The End and Whatnot

안녕하세요!

I can't believe it, but finals are almost here. Eep! Time flew this semester. Part of what made it go by so quickly for me was looking forward to Bible study every week (or, as we were recently dubbed, the Exploring Christianity Club). No matter how hard classes & homework were, I just knew that if I could make it to Thursday evening, the worst was over.

It was so great just to be able to fellowship with other believers, & have great dialogue with people of other faiths too. My spirit was refreshed & built up each time we met together. And we were able to develop a relationship with the MSA (Muslim Student Association) during the latter part of this semester, as well. God has truly blessed us in everything that He's allowed us to do - from the opportunities He's given to us to the relationships we've been able to build. It has just been amazing to watch God work this school year.

It all began last semester, a few weeks into the new school year. A group of MC students from a large church in the area decided to start a Bible study at the Germantown campus of the college. Unbeknowst to me at the time, one of the girls in my aerobics class, Libby, was a member of this founding group. I happened to run into her one cool October evening, & as we talked, I found out that she went to the same church as one of my best friends, & she was about to go to a meeting about planning a Bible study on campus. She offered to let me join them, & since I had been looking for a group of believers to meet with, I tagged along.

A little group of us crammed around a table on the bottom level of the High Tech building, discussing what books of the Bible we should read, how to structure the study, activities to plan, the time & duration of the study, people to invite, & nitty gritties like food & the budget. I sat wide eyed & amazed, drinking it all in & thanking God for the "coincidence" of seeing Libby. I took notes furiously, eager to tell my friend Lisa about it. I texted her that evening, ecstatic at the prospects.

Within the very next weeks, we had our first meeting in the cafeteria. Surrounding 3 small tables pushed together, we apprehensively introduced ourselves over warm slices of pizza. Travis, our fearless leader, passed out worksheets he'd designed for the group, & with that, we dug into the Word. I could feel God moving amongst us, & instantly felt a connection to those surrounding me. Week after week, we continued to meet, Bibles in one hand & pizza in the other, full of joy at sharpening one another & seeing the Spirit work. We grew in number, sometimes having to add a 5th table to keep everybody together.

Enveloped in the chaos that is the campus source of foodstuffs, we prayed, talked, & laughed together. We grew closer as the weeks, months flew by. I even began to feel comfortable sharing my heart with my fellow sojourners. Just as we prayed before every session, God opened our hearts & minds to see new things in His word. Passages that we'd read over & over became new again. We all began asking questions that had never before arisen in our minds, & God was faithful to showing us the answers.

I was in awe. I got a thrill every time I thought about Thursdays, & I became more eager to stay in the word during the week. It felt as though Christ was refreshing me again & again, constantly making my spirit anew. Surely, I thought, this is how the early believers felt! Those verses in Acts never seemed more real to me.

Now. Fast forward to today. 2 May - the last meeting of our group until the fall semester begins in August. I was a bit sad when Mike & Travis told me that today was the end...for now. There seemed to be a restlesness in everybody, which might be why we didn't focus as much on Ephesians 4 as we should have. How would we end the semester? I would soon have my answer.

After Matt prayed us out, Travis & Matthias ran to the computer in the room to start a little...karaoke! We laughed & shouted (& danced) our way through the Cupid Shuffle, a lil of the ChaCha Slide, Bopeep (quite possibly my new favorite Kpop song), Dirty Laundry, & others. Matt & Matthias, ever the ones to hide talents, did a little freestyling for us, & Travis sang us his rendition of...a song which I can't remember the title of. It was a memorable way to close out the year, methinks. And it excites me thinking of what God will do next semester, too!

Here is some footage of the hilarity :-)

Annnd video! Mwahaha.

I'm gonna miss these guys *sniffles*

안녕!

Hullo! Primero parte :-D

안녕하세요 (Annyeonghaseyo = hello), curlies!

I know that it's been an eternity since I last posted, but I had good reason for it this time - school. I'm taking 15 credits this semester again, and I really wanted to focus on classes. So, I didn't just take a blog break, but a break from most social media in general. I feel bad for leaving y'all in the dark, though *sniffles* :-( Hopefully a few updates about everything will make up for it. Sooo, here we go!

1. Universidad (College/University): MUCH better this semester! By God's grace, I'm able to really buckle down and get things done this term. I know that God is a huge part of that, just because I was having emotional issues last semester. Every day hasn't been easy, and I have been tempted to skip classes some days, but I realised how disrespectful that is - especially since my classes are being paid for by my school. So I'm really trying to be more diligent this semester. 

Also, Korean is going really well! It makes Spanish seem like a walk in the park, but I LOVE Korean! It's so different, and yet makes perfect sense to me. King Sejong (credited with inventing hangul, the Korean writing system) and his advisors were geniuses! The entire alphabet was created based on nature and the structure of a person's throat and vocal organs. It's amazing to me that just looking at a word tells you how to pronounce it! It's so much simpler and more logical to me than English. Another cool thing about Korean is that all words are built from Consonant + Vowel (always in that order!) syllable blocks, so translating names is a bit easier. 

For instance, my first name in English is: KIM-ber-lee. Korean doesn't have the strongly emphasised "-er" that I have in my second syllable. But in Korean, my name is written as this: 킴벌리 and pronounced as KEEM-bul-lee. 

The force is still on that first syllable, because the first consonant (ㅋ) is an aspirated (spoken with air) consonant and commonly used for loanwords and non-Korean words/names. The "b" consonant (ㅂ) has a slight "p" sound to it, but it's softened by the previous syllable.  Also, the first two syllables have this nifty thing going on called Patchim (or what my sunsengnim [선생님] calls C-star). Patchim is when you add another consonant (or 2) to the original Consonant + Vowel block. It can change the pronunciation of that consonant - like in the middle syllable of my Korean name. The "ㄹ" has a slight rolling "r" sound (think like the double "r" in correr [Spanish]). As patchim, though, the "ㄹ" changes to an "l" sound. The "ㄹ" would have that rolling "r" in the last syllable ("ree"), but since there's another "ㄹ" right before it, the first one makes the second one take on it's "l" sound.

Also, in the word 선생님, there's patchim in every syllable. The "ㄴ" and "ㅁ" don't have sound changes, but the "ㅇ" does. Originally, "ㅇ" is a silent consonant (needed for words that start with vowel sounds but that need a sort of consonant placeholder), but with patchim, the silence is broken and "ㅇ" is pronounced as "ng" (like the "ng" in "ing"). Pretty cool, huh? Okay, going out of nerd mode...

2. Spiritual Health: I'm keeping on keeping on. I'm still in the same life group (small group/Sunday school) at my church, and we're supposed to be starting a new series in a couple of weeks. I guess I'm excited for it, but for a while now, I've been very dissatisfied with my church. Before y'all run away and condemn me for blaspheming Christ, please believe that my dissatisfaction is biblical, and not just nitpicky things like the music. I don't want to go on what seems like a whiny rant about it, but suffice it to say that I don't feel like I'm growing spiritually at the church I'm currently attending with my family. It's bothered me for quite a long time now (I think I started noticing around 11th or 12th grade), and I've continued going only because I'm on a ministry team with my sister and I can't just abandon them. Once I fulfill my obligations with them, however, I'll be praying about visiting other congregations. My personal devotions have been erratic (what's new? :-/), but the Holy Spirit is quick to remind me when I forget. Not a pleasant feeling, but needed, nonetheless.

3. Physical Health: I must say that this took a turn for the better! I'm taking nutrition this semester, and at first I was a tad skeptical. My professor assigned us to do a personal risk assessment; we had to interview our parents about their health, their siblings' health, their parents' health, and their parents' siblings' health. We also had to compose a family tree showing the birth and death of everybody (including ourselves and our siblings), and note any nutrition-related diseases that could've been prevented. I always "knew" that both sides of my family had health issues, but this assignment made it real to me. 

After interviewing my parents, I stared numbly at my paper as I saw that relative after relative suffered from Diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), obesity/overweight and cancer. My dad, paternal uncle, paternal great uncle, maternal grandmother (deceased), maternal grandfather, maternal uncle, and maternal great aunts and uncles all have Diabetes. They also all have hypertension! Nearly everybody on my mom's side is obese or overweight, as am I. I inherited gallbladder disease from my maternal grandmother. It was just disease after disease, and I felt so overwhelmed! I wanted to cry. I was at a heightened risk for everything because it was so prevalent in my family! I already have gallbladder disease and obesity, but the one thing that freaks me out is Diabetes. After learning even more about (I picked up a lot from my dad) it during our carbohydrates chapter, I felt numb on the inside. My dad was slowly killing himself from the inside out with his horrible diet, and he didn't seem to care! He could literally keel over any day with the way he eats. It's only by God's grace that he's still alive (just like the rest of us, though, so...). He's already had a scare with clogged arteries a few years back; God provided a miracle then. But the way in which my Daddy doesn't seem to take care of his body really scared me. Death never seemed so close or mortality so real. 

I decided then that I couldn't let that happen to myself. I finally read that last chunk of Eat to Live, and for the past few weeks, I've been eating raw vegan. Before you think I've gone off my rocker, it's actually been a great way for me to eat! My normal, incredibly nauseating post-nasal drip has all but vanished. My sniffles are gone. My stomach is no longer bloated. My gallbladder no longer aches trying to provide bile for foods I had no business eating. I feel more energetic than I have in a couple of years, and my skin looks healthier, too. Typically, I have smoothies for breakfast, a salad with raw crunchy veggies for lunch, and a salad and cooked veggies for dinner (huge, huge, huge salads - about 1/2 pound of lettuce per meal). It's amazing! It's not easy, and I have succumbed to temptation several times, but I'm continuing on. I have to do this not just to look good, but to make sure that I'm taking care of the temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells. To put it frankly, I was being (and still am sometimes) a glutton and acting foolish about my health. It was unwise to treat my body in such a manner. But better late than never, right? I'd rather change my habits before a crisis hits my body.

I'll definitely be updating you guys with my progress! I'm a work in progress, but I can't ever go back to eating the way I was. It's too risky.

Y'all's eyes have taken enough of a hit this AM, haven't they? I thought so lol. Tomorrow I shall continue, dahlings! I'll be updating y'all about the hurr - what's been going on and where I'm thinking of going next. Spoiler alert: my CG days might be over for good *cue Twilight Zone music* Lmbo!

Anywho, how have y'all been? I've missed you (even those that don't comment; every view is greatly appreciated)! I tried to keep up with blogs, and I have to say that Dee, you and AuCurls have done amazing jobs with TC, as usual. Such pretty coils! Raven, your articles and advice are as fascinating and insightful as usual :-) GoldenBlaze, your product reviews have me drooling over here! And Valerie from Curls2Envy - great devos as always, and drop dead gawjus hurr of late! What's in those products of yours? Lol.

안녕! (Annyeong! = Adios/Ciao/Aloha/Bye)

Inspiration

I was reading a page in A Young Woman's Call to Prayer yesterday morning as I did the prayer part of my devotions.

I had already read a chapter in my Bible, and even though I'd prayed beforehand, I just wasn't "feeling" anything - you know that goosebumpy chill that runs through you when God does something absolutely amazing? Well, it wasn't coming fast enough for my American attention span (lol). I almost quit my reading halfway through, but I pushed through it. I was growing discouraged, though - why wasn't God revealing anything to me (never mind the fact that I hadn't spent any serious amount of time with Him in months; I just wanted my "God fix" smh)?

As I was reading Elizabeth George's book, picking up where I left off, I instantly became encouraged. She was referencing different passages in which God's people prayed in different postures (these are all from the book, btdubs):

Falling on their faces (Numbers 16:22)
Standing (I Samuel 1:12-14)
Kneeling with hands spread (I Kings 8:54)
Fasting and laid on the ground (II Samuel 12:16)

I kept reading down the list until my eyes fell on an unfamiliar passage: Ezra 10:1. My eyebrows furrowed furiously. Ezra? Was that a typo? Where is that located? Major or minor prophet? Before or after Psalms? Is that even a legitimate book?! Did the Protestant church fathers add it as part of the canon? All these questions instantly ran through my head. I'm a PK (preacher's/pastor's kid), and we can be somewhat *cough*arrogant*cough* when it comes to Biblical facts, and in my little self-righteous mind, I decided at that moment that Elizabeth George was wrong - there was no Ezra! Unless I was going crazy and somebody cut the book out from my copy of God's Word (yes, Mrs. George is the crazy one whilst I have these perfectly sane thoughts running through my head...). I went to the Table of Contents to double check, and voila! Ezra magically appeared - before Psalms, as it turns out. I stood greatly humbled and corrected.

So, I flipped to the 10th chapter of this seemingly obscure book and found the first verse. Now, I've listened to enough Adventures in Odyssey episodes to know that you're not just supposed to read the verse listed; you read the one right before and the one directly after so that you aren't taking the verse completely out of context. The verse right before 10:1 was a man talking about how righteous the Lord was, and 10:1 itself was about how Ezra prayed (weeping and bowing down before the house of God). It was the verse right after it that caught my attention. It begins:

2 And Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, spoke up and said to Ezra, "We have trespassed against our God, and have taken pagan wives from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope in Israel in spite of this. 3 Now therefore, let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and those who have been born to them, according to the advice of my master and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. 4 Arise, for this matter is your responsibility. We also are with you. Be of good courage, and do it."
(Ezra 10:2-4, New King James Version)

 It hit me like nothing ever has before. To think that I came to this realization simply by keeping a verse in context in an historical book (Paul was right - all Scripture is useful for teaching)! I nearly wept. The parts I put in bold stood out to me especially. This is how I rewrote that first phrase on the opposite page to apply to me (a technique I learned doing a Beth Moore study):

"I have trespassed against my God, and turned away from Him and His ways; yet now there is hope in spite of all this."

Oh, how my heart and soul ached to see and hear those words. There is hope. There is hope! For ME. After all I had done, said and thought, there was still hope. After dreading fellowship with other believers, dropping out of the children's ministry, going deeper into depression, being lazy, ignoring God, treating my family like crap - there was still hope! Even after doubting my faith - there. was. still. hope. I'm taking it to heart, believing, speaking it over my life, and claiming it.

"...let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these..."
For myself, I took this to mean that I am making a covenant with my God to put those sins, heartaches, lies...everything behind me. I am rededicating my life to Christ.

Arise, for this matter is your responsibility. We also are with you. Be of good courage, and do it."
It is my responsibility to nurture my relationship with Christ! No excuses - it's up to me to spend time with Him, talk with Him, and include Him in my daily decisions and everyday life. The "we are also with you" I interpreted to be the loving family and friends around me. They are there praying, encouraging, rebuking, uplifting, correcting, and guiding me - and cheering me on all the way, even as I must do for them. That last little sentence is like an energy boost. I have to have the guts, and just go out there and DO it already.

God is just amazing. He never fails to fulfill His promises. I asked to see new truths that I hadn't seen before, and He faithfully revealed them to me. It was confirmation that I'm back on the right path. And even if I don't constantly stay on that spiritual high that I so often seek, I will know that God and my brothers and sisters in Christ are there to help me keep on keeping on.

#Realtalk: My Relationship with God (Updated)

Wow. Where do I begin? Last year (2012), I was all gung ho about reading my Bible, praying, going to church, etc. and I wanted to deepen my relationship with God. Things went well until my Nana's health started to fail. The more ill she became, the further I felt from God. After she passed away, I read one last Psalm, and I have hardly opened my Bible since (except for Sundays during church and Thursdays at Bible study). I seem to have lost all motivation to read it. I haven't sincerely prayed in months. I don't feel like going to church most Sundays. Things that used to bother me (cursing, amongst other things) no longer prick my conscience. God feels like a fairy tale that I used to believe in, and to be quite honest, there are some days where I just want to give up and not believe at all. I turned to hair and technology to be my gods instead. For months, I have been addicted to watching YouTube videos until the wee hours of the morning, staying on CurlyNikki and feeling the urge to post and read nearly every thread, and wanting to fit in everywhere that I could possibly go on the Internet. But then I realized something: I'm miserable. My overly-anxious, melancholy personality has magnified a hundredfold and I feel like I can no longer function properly. I have become lazy, lethargic, angry, irritable, bitter, and inconsolably sad. I keep flip flopping in my decisions, unsure of what to take during the spring semester, worrying about my major...all decisions that I normally have less issues with.

Like I've said before, I go inside myself when troubled times come instead of reaching out. I did that with my professors in the fall semester and my grades suffered severely as a result. And to be quite honest, when I was a younger, 15 year old "super Christian," I never imagined that I would do it in my spiritual walk. Oh, all the pride I had (and still have!). I wish that I'd gone to the Lord instead of material things with my hurt and pain. I don't want the storm of my Nana passing to be the thing that did me in as a follower of Christ; the rabbit trail that kept me from finishing the race like my grandmother did. I can't dwell on my rocky spiritual past, but I can definitely do something about the future.

I'm struggling so much with the sin (yes, sin) of unbelief right now. I know that it's not going to be easy to uproot, but I know that with God's strength,I can be cleansed of my unbelief, have my hurts healed, and find compassion, joy and hope once again. It won't all be rainbows and sunshine, and I know that there will be days where I feel like yelling at God and giving up, but I cannot quit. It honestly feels like my heart is hanging in the balance, and I will not let Satan take over my life.

That being said, I'm committing to spending the next 120 days (from today [1 January] to 2 May 2013) in the word for at least 30 minutes per day (excluding prayer). I'm calling it Operation: Back on Track (OBOT). It will be in addition to church services, life groups, Bible study, and any other Bible-related event/activity in which I participate. For direction in this area, I'll be using books/devotionals from Precept Ministries International; from their 40 Minute Bible Studies series. Each focuses on different aspects of godliness and spirituality, and is designed to be completed in 6 weeks. The ones I plan to complete are:

How Do You Walk the Walk You Talk?
How to Make Choices You Won't Regret
What Does the Bible Say About Sex?
Turning Your Heart Toward God

If I finish those earlier than planned, I can also finish a Beth Moore study in which I left the last chapter undone: Breaking Free.

I hope and pray that each one of them will be helpful in my spiritual growth journey.
In addition to getting back into the Word, my prayer life must be reassessed. I have a wonderful book that I was going through last year called A Young Woman's Call to Prayer by Elizabeth George that I will likely restart. The author emphasizes improving one's prayer life by actually putting down the book and praying, which is encouraging. I can devote 15 minutes per day to prayer and getting back into the habit of doing it, etc.

Total, that's 45 minutes per day that I'll be spending with God. My goal is to be able to do it in the mornings, but anytime will work. My only problem when I plan things out like this is that I get too excited, think that I can do everything, get a big head about it, and then fall flat on my face within a few days. So I already have my first prayer request: humility! :-P And diligence, consistency...whatever you want to call it. I have a terrible habit of putting off for tomorrow what I could've/should've/would've done today. It will be the death of me, mentally.

I didn't mean to write so much, but my heart feels lighter right now. This was definitely something that I needed to get off my chest. I'll report weekly on my progress, what I've learned, my thoughts, where I think God is leading me next, my setbacks, frustrations, victories, good news, bad news - everything.

(I know that not everybody who reads this is a Christian or believes in God, but my faith is part of my life, and therefore, part of my blog. If you are offended by it in any way, please feel free to skip over these posts in the future, when you see them :-) )

Ciao, bellas!