it's 2011

what's my next step?

God wants great things for me and for my life to be filled with purpose and meaning, but i still don't have a major in mind and i have no sense of direction.

i'm scared of commitment and having the responsibility of paying for loans/ of something going wrong.

i pray that God will lift these worries from my heart and bring me to a state of peace and clear mindedness.

what do i do but continue to move foward with the love that God offers to me, every second.

I started reading the One year Bible (o.y.b) today.

I have a feeling and hope that this year, 2011, will be a year full of the wonderful discoveries of how much God loves me.

this awakening was mainly due to God's grace and love; and it was also due to a book written by one of His children. it's called 'Embracing the love of God by James Bryan Smith. I'm on pg.97 and i've learned so much.

While I was reading the o.y.b, i realized that right after God created adam, "the LORD God planted all sorts of trees in the garden--beautiful trees that produced delicious fruit."

then

"the LORD God said, "it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion who will help him."

God wanted to shower man and woman with His Love even before they deserved it or even asked for it. He just wanted and still continues to want what's good for us, and that is to know Him and seek fellowship with Him through His Son, Jesus.

embracing the Love of God by james bryan smit

embracing the Love of God by james bryan smith

(Parting with Guilt, pg. 80)

Another reason it is difficult to forgive ourselves is that we may have surrendered ourselves to the guilt we feel and grown comfortable with it.

Even though it is destroying us, it is familiar, and we are sometimes more comfortable with what we know than with what we don’t know.

The prospect of waking up tomorrow without guilt is so foreign that we may choose to hold on to our shame. It may be depressing, but at least it is safe.

I will never forget something a friend of mine said when he, thanks to good counseling and the correction of a chemical imbalance,was beginning to come out of a long life of depression:”I don’t know how to live these days. I lived so long with my guilt that I feel strange without it. I grew accustomed to living everyday in pain, and it is hard to let go of it.”

Even though the longing of our hearts is to part with our pain, there is something in us that desires the familiar. The longer we have defined ourselves by our past, the more difficult it will be to let go of the guilt.

If we have grown accustomed to seeing the world in black and white, it will take some adjusting to get used to a world full of color again.

(Banishing the fear of future failure, pg. 80-81)

A final reason it is difficult to forgive ourselves is the fear of future failure. Because of what we have done in the past we assume that we will do the same in the future.

If we forgive ourselves, we reason, we will only make matters worse. By keeping ourselves in the prison of condemnation we hope to keep our behavior in check.

This is really a fear of freedom. to claim our forgiveness is to be free of what we have done. When we forgive ourselves we are proclaiming that we have been emancipated from our past.

If we venture into the land of freedom, we suspect that it will be a short stay. Sooner or later we will sin again, we will be forced to return to our cell. Why not save some time and just keep on condemning ourselves?

The fear of future failure is a lie that paralyzes us. Just because we did something in our past does not me we will do it in the future. There is no real reason to expect that we will repeat our past behavior, but by focusing on it we will increase the likelihood that we will. At some point we will have to confront this lie and proclaim its opposing truth: what we have done in no way must determine what we will do. If we can claim our freedom from these lies, we will be ready to begin the work of forgiving ourselves.

________________

sorry if there are some word errors, it’s early in the morning and i was typing quickly.

this book is so so refreshing to read, and inspires me the more i get into it.

there are many topics that are listed in the book with explanations and stories that make it so much more interesting and real.

i recommend this book to both a Christian believer and a skeptic.

strawberry swing- coldplay

New Year Resolutions:

1) Read the chapter of the bible each day.

2) Exercise

3) Blog everyday, or once a week/month (reflecting on lessons learned, challenges ahead).

4) Read a book, discontinue to watch t.v

5) serve in my community

I might get a new phone. Helio was bought by virgin mobile and now vm is being bought by sprint. hopefully everything works out and i'll be able to get a new number and phone with a full keyboard.
I get both inspired and discouraged by facebook! it's nice to connect with friends i hardly talk to. it's like we're friends online and i am apart of whatever they may share but it's also difficult to be reminded of the distance in both miles and absence of knowledge. when i see pictures of friends getting together, i can't help but feel sad. i want that! i want to hang out and post pictures of what a great time i had. but when i think about it, do i really want all the baggage and battles that comes with the friendship? do i really want to invest my time, love, heart and strength in something that might end or fade away?
i should blame myself for the lack of friends that i talk to because i only call other people for advice and not really care about what they are going through.
i need to prioritize my goals and i need to find out what is important to me. it would be nice to receive a phonecall once in a while instead of a text message.
found out how refreshing it is to just talk to God without hiding who i am or what i am dealing with. meaning, talking to him about my hurts and angry thoughts. my relationship with God gets more real and i don't have anything to hide. He knows everything that i did and He still loves me. and because He loved me first, i want to love him back through a life of repetance.

There is only two more days left of this quarter. Really excited for spring break but at the same time, i am worried about my english research essay. this quarter has been the most stressful because of the amount of research that you have to put in and balancing that with other homework assignments and classes. now that there's only five more days till it is due, i am can't help but regret the time i've spend worrying and wasting time when i could have done more research. even now, i am slacking so much. the fear of failure after all the stress, time, and tears it took for me to get this far, is what i want to avoid. God is so faithful and mercifull. i now appreciate the free time that i have in really making the most out of it. instead of sleeping in, i'll read a book, or go out on a walk and smell the fresh air. can't wait for this quarter to be over. but i want this paper done so i can stop worrying about it and truly say that i tried my best.

what worries me is that i might unintentionally plagiarize. it's difficult to trace your ideas back to its source. and to be confident that your idea is original and not from another person.

i am sure that when i look back at this post, i will be a better, stronger, and more grateful person that i am now. my faith makes the challenges much more smaller than they seem.

At school, I got into a deep conversation about religion and christianity with an acquaintance. Somehow a group of us started talking about marriage and then religion and Jesus. He had so many questions. It was truly amazing to hear some of the questions that I once wrestled with before my walk with Christ. I knew that I had to be very careful about what I said. When gay marriage came out of the box, I didn't know what to say. I knew that I had to say the truth, but at the same time, i didn't want my response to hinder his curiosity further into Christianity. I felt like I answered most of his questions to the best of my understanding and ability. However, he convicted me to research and get the answers myself, instead of hearing it from pastors. College, which for me, was just a place for work and study, became a place of opportunity. My heart breaks when I hear or see things that goes against Jesus' teachings. It is overwhelming when I am hit with the responsibility to share God's love and to share the gospel. I can't do it on my own. I battle with my own sins, sometimes surrendering to them and hindering my walk w. Christ. So my prayer is that I will be able to put to death my sins, be filled and guided by the Holy Spirit and grow and mature in the gospel. Not depending on my own prideful strength but to constantly talk to God through prayer.
Today was a great day. For the first time, I understand the reason for my past hurts and trails. It was to empathize and understand where a non believer is coming from. To able to relate and to offer advice.