Soobakhead Speaks…

So I did some chapters of Purpose Driven Life dealing with serving God. I gotta say that PDL has a lot of good stuff!

“Local churches are dying because of Christians who are unwilling to serve. They sit on the sidelines as spectators, and the Body suffers.”

Body, as in we all make up the Body of Christ, with a finger or toe not working it isn’t really functioning as God would want it I think. I have to say that I feel lucky that I’m serving now, I think God’s used my family and friends to really root the importance of it in my life.

I first started serving when I went to China for missions I think. It’s funny how it was kind of an “impulse” that I went to China. It wasn’t a too much thought out decision. I mostly went to China because my gomo was like “you going?” me – “ok” seriously not a second passed before I said yes. Same as my baptism (during communion one sunday I didn’t get up, because in baptist churches you can’t take communion if you weren’t baptized. So I just sat while the Pastor said those who are taking commuion stand up. My gomo was next to me and asked “why aren’t you taking it?” me – “not baptized” hahaha so then she said “ok you’re getting baptized next month” – twas december 2007 I got baptized. It’s funny a few days before (can’t recollect exact date -yep that’s why write everything down!) I was talking to Paul about God stuff. I just had a really scary nightmare and I think it was like demon related stuff and I was talking to Paul. He kinda mentioned how because I wasn’t baptized it might be. I knew that I believed in God and all that, but at the time I was so ashamed that I never read the bible and all that, so I think that stopped me from getting baptized. I was also scared of talking to another person about what I believed in – thought I would look dumb or give the wrong answers. So after that talk I really really wanted to get baptized. and i did!

Anyways, I went to China months later. As I said my response was quick, but at one point in during training time I had concerns of whether I should be going. “After having these meetings I really doubted myself. I thought, I don’t know how to do qts or pray and I definitely can’t talk to random people about God. So I asked my cousin, I can’t really do this, I don’t really fit the requirements… But she told me “just rely on him, you don’t need to do anything. God will do everything for you.” So whenever I had these thoughts, I’d just say in my mind, Just rely on him.” – this is from my testimony in 2008.

Haha so these are some people that really shaped my ideas of serving. Paul taught me not to be afraid, if I look at him and see himself serving also it gives me joy! My brother shaped me in a big way too. I think one of the big reasons that I could go to China was him too. I always thought I was almost exactly like my brother in personality and attitude – but I was a little bit friendlier  When I saw how my brother’s life had changed soooo much after becoming a Christian I thought HEY I can change too! My brother went to china I think 5 times, it must’ve stuck in my brain that China must be a cool place  Jeemin unnie did so much, I always remembered how she ALWAYS boasted about missions to me and people around me. She was soooo passionate and kinda said this to everyone ” go to missions!” hahaha not forcefully but you could tell how much she loved it. Back then whenever she talked about it i always thought —-ehhhhh not for me! i’ll never go on missions~~ hahaha. never say never really!

Ah I can’t keep on topic hahaha. Lots to say? Serving probably wouldn’t have been an easy choice if I didn’t have these special people that are close to me around me! Like my friends, aunt/uncle, cousin, brother, boyfriend, pastors, people in church…so many good examples to follow! I’m a very example relying person seriously~~

The way I started teaching 10th/11th grade Bible study with Yoona is interesting. Pastor Duncan first asked me if I wanted to teach with Yoona since we were good with the youth and they looked like they liked us. Haha, I told him maybe and that I’ll talk to Yoona about it. Haha when he asked me I was excited at the time. I told Yoona and she wasn’t so excited, so I tried convincing her (this all happened one sunday) I think I told her about how this one lady I know from Paul’s church comforted me kinda about teaching. She told me how she’s been teaching for soooo many years and how it never got “comfortable”. There’s always that uncomfortable-ness to keep her to do better/good. Makes sense!

So later in service I think Yoona started to get warmed up to the idea, BUT then I thought….maybe I don’t want to teach….hahaha. So I told Yoona…i dont’ really want to anymore, and she kinda convinced me.  Anyways service starts – Eugene speaks (1st time hearing his sermon since he was the new youth pastor person with P. Duncan) Anyways he started talking about God makes you do things you’re uncomfortable with and….hahaha God was definitely speaking to us.

SO I just wanted to do something Rick Warren suggests in this ch. 31 which is – seriously examine what you are good at doing and what you’re not good at.

Good: I think I’m good at making organized lists of information…like I make these study guides that have information grouped up and I dunno how to explain I can show you
-along with this I make some pretty sexy looking powerpoints. I like to make to make information/knowledge look aesthetically pleasing  and i have fun doing it!
-making facebook events hahaha

I think I’m fun to be around when I’m cute and not worried about how I act/look….

I care a lot about how my friends and family are treated. I want the best for them and love them soooo much!

Bad: I have bad habits and I use my time BADLY.

lots of self doubt…I hate the way I am sometimes -this is getting better with God’s help /
-i remember during one meeting with my mentor Grace that if I think like this it’s shifting the focus on me and not God. Everything starts with God. Plus dissing myself is like dissing God, he made me the way I am.

A lot of times I hate people, think bad things, etc….but I know ultimately I love people.

I have a problem with pleasing people or myself more than God. -knowing is half the battle! Now just stop it! haha.

This year I’ve learn that being honest is so important. Things like hiding sins or keeping secrets is so bad, bring things into the light. Even if everyone hates me or is disgusted in me, I know God is there and that’s all i need. I learn that pain is something that God uses to test us or to make us grow – test that we do love God no matter what. I know that all my pains are joys because it shapes me and that God never wastes a hurt. IF you think about your personal relationships, would you want your friend to tell you everything that is good about you or only good things? no that’s so shallow that’ll be no different in being friends with friendly kitten or puppy. It’s easy to love someone lovable, God puts unlovable people in our lives on purpose! – haha so true….so many things I learned…I hope I can really really put into my heart those things that learned and put it into practice.

Anyways could I ask you my friends/family, some things I’m good at? and bad at?

Yo. I kind of failed at trying to write in my blog….ah but i’m back.

So lots have gone on at the same time feels like nothings really gone on…

Currently I’m doing the Purpose Driven Life – 40 day thing with my mentor Grace. I’m glad that’s I am being discipled. I learn a lot from our meetings. Most recent thing I learned and want to act out is to be desperate for God. To bother him and be honest. God can see my thoughts, but I think what I need to work on most is my actions. Actually doing what I want. That’s the thing that really shows that I really do want to be changed and transformed into the person God wants me to be.

Gottttttttttta crawl gotta crawl. I Love this song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHdKEhFM7mY&feature=player_embedded

What is my number one goal in life as of this moment? I want myself to be a person that pleases God and only God.

I know my life before this moment was to please everything and everyone else more than God. I was selfish and only thought of myself. But I know that this doesn’t please Him. These days I don’t dwell too much on my bad traits, these days I look for solutions with the help of God in my mind.

I thank God, because he’s letting me realize a lot of things about myself. Also because he is in my life and now I know it. I had a prayer request of seeing God in my life. Seeing him throughout my day and everyday, I know that he is with me now and forever.

Its kind of hard to write everything right now. But the one thing I wanted to state is that God is the most important thing in my life. I’m not going to try and please other people more than him. I’m going to stop being so selfish and stop pleasing myself. I truly desire a life that is pleasing to him. I need you God and I ask that I open my eyes to you and the things you want me to see and learn. I NEED you so much. I need you God, I want to obey and trust you and love you and learn from you and do everything for you. I need to remember this. I need to stop pleasing other people and start pleasing you. God please help me, I know you can and I know you will do everything good for me.

Jesus you are number 1.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.“

-Proverbs 3:5-6

Tree. sick tree. milk. cow’s drink cow’s milk. animal farm. animal farm has cats. cats cats my lovely cats eating rat tails till their stomach gorges out and becomes yucky to look at, yet i still like cats. delicious cake make people fat. like fat cats, fat people are good people. haahaha…

Hey God! Thank you for loving me! Goodnight may I remember you tomorrow morning!

-CJ

Man I haven’t written in this thing for such a long time. I kind of wanted to delete this blog and start a new one, but I’m not because: 1. I guess it’s nice to look back and see how my life was back in the day to now…I wanted to delete initially b/c I thought if I read back on my old posts I would feel so dumb and embarrassed…BUT with my old posts here I can see how I’m growing ^^; 2. I’m too lazy….hahaha. =but really I think it’ll be a good learning experience of myself and how I think from before to now.

So I guess a lot of stuff has happen. I don’t know how to put this. It’s weird, this past week, month, time before this day was kind of bad. But today right of this moment I feel so happy and motivated. Motivated to change. It’s kind of hard to write out all the reasons it was bad, but let me write out the bad and why it’s good now:

1. Here’s the situations with my spiritual life – Bad: I have the passion to know God, but the actions don’t match my desires. At times I would really want it I guess esp. during prayer meetings, teaching bible study, at VM, but when in my “regular life” I wouldn’t really think about it…. = Mainly I think my problem was that I didn’t think about the solutions to how to know more about God. Like I knew i needed to dedicated time to read, pray, and study. But my excuses would be people say it’s best in the morning to do QT since its already the middle of the day/night…why should I still do it? Should I be doing it? Other things like there’s so many things to pray for (prayer meeting, VM bible study, 10th/11th bible study, LPG, Cambodia/China, personal requests, friends/relationships…) Soooo much stuff, I would think I can’t pray for all these things so why even try?

Solution: I just have to do QT/Studying if I want to get to know Jesus. It’s like me saying let’s be friends to someone, but never calling them up/hanging with them. I need to hang with God! And to be able to do it first thing in the morning makes it the most important thing I can do in the day which = in life! With praying I think I can designate prayer groups/topics for ea. day or something. I also learned via Eugene & Gman, you can pray anywhere – shower, when you’re driving, etc.  =the thing with this is I don’t really know if I can concentrate….but my solution is: ties in with #2 so I guess I’m move along.

2. I want to be more articulate/being able to talk my full thoughts out/know what I want in words. Looking at this I think my core issue with this was confidence. B/c I thought of myself as stupid, I can’t really talk. (That’s setting myself for failure – interestingly I said the same thing with talking to people, “I can’t talk to people and I hate talking to them b/c I feel soooooo nervous and have nothing to say” = God crazily answered this prayer of mine I think around the time I got back from Cambodia -couple months later? currently I don’t have that same ANXIETY and worries when talking to people – you can ask Paul how I turmoiled over this and how he gave me the advice of being genuinely interested which I thought of but it never really happened until God helped me in this area Going back to confidence – it dates back from HS, I didn’t talk much…but I guess I’m kind of justifying myself as I mention this….Anyways!

Solution: Easy, just write in this blog. Take time out to just sit and think. I need to ask God: Please please please somehow motivate me and not let me go back to the old lifestyle of I can do it later and end up never doing it >_<  Don’t have any distractions while you think, be joyful! =oh this goes to the next problem I had.

3. I’m a very neg person. When bad things happen, I tend to blame myself and it’s all on me. “Why did I do that, say that? Why didn’t I do this or that? Why am I so stupid? If only I could be like him/her…”  Look at all these neg things! Looking at this I see how selfish it is…It’s me me me. When I know God is there telling me of course if it’s just you, you’ll not be happy. When I focus on the bad then I hate myself. When I hate myself, I think how can anyone love me. How can God love me. =This is something I KNOW I KNOW. But knowing and believing is different.

Solution: I need to BELIEVE that God loves me truly and that if I just talk to him like a real person instead of thinking he’s not just some being OR b/c of thinking he’s not that concrete then I’m saying God is some wind figure…sorry I probably didn’t write it right…but I”m getting sleepy..heh not in a cranky way though. Yeah along with believing God loves me. I’m going to strive for a positive!!! -I know that right now it’s easy to be positive, but I pray that even when it’s hard to be positive, I PRAY THAT I WILL BE! BE Joyful Sooah! God’s given you so much so just be joyous ^___^ I like that word.

Okay I think having a mentor, Paul, and ESPECIALLY this saturday meeting helped in realizing -scratch that for not just realizing but finding solutions to my problems. I’m really happy that I’m noticing how God is taking care of me. Before I would think, is it God maybe? But I know that God is working in my life. Key thing I learned: If everything in your life is too good or everything is going right – it’s actually not that great a thing. This can be a time where you get arrogant and really stop depending on the Lord. It’s pretty good to be facing bad things…but it’s not good if you’re relying on yourself. I think I’ve been doing that for the past months. But I know that even these bad things that I don’t want to face/these things I run from, with God right there everything is going to be okay. So Thank you Jesus my father, my Shepard!

¹ O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

-Psalm 139:1-4

⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, ^[a] you are there.

⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”

¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

-Psalm 139:8-12

-Goodnight   ^____~  so sleepy!

CJ

Hi haven’t wrote in awhile. I have a really hard time just sitting down and writing something… I guess anything is better than nothing. I need to get over the fact that the goal for writing this blog isn’t something cool for someone else to read, but it’s just a way to sort out my thoughts…Or actually think. I’m admitting I’m not a big thinker. I guess I do go through life without really questioning anything or really meditating on anything. But there’s no reason to accept this as a reality that I cannot change . I have a tendancy to say, “It’s the way I am” and to an extent it is: how I’ve been raised? my personaility? Excuses I know…but I know now that if I don’t like it why not change it.

I was trying to think of a way to change myself from being person who puts away their problems by doing mindless things to a person who actually thinks about I dunno…anything! Really thinking back, every problem I have I just try to forget it. The problem with that is that I don’t grow. Mistakes are repeated, nothing is changed, still unhappy, still the same old stupid self.

I guess it’s good to start small. I applaud myself for writing a blog.  hahahaha. I’m just kidding. But I think I can utilize this blog for the bettering of Sooah. I thought of a number of things that’ll improve myself in different ways.

1. Spiritually I can get better by: posting up my own prayer requests to keep track of what I’m praying about. I hear it’s good to write prayers down for the future…and I have a BIG problem with writing in notebooks…it’s just very unappealing to me..haha. Unorganized?
2. Intellectually I can get better by: reading?! yeah I should read more about the news and current events and stuff. what’s a good site I can find news on? cnn? haha i dunno. I don’t really want to look up any news sites right now…I will if i have to, but I know Oppa you can recommend me some? :P After I read I should write a little something. How I feel, my own solutions on the topic, maybe trying to convince someone why I agree/disagree with subject matter.
3. I should write so I can just learn to speak/think better. Gain some confidence too. How would I do this. I think I can ask Paul for help on this. We were discussing maybe we come up with a topic and we both write something about it and share, every week?

1. Prayer:
-I need to pray to God for help in becoming the person that he wants me to be. I know that I’m not the way I should be right now. I KNOW this. So I pray that he show me the right paths and just for me to TRUST in him fully. I need to give EVERYTHING to him, b/c he knows what is best for me. Don’t resist God. Haha
-I pray for the cambodia mission trip. Just the members: Grace N., Grace C., Gman, Liz, Jay, Yujin, Hyunjung, Yoona, Meen, Rc, Christy, Ino, Michelle and the 2 geepsamneems…I suck with korean names/titles.. so I forget what to call them. I hope we can get closer with them too. The Cambodian people to be open and ready to hear God’s words, thank him for blessing us with great missionaries already in Cam. who’s making everything possible. I hope we can help them out as much as me can and not get in their way.

I’m tired. I’m out. Peace.

Hi you. Today I had an awesome day I woke up pretty early today (8:50 am), because the night before Paul and I decided to go walking at Pullen park early the next day. I went to Paul’s and we ate cereal, then we went to the park. Before we left the house though, Paul had bagels and I told him I don’t want it. Then he’s like here you can have the (wheat) one. I was like I don’t want it and then we left. He brought both of them. We start walking and the first thing we see are these really really WEIRD looking ducks, they ran down this hill to us. They kind of looked like turkeys, but with black and greenish feathers. Actually the bread was for the ducks. OMG I had no clue there would be ducks there or that we’d be feeding any. They were really ugly, but I liked feeding them. We kept going and more ducks would come to us, Paul fed one from his hand. I tried, but I got scared. We met some really mean selfish canadian geese that wouldn’t let the others eat. I rememebered this story from Shin, where there was this big goose that wouldn’t let the others eat so he got a whole piece of bread, balled it up and then he threw it as hard as he could at it. Afterwards it let the others eat. At the time I thought that’s such a mean thing to do!!! But I understand now…those 2 hissy mean geese should get hit too.

We walked on the bridge and saw trillions of ducks and turtles. There was fish too. We fed them all. This one brown duck flew on the railings of the bridge, away from the other ducks so it could get bread from us. It was fearless and got lots of bagel bits   Smart bird. Later a mallard duck did the same.  We saw a geese family, mom and dad and 3 babies. They were sooooooooooo cute!  Mallard ducks would go near the family and the parents would hiss at them and chase them away. They was straight gangsta, all the mallards were scared. 

Ducks are my second favorite animals. So I was happy to see so many, I was most happy because I saw them with Paul ^___^  I started playing Chrono Trigger again. AWESOME GAME.

I just talked to my brother on gmail chat, he’s weird. But yeah I miss you oppa!

ps. I freaking regret not having my camera today T____T

So I slept a lot today and I had a really weird/gruesome dream. In it I was pregnant, and I was wondering when my water would break. I went to the bathroom because I needed to poo, and i didn’t know if my water would break. I then went to like a movie theater type place where my friends were? I think I was on a fashion realitiy show, the perspective changed to this black girl that was like best at fashion. She let this other like spanish girl borrow her jeans and she like messed them up, so they verbally fought. yahda yahda yahda. Anyways next I see the pregnant girl (I’m not looking through her i guess) and a friend like sitting on a chair getting their arms messagued by a weird machine, so their wrists are strapped. Some reason their eyes are covered and next thing you know the friends throat gets slashed by this lego lookin guy. I gasp, I’m watching a movie. But then I’m in it next. People’s throats are getting slashed, some can fight. Two lego men are caught ones killed, other gets injured. I -I’ll say I b/c I guess every character in the dream can be ”I”. I threaten the lego man, where he’s from. He doesn’t talk, I tell him I’ll keep him alive until his blood drains, no response. I tell him I’ll peel off his skin and leave him outside and throw stuff like gochijang on him….I don’t think he says anything but I don’ t remember. there’s this scene with a car and everything…but I don’t know how to write it…hahahhaa. weird dream huh. Don’t think i’m crazy!!!

Right now I’m reading for my female body class and the readings are super weird today….It’s about vaginas. one is called “the little coochi snorcher that could” megaloid weird!!!!! I gotta shower. Bye

Oh and I’m listening to Plain White T’s – 1,2,3,4~~ I love the melody or w/e you call it and the cute lyrics Yep reminds me of Paul!!!

Gman unnie and I arrived at church at 7:58, I was shouting (playfully) at Gman we have to be on time! And stuff like we only have 5 minutes left! I knew we had plenty of time, but still I have this kind of urgency when I think of meetings and occasions because I feel it is absolutely necessary to be on time! If not I would feel really really bad for making others wait… Anyways, we got to church and we see the CAM Gang sitting in the sanctuary. We sit and then Grace No leads us in prayer. We have so many topics to pray about, honestly I kind of felt unfocused and antsy. At times I did prayer earnestly and that really changed how I felt…I don’t know how to explain it really. Afterwards Grace told us good news about the lodgings, the actual goal we had in Cambodia, and just informed us. Then we each got into our groups and discussed all this stuff. I won’t go into detail for this, because it’s quite boring. However! In the end of it all I felt really happy.  I felt that God was with us all tonight, I couldn’t help but smile tonight.  

After our meeting Gman, Yoshi, Rc, and I went to McDonalds. We just talked about things like bungee jumping, energy drinks, and all that jazz. Gman made really weird motions when she needed to sneeze, like fairy hand movements that commanded her sneeze to come out, in the end she did not sneeze. Haha. Yep Rc had to drive to APP So late for that cute little girl to be driving. I pray she stay safe and awake! ^__^  Yep then I took Yoshi home, we had deep conversations…hehe. I really enjoyed it   Geniunely wanting to get to know someone really makes it easy to talk to them. Yep I understand you Paula!  

I feel like I judge what I write too much, like it’s not good enough or things like  how boring it is. Just to letting you know…yes something I need to change. There is no right or wrong in bloging…and a lot of things I guess? My mindset is I’m always wrong…I think? no I’m so confused…haha. I need to pray to have confidence again xD Good bye, thank you for reading

It is me. Paul you liked this picture, so here hehe.