inner chaos

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“As soon as we are alone,...inner chaos opens up in us. This chaos can be so disturbing and so confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again. Entering a private room and shutting the door, therefore, does not mean that we immediately shut out all our inner doubts, anxieties, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distraction, we often find that our inner distraction manifest themselves to us in full force. We often use the outer distractions to shield ourselves from the interior noises. This makes the discipline of solitude all the more important.” -Henri Nouwen

if i have a daughter, what would i tell her when she experiences her first real heartbreak? i don't know

i finished my last final as a sophomore. i'm now a junior. i am looking forward to a summer in sf. but tonight i would like to watch a good movie, eat comfort food, and cry in bed until there is nothing inside to cry out. even though i'm not sure what there is to cry about. i just know i need a good cry

developing trust in an eagerly responsive God

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last night at post fnf we were talking about our worst traits, and one of us pointed out that we all had similar responses: passiveness, indecisiveness, fear.

i feel that these traits are reflections of the broken order within us. it is the nature of the fall that we rebel & try to wrench control from the King's throne. in doing so, we obsessively and feverishly vie for definitive assurance of future consequences of our present actions. but because it is also the nature of humans as subject to the power of time & the fallen world, we can never know the future.as a result, we become paralyzed into inaction and unfounded fear. we default into worry, which is the complete antithesis to trust in God.

but the radical nature of the gospel changes all of that. because of our relationship with god, we are placed in a realm of fearlessness, where we can step forth in boldness knowing that His perfect love for us casts out our fears. we can know that our relationship with God is a responsive one.

"ask, seek, knock;" "abide in me;" "seek first Me and My righteousness;" "take delight in me;" He says. "& i will give. i will open. i will abide in you. i will give you the desires of your heart."

we serve a God who moves mountains, calms storms, and ultimately overcame the world because it is under his dominion. we can start with faith like a mustard seed and see how God proves to be faithful, and with time we will come to see that we have accumulated a substantial amount of proof that God responds to the cries of his children and is pleased by our baby, timid, uncertain steps of faith. we will come to see that our faith is no longer just a mustard seed; that our fear is no longer our dominating instinct. the broken order is being restored and the scales are falling from our eyes. we can rest, we can beseech him on our behalf, we can act. we are free.

sidenotes;

wakawaakakwakaa

second death week live updates

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sunday 5am // to bed i go

monday 2:24am // i'm feeling pretty despondent about my life right now lol. why skewl
monday 3:41am // so miserable
monday 5:30am // sad lyfe

tuesday 11:47pm // heartbreak is really messy. these past four years i have learned how messy emotional investment and how close it hits home and how it's like walking a tight rope to navigate through it all except it's more like falling from the tightrope and fighting for life in the raging waters and losing strength and letting the current take you while you stare blankly at the sky. i've also learned how nobody talks about it openly. and i donno how good that is because i'm starting to wonder what things would be like if older sisters invested in younger sisters more actively. also i'm really sleep deprived and i'm relatively more dramatic and snarky when i lack sleep don't take me 100% seriously

wednesday 2:23pm // i just realized that i forgot to go to a class yesterday how did i forget to go to class how i don't understand. also facebook makes me so discontent guh

thursday 4:00am // hahahahahhaha it's 4am hahahahaha
thursday 12:00pm // i am so fail i woke up at 10am guhhh. praise god though, i was able to word vomit four pages in two hours which is... twice the speed i usually write. not sure about the quality but at this point i don careee
thursday 2:15pm // wau cutting it so close. i officially dislike apple computers omq. regardless TWO ESSAYS & TWO PRESENTATIONS DONE, TWO MORE ESSAYS &THREE MORE FINALS TO GO

gospel & berkeley

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But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

how wonderful is it that even before i go up to norcal, i am reminded of the radical, earthshaking implications of the gospel?

jesus extravagantly proclaimed god’s love for me: he died an undeserved sinner’s death & lived again to provide me access to a new life in sanctifying preparation for eternal fellowship with my Maker. & because god did this in full awareness of my wretchedness--all that i am inside is laid bare before him, i have no one to prove myself to. i don't have to prove my trust in him at the cost of compromising my safety. trust does not equate to recklessness. i am grateful for the two sisters dear to my heart (shameless shout out, slo&cchen) for speaking sense to me and being gentle while i grappled with guilt (as well as my tendency to go all in, & my perception of what that means).

it is because of this gospel truth that i can boast in the cross and make decisions in a realm of freedom and fearlessness, without unwarranted guilt of disappointing him or putting him in a box. i can trust that he makes my ways straight & that his ways supersede, go before, and surround all of my ways. i am forever entirely in the King’s embrace : ) how is this not earthshaking to monumental extremes? how does this not make praise arise from deep inside without pause?

this is all to say, i am actually going to live in berkeley instead of sf. hahaha

& i have also come to realize in the past twenty seconds... that god is redeeming my wish to live in berkeley... HOWww GOD IS SO GOOD! senior year he took away my obsessive desire to go to berkeley and taught me to trust him by blessing me in SD and now he's letting me go to berkeley for a quarter, on his terms. this is too good, god. i see what you did there. a;slkdjf;alskjdf

sidenotes;
wahahaha
so blessed and safe and joyful to be in THE king's embrace
EXCEEDING PRAISE OMQ

not particularly important, but i wonder why i feel the need to blog. it is essentially an online diary, but with a public audience. i'm starting to realize how much i truly am a blogger -- ever since 12 years old! i have seven blogs serving different purposes, and apart from that i have two private journals that delve even deeper. i wonder why i feel the need to share things with people all the time -- joys, struggles, ponderings. i donnos. how come not everyone feels this need? i feel like an oddball wakawaka