As Wide As The Sky

Follow me...

2010-11-13T01:21:00.002-05:00

on my

ADVENTURES IN WINNIPEG.

And I'll be blogging there, probably, until the internship is over!

Two blogs are too much to handle for me.

WHOOT, adventures!

Campus Gathering, 2010

2010-06-08T23:34:00.004-04:00

I can't believe I'm here: Inter-Varisty Campus Gathering for all Canadian campus ministry staff and intern workers.

The leader asked us to ask Him: What are you celebrating? What are your needs?

I am celebrating
The end of old and beautiful seasons.
The start of new and unfamiliar seasons.

I need purity.
Of the self.
Of the Word.
Of the Spirit.
Of Jesus.
Simply Jesus.

Elsie said to me the other week, "you'll be the THIRD Korean person on staff with IV Canada!"
THE THIRD.
My roots are grounded deeply in all things Korean.
That's actually strange for me to say.
But being the third Korean person here, makes me realize how much of the unspoken Korean culture I took for granted.

Then someone else said, "You're the first intern from KCF to join Inter-Varsity."
I didn't even realize it.
It's true.
THE FIRST.
The pressure.

Then Murray tells us that last year there was one intern for the High School ministry, that it's been holding on, rather, hanging on a thread for quite some time now.
God is reviving this ministry. He is starting something anew.

I get be a part of something new. Something fresh. The beginnings of things.
The beginnings of Koreans working with Inter-Varisty.
The beginnings of the partnership that KCF and IVCF may build in the future.
The beginnings of a new wave of revival and empowerment in high school groups across Canada in the near future.

And so I dream.
What great hope!
What great vision!

But really, right now... I am completely freaked out.
Nervous?
Scared.
Inadequate.
Alone?
Young.
Ill-equipped.

I've been telling people all day that I feel like a frosh all over again. Hah!

Here's to my chance to be set apart.
Here's to a fresh start.

Absolutely.

2010-05-05T00:21:00.001-04:00

Sometimes when we desperately go in search for God, we are desperately disappointed.

This is when our false and empty, selfish and prideful hopes and desires are revealed.
Our hopes for superficial, worldly and expiring comfort, for someone to save the day, for reassurance, for affirmation, for a certain emotion, a specific word, for a sign.
And sometimes when we go in search for God, we are utterly let down by all these hopes.

This.
This is when we wait.
This is when you become still and emptied.

This is when His love and peace which transcends understanding, when His Spirit, The Great Counselor, comes into our hearts and fills every void and brokenness completely.

Lover of my soul, I want to tell You
Only You have all of me.

There is no one else who has my heart.

Jesus, You have me completely, every breath that I breathe,
I am absolutely in love.
Jesus, I am Yours forever, all of me surrenders,
I am absolutely in love with You.

- Starfield, "Absolutely"

I'm learning.

2010-03-16T02:18:00.001-04:00

I'm learning some difficult lessons from God these days.
And being obedient and CHOOSING to do the RIGHT thing, to live by the Spirit is hard, when my sinful nature and the world tells me to be angry, to get revenge, to hate, and to be hurt, and to be bitter.

But I'm trying to overcome with the Bible, and Jesus, and the Spirit of God... and by making some small and big choices to do what's right for the sake of God, and in the name of Love and Jesus.

The Vision

2010-03-14T17:58:00.003-04:00

By Pete Greig (England)

So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?"
I open my mouth and words come out like this.

The vision?

The vision is JESUS - obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision ?

The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground,
The whisper of history in the making,
Foundations shaking;
Revolutionaries dreaming once again.
Mystery is scheming in whispers.
Conspiracy is breathing.
This is the sound of the underground.

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs.
Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting.
Watching: 24/7/365.

Whatever it takes they will give:
Breaking the rules.
Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide.
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
Laughing at labels,
Fasting essentials.

The advertisers cannot mould them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive…

Inside.

On the outside? They hardly care.
They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell.
A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
They pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS - He breathes out, they breathe in.
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.
They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily;

It will come soon.

How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God.
My tomorrow is His today.
My distant hope is His 3D.
And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

Let the revolution begin.

Has it not already begun?

I remember You again.
Stir it up in our hearts.

Recurring Realization:

2010-02-28T23:23:00.003-05:00

EVERYTHING YOU DO IS A

C H O I C E.

So choose wisely.
Keep your integrity.
No excuses.

Earn the outcomes of your choices,
Or pay the consequences.

Urbana Bus Eavesdropping.

2010-01-03T08:27:00.001-05:00

They keep talking about short-term missions.
… and “follow-up”.

They want to make a tangible difference wherever they go.
“I mean it’s great and all that we’ll be the ones that gain from the experience but that’s not why I want to go. I want to make a difference.”

But that’s not what I learned from Urbana.
I learned that God makes the difference.
I learned that His agenda is his people.

Yes, their statements seem humble on the surface, but who are we to pick and choose where to serve, which organization to go with? Who are we to judge them as ineffective or proper or not?

Ramez Atallah reminded us that what is most important is obedience, not success.
I learned in Afghanistan that God will use whoever he chooses. Our job is to be obedient. What He does out of the work He does through us is not for us to see or know. If we are lucky, we are able to see His hand at work at all. And we do! And that should blow us away. And if we do not, then praise God anyway because we have faith that He is a God who has perfect plans. Who are we to question it? We can only be thankful to be a part of it.

Sundar Krishnan challenged us to question what God’s true agenda is.
We intercede and serve and minister to the oppressed, the poor, the blind, the naked, the fatherless and so forth. But we emerge transformed. Is that yet not the grace of God?
We shouldn’t feel guilty for the transformation God does in us. This transformation is not oppositely relative to the change that he did in the lives of those we serve and pray for.

It is always about the painter, not the painting.
A God who loved us, created us, transforms us is most definitely a God who loves, who created, and will transform the world.

Embrace transformation! Go serve, go overseas, and be changed. Be obedient, and trust in God’s successfulness. In the meantime, we must be faithful and obedient to the transformation God does in our lives.

If ever there was a man or woman who made a difference in the missions occurring around the world in history, it was because he or she first received the love and transforming salvation from Jesus Christ. Freely we’ve received, so freely we give.

When your mind is a mess, so is mine

2009-10-26T13:13:00.005-04:00

I can't sleep
'Cause it hurts when I think
My thoughts aren't at peace
With the plans that we make,
Chances we take,
They're not yours, and not mine
They're as waves that can break
All the words that we say
And the words that we mean
Words can fall short
Can't see the unseen
Cause the world is awake
For somebody's sake now, please close your eyes,
Please get some sleep
And know that if I knew
All of the answers I would
Not hold them from you
You know all the things that I know
We told each other, there is no other way

Well too much silence can be misleading
You're drifting I can hear it in the way that you're breathing
We don't really need to find reason
'Cause out the same door that it came well it's leaving, it's leaving
Leaving like a day that's done and part of a season
Resolve is just a concept that's as dead as the leaves
But at least we can sleep, it's all that we need
When we wake we will find
Our minds will be free to go to sleep
And know that if I knew
All of the answers I would
Not hold them from you
You know all the things that I know
We told each other, there is no other way

No other way.

-Jack Johnson

When you have a love relationship with a perfect person,

2009-09-23T15:54:00.003-04:00

you learn a lot about your own imperfections.

It better prepares you to understand and show the same love and grace He showed you to the other imperfect people in your life.

"For You Yourself have taught me."

2009-09-19T02:01:00.004-04:00

I'm not a 'good' blogger. That is, if a good one is defined by posting regular updates. Funny, considering the name of the blog is based on Crowder's words, "I need words", that it turns out it's really true.
Maybe it's just a lack of inspiration?

Speaking of inspiration for writing, I'm taking this course called: "Visionary Literature: From Dante to Bob Dylan". Yeah, seriously. But it's not about literature, really. It's more about the Visionary aspect. We're to ask questions such as "What makes a work 'visionary?" "What makes a writer a 'visionary'?" "What INSPIRES vision?"

What a weird, man, my prof. He says that some of the authors we're studying go through many lengths to encounter these 'visions' from which they receive inspiration for their work. For some, the vision seeks them out and not the other way around. Some go the 'religious' route, some use Ouija boards to call out the spirits, other just take massive amounts of drugs (i.e. Dylan).

After my first full week of school, I have made one clear observation: This year is going to be different. On a spiritual level. Not only are my classes challenging me on an intellectual level, but even more so on a spiritual one.

I've attended only ONE lecture for this class so far, and yet I know it'll be draining for me for the rest of the year. Not because it's boring or because I don't find it interesting, because I do. But I've never encountered a course like this before.

For some reason I have a feeling this class is not about literature as much as it is about transforming every student into a visionary. My prof asks us if we've ever had an 'epiphany' moment, if we've ever experienced how we can be one person one day, and then a completely different person the next. He speaks of his friend, the shaman, who performs real healing, of the author in our reading list who wrote his work completely in a trance, of mentally disciplining ourselves to be fully 'present', and not distracted by thoughts focused elsewhere, on the past, or future.

Suddenly I found myself identifying with a lot of these things, but never in a school context. Suddenly, this man is speaking a language I understand on my own terms regarding a spiritual realm that I am familiar with encountering only in a Christian setting. Do I have a revelation from time to time? Do I believe in real healing? Don't I believe that the spiritual realm is a real thing and not something silly to be laughed at or taken lightly?

I've never had a non-Christian speak so plainly to me about what goes on outside what is physical, even mental. And then to try and gage how the rest of the class was responding -- not physical, or mentally, but spiritually. I'm quite certain a good handful of my classmates' mental paradigms were being shaken.

I've really come to realize the power of a book or the words of a professor to influence the way we perceive the world and how we come to understand the things we believe.

Sitting in that class was such a spiritual work-out, because my sensitivity was super heightened at the fact that there was so much to guard myself against. And yet, I think about all the rest of the students, just receiving in my prof's teachings so eagerly and without filter and I realize the amount of free reign that the enemy has on the world -- especially the world of post-secondary students.

Now I'm just left to figure out what position I take in that class. What gear or level of permeability I set my spirit to that is not just safe for me, but allows for me to contribute something that is beneficial, and challenging. There is SO MUCH being sent back and forth in the conversation of a small fourth-year English class seminar. How do I know what is Right? How can I test what is being spoken to me and decide what is Truth?

Then I am reminded:

As a praise team, we're reading through Psalms together. Last week one of the chapters we were to read was 119. The long one. And there was this passage that spoke to me.

"Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.
Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,
for they are ever with me.
I have more insight than all my teachers,
for I meditate on your statues.
I have more understanding than the elders,
for I obey your precepts.
I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word.
I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me."
vv. 97-102

THIS is why we read the Word. This is how we test every thing. This is Truth.
Heaven and earth may fade away but His Word will never fade away.

God is my ultimate Teacher. His Word makes me wiser than my enemies, gives me more insight than my teachers, more understanding than the elders. He Himself teaches me.

This is my prayer for my classes (especially this one) this year: That His Word will be a lamp unto my feet. That I might bring His wisdom, insight, and understanding to my class, instead of soaking in the lies and foolishness of the world. I don't think it's going to be easy.

God never makes it that easy.

What adventures I have before me!
Hah hah!

It's not the DEED that makes you "religious"

2009-05-27T13:18:00.004-04:00

it's the heart with which you do it.

What we believe in is not the religion of Christianity. It's the relationship with Christ.
Pastor Albert reminded us at the reunion.

The other week I got up early for school and as I was waiting for the bus I looked up at the sun. It was being blocked by this really tall tree. God always speaks to me in metaphors with the sun. So it was like God was the Light (sun) and this tree was blocking it from FULLY shining on me. And I took it as some sort of sign. Like... there's a "tree" in my life blocking me from God. So I immediately thought, "what is my solution?" -- Chop it down, of course!

Of course NOT.

So I thought, "but trees are good! They give you oxygen and provide home for animals, etc." And so I realized... this tree represented all the things I DO. All the motions I go through, all the "religious" things -- praise team, BASIC, KCF, singing, reading the bible, praying, doing Christian-y things, not swearing, being "good". And I was sick of it. Because I lost touch with my relationship with God and doing all those things without the love of Christ compelling me and without the Spirit of God guiding me, it was just draining and all in vain.

I wanted to drop everything. No, really, I did. SCREW THAT. I wanted what really mattered, what was real. A true, genuine relationship with God -- which is what started the whole thing anyway. But what I learned was that dropping everything or cutting off the tree wasn't the solution. Because it's not the deed that makes it religious. It's what heart we do them with, with what motive and priority we do those things with that makes it "religious".

I realized I need to move my lazy butt and stand in front of the tree. Because what God wants is not my sacrifices or offerings, but he wants ME first -- a love relationship with me. And that tree (whatever it may represent) is a gift from God - He planted it and made it grow, even if we watered it and nourished it. The 'tree' is good. Worship, prayer, musical praise, reading the Bible -- is GOOD -- but we need to remember the heart of it all.

An exerpt. From a note from me to you.
It's amazing, sometimes, how much I learn from my own words. I guess I could really take my own advice at times.

May Flowers.

2009-05-04T12:38:00.003-04:00

April was all showers.

I took a short walk around outside yesterday. And everything was green!
These trees stay bare for so long you don't notice when they start budding.
And even when you do... there's no telling when they'll bloom.

I wonder if the trees talk amongst themselves at night and decide one early warm day of May that they'll all bloom together. Because that's what they do. It's beautiful.
Today I walked along a row of trees with small white flowers, so intricate in detail.
So pretty.
So much colour. Greens and greens and greens, yellows, pinks. Blue. Blue and white.

It's a new season.

Spring Cleaning.

2009-03-09T00:04:00.003-04:00

Wikipedia defines 'spring cleaning' as

"the period in spring time set aside for cleaning a house, normally applied in climates with a cold winter.
"The most common usage of spring cleaning refers to the early act of cleaning a house from top to bottom which would take place in the first warm days of the year typically in spring, hence the name. However it has also come to be synonymous with any kind of heavy duty cleaning or organizing enterprise. A person who gets their affairs in order before an audit or inspection could be said to be doing some spring cleaning."

When is it spring?
Is winter over yet?
We moved the clocks forward today. That's definitely gotta be a sign of spring.

I feel like I'm Spring Cleaning.
And... I didn't think this post through.

It's been a long winter.
My winter has been more than several months. More than a year?
It's been a long winter.

It's been a cold winter.
Now spring comes.
Now spring cleaning occurs.

What is it about winters?
What is it about winters that make you forget that it was summer not too long ago, that it'll be summer again very soon? What is it... that on the coldest day you forget about how it feels to be warm and what it feels like to have the sun shine on your face, that makes you feel like it's been forever since those warm summer days. Like winter's not passing quickly enough? Like your terrible coldness is just simply the worst thing ever... like you've never seen the sun before, like you've never been through a winter before.

Then what is it about summers that make you forget entirely about the cold winter? Even though it's bound to come. Even when you know that it was REALLY cold to the point of freezing to death just a few months ago... yet you still can't really remember it.

Life is adventures. It's the same cycle over and over and over.
And now it's time for spring cleaning.

And this time I'm going to every nook and cranny, not leaving anything unturned.
This time I'll be bold, this time I have nothing to lose.
This time I'm throwing out the junk.
This time I'm polishing what I let rust and collect dust.
This time I'm putting my pride on the line.
I'll say I'm sorry. I'll actually be sorry.
I'm getting my house in order.
I'll be honest. I'll tell them the truth. All of it.
This time I'll be bold.
And I'll pay the consequences.
It needs to be done.
I lived with this mess for too long.

Today I remember the sun. Today I feel it coming.

Now is the time for spring cleaning.
Now the warmth comes. Now the fire falls.
Now it rains.
Now it is a time for growth. For change.
For life.

and life in abundance.

I want to rewind.

2009-03-02T20:27:00.004-05:00

But I can't.
You never can.

And I run it all over in my head. God, I wish I can go back to that point and press pause and remain there forever. Or maybe to go back there and just start again.
Because the way this turned out wasn't what I had planned.
So let's just throw this draft away and try again.
Right?

Someone once told me that God doesn't have plan Bs.

Sigh.
I know.
I know that there's only moving on and moving forward.
Time to be strong. Time to stand firm. Time to fight and to face everything head on.

Lord be my banner.
Love be my cause.

When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great Your affections are for me.

I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way
He loves us.

How He loves us so.

When dealing with Real People with Real Problems,

2009-01-19T03:18:00.004-05:00

being REAL helps.

Lesson:

When you are REAL, almost always, it is reciprocated.

Today I Realized That

2009-01-05T14:03:00.002-05:00

T R U T H

is only determined by the reliability of its source.

Words.

2008-08-05T00:01:00.006-04:00

I used to think I was someone who possessed words and the ability to communicate with them.
Then I discovered how wrong I was in thinking so.

For an English major, I seriously lack a wide range of vocabulary and eloquence in both speech and writing.
But I've come to terms with that. You can make fun of me. That's alright.

People used to tell me I talk a lot. They still do. They still mock me and give me standing ovations and applause at the end of one of my long spiels... lectures, speeches, rants, rambles - whatever you prefer to call them.
It takes a while because I struggle too much to communicate what my point is. Sure, on the rare occasion, I'm on a role and get all worked up and can't stop talking. That's just the girl in me.
Writing is better. Because you can think first and pick and choose and revise what you write so that you can communicate most clearly.

I realized in the last year that I'm more of a feeler. I understand things and life in abstract ways -- through ideas and pictures and videos and emotional responses and experience and through dance and music.

"I need words" by David Crowder sums up exactly how I feel about the things I feel.
This. This is practice. This is release. This is a healthy outlet. This is thinking out loud. No. On paper. Or, computer. Whatever. This is searching. For words.

I need words
As wide as the sky
I need a language large as
This longing inside
I need a voice
Bigger than mine
I need a song to sing You
That I've yet to find

I need You.
To be here now.
To hear me now.