Bad Romance

God can do all things, even redeem events from our past.  When you give Jesus everything you have, he gives you everything he has…

It had been about a year since my breakup but I still felt bad when I thought about it.  The hurt and embarrassment were still there and the fear of getting hurt like that again was constantly in the back of my head whenever I went out of dates with other guys.   I’ve had breakups before and although I was sad and hurt initially, I would usually recover quickly.  The guy and I would work things out and we’d both make a concerted effort to be good friends afterwards.  However in this particular case I had my first taste of bad romance. 

We dated only briefly, about 4-6 months I think.   We were never boyfriend and girlfriend.  I think that was what made me sad.  Although he liked me, he didn’t like me enough to want more and it was pretty much implied in the beginning, but I was extremely foolish (and not to mention full of myself) because I thought  I could change his mind.  I did my best to learn about his likes and interests so that I could be all things to him.   I hid my true feelings from him so he wouldn’t think he had the upper hand but I suspected deep down he knew what was really going on.  When I finally came to terms that the relationship needed to end, he beat me to the punch and ended things on the night I scheduled a dinner so that I could end things. 

That night at dinner he said although he had a great time dating me, he needed to end things because he met someone else who he thinks could be the one.   I lost it for a little bit and said I felt used and led on because he knew how I really felt but let things drag on because he was self-centered.  Then I stopped for a bit and after a few minutes I regained composure and said it made sense to end things and that I wished him and the new girl the best.   

We stopped talking since that night.  I went through a healing process of grieving, relying on friends, reading self-help books, and doing everything and anything to keep my self busy so I wouldn’t have to think about what happened.  Those things didn’t work so I sought God.  I prayed for specific healing in areas of the relationship but I never fully gave everything up to God.  I came to terms with the truth and repented my sins (how I was a willing accomplice) but I couldn’t help but feel bad whenever I thought it.  Finally I changed my prayers and began to surrender the relationship, the breakup, and the current situation to Jesus.  I didn’t know what to ask for so I just prayed that his will be done in it.  God put it on my heart to pray forgiveness and blessings over this guy.  My heart was changing and the memories were getting less painful.  I thought this was my closure until I received a phone call from him.  Out of the blue he called to ask how I was doing and how he wanted to get together.   Since I didn’t pickup this was all on voicemail.  I sensed God wanting me to talk to him but I dragged my feet and put off making a decision for a few days.  He called again and left another message.  I finally caved and called him back.  It was the first time we talked in over a year.  The conversation was brief and we made plans to have dinner.  He was in Los Angeles and I was in Irvine at the time so he did the gracious thing and offered to meet me at 8pm on a weeknight.  A small part of me celebrated when I learned he had to sit in two hours of traffic to get to Irvine.

I prayed and surrendered the situation to God and braced myself for what would happen next.  To my surprise he asked me why I was hurt and if there was anything specific he did wrong because he wanted to make things right with me.   At that moment I knew God was redeeming my bad memories of the relationship by giving me a new ending.  I was finally getting the closure I needed to move on.  My experience that night taught me the depth’s of God’s love for us.  He has nothing but the best intentions for us and that if we were to trust him and we give him everything, including those shameful and broken parts of us, God is able to turn those things and turn them into something exceedingly and abundantly better than we could ever ask.   

Go Green

I got to know God really well from a very humbling experience.  A few years back he had asked me to quit my job and I remembered panicking at the thought of not having an income.   I remembered reading Joshua 1:9 and sensed God was speaking directly to me with the verse:  “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” I had read the bible numerous of times and have often been critical of characters who were weak in faith like the rich young ruler, who refused to sell off everything to follow God.  I thought that if I were in his place I would have whole-heartedly given away everything because I had experienced God so intimately.  I thought I loved God more than the world but I soon found out I was no better than the people I criticized. 

I didn’t want to quit because I had a good position with a good salary in a bad economy.  I was so scared because I wasn’t prepared for what would happen afterwards.  I remembered asking God to give me peace and clarity about this decision but I just became more and more confused.   My emotions were all over map.  I felt peace one day and then had anxiety attacks the next.  I became so confused that I wasn’t sure if it was God asking me to leave my job.  So I began praying differently.  Just like Gideon, I asked for a specific sign so I would know it was God speaking to me.  I prayed, “Lord, please help me because I’m so lost and confused.  I don’t know left from right and up from down.  Please tell me clearly if you want me to quit my job.  Please give me a sign.  Please…please…please help me…like put something in my chair at work so that I know it’s you.  Please let me know if it’s a green light to go.”  Files were usually hand delivered to me or left on my desk.  Rarely, if at all, was anything dropped off on my chair.  At the time I didn’t know God would answer tangible and specific prayers so I figure I would ask for the impossible so that I could continue to keep my job.

A few weeks later I almost fainted when I found the Business 2.0 magazine in my chair titled “Go Green”. Not only does no one ever leave anything in my chair, but God had literally given me the “green light” I had specifically asked him for.  There was my answer: quit your job.   

I know what I had to do but I was too scared to do it.  I couldn’t handle all the insecurities that came with being jobless so I hid from God.  I stopped reading the bible and I stopped praying all together.  I was laid off a year later.  I thought I got want I deserved but to my surprise God blessed me.  He gave me a large severance package and bonuses that more than cover the number of months that I was unemployed.  He took care of me.   Instead of punishing me for not having faith, Jesus loved me to a point of gentle repentance so that I would come back to him.  It was humbling to get undeserved grace.  I repented, God forgave me and we started over.

I wish I could tell you that I am at a point where I can give up everything for God.  Walking in faith is still a struggle, however by God’s grace I am improving.  I am learning to trust.  I guess for me it’s not something instantaneous, rather it’s more like a process—-steps in faith.  And it’s by God’s grace I am able to see his unconditional love and devotion for someone like me despite my shortcomings.  He has every reason to not love me but he still does.  It’s because of his faithfulness our relationship still works.  Even though this isn’t one of my proudest moments, I’m grateful it happened because I got to see deeper into who God—someone worthy of leaving a job for.  

A Life Without Purpose is a Life Without Destination

Does God have a calling and purpose for our lives?  And if so, how does He reveal that to us?  Our friend Milton shares an insightful testimony of his own path to finding, losing and rediscovering God’s will for his life:

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for” ~ William Shedd

Finding true purpose in life can often elude us and cause us to feel empty if we are not successful in truly discovering or uncovering a vocation for our time on this earth. But what happens when you know that God has answered your prayers and has given you a clearly defined calling, has shown you the paths to follow, has reminded you about your obligations to His people, has been patient and waited for you,  and has made it clear that He has given you every bit of talent that is required to achieve the goals that He has put in your heart? There is no worse feeling than waking up to the hinting reality that perhaps you have wasted valuable time in the service that you once promised to God. This is where this story begins for me, as I look back and realize how many years have passed since God first called me, and how much more I could have done.

I arrived to the U.S. when I was 15 years old and just a month later, was deeply mourning the tragic and sudden death of my beloved Grandmother—an event that would change my life tremendously. Consequently, an uncle happened to invite me to a charismatic youth group and explained that it would ‘make me feel better.’ I had been raised within the Catholic church, went to strict Catholic schools all of my life, and knew the concept of God very well, but I had never attended church in the middle of the week. That night, it seemed that everything the preacher (yes, ‘preacher’…this was not a priest or a deacon, but a regular person with a Bible in hands and strong words to say) was saying applied to me, and how I felt at the time. After a calling to go up to the front for prayer, I stood up, walked forward, and that night gave my life to Jesus. My prayer to God was simply that I would serve Him in exchange for a last opportunity to, someday, see my Grandmother one last time and say ‘I love you’ and ‘Good bye’ to her—which I never got to do. God had a plan.
 
At that age and for the first time in my life, I began to experience the vivid presence of the Holy Spirit as it moved me to follow God’s will and His plan for me. Before then I was someone who had spent numerous years learning about God in school, about the church, learning who Jesus was, praying and having a relationship with the creator, etc., but I had never truly felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. My discovery of the charismatic movement within the Catholic church certainly changed all of that for me and re-shaped all my perspectives. A strong drive and willingness to serve was injected into my life and I wanted to be part of the plan that God has for our lives…[click “Read More” below to continue] 

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“Lord, Why Was I Born Into This Family?”

Where is God when we are born into a family of abuse?  There are some wounds so deep that we can carry them with us our entire lives without knowing it.  But God has a plan for redemption and restoration for each of us.  Our friend Johnny shares a powerful testimony about abuse, anger and withdrawal, a search for meaning that led him across the world, and ultimately, radical and unexpected healing and forgiveness.

Matthew 6:14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. “ 

My testimony is about forgiveness.  It is something that I have struggled mightily with for decades.  Especially when it comes to my family.   

I had no relationship with my father growing up.  He was an old school Confucian raised in wartime Korea that didn’t believe in God. Anything but absolute obedience to his will wasn’t tolerated.  He was very cold.  One time, when I was ten, I went to the neighbors’ to play with their toys on Christmas morning. We never really celebrated Christmas.  I couldn’t resist playing with all my neighbors new transformers.  “Oh boy! Optimus Prime, Megatron?! Oh man!” The phone rang at my neighbors.  It was my parents.  They wanted me home.  So I went home.  Right when I walked in the door, my father smacked me, knocking me out.  When I regained consciousness, I looked in the mirror and saw that I had a black lip. He thought I was being disobedient.

My mother was a devoted Catholic bordering on fanaticism.  I can’t remember ever having missed mass. She was obsessed with the legalisms of Catholicism and never allowed me to miss mass, confession, or doing the rosary for that matter.  No exaggeration, I think I did tens of thousands of Hail Mary’s during my youth.  She was a submissive wife, obsessed with work, that enabled the mood swings of my father dominate the house.

I had an older sister (she’s no longer with us) who was very cruel and ignorantly abusive.  It probably didn’t help that my parents gave her full reign to do whatever she wanted to me, being the older sibling.  I remember always being hungry after school waiting in the library until my mom got off work to pick me up, while she would go and feast with her friends at some hamburger joint.  Slamming the door in my face was a regular occurrence.  That’s not a metaphor. (Like, physical door in my physical face) But I got used to it along with her beatings and name calling. It was a family where I just didn’t feel love…[click “Read More” below to continue]

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Saved by Grace and a Phone Call

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” - 1 Cor. 10:13. 

How real are the promises of God in our lives?  When God promises that we will not be tempted beyond what we can bear and that He will provide a way out, does He really mean it?  Our friend C shares below a brave testimony of how God completely fulfilled this promise to her in her life:

I wasn’t initially going to write about sex. All sorts of thoughts ran through my head - what if this gets posted under my full name? What if my parents or my guy friends see it?  Shouldn’t I, as the child of missionary parents, write about something “unique”, something not experienced by almost everyone? And maybe I will - next time (I certainly have more than enough issues to make more than just one post). But for now, this is what God has laid on my heart to write about.

I grew up the child of missionary parents and grandparents. I spent my childhood either in a foreign country as a missionary kid or traveling around the US visiting Christian friends and churches.  You could probably say I’m about as Christian as they come. I didn’t date in high school, and I came into college pretty confident in my ability to resist romantic and/or sexual temptation.

My first two years did nothing to prove me wrong - secure in the certainty of my faith, I turned down the non-Christian guys who came my way - even one or two who were close friends whom I was drawn to- and as my crushes on Christian guys came to nothing, I decided that God probably didn’t want me to date in college (I received an actual conviction of this first year, but unfortunately it didn’t stop me from having crushes). By the time third year came around, I thought I had it down. I wasn’t going to date in college, in all likelihood, and even if I did it would be a Christian guy.  I wasn’t worried too much about non-Christian guys because clearly by this point I was strong enough and experienced enough to know how to handle them - hadn’t I done it several times already?  I was exactly like the young man “devoid of understanding” of Proverbs 7 - “passing along the street near [the harlot’s] corner, taking the path to her house”. Ignorant, confident.

And then someone entered my life - let’s call him Tim. We met in an unspectacular manner - I joined a new on-campus organization and he was one of the other members. I wasn’t on the look-out for romance, and for some reason I also labored under the delusion that since I didn’t expect and wasn’t looking for it, it wouldn’t appear. At the first party the group held, I noticed that Tim seemed nice and reasonably interesting,but that was it. That night, however, when I went to leave, I looked up as I was putting on my jacket and noticed that Tim was watching me. A little frisson of excitement ran over me - the guys who’d liked me in the past were, for the most part, good friends and didn’t treat me in a special way, and so get looked at by a stranger in a way that says “you are beautiful and sexy” was not something I was accustomed to, nor something I expected…[click “Read More” below to continue]

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