BE STILL

Lately, God's been revealing to me a lot about the disgusting pride that I have ingrained in myself. PRIDE. I absolutely HATE it. And I have been realizing and am still realizing now more than ever that I have A LOT OF IT in me. A lot of my pride is subtle, like in many situations I didn't even think or realize that it was my pride that I'm wrestling with. Pride can come in many forms and manifests itself in different ways. Often times when I sin, I feel really bad and guilty and contrite afterwards. But many times I feel bad not so much because I broke God's heart and hurt Him but because I failed, I messed up, I scr*wed up. I feel bad because my pride was hurt. And I believe this is not what I should be feeling about sin. The focus needs to go back to God, not me.

Mmmmm these past two weeks since coming back "home" to America (home? what IS home? home = Heaven, right?) have been pretty crazy rough busy overwhelming in the sense that God's been working so mightily (He's ALWAYS at work) and teaching and revealing so much to me. I'm still processing all the things that happened and lessons learned during and post-VSET, which has been quite overwhelming because God has just been teaching and revealing A TON OF STUFF to me, especially through conversations with the leaders in ICA (Danny Akemi Vieng Sally). Kinda heavy on my soul. In addition to emotional/spiritual heaviness, I still have a million things that I need/wanna do like: continuing to email my students in Kyrgyzstan every day, reading up on VSET updates and updates from longtermers overseas, going to school every day and doing reading and homework (especially Russian homework), calling up and writing letters and updates to my supporters to thank them and fill them in, catching up with many many friends, TAWG and processing things from VSET, running and exercising, napping and resting, scrapbooking, unpacking and cleaning my room, applying to nursing school, cooking for my parents and serving them now that I live at home, reading the Bible more as well as good Christian books, finding a part time job because I need money to pay rent and also because I spend at least $50 a week on transportation/commute alone...

Meanwhile these thoughts are swarming at a rate of 3544563mph through my mind, I feel that time is zipping by so fast. 　I've barely had time to do half of the aforementioned list, let alone catch up on sleep during nighttime! Today during church service at Living Hope Evangelical Church, our co-pastor Danny gave this really awesome message on BEING STILL. Generally the verse that comes to mind about being still is Psalm 46:10:

"Be still and know that I am God."

But the other one that Danny focused on today was taken from Exodus 14:14, which says:

"The LORD will fight for you; YOU NEED ONLY TO BE STILL."

I was really spoken to through the message today. I think I really needed to hear that, to be reminded that despite all these things happening around me and inside of me, I need to just BE STILL in the presence of my God, knowing that He is near, that He will provide a solution for whatever difficulty or discouragement I am going through (just like He did for Moses and the Israelites at the Red Sea), and that He wants me to continue to trust Him as I go forward into the unknown (God commanded Moses to go forward and cross, not stop at the entrance of the Red Sea). And in the end, it's God's Love that has the last word. God wants me to know that HE LOVES ME.

Prayer Requests:
-that I BE STILL in the presence of GOD
-that I may obey God, even in the littlest ways
-for God's peace in my heart and soul
-for the faith to trust God with this upcoming year (being a recent college grad, jobless, somewhat directionless)
-that I may focus on BEING rather than DOING for God right now
-that this painful red swollen sty-thingy on my upper-left eyelid won't cause blindness or anything damaging/threatening to my eye and that the pain would subdue soon

Song of the Day (Week): Somewhere in the Middle - Casting Crowns

I left my heart in Kyrgyzstan and China.

Maybe I'll regret saying this later but as of now, it pretty much SUCKS being back in America.

Right now I'm at home in San Francisco, California. Us V-SETters landed in LAX on Friday, August 13 afternoon. I stayed in Socal a day and a half and arrived up here in Norcal SF on Sunday evening after a long 7-hour bus ride. The following day (Monday) was the first day of school at City College of San Francisco, which was pretty sucky as well because I was not only late to my first class but didn't get into the class I'm trying to add (physiology). It's also been pretty tough because I'm still pretty jetlagged. Must be the time zone difference because I'm so sleepy at random parts of the day and by the time nighttime comes, I'm already pretty pooped out. Plus I have to wake up early in the mornings to take the bus to school and I REALLLLLY don't wanna rise up in the mornings.

V-SET was surely a life-changing experience. God used this summer to grow me in many ways and blessed me soooooo much through V-SET because He LOVES me. At the same time, God taught me soooooo many lessons (many of which I am still in the process of learning) and also revealed many sins in my heart - one being how selfish and conditional my love is. There is really no comparison between my love and GOD'S LOVE - His amazing, unconditional, unfailing, great great LOVE which is better than life! And I realized more than ever that MY RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD IS THE BESTEST, BEAUTIFULEST, MOST IMPORTANT THING. I'm still in the process of processing and reflecting on everything that happened on V-SET this summer... it's sorta overwhelming because there's so much to take in and yet there's so much happening around me already.

So the plan for me this upcoming year is (was?) to finish taking pre-requisites at CCSF so that I can apply to nursing school this fall, live at home with my parents, look for a part-time job, and perhaps continue serving in ICA Berkeley ministry. But yeah, now everything is pretty much up in the air, especially after my experiences on V-SET this summer. I feel that God has definitely planted a seed in my heart for missions and the lost. I don't even know where my heart is right now in terms of if I really want to do nursing school anymore, or at least as of right now. I mean, if I hear God's audible voice telling me to drop everything and give up nursing school and all my ambitions to go long-term overseas to serve Him, I would do that in a heartbeat. Or the converse. If He tells me to continue to pursue my education/career in America as a nurse and serve Him that way, I'd do it in an instant (I have a feeling this is what my parents are leaning towards). But that's not the case because I don't hear Him telling me to do either of those exactly. Actually I don't really hear Him telling me to do anything specific as of right now. Sigh. I feel sorta blahhhhh. I don't know, maybe this is what they call post-VSET syndrome or something. All I know is that I miss V-SET a lot already and often think of my students, my team, V-SET in general, Kyrgyzstan, China, and all that God's taught me this summer. And I would much much rather be back in Bishkek or Talas teaching English or EVing in Beijing than be here in the States... but maybe this is exactly where God is calling me to be right now.

So yeah... sorry to end on a gloomy note. But in any case, I will definitely be YARPIN' HARDDD (yarping = praying backwards... kinda got used to using camouflaged Christian lingo on V-SET) and it would be super appreciated if you could also be praying for me as well. Thanks! Oh, Sweet Jesus. I'm just so thankful for my Savior, Redeemer, Best Friend, Comforter, source of Undying Love, Hope, and Eternal Life.

By the way if you're reading this, I probably did/do miss you and want to catchup with you. Thank you for all your support and prayers this summer!