Mary's Blogs

A new topic I wanted to hit on was the greatness of God.  I realized that the one thing we so often forget is just how great our God really is.  He is almighty, all powerful, and all knowing.  But do we really see that in prospective?

Imagine all the people on this world, anyone from babies to super tall people, as less than ants.  In fact we are like dust-mites; hardly even noticeable.  Then we have God–this great gigantic being who holds the entire universe in the palm of his hands.  Greater than any human king, he can shove us around with the tip of his finger nail.  He can alter the course of our lives with one flick.  He needs none of us to make a decision; if everyone on the entire universe got together and disagreed with God, His decision is the only one that matters.  So how much does the King of all the universe really care about us if he needs none of us in the first place?

Now imagine this.  This mighty king who is so great and so powerful, who makes us look like a speck on a globe, humbles Himself and sends His son to be a servant to these specks.  He allows us to spit at Him, yell at Him, curse at Him, and look down upon Him just so that we specks on a tiny planet can be with Him.  God, this all powerful, huge being turns Himself into nothing to serve the nothings on a planet that deserves none of His mercy.  He not only humbles Himself to become nothing, but He becomes servant of all the nothings on this planet (us) and dies on the cross so that we can be with Him in heaven.  Now isn’t that the work of someone who truly loves us?

Driving today from the bay to work was terrible.  I was tired just trying to get to work ON TIME.  But with all the cars driving back and forth, I kind of thought about how these cars seem to act the same way people do on a daily basis.  At times things were slow.  As much as I tried to stick to one lane, something about traffic influenced me to skip around from lane to lane, unsettled each time I slowed down again.  When I happened to cut a person off, they got angry and gave me the birdie.  When I moved to the next lane I got slowed down some more so the car in front purposefully slowed down to cause me to go slower.  The car just wasn’t willing to let me pass him up even though I was obviously being slowed down by him.  And when I exited I realized the lane took a while before actually merging; but because of it, certain cars were able to skip about 1/3 of the traffic before merging, keeping their distance and ignoring the need of the cars before them.  It’s because of this that I feel like driving is such an inconsiderate sport.

It’s always about competition on the freeway.  The more cars you pass, the faster you get to your destination.  No one has any time to relax and take a steady pace.  Every car is eager to pass the slow ones and leave their lanes if it means they get to “move ahead in the game;”  this is life at it’s finest.

In this life we waiver back and forth trying to force our way to the finish line.  We’re all about controlling our own destiny and being independent.  Something about making our own way through the traffic of life seems appealing to the average man.  No one wants to be slowed down by the traffic of others, and like the cars, we push aside as many as we can just to get a few inches closer to our destination, caring only for ourselves.  This act of doing for ourselves tends to motivate our actions as well; the more vicious we get, the happier we are that we’re closer to the goal.  Does this all sound TOO similar to you?  I think that if Jesus was here, He would’ve been the most considerate driver of life.

Jesus was the type to stop to help others.  I’m not sure what His stance on independence was but he was definitely FOR doing things in pairs.  The only person he ever shoved aside was Satan, and that is for obvious reasons.  Jesus didn’t work alone, He allowed the people around Him to be a part of what He was doing.  He brought people along with Him everywhere He went, except for when He spent personal time with His Father (God), like when he went to the mountain to pray.  He was considerate, and He showed a character of love for the poor who “fell behind”.  He always cared to make a difference, glorifying His father whenever He could.  Granted when it wasn’t His time, He would take a step back, but you get the idea.

I don’t know how much sense I made so far, but my point is that when this ongoing process of constantly being on the go consumes our soul, we become consumed ourselves.  We forget about the people around us and we lose the character of Jesus in loving others.  In the end all we care about is trying to satisfy our own need, forgetting about the needs of others.  We allow anger or bitterness to harbor within us, walking farther and farther away from the character that Jesus would want for us to have; all for the purpose of satisfying our own needs.

Sometimes we need to take a step back and consider our actions, our intentions, and the things that stir in our hearts whether good or bad.  Sometimes taking the time to stop and pray can be all it takes to really allow Jesus to take over for when we feel the desire to only satisfy our own “needs” instead of considering others in what we do.

When I was almost at Davis and I reached a merge lane, for some reason all the cars that needed to merge all got stuck for a brief moment, including my own.  No one wanted to let us in.  Then suddenly a car to the left of us decided to stop for a minute in order to let many of us through.  Not just one, but MANY.  I was amazed by how considerate that car was.  I realized that if everyone cared just as much for others as that one car did for all those who were stuck, God’s love would be so apparent.  Maybe it would be like the time that was written in the book of Acts when everyone gave up and shared all they had so no one was in need, because whatever they needed was available and shared amongst everyone.

Relationships are important, whether we are Christian or non-Christian. They give us comfort when we feel alone.  It is natural for us to think about friendships or our boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse,  but how much do we consider our relationship with Christ?

When I was reading a book by Donald Miller, I felt like he pretty much killed the aspect of Jesus being the bridegroom and us as the bride; killed meaning he repeated it a million times.  I wondered what he was trying to get at. I knew this relationship was important.  I knew about trying to get to know Jesus, but did I truly understand to the extent of what type of relationship God wants to have with me?

In the Old Testament, God speaks of Israel and Jerusalem as a ‘she’ many times.  In Ezekiel 16, God raises Jerusalem into a pure beautiful jewel, clothing her with garments, bathing her, pouring ointments on her, and providing for her with fine jewelry, flour, honey, and olive oil. God continues to speak to Jerusalem saying in verse 13, “you became very beautiful and rose to be a queen.” God reveals Jerusalem as His queen; and who else would be the king but God Himself.  As beautiful as the story begins I’m pretty sure you can guess where it ends; she looks away from her King disregarding all He had done for her.  She trusts in her beauty and uses her fame to become a prostitute (verse 15).

The message from this is simple isn’t it? Jerusalem is an adulterer taking her bridegroom for granted. She trusts in her beauty and looks elsewhere for her provisions instead of to her king.  But aren’t we just as bad for relying on our own strength, courage, or knowledge instead of relying on God?  Don’t we cheat on our Bridegroom just as much by relying on OUR beauty or OUR own abilities to get what WE want?

It’s so interesting how we tend to overlook God’s intimate nature. Over and over again through His word He tries to reveal how much He longs for a relationship with us, and not just any relationship, a marriage; yet we tend to compare Jesus with Santa Clause asking for gifts and pretending to be on the ‘nice’ list.  Yet as much as our Bridegroom provides for us, and as much as He longs for us to look only to Him, to get to know Him, to be faithful to Him, to truly love and trust in Him, we separate ourselves further by asking for things that only supply us with a short satisfaction.

“Perhaps our formulas and bullet points and steps steal the sincerity with which we might engage God. Becoming Christian might look more like falling in love than baking cookies.” (Donald Miller) Day by day He provides for us waiting until we respond back to Him. When will we respond to our Bridegroom? When will we learn to take this relationship seriously and truly get to know the God who knows of our unfaithful nature yet loves us so much that He sent Himself (Jesus) to die for our sins in order that we get forgiven of our unfaithful/sinful nature and receive a second, third, fourth, fifth, millionth chance with Him?

In Hosea 2:16 He says “In that day…you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ ” (NIV)

It’s already the end of the year and the beginning of my second summer after college. I can’t believe it. Well to sum things up fast I realized there are a ton of things/people that God has blessed me with this year that I can’t help but recognize this and thank Him in return for how much joy He’s brought me because of them:

Licia Inn and Trina Hayes; It was not until these two popped into my life did God allow me to truly understand the pure joy of friendships grounded in Him. He has reshaped my life so much through being around them. I will truly miss everything about them.

Tatiana and Neiman; God could not have chosen a better set of co-leaders to lead with, grow with, learn with/from, and to truly love. God has blessed me so much with the joy I received from gaining their friendship this year through our co-leadership.

John Cheng (the awkward man in the background); I can’t help but feel really blessed to have a Prep-leader like him who has really kept me accountable for getting back on my feet.

Davis IVCF On-Campus team; It has continued to be a highlight for me to be a part of this team and see them every monday of the week, going through life together and facing similar joys/struggles with leading our bible studies.

Anisha and Ashley Kim; Never have I felt so blessed to have peers that I can truly click with as well as grow with. Another blessing I am thankful for is having friends like them that I can definitely count on to have fun with as well as have serious conversations with.

Castilian Bible Study; It has truly been a blessing to be a part of every single one of their lives. It’s been amazing just being able to see each one of them make  changes to follow Christ even more closely.

Davis 1000 Wells Project Coordinating Team; Can’t forget what God has taught me in loving others who suffer/die due to lack of provisions such as water. I truly enjoyed learning to care for/spread awareness of a people group with a team filled with individuals who have the same passion, desire, and heart for justice.

And Of course I can’t leave without remembering the lessons I’ve learned that stuck with me the most:

life-lesson #1: “Before God lets us succeed where we failed, He often lets us fail where we will succeed.” ~taken from Alicia Inn’s blog yet is still perfect for current situations.

life-lesson #2: Pray Boldly/Prayer is like a spiritual pulse that will either consume sin or sin will choke prayer.

life-lesson #3: Faith Fuels miracles/Growing in faith means choosing to follow Christ over and over again.

life-lesson #4: All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men and woman to do nothing.

life-lesson #5: Still learning to truly understand my unworthiness of Jesus’ death on the cross, because He looked at the suffering He had to go through and then He looked at us and said we are worth it.

There are a million things God has taught me and is continuously teaching me this year but these are definitely the ones I remember most. ^_^ Hope everyone has an excellent summer. Not looking forward to friends leaving; however, I’m super stoked for the amount of time I’ll get to spend with God during my free time. =)

Times are tough. That’s all I can say for what’s going on in life right now. But as much as the world keeps beating down on my life, God is strengthening my heart ten times more than I can truly imagine. I cry NOT because I am hurt by the troubles but because God is too gracious to me. He keeps showing me love through community. He shows me love through the events around me that comes into play. How can I say that life is tough right now when He PLACED Himself in suffering for us so that we could be with Him. He put Himself in that situation. It’s not to say that he wasn’t scared, ’cause as a human, of course he was scared. He was so distressed and troubled that His soul was “grieved to the point of death” (Mark 14:33-34), yet He still endured the pain to allow us all that chance to be with Him. Wow. Isn’t our God amazing? THIS is our God.

I know right now if I was a third party looking into what’s going on in life right now I’d say “wow, that girl is crazy.” But as the very person feeling the suffering I ask in return, how can a daughter feel anything BUT over joyed by the love that her Father continues to give? The hour before I felt the stumbling block hit me in the face, I realized that my Father allowed me the most amazing opportunity to spend time in worship with Him.  Not only did we worship with our voices but with instruments as well and I wasn’t by myself, but with most of the friends I love so dearly. I would not have done that day any other way.  And as I go on with life day by day, I continue to feel spoiled by the things that come up during the week. Is the stumbling block still apparent? Yes of course. It’s right in front of my face. However God has placed me in a tub full of His love that I can’t keep from smiling as I am looking at this large wall that is blocking my way. I can’t help but smile and I will continue to do so until and after my Father has pushed down the wall.

One story to reminisce HOW it started when I came to desire more than just knowing about God:
The desire to learn more about who He was in my life sparked from the realization that I have friends whose love for me is more real than I can imagine. I knew where it came from because they had something that other dorm friends did not; they had God. Tonight as I was telling a dear friend about the troubles I was facing, it was harder for me to see the tears that bubbled in her eyes than for me to actually tell her what was happening in life at the moment. The love I felt from her at that moment was enough to remind me of just how spoiled I am by God to have friends like this.  “Thanks for being in my life,” she said. I thank God for purposefully placing her in my life as well as others who have shared in spreading His love.

Disclaimer: I realized I sound like I’m about to die. I’m not. Just wanted to point that out.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog. I feel like life has been like a book. In fact I’ve already finished four journals since my first year at UCD and I JUST started a new one. ^_^ There has been so many ups and some random downs and right now I guess since finals week is rolling around…well it’s coming in two days, the school year is almost coming to a close. Life is happening so fast. Already one friend my age is engaged and another friend can see herself getting married. I’m already 20 and my sister already has a son with another one on the way. The older I get the more life is starting to hit me in the face. Next year I’ll already be one of the upper class-men in my community while three friends dearest to me will probably be pretty far from me. So many things to think about and yet life is still moving on. I don’t know what to do when things start to settle down. Will it ever settle down? What does settling down even mean? sigh? My young adult years are passing by faster than I think and It’s already going to be time to figure out what I’m doing after college. Let’s hope I don’t waste my life away like a bum. =/

I feel like in this life, there’s too much going and doing. By the time we turn age 5, we ought to go to school until we get old enough to graduate out of college with a degree only to make a living to provide for a family in the future until we grow old and die. It’s like a known process that we all go through. I don’t really agree with this cycle of life. It comes and then it goes. Why do we set a goal for ourselves only to live the rest of it from parenthood and on the same way every day? The only prime we have is school from childhood to college years. Once our good college years are gone everything unfolds to pretty much doing the same thing over and over again. sigh. I feel like I’m in a battle against myself, fighting against the day when things become the same for way too long. When things start to get old and the word fun just doesn’t make sense anymore.

Somehow I feel like living a life for God is the only thing that makes sense. Although Ezekiel had to go through so much just to bare the sins of Israel and Judah, he was living a life for God. It wasn’t always sunshine and roses but glorifying the God who created us makes so much more sense than following the man made cycle of life which doesn’t seem like it has much for us except death waiting at the end after a long period of doing the same thing every single day. I know God can put meaning into that cycle of life but for now it looks very dull. …..

It’s been a while since I have been able to just sit, think, and pray about what God has been doing in my life. I feel like things are constantly changing. People are constantly growing and/or being challenged. In my case, I’d say that being in the mind set of allowing God to change me and grow me in the change is how I have been able to function better than usual. You might wonder what I mean by that. I guess I’d say that at one point or another I felt that life was too difficult for me to care or understand, but right now, I feel like even through the difficult times, God is constantly allowing me to see how He can work in those times, bringing me back to a great state of mind. I feel like I’ve been going up and down a hill not knowing when I’ll be going back down or back up. But one thing I know is certain, God has plans for me in my future and certainly in my present. My thought’s on what they are? Only He knows of course. But for now, I must study. …midterm this afternoon.

Wow, what a weekend.

There is only one reason I have for always wanting to journal after coming back from a conference and that is, “God”. I feel like this weekend shouldn’t be over so fast. I feel like sensations such as these should not have to end after the conference. I wish a time to get away from life and reflect with community occurred more often. I feel the same as everyone else coming to this conference; I didn’t know what to expect. Granted I wasn’t pessimistic but any expectations I had were blown out of the waters.

I can’t be specific and I can’t write down EVERYTHING I learned this weekend because the substance was way too deep and I feel it would be a whole lot. But I would say that the things that stuck with me til this very moment are issues with Identity, thoughts of family, with sisters and with parents, ideas of judgment, and most of all grace. I’m still pondering about the topic of the true grace of God and the truth of his unconditional love; something that is not based on anything we could ever do or be.

And of course what I loved most about this conference was meeting new people and getting to know more about those I already knew. Having personal conversations and being real with one another was some of my favorite times these past weekends. I feel truly blessed that God allowed me to feel even closer to those in the InterVarsity at Davis and also allowed me to get to know more people from other fellowships such as UC Berkley, UC Merced. This conference definitely put some things in prospective for me and allowed me to see what I still needed to work on. Talking to Kat Ng, a staff member from the Davis InterVarsity, definitely helped me to think about what I saw myself as and what I saw as an identity that others labeled me with. With my true identity still being revealed to me, I have hope that I can some day truly TRULY be vulnerable to people and not be afraid that I will be shot down by it.

One thing I’m definitely looking forward to is Discipleship!!! I’ve never had anything official, so having an official discipler is kind of exciting. I love my Discipler!

Starting the new quarter was interesting.  I came back to Davis with a new way of seeing things and new concerns on my mind.  I had friends I wanted to make sure to make time for and much more studying to do.  As joy seemed to come, they left just as fast.  Coming back to Davis, thanks to God, bible study apprenticing is much more than just something I do every week.  I look forward to pre-preps with the oncampus team and preps with my co-leaders.  I enjoy going next door to Ash’s house after every visit to Tati’s place.  Taking my time on scripture studying allows me to fully understand what God wants me to get out of the passages.  Having class with four of the Tercero babies is allowing me to get closer to them, which is fun, and house-mate night time bonding still happens, which makes me happy.   Even with all this, certain thoughts or ideas seem to trouble me just a little but I don’t allow them to fully get to me or else I’d have a hard time coping with life in general.  Even with minor worries creeping around the corner, God is still giving me peace and showing me that friends will be friends and they will help be the joy in a long day.

Though I think about things in my own life, prayers for Haiti are still needed.  I try not to let silly things like my own life bother anyone else so that bigger things like the need for help in Haiti can be more of the concern.

“The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.” -Nahum 1:7

Somehow I’ve been feeling a loss of desire.  This I find is the worse thing that could happen.  I tend to feel less willing to do things, less willing to see people, less willing to do much of anything.  The only person who can and has helped to spark any bit of interest in me to WANT to do anything is my Lord and Savior.  Days tend to be a bit of a drag from time to time.  I’m happy to have my brother around though.  Friends tend to come and go but my Lord remains the same.  In terms of school I feel like a failure.  I’m not smart enough, I don’t have good memory, and I feel like science is starting to become my worst subject.  I feel less motivated to continue on the road of science.

The other day my mama asked me why I’m not trying to become a surgeon and the only thing I could tell her was that I’m trying my best at school and that I’m just not smart enough.  It brought me to tears realizing that I just can’t do it and that my current grades are living proof.  But somehow when mama said that God can give me the wisdom to do it, I am encouraged once more.  My God IS the God who provides.

And so I refuse to give up and I refuse to quit trying.  Although it feels like a drag now, the days to come are much more exciting.

“The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes.” -DEUTERONOMY 1:30
“Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” -2 CORINTHIANS 4:16