what is my FAITH?

Started from last Saturday, when people asked me" how are you doing?", I was able to say.

"I am doing good!"

Instead of saying "I am doing okay", I feel that I am doing good. I am.

I believe some many people had prayed for me and are still doing the same, which makes me really happy. The power of prayers and Holy Spirit pulled me out from the darkness, the sadness, the weakness, the hurts, the pain... I felt undesirable, I felt disappointed, I even felt God abandoned me. But 3 weeks later, today, I am feeling right and strong, ready to give up myself to God, and let Him lead me, fully.

There are something I still believe and have a strong feelings about, but I know I can't be God and get whatever I want. I confessed that sometime during the past few weeks, I was fooling myself that as long as I did something, I might able to change the situation. But the result is, I felt extremely helpless. I didn't know where I should go next to "be in control" because nothing seemed is really in control of my hands.

I said I should carry on, but I was not carrying on at all. I was not giving up everything to the Lord.

After prayers and prayers, reading God's words, reading books and journaling, I finally noticed that I was a fool. What am I holding back and not showing to God? What am I doing here but not stepping forward? What am I waiting for?

Am I waiting for a fake hope?
Or am I fearing to face to the fact?

Those thoughts are in my mind all the time and they are stopping me from moving forward. Satan is giving me a message that God is loving me less and letting me alone in a messed up situation. But, the victory belongs to the Lord- I am not beating down by the negative thoughts. Instead, I am ready to face to the difficulties and challenge myself to be a stronger woman.

I listened to a same sermon over and over again in the past few weeks. It delivered the message that God is in control of the storm. It is difficult to see God when we are in a bad situation, like when we lose a job, when we lose a relationship or when a family member leaves us. In these situations, we may asked" God, where are you? Why do You put me in this situation?"  But if we have faith in God, we know that the same God is in control in the good time just as in control in the tough time. God will direct the winds of the storm to blow you where He wants you to go.

And so, 3 weeks later, I say " I am doing good" and I mean it.

Stay in faith. I know this storm is blowing me to my destiny.

Prayer Of the Week

I dreamed a lot recently. Most of the time I had a dream at night and woke up from the dream, looked at the phone it was usually 6am.

It lasted for about a week that I dreamed of the same people. I woke up and I felt very lost. The dreams made me sad. I prayed to God that please please just give me peace, please take those dreams away from me, please help me to move on.

But I had a sad dream last night again. Dang.

Friends who are close with me know what have been happening. Apparently I am still struggling with what happened in my ex-relationship. I don't have peace about it. I can't let it go. I do a lot of things, meet a lot of people to try to fill my time in because I am scared to be alone.

People told me that not to worry it just takes time. I asked God how long He would put me in this situation. Every night before I go to bed, I fall asleep and pray. In my prayers, I pray for him and pray for my friends. But this week, I want to specifically pray for myself. I pray for good rest, pray for strength to go through this time and pray for a better understanding to know the Lord.  I know that God is teaching me through daily-life experience , and He is restoring amazing things in my life.

Please pray for me if you are reading this post. I will be so thankful. 

It didn't feel real- February

I thought I would never write here.

The reason why I said that is because I started to journal, on a notebook, use a pen and actually write down words, sentences and paragraphs.

Second reason is because in the past 40 days, life was unreal. I was lost.

Went to the US for Christmas. I had a blast there, spent time with great people in Atlanta GA and visited my friend Syd in Eufala AL. I was so in love with the people and the US. Hoping to go back there and everything had been good. I was so excited to see what will happen next and was never be that happy before.

Then I came back to Hong Kong. Things changed unexpectedly. A month later, my boyfriend broke up with me. All the sudden I felt so undesirable. I cried a lot and felt so lonely. The person that I could see myself marrying with told me that his heart was not there with me. It was unreal.

I was scared to tell myself: it happened. It did.

I thought there is something wrong with me. Am I not good enough? Did I do something wrong? Did he ever like me? Am I his burden? Questions, so many questions, I asked myself, and asked God: why did you bring me someone that I dream of and took him away?

It totally went crazy. I felt so depressed, cried every second. My friends told me that was normally in 48hours of breaking up but it went a lot longer than that for me.

And now, at the end of February, me and him broke up for a week, I am still hurting. Is February real? Was that a dream? I still miss him so much.

Obviously I am at a low point of my life. I felt so helpless and was ready to give up. But God amazed me at this moment. Yes, because of the Lord, I am still functioning and living life.

It is unreal- how much love I can feel from God in February. When he broke up with me, I was so heartbroken and laying on the bed, crying like a baby. I felt like God didn't love me anymore, He didn't see me. But He blessed me with great friends, they support me and listen to me. These angels from God are around me everyday and encourage me. I am thankful that I have the ability to cry, to share emotions. Though I am still sad, I know that God is working on my life and forming me into a strong woman.

I know, this is a life-long learning process. It is so difficult. I am still challenging myself on this. Breaking up is hard, breaking up with a person you love is even harder. Recently I started to write and pray for my future husband, I believe that the Lord is preparing me to be a good wife, and also is preparing my husband to meet me. And through every break-up, I know more about myself and realize that how God is teaching me through weakness.

  

An irreplaceable me

I always try to get what I want.  I pray and I believe what I want is driven by the calling of God and I try to pursue.

Recently, I try to be mature.  My desire of being a grown up woman is so strong.  Normally, girls at my age are considered as mature women.  However, I am still at college and I am taken good care of by my parents.  I don't feel like I am a woman even though I have my own thoughts, I have my own dreams.  I have a boyfriend but I don't think I am mature enough to be with him.  I feel like a little girl when I am around him and I sometimes even feel like we are in that kind of relationship will never come up with a "let's live together" decision because I am too young.

I asked God to bring me the one.  The one that I am longing for and the one who loves God first, and loves me unconditionally, take care of me and lead me in life and I am irreplaceable.  IRREPLACEABLE.  When will I meet that person who considers me as irreplaceable?  Jesus told me as a woman, I don't need to strive or arrange, I don't need to make it happen.  He wants me to respond---like how I responded to Him.

Jesus said I am his irreplaceable daughter, and He promised He will bring me the best, as long as I wait with patience.  And yet, I am still waiting. 

Trust issues

I think one problem of dating issues nowadays is both parties are afraid to show their true selves. This is one of the major reasons why marriages fail. You cannot marry someone if they have never seen the real you or if you are not sure that you have seen the real them. One sign that one or both of you are hiding your true self is if you have never had a disagreement or argument. Instead of confronting what you see as a problem, you are changing something about yourself that you may regret at a later time.

And yesterday, I realized there is something bigger apart from hiding your true self. It is TRUST.

Trust is a major issue when dating. You would like dating to be mutually exclusive, but because of past experiences, feelings of mistrust intrude upon the relationship. I kind of experienced that but I guess there is just something I need to deal with on my own. I am always afraid of losing someone/something, and I don't think I am good enough to keep them. That is why I am scared of my boyfriend would like someone else while dating me. Or, similar things like this.

However, God said: Soda, this is stupid. You have to stop thinking in this way because I will take care of this. Trust me.

I believe the way to overcome trust issues is to talk through any feelings of mistrust. Expain and explore. By talking through these issues, trust can be expanded and given to your partner.
I am willing to take the time to talk to my boyfriend about everything on my mind. I think the wider the variety of topics, the more I will understand whether the relationship is worth pursuing.

So, I am trying to let go everything, again, and again. This is really a life-long lesson in my life. God, I allow Your strength to come into me..

Blessedness

I love kids. I used to make a really funny joke (at least I think is funny, but just because of lauguage) about how much I want to have kids. I remember that night me and my friend were looking at pictures of his younger sister, and I suddenly said:

" Oh she is so cute. I want to get pregnant!"

My friend looked at me and said, " Soda, that is not right. You want to have kids, and you need to get married first!"

But I continued to emprasize that I want to get pregnant. But I wanted to express, I am so exctied about seeing myself having another life in my body, and that is such a blessing from God.

Luckily, before I can have my own kids, I spent time with lots of amazing super cute kids. I have been teaching the summer day camp at my church for 3 years, and I also met married couples' kids. I feel so alive being around with kids. Kids are pure, they tell their hearts; some kids cry all the time, they need love from others, and I learnt that human beings are vulnerable, it is okay to express our emotions; some kids always want to get your attention, and I know what this is human nature, everyone wants to get attention from others to show he/she is part of your life.
I just learnt so much from the kids.

      

I specailly love how kids just love Jesus without any doubts. They trust Him, and they pray with their whole hearts. That is pure love, and in the Bible, He said:

"Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”( Mattew 18:3)

When we grew up, we think we have more power and we are able to not trusting God to just in control of our lives, but the fact is we can't. We are sinnful and we need to continue to seek help from God. Spending time with the kids is such a blessing in my life, I love it. And I realized that I have to rely on God and trusting him without any doubt like a kid does.

I pray that God can continue to show me how amazing He is, and I believe that kids reflecting His grace. I am so blessed.

The Fears

I am weird.

When I am afraid of something, means I want that thing. But when the thing I want invites me to come, I hold back. I reject. I feel like the invitation is not real, then I would be really upset. I know the reason, I know is just because of the fears I have.

I fear that I can never get the thing I want, I fear that I don't have the strength to chase for my goals. I fear that the people I love would not love me back. I fear that God would not help me out and show me directions. They are scary. Very scary.

Who can I ask help from? Do I trust the Lord? Or in other words, am I willing to let go all my fears and go to God and ask Him for help, that I know FOR SURE He will help?

We seldom have fear in those things that we are able to achieve. A man's basic sin is his choice to offer strength only in those situations where he knows things will go well. In this situation, man has no fear, but he fear to face challenges, face the difficultities.However, the fear is real, is our true selves. I read, and I talked to awesome people, I learnt that, yes, fear is not good, but it is good when you turn to God.

God invites us to ask Him for help when we have fears. He loves it when we gripped with doubts and fears that He can not help but turn out He shows us HOPE. That's why He is awesome, that is the way He shows He is God.

God calls us to stop hiding. Fear is the true, is the feeling that we truly feel. We are weak, but God helps us to become stronger in our fears. He is our helper.

I don't know how to hide my fears, but I try to give all my fears to God. I want to seek for wisdom from the Lord, I need Him to comfort me, to heal me. And, I am so ready to become a stronger woman.