  Then this isn't so bad."  In my head, there is nothing worse than that semester a couple years back when we lost Kyle.  But there were demons there -willingly there.  According to this passage, therefore, Hell must be worse than that, unfathomable as it may be.

The second thought that ran through my head is as follows, verbatim: Who is this man that he even has mercy on demons?  Honestly, what is this?  Moreover, what does this say about us and our actions?  We, who can't even find it in ourselves to be nice on a bad day to the people we love most, are supposed to be modeling ourselves after a man who shows mercy on demons.

Oh G-d, "You are so high among the highest, and I am low among the lowest, a mean thing.  You never go away from us.  Yet we have difficulty in returning to You." (Augustine)

He who has ear, let him hear.

The gift of hearing

Not everyone can hear.  It's something we take for granted, but we shouldn't.

For a while, my mom thought she had lost hearing in one of her ears.  There were all sorts of tests done, an interesting edge of tension around the house... but the doctors found nothing wrong; her hearing was pretty much perfect.  In the end, it turned out to be a slight delay in the processing of the input from that ear.  She would see our mouths moving, but not be able to understand what we were saying, because she would get a garbled message until 30 seconds later or so when it processed.  That seems so awful to me.  It was frustrating enough being on the outside of it, but being on the inside seems even worse.  (Personally, I think she has a brand of Sensory Integration Dysfunction, but I'm no doctor.)

I say all this, because the thought of hearing has come up a lot in my life this week.

First, someone posted a recording of the voicemail message of a girl I knew in high school who died in 2009.  It was unreal hearing her voice again, and made me desperate to hear Kyle's.  Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, no similar such recording exists for him.  Then, today, I listened to a sermon of Nate Kerr's from later that year.  Hearing Nate's voice again made me realize just how much I miss him and his classes.  Granted, that's also something that's been slowly building this week, but now it's painful.

In a way, I found Nate's classes to be my small group in college, especially the ones that I had a free hour after.  There were those of us who would hang around and discuss religion, philosophy, life, etc., and he would guide us and speak truth into our lives.  It was those classes that made me feel okay working the nursery on Saturdays at Yeshuat Yisrael.  I fully considered him a pastor of mine, and had him fill out several letters of recommendation as such.  Now, I'm finding it harder to be fed, and there are no Nate Kerr classes to make up for it.  My heart aches.

And yet, I can still hear his voice.  I can still hear MK's voice.  It's amazing what technology does for us.

Don't wait until people are gone from your life; soak them up as much as you can while you have them.


Yes, I fully realize that I'm not posting a photo.  I have the perfect photo to put up, but I forgot to take it today.  It will be here tomorrow.

Lent: 1,300-1,400g

***Don't forget to sign the petition (and this one too!) to save refugees from North Korea!***

Blessing #26 - Memories

Isn't it funny how our minds retain things?  We don't realize certain things are important when they're happening, but somehow our brains do, and they capture them.

Like the first time I saw Kyle.  (It's his birthday, by the way.)

The first time I saw him was in The Hub.  He didn't see me.  No, he was surrounded by his friends, saying his goodbyes.  He had clearly just had brain surgery.  I had known something major was going on, because his friends had asked me to pray.  I just didn't have any idea how major it was at the time, so I just leaned against a wall and watched him.  I watched him smile and laugh.  I watched that scar bob back and forth as he'd throw his head back in a laugh or shake around as he vehemently disagreed with someone.  The whole time, I managed to avoid putting it together; I stayed on the idea that he had had brain surgery and never moved to the obvious WHY.

Brain cancer was, of course, the reason.

But he is better now, as I've told you before.  He is at Home.

But I'm grateful for the memories that my brain managed to etch into itself, even when I didn't realize they needed to be memories.  G-d is so amazing how he made our brains to do so many things independently of our cognizant control.

What is it that you remember, but didn't realize you would want to at the time?

Lent: Mysterious

***Don't forget to sign the petition (and this one too!) to save refugees from North Korea!***

Blessings #12 & 13 - Kyle Funke and G-d, especially when they're collaborating

Monday night was rough.  I stayed up too late.  I ate too little.  I watched one movie too many.  The movie was called Keith.  It's one of those movies that turns up on Netflix with no listed rating, but the review seems promising, so, even though you're expecting to be disappointed, you watch it anyway.

I was not disappointed.  

The movie was really good, and I would recommend it, although I'd place it in the "A Walk to Remember" category.  Which, of course, got me thinking about Kyle, not that it takes much to do that these days.  One day, I will write his/my story on here, but that day is not today.  I promise it will come, though.  Until then, I'll let you make your assumptions.  They're probably pretty decent.

Last night, after finishing that story, my exhausted, hypoglycemic self broke down, and the tears poured again, as unquenchable as they were a month after Kyle passed.  But, for the first time, I didn't want to cry alone, and so I picked up the phone.  My friend heard me out, and got me laughing/calmed down, encouraged me to write to some of Kyle's friends and/or family and call some of my close friends.  He said that he would be glad to talk to me, but these people knew the circumstances better and would be able to better direct me to things I needed to hear.  I don't think he meant for me to do those things right then, but I did.

I got the lovely Alex on Skype, and we talked, and shopped, and laughed.  I explained the movie, but I didn't need to explain what was on my mind.  That's the thing about good friends - they don't need explanations.  When all was said and done, Alex said to me, "You know, that reminds me of what Tyson [the name is changed, so you know] is going through right now."  Alex knew that that wasn't what I wanted to hear.  I wanted to focus on me and my pain.  But Alex also knows that I can't when there's someone in pain around me.  She told me about Tyson's very own "P.S. I Love You" situation that had abruptly shown up in his life (and, as much as I'd like to give you more details than that, I need to respect Tyson's privacy on this one), but how he was still acting like his normal, cheery self.  She said that there was something about his eyes, though...

I know how the eyes can be the only telling feature.  Not that that was how it played out for me in the immediacy of Kyle's passing, but I ended up there a few days later.

So I wrote to Tyson, and I told him that I was available to listen, as I had a similar situation on my hands, only a bit further in than him.  He wrote back within hours, pouring out the extent of the situation.  You would cry if you read it.  It's painful.  It chips at your heart, but it almost seemed to be helping to heal mine.  Perhaps it was chipping away at the tumor of grief that had nestled itself into my heart.  But, now, I feel like all this hurt, all these sleepless nights are good for something.  And I feel like I have someone who understands my exact position, too.

I have community.

I'd like to say that I wish I didn't need that community, but I can't.  I know Kyle would do it all over again, based on the number of people he has brought Christ, simply through his death and unflinching faith in the face of it.  I can't wish for something that would be directly against his wishes, but I do look forward to the day that I see him again.

With whom does G-d collaborate in your life?

10 Reasons to Smile

I spent today in bed.  Literally.  And I'm not ashamed, because I'm working my butt off, and sometimes people just need a day in bed.  I woke up for my newly-instated, monthly Skype call with my cousin Becky, and we talked for two hours.  We've almost always had a rather communicative relationship, whether being pen pals as children, Facebook chatting, or Skyping, we've always managed to keep in touch.  I'm grateful for that.  But that's not the point of this particular post.

The point is, rather that, in my laying around after my Skype chat, I found this wonderful video.  Now don't be fooled; it's not depressing, even though there's a stretch when you think it's going to be.  Just watch it, okay?:

You can't watch that and tell me it's depressing, because, clearly, this kid is now loving life.

SO, because I'm thrilled by this kid, and I too strive to be loving life, I'm going to take his challenge, and I hope you will too.  That beings said, here are The Ten Things That Made Me Smile Today:

10. The excellent heated floor that I am seated on right now.  Korea has some pretty sweet things that come standard with even the smallest of apartments.

9. The fact that Kyle Funke once lived, laughed, and loved on this earth.

8. The pink sky outside my window, presumably brought on by the lunar eclipse that is taking place behind the clouds right now.

This photo really doesn't do it justice.

7. Switchfoot's 2009 album, Hello Hurricane, and my friend Kyle (former guitarist for Della Rosa), who recently went to (and posted a video of) the Switchfoot concert in Nashville, reminding me that I really do love that band.

6. Seeing cut up red bell-peppers on the food line at the English-speakers' Christmas party I went to tonight.  I love red bell-peppers.  Plus, there were tomatoes sitting right next to them.  Yum!

5. Kris, and his perfectly attuned sense of humor (not to mention his good nature).  He keeps me in stitches. 

This is not my photo, but mine was truly horrible, so I didn't want to post it.  For dirty Santa, Kris picked his gift, opening it to find three large bars of almond-filled chocolate.  Kris is, however, deathly allergic to nuts.  This in and of itself is no reason to smile, but his slow, tantalizing description of the chocolate, ending in a loud, "...AND IT WILL KILL ME." was funny enough to put a smile back on my face as I think about it.

4. The English-speakers' Christmas party in general.  There was so much good American Christmasy food, and the dirty Santa gift exchange kept us constantly laughing.  I don't think I've laughed that much since coming to Korea.

3.  Getting to spend time with the guys as an honorary guy after the Christmas party tonight.  In general, I have always preferred spending time with guys rather than girls, because I feel that I don't have to carefully scan everything I say around them, for fear that it will be thrown back in my face while talking to them later.  I feel free to relax and just be myself around "the guys," and this group of guys in particular.  We spent the evening talking about the stupid things we've done in life, laughing and laughing, until Logan got called away to go partake in the Christmas movie he had suggested watching.  Spending time with them definitely put me in a happy place.

2. The opportunity to talk to not one, but TWO of my wonderful cousins.  Yes, I got to speak to Becky for two hours, covering every topic under the sun.  It was so nice to catch up.  I also got to talk to Dave (the one who just got married).  One of the things that has been weirding me out the most about him being married is the fear that we wouldn't be able to relate any more.  But, our conversation didn't seem that different from usual.  Neither of us had very much to say this time around, but he's a guy, so I don't take that as unusual.  :)

AND:

1. The beautiful, contagious smile of Kieran Miles (the young man in the video).  I love it so much, and it had an instantaneous affect on my whole demeanor and, ultimately, my day.  I am happier because I know that it (and its owner) exist.  I'm glad he chose to speak out.  I don't know what impact he will make on the world, but I know that he has already made an impact on my life.

So, how about it?  What 10 things made you smile today?

<3