And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age

These were the last words Jesus spoke to His beloved ones before He ascended into heaven.

So I showed the movie Miracle in Cell No. 7 to some of the freshmen girls and Pastor M last night, and managed to get them all to cry during the movie (personal achievement). I did not cry (adamant), but I definitely cried the first two times I watched this movie. I remember watching this movie with my mom, and while I'm pretty sure I teared up or cried that time, my mom didn't cry. I remember asking her why not, and she told me "this isn't real life, why should I cry?" I understood what she meant, but last night I saw and felt vividly what she meant. I think I was trying really hard to make non-verbal cues to E to move the conversation away from Pastor M's marriage, but I wasn't able to. During that moment I felt very guilty for showing this movie to Pastor M, and I honestly can't imagine how he was feeling throughout the movie and afterwards. But I guess hes very honest and open about his past, especially to the young ones. When he said "I married the woman of my dreams," that was when I realized I wanted to ball my eyes out. Though only G. C. was there to hear his message on Saturday, his retelling of the scene in the courtroom reappeared in my head. I wanted to cry for Pastor M so much.

"Grown men don't cry, they weep." Those were the words shared at Meet Fresh last evening by K. T. Right now as I type this post, B is on his flight back to China. I hope I was the last person he was talking to before he lost wifi as the plane was taking off. I hope he isn't upset that I had stop mid-conversation cuz I was technically having lunch with my ex-labmates and future med students. When he gets off the plane, he can see my explanation on platonic girl-guy relationships.

I hope he feels loved. He is loved. I am glad he didn't run away the last 2 days, and instead allowed himself to be loved (and overwhelmed). Sometimes allowing yourself to be loved is the hardest thing to do. I wasn't able to do that my senior year and I regret it even till this day. Maybe some of it was fake, but there is definitely a lot of realness in the goodbyes from all the people at CoTB. You are not a coward B, don't ever say that (though I found it interesting that she liked your last FB post, good thing she cannot see this blog). I hope I was a good friend to him, and I hope I didn't feed into any jadedness he went through the last few months. I want to thank him for taking care of me too, and I wonder if I will be able to make it out of my illnesses now that B is gone. Ahhhh even now I am selfish. You are bad B, but so am I. And the greatest "joke" of all was God loving us even when we are bad. That is why we Christians like to call the Gospel scandalous. If I live long enough to get married, I want you B to be there.

As I was driving back home after dropping the girls off at JST, the verse above magically flew into my mind, and I wanted to cry again. I was floored emotionally and spiritually as those words laid across my heart, as if Jesus spoke those words not just to his disciples but to me across time. At that moment I just wanted to grab someone and tell them that Jesus loves them and will always be with them! Too bad no one was there, and by next morning the power I felt had already faded into a whisper, but I will hold onto that whisper.