Home?

As I sit in the Long Beach Airport just having wasted a few bucks on a terrible mocha, I wonder where I am truly going. I am flying back to Seattle after my first semester at Biola University. As much as I would like to say I am going home, I really question if I am. When I go back I will be with my family and with friends, but I would like an answer to the simple question, where is my home?

If you have ever attended Biola University you have probably heard of Emerson (the home of men). It is the only all guys dorm on campus and as you can imagine, there is quite a healthy bromance within the dorm. It is one of those dorms where the community exceeds the a/c deprived heat. Having lived there for about five months, I have truly found a community and place where I feel welcomed. Is that my home?

I also grew up in Bothell Washington. It is one great city, small town feel while being 20 minutes away from one of the nicest cities on the west coast, Seattle. My family lives there and that is where I have spent about 18 years of my life. Should I consider that home?

Where else could be home for me? Northshore? The Ranch? Cedar Park?

To truly answer this question I believe we have to go back to the famous quote, “Home is where the heart is.” If we were to take this to heart (hahaha, punny) it would bring the answer to light.

My heart is not here in Emerson, it is not in Bothell, it is not at The Ranch, it is not at Northshore, and it is definitely not at CPC. My heart is in a kingdom far greater than this. It is in a place where suffering is gone. My heart is in a place ruled by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. My kingdom is not of this earth.

So to truly answer the question of “where is home?”

Look up, and you shall find my home.

Do we have it all wrong?

How many of you have seen posts on facebook every day about different things that people are grateful of? Most, if not all, have probably seen those posts. They are a great opportunity for reflecting on the blessings and gifts that God has given them. But there is one problem that I see... So what?

What does giving thanks thanks really do? Does it give us a time to realize how blessed we are, does it give us a reason to realize how stinking rich we are (living in the United States that is), or does it give us a reason to act happy for what we have when really we are not happy?

I think there is one thing that we are missing...

Being thankful for something should change us.

Because I am thankful for my family, I act with love towards them, and truly I would sacrifice so much for them. Because I am thankful for my friends, I love them and treat them with respect. Because I am thankful for God, I live my life in debt and gratitude for Him (although I am far from perfect).

So next time you think about saying grace on Thanksgiving, or maybe looking back at what you have been blessed with... think about this one thing

What are you so thankful for that it has changed your life?

Where is God in the Leper Camp?

One of the greatest images of being alone that I have ever seen has been from a comic. Yes, a Sunday morning comic strip. It comes from the comic "Zits." It is about the everyday, but exaggerated, life of a teenage boy going through life. This specific strip had nothing to do with the main character.

Picture this, it is a solid strip with only one panel in it. There are hundreds of people within the drawing that are obviously talking to one another and enjoying it. There is a grill to the side obviously showing that it is a party for a ton of teenagers. But this hangout scene is not what gets me, there is one more detail. In the very middle there is a girl. She is standing right in the middle of the scene, alone. If you look at all of the people around her, they are not faced towards her. They are within their own little circle, both physically and socially. They do not vary from that position. There is a sharp contrast between the two parties. You have the group of people enjoying the party, they are laughing, joking, and enjoying each others company. And then you have the girl in the middle. Her demeanor is downcast, lonely, and feeling shunned. And to add one final detail to her, she is on her phone, obviously just receiving a call from a friend, and she says "I'm glad you called, I feel so alone right now."

I guess what struck me so much was the fact that she stood right in the middle of everything, the middle of a great party, the middle of great conversations, and the middle of great friendships, and yet she felt alone. There are times in which I feel that this one single comic strip encapsulates the problem with my age group (born in the early 90s). We have everything around us, and yet we feel alone. I have a great amount of people to hang out with on my floor, and yet somehow I feel as if not a single person is around me for miles.

There was a very real example of this in my life about a year ago. I had made a stupid decision in regards to Homecoming. It was a very big deal and I hurt someone, who at the time, was very close to me. Because of this, I had people turn their back on me. I hurt someone within our friend circle, and rightfully so, people got mad at me. I would sit at the table with them for lunch, and yet I would feel alone. I would feel as if I was the girl in the comic. I had everyone around me, and yet there was truly no one.

The problem with being alone in this culture is very huge. Sometimes I feel that it is the "Valley of the Shadow of Death" that the Psalmist speak of, or maybe it is the depths of Sheol that they are speaking of. This is the kind of hurt that my generation feels. The only problem is that although the Psalms say that "although I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil," I still fear evil. I fear being alone. I fear all of this, and I don't think this is just me, I believe it is my whole generation.

When we are going through these tough times, a lot of people raised in the church turn towards the "footprints in the sand" poem. It is the epitome of cheesy Christian poetry. Sure it is great, but let's be honest, it is so terribly cheesy. The final lines are Jesus speaking and saying "see those times in which there were only one set of footprints (during the times of trial), that is when I carried you." As great and wonderful as that sounds, I have one question, is that actually true?

Is God really carrying you through the times in which we run home to just cry in our rooms because no one seems to care about us? Does God really carry you when all of your friends have turned their back on you because of a mistake? Is God really carrying us through the times in which the only way to relieve our pain and our hurt is to take a razor blade and gash our wrists and arms until there is only physical pain and no emotional pain? Is God really carrying the girl who sees herself in the mirror and is so disgusted by what she sees that she sticks her finger so far down her throat that she purges everything she just consumed? Is God really carrying the guy who is so addicted to pornography that he can't go a day without loosing himself in it? What about back in the Bible times? Did God really carry those in the leper camps? The people who were so disgusting that not even their own family would visit them, so unclean that they could not even worship their God in the same temple as others? Was God carrying those in the leper camp? or was he just in His "Holy of Hollies?" Is he really carrying us through?

...or do we just have a faulty view of how God carries us?

Change I Finally Realized

For an extrovert such as myself, I never thought that sitting alone could be so invigorating. Sitting alone on the front steps of my house looking into the neighborhood that I had grown so fond of. Sitting with silence. The silence that can only be heard on a late summer night in Bothell. A silence that brings you into such ponder, not just because of the lack of sounds, but because of the lack of certainty that was rushing through my head. It is almost as if the silence that resounded so heavy in my brain was symbolically taking up the space that held my future. 

The day was August 22nd, about one a.m. In about six short hours I would have to say goodbye to a town that had been called my home for eighteen years. A house that had seen my first words and steps. The home that saw my change from death to life. The home that brought me so much comfort when I was struggling. I had to say goodbye to something that was so instrumental in my life. It was not just that I had to give up a house, I had to give up a home. I had to leave my loving mother and father. A family that cared so much for me. I had to leave a neighborhood that has grown closer though death. This neighborhood brought upon the deepest grieving that I have ever gone through. This neighborhood held my best friend. This neighborhood held my childhood memories of playing basketball and cops n robbers. This place was my home. Not to mention Northshore, The Ranch, and also CPC.

There is something about giving up something in your life that you love. Because it was such a thing that was so ingrained in my head, if I were to remove it, it would leave a hole. There is a desperate need to fill that hole. Although God is truly enough, He created man to be in community. When one looses a community such as I have, there is a tough struggle that goes along with it. You strive to regain what you once had, and it is not easy.

Early on in my life at Biola, I tried to do just that. I tried to replace the community that I had built up over eighteen years in Bothell. I tried to force something that was not there. Community changes, and now that I am writing this over two months later, I now understand that. Community is not something that can be transferred from one place to another. Community must grow from the ground up. And now that I have realized that, I thank God for that.

If community were to transfer, we would be terribly boring people. We would never change. I was recently watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Ted and Victoria (a past lover) had gotten back in a relationship, and they were having problems (no surprise here). Ted claimed that the relationship clock restarts, while Victoria claims that the clock was just put on hold. Either way, the relationship was doomed to change, why? Because the two entities of the relationship had changed, but the relationship in it self did not change. 

If I were to expect the same community between me and my men on THEO (my hall) it would not work out. I would be like Victoria and think that the same community that I had, is the same community that I expect and demand out of THEO. 

This is wrong, because I have changed. I am no longer the same person that i was two months ago. I have a completely new set of friends. I have a new living community. I have a new church (Calvary Community in Brea). I have a new focus within my studies (Youth Ministry). I even have someone knew that I live with (Chase, you are amazing).

All in all, what I am trying to say is that I have finally figured out that La Mirada =/= Bothell. Biola =/= CPC. and Calvary =/= Northshore. This is crazy right? It could be one of the most obvious things ever, and yet i somehow have yet to grasp the full nature of change until November 7th at 11:40 at night... 

yeah... it has taken seventy six days to realize that my life has changed... and I love it.