I have so much to be thankful for
(Source: ccocaines, via i-loved-you-m0re)
I am journeying this life
To return to my truest home
My treasure is not here
In You I rest alone
(Source: m0rtality)
From a dearly respected person in my life:
“a 3 month existence that challenges everything to it’s roots
the little one
when i have undoubtedly caused him more than frequently to cry his littlest heart out…
and yet he beams this happiness from the same heart
(that was just a moment ago very broken)
every single day from his balding head to his impossible small toes.
and so
i appreciate him (and babies) now in a different way
they accept people in that incredible way. even after u have made them cry. they are so grateful that you exist. that you truly mean the world to them. this NEED for you.
go ahead muck up mess up my life. but come back to me.
and so, he has taught me about love and forgiveness in a way only babies can.
he is simply a noisy, messy, inconvenient, irrational joy.
n we laugh so much. talk nonsenseseses. compete to make the silliest sounds that make vowels weep.
things may be so hard. but if this is what it takes to understand such stuff. bring it on.”
- Yijun
God, You must be so tired of us constantly kicking up a fuss about how unfair life is. But you make all things beautiful. You use people to plant seeds and You water them, and these seedlings grow into beautiful flowers and fruits in your timing.
God, You must be so tired of us constantly hurting one another. You created us to be a family. You’ve brought us together and placed us in a home where we aren’t just related by blood but bound by the blood of Your son Christ Jesus who was crucified for all our imperfections.
God, You are such a loving God. So loving that love doesn’t even make sense. So loving that love no longer makes any sense.
—-
I burst out in front of my brother tonight, in response to a rude remark which I can vaguely remember. He’s been so out of hand and disrespectful, no one in the house knows how to help him. He’s so unmotivated and sad that he doesn’t even believe God can help him. He claims to have been praying. He claims to have been trying.
But the one thing he cannot recognize that he hasn’t been doing and needs to do is to suppress the irrational defense mechanism in him and to stop being only preoccupied about how victimized he has been all these years of his life.
And that is me
That is most people
That is what everyone struggles with in this lifetime
We put our feelings first
We consider how much wrong others have done to us without looking at ourselves
We refuse to let go of certain things that cause us to keep returning back to a state of hurt and depression
We need God
We need to stop being so stubborn about getting back with God
I was once there
I know how hard it is
I know how painful it is for other people to be watching and not knowing how to be able to help
But I also know that God uses the broken and the unrighteous for His glory and purposes. And in fulfilling His purposes with our broken lives, He fulfills the promises in our lives and brings meaning that can be found in no other person, place or thing
We need to stop taking God for granted
We need to stop taking people for granted
I took everything for granted
I lost all meaning in my life
How depressed could a 16 year old get?
Very
Anyone who gets depressed
Or feels hurt, restless and aimless
Will choose to dwell in their own perspectives and feelings first
Will choose to find fault in the entire world except ourselves
Will choose not to accept that there is hope in a better life
We cannot find hope unless we trust in Jesus
I cannot find rest unless I place my trust in Jesus
I cannot stop getting hurt unless I stop holding on to peoples’ faults, failures and flaws or even my own
I cannot move on in life unless I start holding on to the life, hope, peace and joy that God is offering to me each and every day
—-
I have never
in my life
shouted like that
to anyone
I dont know what got into me
I was going to slap him
I was going to physically hurt him
in a way that would scar him emotionally
But then in a split second
I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to recognize
that by doing that I would only be encouraging him to use this experience as something to fall back on to accuse everyone of hurting him in his life
It would give him an excuse to be self-absorbed in how hurt he has been and how much wrong has been done to him and how deserving he is of second chances and attention.
I stopped and cried because I didn’t know what to do
I didn’t know what to say that would direct him to God
God said “Be humble”
And I did my best
I really did
In summary, this was the bulk of the long talk I had with my brother
“I’m sorry for all the hurt this family has done to you, and this may not mean much or anything to you at all, because of all the apologies that have failed you, but I really hope that you see how hurt everyone is, not just you.
And this is only because we choose to keep clinging on to each others’ past failures. If we would just take a step to change how we respond to each other, if we would simply take the genuine initiative to try to be kinder with our words, more gentle with our tone, more respectful towards each other, recognizing that we aren’t doing this just to please people or help to make things better by our own strength, but to please God, we will care less about how hurt we feel and we will care more about living lives that don’t tear each other down but lives that build each other up.
No matter how much you want to walk out of that door, no matter how much you think the people around you who are trying to care about you think of you as a hopeless or worthless being, no matter how much you don’t want to recognize me as your sister, you will always be stuck in this family because we didn’t choose you, you didn’t choose us but God did. God put us together in this house and made us a family not just biologically but spiritually, and if you say that you love God, if you say that you trust in Him, you should know that He’s not expecting you to be a perfect person, He just wants to see you wanting to learn from these opportunities that He gives you in times of conflict or hurt to change, learn and become a better person in Christ. Because if there were no problems, you and I wouldn’t be here. If there were no problems we would never have known or came close to understanding why Jesus died.
You keep saying that you did this and that and that after all these years it didn’t work and that’s why you stopped, you gave up and chose to be the person you are today but I’m telling you that this is the exact reason why our grandmother is the way she is today, and this is why there are people who aren’t even a part of our family who are praying for her everyday without fail. You should know how long our own mother has been praying and crying for grandma to be saved. You know how much we cried as little kids about how much we wanted her to open her heart to Christ. You aren’t helping her see what a difference Christ makes in her life. I’ve been restraining myself from shouting at you since the past week because I knew it would break her heart and I know she is in the room heart broken from hearing us fight.
How dare you measure God’s will for your life by the hurt that has been done to you in your life? Who are we measure God’s power by our experiences with Him? Do you dare to honestly tell me that you have a close relationship with Him and that you know Him well? Because if you did, you would have eyes to see, ears to hear and a mind and heart to know that He wants you to depend on Him no matter how hopeless or stupid it seems to be praying in the midst of an argument with your father or even gathering the humility in yourself to make a simple apology and keep quiet despite feeling that you aren’t the one who’s in the wrong.
I know that you might not do much after this. You might choose not to do anything about yourself or this situation at all. All I can hope and pray is that you will see the little things you need to get right in your life, the little things you need to commit to God, which you have not. Your lack of sensitivity, your low self-esteem, your addictions, your impulses, your defenses. Stop wasting your life away by waiting to see how much effort others are putting in to change things and start seizing opportunities to depend on God who will teach you and help you to change as a person.
He is teaching me too.”
By the end of it all
I rose from my chair and could not stop crying
Maybe all I was trying to do was to make Him see the need for God in His life
Because watching him live life so aimlessly, treating the people who care for him like shit was just tearing my apart
And we all need to learn to be just like babies
We know that babies don’t necessarily recognize the areas in which they need help in
But they know that no matter what their parents put them through
Even after all the crying and disciplining
Even after all the tests that you put us through only to refine our hearts and make us pure gold in your sight
I want to learn to be grateful that I exist to live the life He has called me to live
And grateful that we have a God who loves.
—-
(via i-loved-you-m0re)
