Heart Problem

Over the summer, Tito Virgil said something that had impacted the mission team: "There is something with your heart." When I don't check my heart enough, I realize that there really is something wrong with my heart. It causes me not to function properly, I feel so out of it, far away from everything including God. As I was just processing this stress and this hopeless feeling, I can't help but to be reminded that I can't put my hope in nothing less than Jesus Christ blood and righteousness. Now I'm back to this again. God help me to draw all my joy and strength from you. Started really reading the bible again, going to go for a 90 day challenge. Tomorrow is day 3.

I'm Tired.

There are some moments in life where I give up and say I'm tired. I'm tired of trying so hard with my own strength and then burning myself out. I'm tired of keeping up with everything. I'm just letting go and somewhere in the midst of it all, I'm trusting that God will take care of me, everything, and everyone around me. It may be discouragement, it may be stress, I might be too overwhelmed with the responsibilities I pick up for myself and end up not being productive in any of them, it may be that the people around me are making me weary. Whatever it is, I'm casting it onto Jesus, I can't do any if this myself. I can only find my joy and strength from Him alone and time and time again I keep resorting to being self sufficient. Wake up, Joan.

Little talks on the train.

The other day, David and I were taking the train back to Flushing together. There was one seat available so he let me sit while he stood. I reached out my hand, grabbed his sweater and put it on my lap so that he didn't have to hold it. The man right next to me commented, "only people in Korea do that". That comment led to hearing a big portion of his life story along with his hurts and pains that led to his children growing up to be not too good either. He now doesn't have a wife, his children don't speak to him, he was married for twelve years and he's been divorced for twelve years as well. He doesn't believe in the whole religion thing because he grew up Jewish and couldn't understand why God would allow the Holocaust to happen. David ended up telling him a little bit about how God has to be real from his testimony. Unfortunately, the guy has been through enough to not believe in anything. He was a nice guy. I wish we could've had an opportunity to plug him in to somewhere healthy. Life is hard.

Raising Kids

I wonder if there is a correct way of raising kids. As I was sitting amongst a bunch of kids in their early teens, most of them had the newest gadgets and were preoccupied playing the latest games. Among those kids was one kid doing his homework. He looked like such a diligent worker so I asked him, "hey, do you like to study?" And he goes, "no" but he wants to finish it so he doesn't have to do it at home. Everyone else was just focused on playing games.

I wonder if the reason why is because he's actually a really disciplined kid or because his father never bought him a gadget to play with which forces him to do his work.

While the other kids were talking about their newest apple products and how many they have, this studious looking kid and turns to them and says, "I don't have any 'I' products. Nobody in my family has 'I' products."

So the other kid who had an iPod Touch 2 that he no longer uses anymore says, "maybe I can give you my old iPod because i have the newest iPod." The kid turned around with a smile and said, "If you do give me, don't tell my dad because he will throw it in the garbage because he doesn't want us playing games at all, he wants us to study." So someone else goes, "then there's no point of giving it to you." And he goes, "no, I will play with it in my room at night when everyone is sleeping."

This made me think: what's better? To deprive a kid of what everyone else has or go along with what society is teaching the kids?

It's a New Day.

It's a new day. I wanna start it in a new way.

The past two weeks has been a very anxiety filled. I felt all over the place, especially with my responsibilities and being behind in many of my things already didn't help. This caused me to lose my focus on God and start relying on my own strength again. I'm not strong enough, I'm too weak. Gods mercies are new every morning, I'm thankful for that. It's a new day, starting it fresh. I can't do it alone, God help me keep you in the center.