blessed are the poor in spirit

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

blessed are those 

who are entirely dependent on God's grace every single day,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

i finally get it.

"just like you can't impress a NASA engineer with your paper airplane, no matter how far it flies... you can't bring your goodness into the presence of God and be proud of what you have to show. God's goodness is so great, God's love is so immense, God's patience is so unending, God's virtues, well, they're limitless- they make whatever it is that we have to share completely shy in comparison. so when people truly encounter the living God, they immediately feel poverty of spirit... if anyone still feels pride in the presence of God, well, then they haven't really been in the presence of God."

- pastor dave swaim, 7/12/09

i really, really miss highrock :(

in the belly of the unnaturally large fish

so, i was reading the first chapter of jonah today and two things that may or may not have been new, but were things i needed to be reminded of, jumped out at me:

1) by running away from God, not only did jonah mess it up for himself but also the people around him- whether it's people we know and love or just people that happen to be in the same hypothetical boat as us.

2) "but the Lord provided a great fish to swallow jonah." now i wasn't there for it so i can't say for sure, but i'm willing to bet that having been thrown overboard, jonah was probably praying for some water-wings or a raft or a lack of sharks and maybe a conveniently close island to wash up onto, well that and the "ah, God, i'm so sorry!" that must've been on loop in his head. so when God sent a giant fish his way he was probably not feeling too overcome with thanksgiving. he was probably kind of upset, nervous, frightened out of his wits, looking behind his shoulder to see if maybe the fish was headed to swallow the guy behind him, praying for deliverance from the fish, but little did he know, this was God's deliverance! and so, the lesson there is pretty point blank- His ways are higher than our ways. what we expect is sometimes so off from what God has in store for us and sometimes what God has for us might seem like a bad idea, but He's got it under control. so jesus, thank you for the fish.

happy birthday, mommy

i love you- you are my world.

this might hurt

it's not safe

but i know

that i've gotta make a change

i don't care

if i break

at least i'll be feeling something

cause just okay

is not enough

help me fight through the nothingness of life

consuming fire, fan into flame

take me all the way

who can say if i've been changed for the better..

every time i see you, i regret letting you go

even though i know it was the right thing-

we're not right for each other.

maybe if i'd never moved to shanghai,

if i'd never known that life,

if i'd never met those lives,

i could've been happy with you-

you could've been enough.

but then,

maybe i wouldn't have been enough for you

because shanghai was what made me-

all of this, shanghai wasn't just where it happened,

it was what did it, well, jesus in shanghai.

and the fact of the matter is,

i did move to shanghai

and i fell in love with that city

and i fell in love with jesus in that city

and i met the most amazing people in that city

and somewhere between the green taxis and blue taxis,

the trodden cabbage leaves and billowing laundry,

the old men's toothless grins and bared bellies,

the 2 kuai 葱油饼 and the 55 kuai moon river bbq burgers,

i found myself-

and nothing would ever be the same.

..but, because i knew you, i have been changed for good.

why are you striving these days?

why are you trying to earn grace?
why are you crying?
let me lift up your face-
just don't turn away

why are you looking for love?
why are you still searching
as if i'm not enough?

you are enough-
you are more than enough.

hey, heart-
stop forgetting.

the best thing to hold onto in life is each other

- audrey hepburn

in that case, 

i must suck at life.

i keep hurting people

and losing them.

and asdf.

i'm sorry

i'm sorry i'm sorry

i'm sorry for all of it

all of you

blahhhh.

i get so caught up in flailing about all my love for everyone and everything that i don't even realize when casualties occur. and then when i realize, it doesn't even matter because it's too late- the damage is done. 

我这个人啊。

no one should ever take what i do or say seriously.

and they especially shouldn't read into it.

i don't mean to.

God has a lot of work to do in me yet.

and maybe it's the rear-view-mirror-distortion or maybe it's all the madness and loneliness in all these endings but i miss you, i miss us, i miss how much sense it all made to me.

i'm tired of being all alone

and this solitary moment makes me want to come back home.

i hate waiting

i hate checking my phone every five seconds.

i hate putting my phone on silent and placing it far, far away from me so i can't check my phone every five seconds and so that my ears can give it a rest.

i hate trying to drag those five seconds out into five minutes.

i hate the disappointment that follows when i check my phone and see that five minutes weren't enough.

why do i keep getting myself into this situation.

what is this situation anyway?

that's what i want to know.

that why i need you to reply!

roar.

and no, contrary to what my shirt says

that's not dinosaur for "i love you."

if you're happy and you know it

clap your hands!

except,
it's not that easy-

i'm not always sure what i'm feeling.

sometimes i have absolutely no idea.

sometimes i wonder if there are feelings our hearts are capable of that we haven't felt yet. most the time, i just wonder about the names of all the feelings i am feeling and find myself searching in songs, in books, in quotes and conversations for some reassurance that i'm not alone. i search hoping that these feelings will recognize themselves and procure for me an identity that i don't have the words to provide. i just feel them and i hurt and i love and i close my eyes and try to make out some semblance of an outline before my heart puts a stop to it because it can't take it anymore. but i never find the words for these lonely emotions. they feel so heavy and fresh to me, like i'm pioneering some extraneous new-fangled emotions that God decided to give me to test-drive. and even though sometimes i'm left feeling completely isolated, i know i'm not alone- i can't be. but it sure feels like it when i prattle on to people about life and goldenness and beauty and when my emotions resemble splashes of color more than coherent words and when i'm drowning in my memories and nostalgia and acute awareness of how little and fleeting i and everyone i love so intensely are. but maybe none of that is anything unique or strange. after all, we're never as special as we think. but maybe there's a frequency of feelings that escape most people's radars, like how dogs can hear high-pitched sounds that we can't. or maybe there are some people who are the super-tasters of emotional taste-buds- super-feelers. or maybe everyone feels them, these lonely intense emotions, but we all keep quiet because every time we try to open our mouths and identify them, the emotions surge up from where we had thought they'd finally settled, perhaps somewhere behind a kidney, and they steal away with the words we'd finally found to describe them.