God's Shouting. Are you listening?

Why does pain happen? I don't have all the answers, but allow me to share something that I have experienced last week + weekend. My birthday is November 5 which was on a Friday this year. Well, I lost my phone on my way to downtown Chicago. I took the metra transportation and lost my phone during my ride. I live in a generation where we put most of our plans, alarms, and other information on our phones. I felt truly disconnected and weird without my phone.

The next day, Saturday, I got sick. I got a cold and my throat was acting up. Sunday, I went to take my roommate to church because she doesn't have a ride. I missed mine because I forgot about changing the time for the daylight's saving time (or w/e that thing is called). Well, it took FOREVER to find parking and when I did find parking, I went to the church, but the fire alarm went off. My roommate goes to an Anglican church and I guess that day was the day for the saints and they did so much incense that it set off the fire alarm. AND I also found out later that day that I couldn't call Lost&Found at the Metra Transportation Center until Monday 8am and it's not like I can go there because on Monday my intensive class started. So that just made me irritated b/c it seemed like nothing was going well.

On Monday, one of my intensive classes started (intensive class = a class that lasts all day for either 3 or 7 days..but this class was for 3 days from 8:30am-5:30pm). Well, I call Lost & Found and the lady tells me that I need to call at 9am because if I lost it on Friday then they won't get stuff until 9am. I couldn't call because I had my intensive class. Well, my roommate was awesome to get my phone for me, but when I got my phone back it seemed like it didn't really matter because I found out Monday night that my grandfather passed away on Sunday.

My dad asked if I could come to the funeral which was going to be held the next day, Tuesday 8pm in Flushing, NY. I told him that I would figure it out. So Tuesday comes along and it turns out that I can't anyway. My dad found out I had intensive classes and told me to stay anyway. So now I know that I can't go to my grandfather's funeral. Wednesday was the day for all the presentations to be done in class. My first presentation went well, but the most important presentation was the second presentation. I was the last one to go, but before it was my turn to go, I get a text from my brother telling me that I was the only one from my entire family that didn't go to the funeral. My family members from Brazil and California came. I was in Chicago and I couldn't go to the funeral...wow, that just messed me up emotionally. I haven't cried yet at all and I couldn't hold it in anymore I guess cuz I couldn't stop crying. I did my presentation anyway, but I basically screwed it up because I cried throughout my presentation.

On Thursday, my boyfriend "broke up" with me. And just when I thought I couldn't get any lower, I sought some friends of mine that I knew lived next to me, but they were unavailable at the time. Although I knew they were probably busy (if I were to think like normal and not going through all these things), I had thought at the time that they had forgotten me and didn't care about me at all. This was not the case of course, but when you are in pain and are suffering, you attack yourself.

I never had bad stuff happen to me EVERY day like this before so I didn't understand and couldn't make sense of it, but the one thing I constantly did throughout was proclaim: God is good all the time and all the time, God is good!

Even when I didn't feel God near or feel Him near, I still proclaimed it because I believed He was. Why is it that it is during our pain and suffering when we cry out to God the most? Sometimes I think that God shouts to us everyday and we don't listen because we're havin a great time so it seems like whispering more than shouting. When I was in pain and I sought after Him through my cries, He seemed to be shouting already...not in hate. No. But in love. Telling me things like "I love you. You are not alone. You are never alone. Come to Me. I am trying to reach you, but I want you to choose to come to Me. I love you; I love you!" Oh what a fool I was if I ever doubted. Oh what a fool I was if I rejected Him. How great is our God!

Anyway, the next day, it kept getting better and better. I got back together with my boyfriend (he talked to me. It was a miscommunication. I had misheard because I was emotional and was going through a lot. I wanted to hear what I wanted to hear because I was attacking myself because I was in pain), hung out with a lot of friends who cared, and felt the peace of God.

Peace...

True peace is when you can find it in the midst of darkness and struggle. And I found it when I continued to proclaim that God is good throughout this period of bad stuff. I cannot guarantee that your pain will go away and that a Christian life is extremely easy (um, because it's NOT ::read my post prior to this one::), but what I can guarantee is that no matter what happens, God is good all the time.

C.S. Lewis once said, "God whispers in our pleasures, but shouts in our pain."

Commit to the Struggle

Ever have those days where you just want to quit...give up...on everything n just do whatever? Ever cry so many times for no reason? Ever want something to work out n keep thinkin about how it would, but u could never wrap your head around on how it could? I had a couple weeks of these days. I scream in my head sometimes. Not really a great feeling n shootin myself with loads of coffee just to pass the day somewhat alive is not all that inspiring really...

So many thoughts and so many voices tellin contradictory things, but at least they got somedin in common: negative-ness... -.-*

Who ever said that bein Christian would be a road of easy-sailin??...i wanna smack that person n label that person insane. Following Christ is hard especially in a world that doesn't follow Him so easily.

Here I am in Wheaton College Graduate School for my masters and the warfare seems to be gettin worse...which is both good and bad. Good - b/c the more battles mean at least I'm gettin further n that someone naughty wants me to stop doin what i'm doin. And bad - b/c I sometimes get weary of the battles that keep coming. Funny thing about our journeys with God. He might give you a season of rest and peace, but the further you go with God to advance His Kingdom, the more adversity you face and the higher the "cross you have to pick up and carry" as you go (think of it this way: the higher u rise in an army, the higher the stakes with the enemies wanting to kill u n specifically target u).

There's danger everywhere. Your enemies are out there; shoot, even u urself can be an enemy - isn't that just ironic.

But here's the thing that I think some people miss out on when they convert to Christianity. It's not about prosperity like some preachers out there preach. It's not about how many people "you" can convert (there's no way u can save anyone anyhow). It's not about your safety. Dude, who said that following Christ and bein with God is a safe thing to do? No! There's a huge level of cost that everyone must consider before trusting Christ - surrender all. (that takes a lot of boldness to have that much humility).

Everything that was is now all about Him. His holistic mission to extend His rule and authority is now our mission and we need to carry this through. There's a reason why there's an Armor of God and the need to polish our armor and sharpen our Sword (Sword of the Spirit/Word of God/Truth/Christ). Who said anything about safe n smooth-sailin? God's desire is for the entire world to be under His authority n let me tell you why this is a good thing. God's authority over our lives means that our image is in Him. Our image being from Him means that we have our identity in Him. When we lose our identity and having God as our authority over our lives, we're basically screwed...we stop living and we just...exist - all the while deep within, we're searching for the very thing we've lost. Our mission is to extend God's authority to everyone. It's their choice to accept God's authority over their lives; we can't force it, but we can offer it to them.

He is indeed good and His authority is indeed a good thing.

The question is...to those of us who have counted the cost we'll face in this spiritual warfare upon us, are we warriors committed to the struggle? Regardless of any battle we fight in. Regardless of the enemies we need to fight against. Regardless of the number of enemies we may fight with at the same time. Regardless if we might lose some battles. Are we warriors that are committed to the struggle? To this fight to serve our King? Or are we just traditional people wearing dusty armor and carrying dull swords?

If indeed the last question is something that speaks to you, you need to choose to either not fight at all or to change what needs to be changed now! Time is running out for us all; don't be a fool to think otherwise.

>>>>
This is something I wrote for myself to encourage myself to commit to the struggle. I guess a little sermon I found myself preaching to myself. I seriously cannot fail now. There's just too much I have to do in this war. My prayer for us all is to catch the light of the Truth we believe in and find strength in the vision of what is to come in times of weariness and in times where darkness tries to stop us aggressively. God is the same God now as He was when He spoke everything into existance with just His voice. He is powerful beyond all measure; what or who have we to fear except Him?

Actual Humility

So Dallas Theological Seminary's hero, Chuck Swindoll, came by to preach again :) He said something that really spoke to me. U know those people in life that is always honest and flat out "straight with you". Of course it's great from time to time, but honestly it can get pretty irritating and annoying, BUT it's humbling and great for character building.

His message spoke to me about humility. I think it is great that God really loves us and cares about us to send people that will "rub us the wrong way" so that we can grow with each other and progress closer to God by allowing people in our lives to show us what we ourselves need to work on (whether we want to see it or not)

Although you can learn tolerance and perseverance, you can further it and look at it in a positive way by looking at it like discipline and uncovering the things we refuse to see within ourselves. Nobody likes to admit that they're in the wrong, but got no problem is seeing and pointing out the wrongs in others.

Man, this new season of mine is all about character building and it is a butt kicker :) but a good one though (of course it doesn't feel good while ur in the process, but i'm sure that when i look back on all the times God has guided me through the stages of character building, I recognize what an amazing privilege it is to be butt kicked by God)

lol hope nobody gets me wrong and think that God's out there just to "get us", but rather with us as we get closer to Him. We fall short of His glory and need His help to move forward and it is by His strength that we can do all things :)

well this is my "blah blah" for today and again, it's been a while since my last post...

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