posted by ~*~VaNeSsA~*~ -- 9:22 p.m. (0) comments
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Change...
it can be so subtle, yet so significant at the same time....
lol...so i'm back to my regular routine of just evaluating and reflecting upon life..and whether i'm following God wholeheartedly each day....
this past term, it's pretty wierd... people who i have not even kept in contact much are telling me how much i've changed...and i honestly didn't even think about it till recently.... it's craize b/c these are the peopel whom i only talk to once or twice a term tradtionally since my 1A... and it's these people who find the most significant change....
first and foremost...i would like to praise God for all that He has done in my life... all the glory really belongs to Him..and to Him alone...
well... goin into waterloo at the young ripe age of 17 brings something new to the university life that previous people entering at an older age may not experience as heavily.... at 17, the world is... so big..and you really just wanna jump in and experience everything that you possibly can..the good, the bad, and the ugly.... growing up, i've never felt quite as challenged in my elementary and high school life compared to university... life was so much simpler in those days and at times, i do admit that i'ld love to go back to those days....
first year brought many new challenges and difficulties.... lol..the world of drama ..haha.... some of you know what i'm talkign about... it's all about trying to fulfill your own dreams.... excel in all your courses, be way above average in doing so, bieng independent in everything, enjoying different pleasures of life not previously known, finding a guy and then doing all you can to try to make things work... and most importantly, trying to grow deeper in my spiritual walk... but i suppose i thought of all these different things as separate from each other...
second year arrives... and i no longer find myself a lil froshie... no longer have "special treatment" =P hehe..and i find myself in that upper year role suddenly... and simultaneously i find myself serving at ccf...getting much lower grades (ok..well about 5% drop) from first year... crazy interviews and co-op stresses...all of which i had not experienced before... lol..all the stress attacks from 2A simmer down as i entered my first co-op work term... only to RAGE again due to different things... mainly due to some family things back at home.... not to mention working 7 days a week.... i head into my 2B with many issues unresolved....
at the same time.... i miss home and i am glad to not be home... and living alone in my 2B proved very beneficial... 2B's been pretty interesting.... haha..finally finding a lot of time to studie..and be involved in other activities (ASA & CCF committee).... and i think i finally know why.... life is not meant to be cut up into each of it's little subsections with no correlation to each other.... rather, everything is in direct linkage to your own spiritual journey with God... each and every thing i think or do is a representation of Christ in me... do i represent Him? or fail miserably trying to do so.... it really encourages me to try to expound GOd's love to others in a way that is pure and unconditional...
along the way.... there are so many barriers to doing that... haha...
- one namely being patience.... yes... patience.... or lack of to be more precise =P
- fear is another one... i would like to think that i'm not afraid of many things...but indeed, the fear of failure has it's little handy ways of creeping up.... but really now... one must think...by whose standards am i evaluating myself to.... and the answer does soon come to be my own standards...and not GOd's....
- exhaustion... over-exhaustion... whatever u wanna call it... yeah.... it takes a while to realize that even if you are tired, that does not give you any leeway in acting in a less loving way towards others... it does not give you the green light to not put so much effort into all the GOd has entrusted to you... and truly.. to find strength in God... always a challenge, yet always attainable....
- pain.... yes...of course pain is painful...but that also does not grant you the right to not love others... such a hard thing to learn..and i for sure dun even got that down yet... can i honestly say that I MARVEL in GOd's presence in the midst of pain...
- and most of all pride... yes...that friggin thing in your heart that has the ability to consume oneself... this is perhaps the most subtle of all... becaue it's so subtle, i think a good way of coming to grips with it and eventually overocming it...is to really allot some time periodically to evaluate yourself in terms of pride... do you harbour any pride... why.... how does it affect your life... how can you change it...
i think...in bringing GOd's love in your life and sharing it with others in the most unselfish way ever, we constantly challenge ourselves to get outside of our own little bubbble... stop caring only for ourselves... the world is a lot bigger and there are millions of people who are yearning for their needs to be met (wether physical, emotional, spiritual, etc).... so how are YOU loving them?
posted by ~*~VaNeSsA~*~ -- 12:07 p.m. (0) comments
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
^_^ i feel old... my body's winding down...
grrrr... i miss my favourite massage buddie and friend --> KAREN!!!! ^_^ lol... dunno if u even read this time to time... but i always loved the time when we massaged each other during high school =P yeah.... brings back good memories of sharing a room with you... hehe, seems like those times are long gone... now whenever i see ya, it's only like for a day or two max.... only during the big holidays!! ^_^ but know that you are always still in my prayers.... =P and i can't wait to see you again when u come back from hk this summer... u better drop by to visit your dear cousin!!
Chris Tomlin - Come Home Running
Oh heart of mine, why must you stray?
From one so fair you run away
And one more time you have to pay
The heaviness of needless shame
Oh heart of mine, come back home
You've been too long out on your own
And He's been there all along
Watching for you down the road
So come home running
His arms are open wide
His name is Jesus
He understands
He is the answer
You are looking for
So come home running
Just as you are
Oh child of God so dearly loved
And ransomed by the Savior's blood
And called by name, "daughter" and "son"
Wrapped in the robe of righteousness
------
guess i've been thinking a lot about home recently as my last post suggests... and it just clicked that home, rhill is not my eternal home... and in term so my feeling "blah" i suppose i jsut gotta look in the rite places... this week has been better tho... =P i do truly wanna make it my goal to run after Him every day... i think that whenever i start to feel blah is when i am not running after him daily... it's so hard to overcome sometimes... it seems like there are always goin to be those days where i dunno...haha... i'm jsut not feeling it... i suppose that is an emotional thing tho...
which reminds me back to the conversation me, alexis, and chris had yesterday at a DL meeting about just the generation gap now that exists even within ccf and it's effects on our fellowship and how it is run... postmodernist vs. modernist... are we all becoming purely feelers and slowly sliding away from the thinkers... is our faith bound to our emotional highs and lows now... how much of our faith is an experiential thing? how will the people who are really hardcore with the Bible studies and theology unite with the experiential crowd? how does our fellowship fit into the picture? Should we now cater to these new upcoming "experiential" needs of the fellowship? the word seems to be balance... but how do we actually incorporate balance? i dunnos :)
also... another question that came up in conversation today... is it possible to say that you are too involved in "other ministries" (ie. reaching out to non-christian peers/classmates, family) to serve in some sort of capacity at fellowship? Are the two really in separate classes so to speak that we ought not to combine them but rather allot time for both? hmm... guess the only way u can know is to seek God's wisdom and will on a daily basis..
posted by ~*~VaNeSsA~*~ -- 10:05 p.m. (1) comments
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
currently: feeling kinda blah...
hmmmmmm....
it's been a pretty tough week... 3 midterms... rite now, 2 down... just intermediate financial to go... so... compared to a couple of weeks ago, my physical body is regaining strength again =P hehe..and i am trying to put more effort into goin down to the gym downstairs more often or actually get outta this apt. and go have a jog :) thanks for your prayers... i didn't even need to NAP at all this week!!! wahhh..so surprising considering for the past 3 weeks, i've napped practically every single weekday for at least 1 hr...
rite now... i guess i'm just feelin a bit mentally exhausted... for the past couple of days, my mind will not concentrate hard enough to let me study past 10:30... oh well....
so this term, i've gone home for a total of 4x~~ this is a lot compared to my grand total of 1 last term in loo... i dunno what it is..but everytime after i come back to loo, i always feel kinda homesick... some people suggested that it's b/c i'm living alone this term...but i know it's not that... the first couple days back in loo after the canada day long weekend has been tough... and the thing that makes it worse this time is that i know i wont' be able to go back until after exams... booooo.... u mite be thinking that there's at least another 4 - 5 weeks left, still plenty of time to go home... it's not as simple as that... having so many commitments in waterloo sometimes takes a toll on you... school is the first and foremost... then comes all the other lovely stuff... i'm not feeling "burnt out" as this post may sound like...but rather just kinda anxious to have this term finish... i don't think i've ever felt this way before in my previous terms here in loo... it's rather odd...
where is God in all of this?
*lol* He's here... very present..constantly teaching me stuff... recently... patience + understanding and as always, to never give up on prayer.