hyunjean

dedicated especially to my bifflewiffle hyunjean kim who's having a hard time adjusting/ getting used to college life so far away from home. i ask that everyone just take time to pray for her and keep her in their prayers. pray that she will find a great group of genuine friends (and a decent temporary replacement for me), pray that she will not fall into any of the temptations that college so willingly provides, pray that she will find an awesome church community in jersey, and lastly, pray that she will make princeton her "other home" so that she wont feel too homesick.

hyunjean, i hope whenever you're stressed or homesick you'll read these and feel better& have hope! but this also goes out to anyone who's away from home and feeling overwhelmed/ worried/ scared. i hope you'll all get strength from these verses!

a lot of these are straightforward/ i hope you'll be able to draw your own strength from these so i wont be reflecting my own thoughts too much..

"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." - Psalm 27:14

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."- Psalm 46:1

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." -Matthew 11:28-30

"Cast your cares upon the lord and He will Sustain you. He will never let the righteous fall. "- Psalm 55:22

"Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." -Isaiah 40:31

"My comfort in suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life."- Psalm 119:50

i hope reading these help! i also realized a lot of my older posts are about staying strong and not worrying. it definitely gives ME hope when i feel down to read those again. hyunjean, dont ever forget you can reach me anytime you wanna talk!

i <3 you girl! stay strong!

be strong

"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."- Psalm 73:26

Dont Worry

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or sore away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable then they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour of his life?"- Matthew 6:25-27

sorry it's been such a long time. i think this passage is perfect for the current state that a lot of us are in. kids in college are finishing off their year, which means finals/midterms. there are high schoolers AP testing. and of course, seniors getting ready to close a chapter of their life and become legitimately independent. undoubtedly, independence= worries. im really excited to be on my own but im also pretty nervous. after living 17 years with my parents how am i gonna be able to survive on my own? i worry about food, buying things, making friends, and even going to the bathroom, soo much... BUT this passage really encompassed everything.
clothes= big problem for me. i worry a lot about the clothes i have. mainly because i love clothes. food... bahh FOOD, I LOVE FOOD. im worried about the kind of food i'll have next year cus my mama makes such good food haha. but God takes care of us all. and the last line is definitely food for thought. worrying gets us nowhere. plus if we consider the mere fact that we are alive, there is enough to rejoice about.

i shall leave you all with my favorite verse of the moment
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." -Matthew 6:34
tooo true.

Best Friend.

"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!" - Ecclesiastes 4:9-10


-i am extremely lucky and grateful to have some wonderful friends :) recently i had a mehh! moment with one of my closest friends where it was like "oh im having a bad day. what? you did THIS? let me take out my anger on YOU" and i was mean. and then she texts back (oh this was all via text, yes, technology these days.. we cant even have a face-to-face spat loll) that shes really sincerely sorry... and it made me sad. like wow i was just a really big unnecessary bizatch to you, i wish you got mad at me/ defensive.. and then i texted back that no, i was having a bad day, im sorry too. and she replies that we better go make my day better (:]) and she IS still sorry.
&though this may not mean much to others/ her i was really struck by what a wonderful friendship we have. truth be told, what i initially got mad about DID make me a bit upset (though i blew it outta proportion) but i was straightforward about it. because i knew i could be. and she, nice friend that she is, apologizes, and i could tell that she was being sincere through her sad face :('s hahaha. and then I learned the lesson and instead of being like HA yea, you SHOULD be sorry. i understood MY mistake and what i did wrong and it ended up being 1)an apology fest and 2)a "aw-warm-fuzzy-feeling im really glad i have this friend" moment for me. haha

the Bible says that "Two are better than one" and indeed i believe it. when i'm having a bad day (and that day was BAAAD) i have a friend that i can talk to about my problems, a friend that really cares about what my day was like and wants to make it better. when i fall down, i have friends to help me back up. that same day i happened to also be texting (this really makes me look bad huh) with another one of my good friends and he asked me how my day was. the thing is, this friend, doesnt just ask how was your day as small talk. he really wants to know. so when i told him about how i had a huge stomach ache blahblah he texted me things like "hope you feel better!" and "stay strong!" and that made me really happy :). i just think that friendship is one of the things that i treasure the most, especially these days.

and even if you dont think you have that many friends, realize that everyone has one really nice best friend up in heaven and ME :) hahaa, if you want to be my friend.

A Good Attitude

i realized while i was versehunting last night that my recent posts have had a trend of being rather morose. haha. i mean, i hope most of them were ultimately positive for you all.. buut theyre all based off of troubles? HAHA. anywhoo, hoping to divert..

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life,... to be made new in the attitude of your minds" - Ephesians 4:23

"My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life." -Psalm 119:50

-THAT is a good attitude. i think it's important to seek out the positive things in life when you're surrounded by nothing but negativity. difficult? yes. impossible? no. what i realized, from real-life examples, is that once you get on the selfpity ball, it all just snowballs into a bigger, angrier, more depressed, woe-is-me, ball.

so next time you're feeling self-depreciative. think of something positive. like, oh i dunno, God promising you everlasting life with him? haha.

i dont really know how else to emphasize this... but i just think attitude really gauges what kind of day you're going to have/ the overall mood(?) of your life? like people that are very selfconcious/ sensitive always take a small thing and make it into a huge deal. and then they worry and they think too much and they end up being constantly worried and hurt by little things others say. and consequently, they think every day is a bad day. did that make sense?

so i challenge you all to change your attitude and be more positive this week! especially with all this college madness... it'll be hard but not impossible ;)

To Deal With Disappointment

"The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." -Deuteronomy 31:8

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." -Psalm 34:18

what i realized is that when you're not particularly gifted in any certain area, you learn to deal with plenty of disappointments.
story of my life. haha. so i've never been above average in anything (except my height i guess?) and it's been sucky for the most part. i'm not freaking smart, i'm not really pretty, i'm not super athletic, i'm not a violin prodigy... to fail and watch your friends succeed or try your best and your hardest but not succeed hurts, to be honest. so when i read these verses it was especially heartwarming.

-Deuteronomy says that God will ALWAYS be with you and, idunno, that's just a great thing to keep in mind. it's like, okay, i'm not really smart.. but God still loves me and he'll never leave me. such a fantastic-- and somewhat mind boggling for us of Asian origin-- thing to realize. one thing that i think makes it harder is the way we're pressured and expected to be "something" by our parents. i know they only do it because they want you to be sucessful or they just want the best for you but... it still makes you feel like crap when your mom is harping on you about not being as smart as so-and-so. but the Word says not to be discouraged. so i'll try my best.

-the next verse is just as mindboggling. "crushed in spirit" ha. that's how i've felt most of my life. you know how much it sucks (im sorry, im repeatedly using the word "sucks" for lack of a better word) to try super hard and fail while other people just naturally succeed in everything? over and over, i've suffered from a LOT of failures, and subsequently disappointments. but it's relieving to know that God will still remain close to me and save me, eventually. the idea of a savior always reminds me of superheroes. haha. but yaknow what? you cant be saved if theres nothing that's troubling you.

so, conclusion.. yes, disappointments suck and i have had my fair share of them. BUT even through all these things that i think are "the end of the world" God will love me. God doesn't care that i didn't get into UCLA, he still loves me.

crazy.

The Ultimate Getaway

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." -Matthew 11:17

lately, i've been really tired. inexplicably so. there have been no changes in my sleeping pattern, i still get the generous 5 or 6 hours of sleep and i dont do anything strenuous that'd wear me down. so why? WHYY?
i know that this isn't exactly the same kind of "weary" that the Bible's getting at but reading this passage just relieved me so much. it's pretty amazing to think that when you're burdened and weary with so much, excuse the language, but so much CRAP. God will come and take it from you. can you imagine how relieving that'd be? just imagine carrying, hmm.. what's heavy..., imagine carrying an ELEPHANT on your back. you HAVE to hold that elephant... all the way to your next class at school. this means you have to go through stairs, crowds, bustling people. now imagine you're halfway there and you are really dying. not sure if you can go another step and Jesus Christ, himself, comes and gets rid of the elephant for you. having all of that off your back would be heavenly no? (excuse my pun). that sense of relief and just letting go of all that stress and tension.. NOW IMAGINE! where did that elephant go? WHAT? Jesus Christ is holding that elephant FOR you! and he just traded with you. you get to let go of that elephant and instead be tied with Christ. then you get to walk sidebyside with him, working together and carrying a waay lighter load. win win no?

now replace the elephant with ALL YOUR PROBLEMS. replace the yoke with your faith. you give up your problems to be with God. how can you REFUSE?



sorry that this post wasnt as, um, focused as the others.