I’m writing this so I can look back on it a year or years down the road and remember God’s goodness, how I am blessed, and the great time I had over the weekend prior to my 26th birthday as well as the day of.

Friday, March 5th, I have the day off from work. I hitch a ride down to good ol CT with my good ol buddy Joe Yu. Haven’ seen him in a while so it was fun to catch up during the 1.5 hour drive there. Aside from the usual sarcastic and semi-inappropriate jokes, freestyling to rap beats was a good time! It almost makes me want to get back into rapping again. The days of Verbal J are long gone. But maybe a collab with Inbeom can be in the works when he gets back? For kicks and giggles? One last time? Sounds like it’d be fun.

Friday night I arrive home to a grand dinner of chicken, pork, AND kalbi. GEEZ! My mom has tirelessly prepared a feast to my liking and I was able to dine with family and close family friends. I got birthday wishes, TWO cakes, money (holla!), and a sweet little “brithday” (that’s how she spelt it) card from a little dongseng, hannah. 

Saturday morning I renew my driver’s license and relax until it becomes time to trek back up to Boston with mom, dad, and halmuni (grandma). 2 hours later we arrive at Boston. Eat another awesome dinner at Kaze for one of my favorite dishes, shabu shabu. Later in the evening, I have my joint partay with my almost-twin Julie Lee at Saint. A bunch of friends show up to celebrate! Maybe 30+? I’m bombarded with people offering to buy drinks, but I am not a fan of getting wasted so I defer and decline a good amount. Still I ended up double fisting an Amstel light and my drink of choice, coke and rum (thanks Cheol-min). I keep myself sustaining a buzz throughout the night making sure I don’t tip over that fine line. Towards the end we dance the night away. It was fun. Celebrated with friends, met new ones, and still 2 more days to go before I actually turn 26. I cab it home and knock out.

Sunday morning I get a wake-up call from Jee Lee. I’m surprised she remembered about it! I can’t get myself to get up for morning service, so I go to 2pm service at the Newbury site. After service I get to chat with One Love team 1 that just got back from Reynosa, Mexico! The excitement and passion in their eyes and tone of their voice while sharing parts of the missions trip was a huge blessing to witness. Praise God. After church, we grab dinner at 88 and hang out at my fellow staff member Amy’s apt. She cooked some mandoos and after devouring those we head over to P Eugene’s for some poker. Gotta get ready for the poker tournament fundraiser! Needless to say, I end the night down 10 bucks….I’m a bit rusty.

Monday, March 8th…my birthday morning, back to work. The weather is AMAZING. 50 (close to 60) and sunny. Oh man, I love that weather. I have Jay Sean’s “Do You Remember” on repeat the whole day as I do my work. Two people were out that day but the extra work load I had to take on seemed miniscule. I was just on cloud 9 and nothing could get my off. The whole day I was getting birthday wishes via calls, texts, facebook, in person. My blackberry was about to blow up. Just a year ago things were so different…God is good. He’s always been good. It just takes the high points in my life for my ignorant self to see and realize this. I end work at 4:30 and head home.

Monday night we go to Upper Crust for dinner. Alex, Simon, Amy, Yooree, and Paul join me to celebrate. We get my favorite pizza, tomato basil and garlic…mmmmm along with 2 others. As we chow down, I get grilled by the gang. “What was the most adventorous thing you did last year?” “What are your 3 goals for this year?” (For the record they are, 1. Get a new job/position/promotion. 2. Take my GMATs. 3. Gain 15 pounds of muscle…Simon added a 4th goal for me – get a girlfriend). Then they all decided to play the “Who would James go well with” game. Haha it was interesting to see their choices. For the sake of keeping awkwardness to a minimum, I will refrain from stating who they were. Haha. After dinner, we dropped off Amy. Before we left her place, she played me her rendition of a right-hand-only happy birthday song on the piano. Haha thanks Amy! 

9:45 pm, off to bowling….BUT not before we stop by McDonald’s for some ice cream. That night, I bowled the best game of my life, 221! Shattered my old record of 181. I then went on to bowl the worst game of my life, 101. Haha…fail.

Thanks everyone for the birthday love, wishes, blessings, rides, dinners, gifts, thoughts, drinks, and everything else. I have been blessed beyond imagination. 

Love,

Myself

In Praise of Self-Deprecation

The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.

Scruples are alien to the black panther.

Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.

The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.

The self-critical jackal does not exist.

The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly live as they live and are glad of it.

The killer whale’s heart weighs one hundred kilos but in other respects it is light.

There is nothing more animal-like than a clear conscience on the third planet of the Sun.

-Wislawa Szymborska

on a different note, how awesome is Kim Yu Na?

the answer is, very.

That is all.

So in the New Testament, Jesus tells a parable about seeds (representing the word of God) falling in different terrain (us, or our hearts), thus producing and growing differently.  It can fall on rocks, thorns, good soil etc.  Falling on rocks may grow and look good on the surface but it’s all show. Falling on thorns may grow at first but would quickly get tangled and choked by the thorns surrounding them. These thorns would be all the other distractions that take away from a relationship with Christ. Falling on good soil, now this will be deeply rooted and grow strong from the core all the way up to the surface. If you’ve been attending church for a while, chances are you are familiar with this parable. Here’s the part that was a great reminder for me: Don’t assume you are good soil. This seems directed straight at all the churchgoers who go to service on Sundays, worship, pray, possibly attend small/community groups and even give a bit of their income as offering. In other words, it’s directed to people like me. These actions don’t determine your salvation and if let unexamined, then your vision is prone to be clouded by assumptions that may not be true. I love this. We live in a society where equality is so important (and it is!) but it comes to a point where everything is sugarcoated true or not, just so no one is stepping on other people’s toes. It’s like we need to walk on a tight rope and one small statement can be taken offensively, especially in a church setting. I think hearing the hard to swallow messages are necessary, and to deliver that message is what love, community, and accountability is all about.

Don’t assume you are good soil. Just because you go to church (myself included) doesn’t mean you are saved. I’m wrestling with this. Christ has made it clear that he doesn’t want anything to do with lukewarm people. Hot or cold, all or nothing…be useful. Otherwise he will spit you out – straight from revelations. And this makes sense. He calls us to have a relationship with him. You can’t expect the blessing but not do your part. I’m not saying you earn your blessings but you also dont tell a father you love “I don’t want to have anything to do with you, but can i still allowance?” I long to be passionate, and to stay passionate. It’s hard.

Anyway, speaking of hard to swallow messages, Pastor Eugene from Cornerstone (my church) has been delivering messages that rebuke (but out of love) the church. I love it. I think it’s great. I think we need it. It shouldn’t always be about feel good messages because we are nowhere near perfect. We need the tough lessons. When spoken out of conviction they can be piercing. I look forward to hearing more.

 I am on a Daniel fast. I have been for the past 2 weeks. Traditionally it’s giving up meat and wine, but who am I kidding, I need the meat. Not necessarily because I can’t live without it (I do love it though), but because I just lost so much weight within the past year that I never made an effort to gain back. Instead I gave up secular music and facebook. 

I also started reading the bible with a friend. Two chapters a day, and we would email reflections from what we read. Reading the bible isn’t something that I did too frequently. It’s actually had its ups and downs during the two weeks I’ve been doing this. There are times I’m looking forward to it, other times it becomes so hard.  Why is that? Why is reading the bible a challenge to me? Is it a direct correlation with my spiritual state? Am I unaware of my spiritual deprivation? Anyway, it keeps me reading and that’s the important part. I can cry legalism and decide not to read because i don’t “feel like it” but really i think i pull out the legalism card way too often. Sometimes you just have to grind it out. I’m thankful for this opportunity to do so.

I’ve been trying to meet up and hang out with the BU students more. I’ve never been really good at pursuing deep relationships. Maybe i don’t know how. Maybe i’m scared to do so. I do long for strong deep bonds though. Or maybe that’s just me wanting a relationship. 

Which brings me to my next topic. I am turning 26 in a few weeks. I can’t quite grasp that. I forget i’m 25 at times. When I was younger I thought i’d be married by now. I tell my friends i’m over my last break up (and i should be it happened a few years ago), but I can still feel the ramifications of a huge heartbreak. I definitely am different because of it. I want a god centred relationship. I’m a lot more guarded. A lot more hesitant. I dont’ know if it’s being careful and wise, or just being a pansy and scared. Either way, i wonder what will happen in the future. I miss the parts where i can openly express how i feel with the assurance that itll be fully accepted. I guess when it comes down to it, if i really want a godly relationship, i need to be in a deep relationship with god – which i am striving for but dont think i’m quite there yet.

I have been looking for new jobs. I interviewed with one small company what started in 2002 but is growing and doing really well. In the end i got the “your interview went well, but we wanted to extend the offer to the strongest candidate.” Awesome. I then had a phone interview with Liberty. They brought me in for a face to face and i thought it went well. Maybe they thought otherwise because that interview was nearly 2 weeks ago and i haven’t heard back. Even when i tried to follow up on my application no response. Awesome.

I feel like i need change. I want change. Something to change. Maybe that’s why i thought i was at a crossroad – just dillusional. I need to keep putting my faith in God. He hasn’t failed me yet. I still find it hard though – foolish me.

I can feel it. I can sense it. For the past 9 months my life has been on a one way linear path – now it’s come upon diverging roads. I don’t know why I feel this way but I feel as though I will be going through a transition(s) in my life – life changing ones. Something is about to break through. I hope I can make the right decisions. I’m excited. I’m curious. I’m scared. Whatever the case, I pray I can be content in whatever situation I find myself in. I pray that the Spirit will give me wisdom and discernment. I pray that I can fully submit to God for I know He’s in control. He knows best and gives abundantly.

as if I’m longing for something I don’t have, but I can’t quite put my finger on it..

and this all came out of the blue!