what makes some people so much easier to talk to than others? i guess it depends on the quality of your relationship. but what determines the quality of a relationship? i'm pretty fascinated by human interaction. dynamics between ppl. why do you feel awkward around certain ppl.. and you can be totally comfortable with another? why is it so hard to talk to someone even tho you're supposedly good friends or know them well? why can't there be equality in all relationships? we're all humans.. composed of the same matter, have common modes of communication, have similar general goals in life..? i guess the obvious answer is that our minds, needs/wants, and emotions work differently. but what would the world be like if everyone got along with each other on the same level and with the intensity and quality?

boring.

haha.. there would be no diversity. no one would have best friends. marriage wouldn't even be possible! since you would treat everyone the EXACT same way you treat EVERYONE. God must have a reason why He made us the way we are.. why we treat ppl the way we treat them.. why we love some ppl more than others.. why we care about some ppl more than they care about us......

this is pretty random. i dunno if i had a direction with this blog. meh..

Here is what I think Moses was saying: Man is wired so he gets his glory (his security, his understanding of value, his feeling of purpose, his feeling of rightness with his Maker, his security for eternity) from God and this relationship is so strong, and God's love is so pure, that Adam and Eve felt no insecurity at all, so much so that they walked around naked and didn't even realize they were naked. But when that relationship was broken, they knew it instantly. All of their glory, the glory that came from God, was gone. It wouldn't be unlike being in love and having somebody love you and then all of a sudden that person is gone, like a kid lost in a store. All of the insecurity rises the instant you realize you are alone. No insecurity was felt when the person who loved you was around, but in his absence, it instantly comes to the surface. In this way, Adam and Eve were naked and weren't ashamed when God was around, but the second their relationship was broken, they realized it and were ashamed. And that is just the beginning. -- Donald Miller

i haven't really been able to get into this book Searching for God Knows What.. except for this one chapter so far called Naked. this guy is so hung up on the fact that adam and eve were naked before the fall.. and they didn't realize they were until after they sinned. the sin and broken relationship between man and God is why we have to wear clothes. of course there are far greater repercussions..

he also keeps saying that man is wired so that something outside of himself tells him who he is. God's presence gives us a sense of fulfillment. so when that relationship was broken, we started to look to others for acceptance and security. so that's why we care so much about what other ppl think of us.. we are wired so that other people help create us, help make us who we are, and when deception is fed to us, we make bad decisions. i guess there is a good and bad side to letting ppl influence who we are. again the 2 sides to everything principle. but if we let God tell us who we are, we'd be so much better off.. like it was before the fall. because He is the one who made us. so He is the one who knows us the best. even if He tells us we are sinners and horrible people, it is better to know that is coming from Him than from anyone else because it's the truth.

there is nothing about us that makes us good by ourselves. the only reason that we could be good is because we are His and we belong to Him.

i want to stop dictating my own identity. i want to stop letting people and situations define who i am. i want to let God tell me who i am. my identity in Him is more important and better than anything i could be apart from Him.

i have many things i want to blog about but am too lazy to write it all out..

instead here are some hilarious pictures from tonight!



















look at these dashing young gentlemen.. hats off to whichever lovely young ladies gets a hold of these 2! hahaha! what talent they have :P fun times..

i'm tired but i can't sleep.

i have to pee but i don't want to flush the toilet and wake my family up.


i want to love ppl but the standard we are to love by is so high.

i want to help ppl but sometimes it's not my place.

i want ppl to change but they have to want to change first.


i wish there were a way to turn off your mind for a little while.

guess what i bought today?

new! Johnson's softlotion.. for baby soft skin.

*raises eyebrows*

..Lord you gotta do something about my heart. you know a lot of time's gone by since i met you. i'm just starting to harden up, you know it's just kinda natural. i wanna have baby skin Lord.. i wanna have skin like a baby on my heart. it's starting to get old and wrinkled and calloused.. it's not cause anything i'm doing. it's cause of a lot of things i'm not doing..
-- Keith Green

i've listened to that intro part of the song Oh Lord You're Beautiful by Keith Green many times not really paying attention to what he was saying. but after listening carefully.. it really makes sense.

after being a christian for so long ppl tend to harden up. like at times.. it seems like nothing can penetrate them anymore, nothing gets to them. i know i've gone through times where i've felt like this.. and it really sucks. i like how he uses the words 'baby skin'. i wanna have skin like a baby on my heart. it almost sounds funny to me.. to have baby skin on your heart. kinda in contrast to how we do not want to be like infants and drink milk anymore.. but we want to be mature and eat solid food. soo.. to have skin like a baby on your heart so it's still soft enough for God to get to you.. but to be mature, not living on milk but solid food so our process of growth is ongoing? hmm...

Replace the lamp of my first love, that burns with holy fear.

22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' Acts 17:22-28

i read this passage on saturday night. and i knew something about it was significant to me.. but i didn't bother thinking it through that night (so typical of me). but someone prayed a prayer at GDOP and used the part "in him we live and move and have our being" and that made me want to come back to it.

Paul is addressing the greeks in athens here. they're very "religious". they have many gods that they worship. so many in fact that they seemingly can't even name them all! haha.. silly greeks. j/k. so ne ways.. my study bible says that the greeks were fearful of offending any god by failing to give him attention; so they felt they could cover any omissions by the label 'unknown god'. i wonder where all these gods came from in the first place? it's pretty bad when you have so many focuses of worship. if that god DID exist.. wouldn't it feel shafted that they didn't even have a real name for it? they had to label it "unknown"! meaning.. NOT KNOWN TO THEM.. meaning how can they worship a god that they don't even know?!

so who and what do we worship? obviously God. but i think if we look more carefully at the things we spend our time on.. we can find many other things that we worship. and perhaps we are doing what the greeks did. trying not to offend anything/anyone.. so we build an altar, so to speak, for these things we worship and slap "unknown" on it thereby not giving it much significance in our lives, but yet giving it enough attention that it still deserves an altar. quite dangerous i must say..

so then paul goes on to talk about GOD.. how He's so big that a building can't contain Him, how He doesn't NEED US because He is the one who breathes into us to give us life, how He has the ultimate say on the times and places that we are to dwell. He is and does all these things for our sake. this is the God we worship. i wonder why we would want to worship anything else? yet we do..

but verse 28 is so cool. in HIM we live and move and have our being. everything about us and everything we are composed of and everything we do is IN HIM. and this is how it should be. but i'm still trying to grasp what this really means tho..

Dear you,

i'm encouraged by your desire for change. you are not alone in this battle.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:17

what pleases God more than sacrifices is a humble heart that looks to him when troubles crush and penitently pleads for mercy when sin has been committed.

the first step is to acknowledge our faults, bring it before the Lord and let Him examine your heart.

For this is what the high and lofty One says- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isaiah 57:15

PTL! the God of the universe whose name is HOLY is with those who are lowly in spirit. praise Him for his unchanging character and for reviving us when we are weak.

Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?" declares the LORD. "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word. Isaiah 66:2

when we are sorrowful because of our wrongdoing He esteems us. he esteems those that tremble at His word. imagine that.. the power that is in His word is so great that it causes us to tremble. don't wanna miss out on that.

you know what you have to do. so do iiiit. let's do it together :)

who's prettier?! the charming yun ping OR the beautiful wendy?? don't be shy.. cast your vote today!



this time i DO have their permission to post their pics :P

we broke off into groups to pray last night at fellowship. i got to pray with vivian.. so we shared about what's been on our minds and stuff. as she was praying for me.. she said something that was really cool. she asked God to "pull me apart and put me back together again".. or something along those lines. her choice of words was just so interesting to me. you know when someone isn't satisfied with a project or something that they are working on.. so they decide to take it all apart and kind of start over. and the result is something so much better than what they had before because they took the time and effort to refine and enhance it. i imagined God doing that to me. taking apart my life piece by piece.. removing the unnecessary things.. making changes to certain parts.. adding improvements. how exciting it is to know that He's doing this to us daily if we allow Him to! such a cool prayer.. thanks to viv for praying that for me :D

on another note.. i was going through my picture collection and came across some pictures that i found pretty funny. these are pics that actually made me LAUGH OUT LOUD when i saw them. my amusement really has to do with ppl's facial expressions in these pics. i hope they will invoke the same kind of laughter from you guys. if not.. well then i guess we just have different levels of amusement :P i don't have anyone's permission to post these pics. but i never ask for permission to post pics anyways haha. and it's all in good fun.. so enjoy!!


winter retreat second year.. look at sam's expression! it's just.. so unnecessarily filled with rage.


ernie's enjoying his pudding dig at his birthday.


also taken at ernie's birthday.. the focus here is on justin's "ham sup" face peering behind sam. *shakes head* he almost does it too well :P


this was taken at CC last year. cora just looks so ridiculous. nuff said haha!


this pic is from our birch run trip in first year. oh the contrasting faces. i love. shirley's expression reminds me of a silly old man for some reason. samo looks like he's bloated + constipated. and chris.. the look of death. priceless.