Misconceptions, miscommunication,  misunderstanding, misguidedness, mis..etc.whatevers.., sometimes so unbearable when I think of them…yet inevitable/unavoidable in every relationship…so tiring…but so beautiful. Without them…it’ll be a boring world. 7 billion people like me? Eh…that’s terrible :P 

Part of life~ life is hard. Life is good~ God is life~ 

pahaha…

From In the Secret Place by Jerry Rankin (pp.2-3):

“I had read books on prayer and others’ testimonies. But for some reason I came to the point of realizing that, if I wanted the assurance of God’s hand upon me and my ministry, I had to have a heart for Him that would be reflected in a disciplined time of prayer and fellowship with Him. I needed to spend enough time in the Word to allow God to speak to me. If I were going to preach, inspire, and presume to lead and minister to others, I had to allow Him to speak into my life on His terms. I was shamefully impressed by my own arrogance in expecting Him to guide me, to bless me, to answer my prayers, and to meet my needs when I spent so little time seeking Him. How presumptuous to think I could utter a few stereotyped phrases of prayer to being the day, and the God of the universe would be obligated to respond to my needs and desires!
                At that time I was definitely not a morning person. It wasn’t unusual to fellowship with friends well into the night, to watch television and videos late in the evening, or more often, simply to stay up reading and getting work done after the family had gone to bed. But I was impressed that Jesus was a morning person. Even He needed time with the Father and felt the need to arise early, even while it was dark, long before the demanding crowds began to infringe on His time. If Jesus felt it necessary to spend time with the Father and stay in touch with His heart and purpose, how much more important must it be for me. I began to get up at 6:00 to spend a solid half hour in prayer and Bible reading. The time seemed to go by in a flash and was just enough to whet my appetite for more. So I started arising at 5:30 and found the more open-ended time of prayer; pouring out my heart in expressing my feelings, burdens, and concerns; and having time to cover an extensive prayer list, was a blessing I had seldom experienced. Once again the time became inadequate, and I found myself getting up at 5:00, and then at 4:30; and I began to sense the reality of God’s presence and assurance of His guidance consistently throughout the day. I discovered personal attacks, conflicts, and criticism did not upset me as before. I became more sensitive to ungodly feelings and attitudes buried deep within my heart that would have given fruition to sinful words or actions had they not been recognized and confessed. But probably most noticeable of all, to myself at least, was an attitude and tendency to be praising the Lord throughout the day as I became constantly aware of His presence. “

  

I started this book with my mentor Grace. This excerpt only comes from the Introduction and I already really like the book :) 

So I was reading testimonies…and wanted to share mine :)

Testimony (April 1, 2011)
I grew up in High Point, North Carolina. It’s a small town and I never liked it…still I prefer not to go back there.I went to kindergarten and elementary school which was predominately white, then I went to middle school and high school which was predominately black – this meant that I was different and I was bullied for it. Not only was I asian, I was overweight and shy. I used to sit in class wanting to others to die or wanting to hurt myself so that I wouldn’t have to go to school anymore. I also grew up going to church and my church was all Koreans. Still I didn’t fit in and I hated everyone there. I never opened myself up to people at school or church so I had no friends growing up. I did have my brother who was a lot like me, but he was angry all the time too so we didn’t really grow up having meaningful conversations. I had my parents who loved me, but I didn’t speak Korean and so my whole life until I guess college I never had a meaningful conversation or someone I could call friend. This made me have an obsession with anime, Japanese dramas, and video games through all these I lived a fantasy (all of the themes in these obsessions were friendship). When I think of church I thought it was a waste of time, people only went to meet friends so I thought it was so fake. Also, whenever the pastor spoke I thought “why is he picking on me?” Because everything he said that bad people do , I did –I’m a really defensive person so I got mad and thought he’s stupid. I remember in bible study once we went around answering the question, “Are you a born again Christian?” I had ZERO idea what that meant but was too scared to ask…so I had no real knowledge of God, Jesus, the bible, etc. growing up even though I went to church pretty regularly since I was young. I knew the basic things like heaven and hell. Sometimes at night I would lie in bed thinking about all the things that could happen in hell and believed I would be going there for sure…This made me so depressed and truly hopeless. Another major belief I had was that no one loved me, I remember while I was with my brother and Jeemin one time picking up this guy who lived in my brother’s dorm I randomly cried because I was thinking that no one would come to my funeral when I died..they asked why I was crying but I never told them.

Then I went to High School. I started losing weight in 10^th grade I think and started making some friends at school and church. But I still was shy and never really opened up. I’ve always been boy crazy even as a little girl, but I always thought I would never get a boyfriend or get married. So in 11^th grade when a boy started talking to me I was shocked and rushed into a lot of things. After him I had many guys who I dated for short periods of time. This really affected me negatively and I struggled. I got into NCSU 2007 and was happy, I thought I couldn’t get into college…as you can see I had many many doubts. Before actually starting school I went to ECAY because my brother was the president and they had a samgyupsal party at Sunjin/Siwook’s place. I was really shocked to see my brother leading and praying, because I thought wow he used to be just like me: shy, fat, and angry (but worse b/c I thought I had more friends than him). But after I saw this I thought what could have made him change so drastically? I had hope I could change too…After that I went to State and was pretty scared and depressed…Rc had to come one day and knock on all the rooms in my dorm asking if they would be my friend since I was so antisocial and shy. That same day I met Paul Chang. We became friends and then bf/gf. One time I had a demonic dream and woke up sobbing, Paul was with me at the time and we had a conversation about God, I confessed that I never got baptized or anything so he suggested that I get to know God more and get baptized. I THINK the following Sunday if not sometime close after this event my Gomo saw me not stand when we did communion she asked why and I said I wasn’t baptized. After she heard that she said you’re getting baptized the next coming baptism. When she told me this I felt a jolt of happiness; I didn’t know how to really ask to get baptized so I was happy the opportunity came to me. But then I got so nervous b/c I remember people saying how they have to talk to someone before they get baptized. So I remember I met Mrs. Ro at Brigs and we talked about God. I realized then I did know about Jesus and I had accepted him into my heart.  So December 2007 was when I got baptized.  

That following summer I went to China missions. Much like my baptism, my Gomo straight up just said go to missions and I curtly without hesitation replied “OK!” Funny thing is I told Jeemin I would never go to missions after hearing her experiences, because I thought I can never do those things –talking to strangers, talk about God, etc. I’m not exactly sure why I said ok so quickly, but I’m glad I did :) We got to China and I was happy the people were so kind and it was good so far. But once we started teaching I got nervous, luckily I was paired with Shin to teach a class. But the next day they told me we had to split the class; I got so scared…but good thing I had wise people around me that encouraged me. I think Jeemin told me that God only puts you in situations you can handle. So in the end I was glad to have my own class, b/c I learned a lot. I experienced A LOT in China but the most pivotal moment in my life was this: we had nights of prayer at Mr. Yang’s house. He said we would be praying for hours but it would feel like minutes. So we started praying and this was the first time I heard people praying aloud so I was REALLLY uncomfortable. However as time passed and I just sat there amongst the loud prayers around me, I felt so desperate. So I asked God “please please let me shut out the voices around me and just focus on you, let me know who you are”.  Then thoughts just came into my head…”how can I be praying. How can God listen to me when I’m so dirty. I call myself a Christian yet I’m still living a bad life. He can’t love a person like me.” Then I hear a voice saying “Sooah, I love you. No matter what I love you. You are my child.” A wave of complete peace washed over me, I couldn’t even begin to explain the feeling. We continued to pray and many people prayed for me. This was my personal experience with God.

It’s been so long since this moment in my life and I’ve experienced so much more through God. I’ve grown so much…but I’ve become complacent. God speaks to me all the time, but I haven’t been listening to him. I haven’t been obeying him and seeking him as I did before. I think I’ve been relying on the fact that I have transformed so much and so I don’t really need to grow much anymore….basically I’ve been running away from God. But he’s challenging me and I see it I see that he wants me back and he wants me so seek him harder and honestly I really really want it too, but the difficulty is actually doing it – actions. I struggle with really handing over my life completely to Jesus. In my mind I think I know everything; I know this is silly because I KNOW that God is way better than me, but I guess I see this more through how I treat people. Whenever people tell me anything I have to say the opposite, I want to be different so I don’t conform and think that person is so narrow minded so wrong…unlike me. That’s why a lot of times I prefer to be alone until I’m lonely and want to hang out. I hate this part of me, so selfish and ugly. At times I just want to die and go to heaven but I know that’s just being weak.

BUT I won’t give up. Listing out and sharing my iniquities I hope you guys can point me out when I’m wrong. Currently I’m trying to not be defensive and basically just love those around me as Jesus did (this is so hard…b/c I know now the times that I fail and I don’t want to go and apologize to the people I hurt) I want to not be scared of the world and be bold when I talk to people and to share the greatest news I received. I just want to be used by God. So I will be preparing myself through conversations with God, the studying of his Word, and to realize every single day that he died for me – a nobody, a nothing.  

God is great. Amen~ <3