What hit me the most was when God said.. Haejung, Endure. Endure all the wordly surroundings of temptation. Do not get influenced by the worldly knowledge. Just come to me. Come to me. Then I will promise you that you will enter my Kingdom and spend eternity with me on my throne.

During the time of response, the preacher asked the youth students to raise your hand if you needed someone to pray over you. I told God that.. “I don’t have the courage to raise my hand because I am too scared. But I know I definitely need someone to pray for me RIGHT now because I really needed some prayers.. God will you urge someone to come over me even though I don’t raise my hand? I want someone to pray for me.. “

Amazingly, someone came She prayed over me and that moment I truely felt loved by God. God blessed me that day.

I have. I don’t know, to me, whenever I have an inner problem or confession of guilt, shame, hardship, or mistake, I always feel like I have to express my true inner feelings with someone that will be willing to understand and just simply listen. But.. even though I tell my closest friends… Sometimes I wish I could share it with someone who had experienced something similar because they would understand your pain even more.

Today, I got to share some of my inner pain and struggles with someone that I would have never expected to tell. Somehow, I really felt comforted because that person listened to my feelings and understood me more than anyone else would because he/she experienced something similar. It’s like, we can relate to each other through what we went through.

I come home from school everyday and I ask myself.. Haejung, what are you seriously going to be when you grow up? What are you going to do to fulfill God’s will and purpose?

I seriously don’t know. At times I do feel like I “know” God has great plans for me in the future, but there are times when I feel like I’m just an ordinary person who really can’t make any difference in my life and other’s life. I don’t know.

I’m searching for something more. More than just fame, academics, wealth, beauty…. But I don’t know what I’m searching for? I thought about becoming an engineer but how can I give God glory by becoming that?

I always wanted to become a nurse. I think one of the gifts that God has given me was loving on others and being sensitive and compassionate among other individuals. If I were a nurse or a doctor, I would LOVE to work with patients and not only that, I have somewhat patience? ……. I just love love love being surrounded by people and doing something good for others. But then again, I’m so fragile and weak physically and emotionally ):

Maybe I’m just currently at a confused state of mind because it’s late and I’m just feeling weary… but right now, I feel like my life is pointless and boring. I’m not excited for anything.. Not even this summer.. not even the church retreat/vbx… I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I’m just going to be completely honest in my blog. I’d say that my week was really really tough. I was all emotionally, physically, and spiritually everywhere. Many good things happened.. some bad things, but bad is not always bad.. it can be good.. so in conclusion good things happened? LOL. alright that doesn’t make sense but lets move on.

Okay so, this week, I put God aside and told Him I would handle all my situations alone and that He should leave it up to me. Of course I know that we, as Christians aren’t capable of overcoming our struggles w/o the strength of the Lord. But you know those days when you just feel so exhausted and worn out that you push God aside.. ? The time when you need Him the most and yet you just ignore Him?

During praise and worship today, I decided to take a step back and have my own space to worship God freely. So I decided not to lead today with Phillip. While I was standing there reading over the lyrics on the screen.. I wasn’t feeling it today. I was like.. Eh, I don’t know, just not today. Not feeling it. And I just stood there frozen.. emotionless.. but I remembered that God deserves all the honor and praise and even when I don’t feel like worshipping Him.. I should because HE IS GOD.  So, in the end, I opened up to a heart of worship. It was hard though because it isn’t something easy to do.

I talked to a great brother today and he told me that God would rather see us Christians giving Him all the praise and worship the days when we’re not “feeling” it rather than giving Him all the praise during good and happy times. I was really awed because it reminded me about how I felt today during worship.

If you have someone in your life that you deeply care about, you wouldn’t want to lose them right? And what happens when they don’t want to talk to you? You would want to chase after them and always accept them because you care about them. Well, I’ve been experiencing something similar to this quite awhile now.. and I just had an epiphany. If I’m that eager and desperate to maintain and keep that friendship/relationship going, and yet they ignore me, just how much would my God feel.. when I ignore Him.. When I only come to Him whenever I need help.. When I only talk to Him during my happy times.. When I only accept Him when times are good.. When I only allow Him when I feel like it..   and compared to my heart and His heart, my compassion and love is nothing compared to what God has for all of us =/

So what does God do when you put Him aside? He continually and patiently waits for you to come back step by step. Something I need is patience and compassion.. just like God [:

I was talking to a friend of mine, and I told him that… I’m really really thankful for my odpc youth group and that i’m amazed by how God can really do work in our lives. I also told him how I’m getting a little more sad now because to think about it.. I’m going to be a senior soon and I only have about a little more than a year till I go to college That is pretty SHORT. With all that short amount of time, what CHANGE can I make out of the yg? I don’t want to graduate and leave the youth group making no impact and change. I want to do something.. but how can I? with barriers like my dad, and with this short amount of period? That made me really think about the youth group right now and.. From now on, I want to enjoy every single moment of my time at church and be Faithful, Available, Teachable among the individuals.

Alright, I’m tired. I just want to end here. Btw, today was epic! Food fight during 2nd lunch today at Centreville High School & a lock down due to a suspected gun?.. which turned out to be stupid at the end. 3 Cops?.. with guns and dogs… nice nice.

‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.
Zechariah 4:6

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven   Mathew 5:3
The poor in spirit are those who recognize their messy spirituality and their inability to come to God aside from His divine grace. The proud, on the other hand, are so blinded by their pride that they think they don’t need God or .. that God should accept them for the way they are because they deserve His acceptance.

Pride is sinful because it gives credit to us for something that God has accomplished or made. It steals and takes away God’s glory. Anything and everything that happens in this world.. everything that we attain and accomplish would not have been possible without God who gives us the strength and the support. God deserves all the glory alone, yet we steal it from Him.

The reason why I got into this topic is because… well, I love to ponder and think. And this year, observing from my friend’s, family’s, teacher’s, neighbor’s actions, and my own actions…I realized pride plays a huge role in our world. And today, my tutor, who retired as a pastor, spoke to me today about being proud and prideful.. so I decided to write a short blog about it today

And, I’m not trying to say that you should stop being prideful and that I’m not prideful at all. Of course I am. Everyone is. We’re all flawed, but this is something we can fix.. or at least try to. If God really matters to you, then pride would matter too because God hates pride! Simple as that. Haha. It’s just something to know and think and learn. I hope this blog had somewhat of an impact on you.

By the way, I love acronyms
Q: So HOW do you lessen your pride? or avoid becoming prideful?

the answer is JOY.

Jesus. Others. Yourself.
Put Jesus and everyone else before you.
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Pride is “the barrier to really knowing God“
The first sin was choosing of self interest rather than God.

Adam and Eve put themselves above God. That is the origin barrier. What is it that we need to do? Jesus said, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself.

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Mathew 16:24

God opposes the pride and gives grace to the humble
James 4:6

For the past couple of weeks, I definitely knew I was going down a sudden spiritual downfall. I asked myself, why? What are the factors? Why am I letting the devil wound me? What is making me so worldy and evil? I became upset, frantic, furious, and angered at myself. It is funny how your mind and perspective on things can completely differ or change when you put God aside. Once that happens, everything starts to revolve around you and yourself, you start becoming selfish and greedy, you only think about the best for yourself, and you start to worry and care about things that are not important.

So why did I go down on a spiritual downfall? I’ve been asking myself that for the past 3 weeks. I knew I limited God and He was upset with me, but I didn’t care to do anything about it. I just let it be.Everything, my focus, my mind, went on me. I became selfish, greedy, impatient, and fast to anger. On Friday, I came home and I knew I had to have a conversation with God. But how? I don’t want to pray. I didn’t feel like praying. Getting in all that praying atmosphere was just so annoying. Luckily, I remembered something that one of my good friend had told me recently. Talk to God, don’t pray. Sometimes, we really need to stop praying and instead, TALK with God. I went in my living room and I talked with God that day. I demanded God to reveal what my problem was. I urged Him to show me why I changed. Today, I realized that success has become my idol.

For a while, my desire, focus, and attention went on my school work. All the loads of work and cramming really destroyed me. Not only that, with the SAT’s, AP exams, and subject tests, I’ve been feeling stressed and worried that if I don’t do well, I will become a failure and be judged by others. I messed up so much this year. I lacked motivation. My grades aren’t as great as the past two years. I felt like I literally FAILED this year. I’ve been trying to do things with my own ability, limiting God from my doings. I realized that I need God in everything I do. I realized that I am trash w/o God. I realized nothing is possible w/o the strength like no other. In everything I do, God should be the main center and focus of my life… and I haven’t been doing that. =/ God broke me.

Today, Pastor Matt gave a sermon on Success. Long sermon short, one of the 3 potential signs that success might be an idol for you is

1. You can’t celebrate other people’s success.

2. You always compare yourselves with others.

3. You are never satisfied.

Sometimes, I just think I’m the biggest failure. When I am not able to accomplish something, I feel like crap. I feel like giving up. I feel like I’m not good at anything. For others, it’s not much of a big issue and I understand that. Everyone has their own sensitivity on a certain specific thing. When I don’t get what I want, I start hearing “voices” in my head calling me a failure. However, the sermon spoke to me and God reminded me that you don’t have to get 2400 on SATs.. You don’t need straight A’s.. You don’t have to have all these abilities in order to become successful in life. You are already a success in God’s eyes. What is better? God, the Lord Almighty’s opinion, or the world’s opinion?

As long as you do your best, then God will do the rest. He doesn’t care how far you went with your achievements. He looks at your heart and soul. We are nothing without God.

Overall, God is the center of the universe. The center of ALL things.

Last night, I felt like I had junioritis or something. I seriously did NOT want to touch or open my bagpack at all….
In fact, I actually opened it at 12am to see what homework I had. This ain’t good. Sigh- btw, I finished my hw at school. ahah. (cough Jeremy.)

so TODAY, I seriously shouldn’t have came to school. It was SO POINTLESS.

2nd period- only 10-15 band students came to class. (The rest were all at busch gardens) I was in a group of asian circle just talking about the most typical things like.. college. gpa. sat scores. majors. future. life. wife. money. Jeebus, asians gotta chill man. LOL

4th period- computer graphic art class…… I spent 1 hour and a half drawing an eggplant on illustrator. Sweet stuff! LOL

and then precalc hn.. boring.. learning derivatives. MAD easy.

Spanish 4 ->7th period. Deep sleep for 40 minutes.

MALL AFTER w/ dawn danny ryan and gloria [:

we just ate at coldstone and chilled. and def make fun of ryan.

Guys are wimps. What's wrong with victoria secret?

Sleep the rest of the day for 4 hours

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I want a new hairstyle for senior year. What should I do? any suggestions?

I really love janice and sonia's hair. what about that? or just grow it long and straight?

& I must admit, not one of the greatest memorable year.
My days would be rough, stressful, anxious, bitter, hurt, tired, wary, physically worn out, nerve racking, emotionally unstable..

but no matter how difficult life gets,

at the end of the day, I know that my God still loves me.

Last Sunday, I sticked around after church to chill and I got to see Pastor Sam for a bit He asked few people to babysit about 6 kids? and play with them in the playground so I helped out and played with the kids. They are SO SO SO EXTREMELY adorable. I was just so admired by their cuteness and I really enjoyed playing with them. I felt like a little kid who enjoyed playing in the monkey bars, swings, and slides for once in a long time. I just LOVE kids. I have so much love and passion for them and I’d seriously even wipe their ddongumong if they had to poop. Haha, Jun was with me when we were babysitting and he said he saw the “mother” side of me. I guess that’s a compliment? (; I hope I’ll be a great mom in the future. Anyways, when I got to see Pastor Sam, he seemed really happy to see me ( i mean he’s happy to see everyone) but I felt really hehe touched? but yeah so after babysitting and talking to Pastor Sam for a bit, that one sermon he spoke during youth group service was when he said,  “Salvation is not a ticket to heaven” spoke out to me suddenly out of no where.

Remember when he said, its most likely no one will remember every message he speaks during sermons. Well this one I remember. Maybe God was trying to remind me? Haha, who knows.

Salvation is NOT a ticket to heaven. It does not guarantee you will enter the Kingdom of God. What is the purpose of Salvation when you don’t genuinely love Christ? After many people experience Salvation and accepting Christ.. is that it? Is that the end? Are we free to do whatever we want? Why are there no change in people’s lives? It sounds so harsh and scary, but to be honest, it’s the truth. And I don’t have anything else to say to that.

And, “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”
1 Peter 4:18