耶穌走在我的身邊 (Footprints in the Sand)

當這個世界說 "你服不服?" 我說 "不服!" 因為神是我心裡的力量, 我永遠永遠不用害怕!

現在這世界受審判, 這世界的王要被趕出去.

《Footprints in the Sand》(来源:网络)
One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
一晚，我梦到我与上帝一起走过沙滩
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
生命中的许多场景、一一显现于天空
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
我注意到，每幕景象出现时，沙滩上的脚印..
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
有时是两组脚印
other times there were one set of footprints.
有时，则是一双足迹

This bothered me because I noticed
这让我很困惑，因为我注意到
that during the low periods of my life,
当我生命的低潮
when I was suffering from
当我痛苦
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
生气、哀伤、失败
I could see only one set of footprints.
我看到一双足印
So I said to the Lord,
所以，我对上帝说
“You promised me Lord,
「上帝啊~你跟我保证
that if I followed you,
我若跟随你
you would walk with me always.
你就会永远在我身边
But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life
但是，我注意到，在我生命中最难过的时间
there have only been one set of footprints in the sand.
沙滩上只有一双足印
Why, when I needed you most, you have not been there for me?”
为什么再我最需要你的时候，你却不在我身边?
The Lord replied,
上帝回音，
“The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand,
「你看到沙滩上只有一双足迹
is when I carried you.”
是因为这时，我背著你。」

(I seem to give out this story out a lot. If you have received it from me, feel blessed!)

Why did no one come to my aid when I needed it?

Why did everyone my age leave me?

Why are there no Christian friends there to support me next to me?

Why did my church split?

Why was there no fellowship at my church?

Why is everyone around me hurting in one way or another?

Why did no one reach out to me in college?

Why do I have to live so far from everyone?

Why are my non-believing friends more sincere and vulnerable?

Why can’t I find fellowship?

Why have I become one of the lost brothers of the 30 year legacy?

Why can I not accept myself?

Why will no one answer when I call out?

Why did I come to America?

Why has my family become so distant and foreign?

Why will no one be vulnerable to me?

Why will no one talk to me?

Why will no one lean on me?

Why do I try so hard?

Where is the love?


I'm almost going to give up...so close to giving up.

♫ 美好的日子在等著我 ♫

Lol as Jimmy Chang says, I do love to use this phrase as my facebook status.

Reason TBA (I'll edit it in later).

There are multiple meanings basically. Some very deep, some shallow, and some that transcend my entire life.

But to meditate on this phrase (taken directly from facebook) "yup keeps me thinking positive, keeps me thinking of the future, keeps me thinking of the good things that has happened in my life."

P.S. If you cannot read Chinese, it says (my translation of course cuz I wrote it duh):
♫good times are waiting for me♫

God's Promise

Found this poem in my house while chasing crane flies with my dog. Enjoy!

God didn't promise days without pain,
laughter without sorrow or sun without rain.
But God did promise strength for the day,
comfort for the tears and a light for the way.
And for all who believe in His kingdom of love,
He answers their faith with peace from above.

-Author Unknown

Something I need to think about.

What I believe in

I believe in fellowship. But I do not believe in camps where emotions and feelings are allowed to run wild. No matter the motivation, no matter the original intent for good, growth is minimal and harm will be done, and the most one can get out of them is a spiritual high. Like all highs, it will die out. Christ can be your anti-drug, but it is not a drug one dopes himself or herself with. Love can only exist where the purpose of the camp is kept, and there is fellowship. A camp swamped with culture and lawlessness cannot teach people, and cannot hold the spirit. My final answer: what I expect from a camp is fellowship and growth, one that brings me closer with other people, one where I can gain experience and wisdom, one where I can see God’s love.

I believe in love, and I believe love only comes from God. That is not to say that people who do not believe In God cannot truly love. God loves the world, and that means everyone. Our original human nature is based upon his love for us, and therefore everyone is already loved by God and has obtained some of that love to share with others. I believe that for me to love another, I have to accept God’s unconditional love for me. I believe that Christians should not date a non-Christian. He or she should try to convert the other first. How can one love the person he or she will be united into one forever if that person doesn’t know God’s love? How can one accept the other knowing that that person will suffer eternal punishment? How can the first thing on your mind not be to try to save the one you love from eternal damnation and give him or her the ultimate gift that is God’s love?

1 Corinthians 13

I believe through testimony God’s love can be portrayed the best. I feel God’s hand in the world mostly through other people’s experiences in life. May it be a sad, horrible experience. May it be great tribulations and suffering. May it be full of joy and happiness. May it be full of people touched by the Holy Spirit. I learn best from these memories and tales. This may be just my personal preference. I wish my testimony may one day become powerful enough to move others. People will not believe just because you tell them. Sometimes, pushing the faith will only be counter-productive. It will drive those you want to save farther away. To get them interested, to satiate their curiosity of Christianity, testimony is needed. You cannot talk to them, but you can show them. You can walk the Good Walk in front of them, and they shall see the light. I know too many cases where it is sad that those who truly are seeking get driven away from Christ by too much forceful pushing...and once the Christian realized that their efforts were in vain, they abandon the person they were supposed to care for. It shouldn’t be like that. Persevere please. For their sake, and your own. There is always hope.

Matthew 5:16, Romans 4:3-4, Genesis 2:24

of pictures

Pictures. Photographs. Oh, how technology has downgraded you to bits of data to be multiplied by the thousandfold. There once was a time when pictures were all you had of family, lovers, and friends. Once upon a time a picture was worth a thousand words, and a multitude of feelings and memories. All I have to do I remember the photograph on my grandparent’s altar, the one of my great-grandfather. The photo was worth millions to them. The sadness of leaving family behind, never to see them again for decades behind the bamboo wall, such sadness is great enough to destroy the faith…what power. I remember the time when pictures were worth something. They were put into albums and scrapbooks, a placeholder of a speck of time long past. I can go flip through them and see memories locked away, but revealed upon opening. They are to be framed, looked upon with weary eyes when one is old. Now, they are everywhere, spammed on the internet. Pictures can be taken without limit, many at a time. Now it takes a collection of these JEPGS to capture a moment, more like a span of moments. Maybe it’s for the best, one can now store away every second of one’s life away in an allocated virtual space. Maybe it’s better to have the whole instead of the selected memories. After all, memories are priceless, but those you keep close to the heart stay warm.

journal notes

So, transferred from my journal from Catalyst 5/22/09

Am I a fringe person in ACF? After the discussion at chapter time, I thought about it. I guess I'm not the kind who doesn't come often or doesn't know a lot of people, but I definitely do not believe I fit into any circle within ACF.
You can say I am the ultimate floater of ACF, going from multiple small groups, from building to building, just trying to find people to hang out with. I go from Koenig to Mudd, then to Elliot, from Overflow to ACF and GF; from Shepley to Wheeler and then to Lopata House. I am everywhere and nowhere at the same time. What can I do to bring people into the fellowship, when I am the least qualified to open the door? Same with back home, and same now...I am the least qualified when I haven't been integrated or accepted yet, how can I bring others into a circle?
I tend to feel like I have a responsibility to bring in people, mostly those whose English is poor, but even I have great doubts of my capability to serve this duty. The blind cannot lead the blind, lest the both perish into the fire. I myself need to find the help I need, both on campus and back home, before I can give that same help and love others. Its not that I don't know people on campus who need help and encouragement. There is (list of people that will stay private in the journal)...these are all people I have seen and heard about that need help in their walk towards God or with God. May I be strong enough and ready enough to serve them.
I pray that God will send someone to me to melt my bitterness and break down my walls that I have built up over the years, so that I can stand up and serve the fellowship.

Meditate on Psalms 23 and Romans 12: my strongest spiritual gifts are 1) Giving, 2) Serving.

If no one will tell me their problems,
If all I hear is "don't worry about it,"
If no one will be vulnerable to me,
How can I help?
How will I know?
How can I be a comfort and a hope
to someone I love?

‘bout of nostalgia

So to start...(from May 15, 2009)

I have concluded that I am an urban kind of person. I like the sights and sounds, I love people, and I love going from place to place, just looking at the different stores on every block. I think I would fit in a place, definitely Taipei, maybe Tokyo if I knew Japanese. I would browse all the bookstores and read the books I can, especially the English ones, because everyone knows those are the only books that are not cyran wrapped. I would see the bustling of traffic. I love the smells. I would walk by all the bakeries and smell the good smell of butter and bread. I would walk by the half-demolished buildings, smelling the reduced dust of once proud skyscrapers. I would walk by the alleyways behind department stores and apartments smelling the sewer smell unique to cities like this, those dark back streets where stray cats lurk. I would walk by the farmer’s market, where the bustle of market crowds the air, selling fresh fruits and vegetables, freshly caught whole fish, butchered pigs and meat hanging from a stand, live chickens that peck real hard if you get close, and fried snacks of every kind. I remember the first time I experienced anything it would probably be in Taiwan. Ice cream cones, Starbucks Coffee, fireworks, computer games…all in one place. If you don’t know what布袋戏 is, you are not from Taiwan. Sometimes I dream I lived in Taiwan, attended a Taiwanese public school where you wear a uniform, teachers hit you when you fault in class, and hang out everywhere afterwards. The strictness of the discipline has its merits. I believe in that, with proof everywhere I look and with my younger cousin. I remember all the parks I played in when I was little. They are small sanctuaries among rising skyscrapers and old districts. The many kinds of slides, swings, patios, assorted trees and brush, and the pools of Chinese catfish all make these parks small Edens, a place where children can come and enjoy their innocence and not be bothered by the pace of adults’ only meters away. Just the architecture of the different slides is enough for respect. Alas, now that I am older, I find that these places are disappearing. Why am I so full of nostalgia for a place I can never live at (at least till I'm 40)?

(Darn, why so deep? I blame Jay Chou’s Secret for this ‘bout of nostalgia!...and people who are in Taiwan at the moment commenting on how good the food is, I wish them the happiest time there!)

P.S. if anyone ever wondered why I sometimes have that dog (大麥) as my profile pic for a few days, guess no farther...I'm having a 'bout of nostalgia. Nothing wrong with that right?

The Beginning -EXPLANATION HERE

Don't really know why I started blogging. I remember the first time I really understood what a blog was, was when someone sent me a link to their blog...it was in Chinese. And it was by a 5th grader and a 6th grader. And they have more views and interactions in a day than I have in a month. Nonetheless, most kids their age had blogs, and they also had second daily lifestyle on the net where they interact with peers and adults without any distinction between age. Other than that, I always thought blogs where just internet pages where news reporters wrote about stuff happening in the world, slowly to replace newspapers and feeds to satisfy the need of information in this new age. Or they were a place where someone would post funny pictures or spread information about some movie (alternative to a forum). But it turns out, most of the blogs I've actually been to were just online diaries...they just happened to be in another language (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindu, Spanish you name it). I just happened to come across one of their posts that had some information that I needed through Google or another search engine, or to find download links for songs, MVs, anime episodes etc. American blogs tend to not be about their daily lives, or those that are, those lives are not that normal. Mine is, I'm also asian, and people probably need a way to learn about me...so HERE I GO!

Conclusion: this is a typical asian thing, but a rare american thing...
(lol the first time I ever actively posted on a blog was for writing 1...for a class)

edit: The first few/many posts will come quickly one after another, to get everything I've written down out of the way. Also I don't think I'll ever plan to make this public. It isn't a typical asian blog after all, its my personal feelings. I'm gonna use it to reflect and remind myself.