meant for more

i forget that i was meant for something more. I was meant for something more than family, friends, work, summer classes, Facebook, instagram, image-control, time spent watching too many episodes of 'Friends' and 'Seinfeld' - the list goes on and on and on.

I was meant for you, Jesus. We were meant for him. And it sucks because I forget that, and my love for him runs dry. 

Today, I woke up to my mom singing korean hymns in her room and I grew annoyed because her singing woke me up. I see in my mom faithfulness and a constant and consistent love for Jesus; honestly, i don't know of a time when her gaze wasn't on him. 

God, help me to give my all to you - only to you.

Some prayer requests:
-Abiding in the Spirit and practicing the fruits of the Spirit such as self-discipline
-Joy of the Lord that is constant and fixed on Him
-I think a part of me is extremely wary of dating and I know that there'll come a time when the Lord puts someone in my life. Obviously, I'm not sure when that's going to be but as of now I kinda have this gag reflex mentality going on (ok, that's a pretty extreme visual haha but I could use a bit of prayer for a more healthy perspective on dating).
-Being faithful to the Lord in prayer and in the Word
-For compassion for the people I see at work
-I recently got a citation for selling alcohol to a minor (long story) and have to go to court this upcoming Wednesday. Pray that the judge would be understanding and that my fine wouldn't be too hefty. 

there is this burning passion within me to share the love of Christ with the broken and lost. God, i lift up to you each and every person I meet at the Jade. i pray for the homeless families coming through with their food stamps and the boys and girls that come in to buy condoms. each and every single person is known by you and loved by you. i pray for my coworkers, especially tony who seems to be doing some soul-searching and who i've been lifting up in prayer these days. hopefully, there'll be an opportunity to speak to him about God before he leaves on his vacation.

God is with us, so trust God.

I have so many things to share I don't even know where to start. First and foremost, God is good and I'm thankful to be able to share each and every experience with him. I feel like I've been experiencing his love in so many different niches and each time I am startled and delighted. Volunteering at Maliheh Free Clinic has been such a wonderful opportunity and I've been able to get to know one of the girls who handles all of the patient's prescriptions in the PAP office. She's a couple of years older than me and is half burundian/half rwandan. Esther is resilient and strong and beautiful. I know she has a passion for Central Africa - many of her relatives were killed in the Rwandan war and her sister went missing for 10 or so years before being reunited with the rest of the family here in the States. I can easily talk with Esther about faith and God and the Holy Spirit and we've had our fair share of laughter in the PAP office. I'm praying that she grows closer to the Lord this summer and experiences his love more and more.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I got a job at a production facility for Granato's deli and Vosen's German bakery. I actually wasn't going to go to the job interview because the owner was actually looking for an early morning driver but I decided to go anyways because I felt like God was telling me that the owner was going to offer me a different position. And he did! Thus began my time working with the production crew. The work is hard and the other people on my team are a lot older than me and most everyone is Mexican. We make everything from sandwiches to salads to scones, muffins, croissants, cookies, biscotti, among many many other things. There's so much to do and I'm pretty much running around the entire time. Two weeks into the job, I got an email from the owner of Jade's Market, a hipster-ish specialty convenience store located in downtown that has everything from rows and rows of Talenti gelato to kombucha tea and specialty chocolates. She wanted to meet with me and so I went to the interview and actually got the job on the spot. I accepted the job at the Jade and approached my supervisor Guillermo this past friday (super scared, super nervous) with the intent of telling him that next week would be my last week. From the start, he was so incredibly gracious and he basically said he wanted the best for me and that he wanted me to go after my dreams. He gave me a hug and told me to come back for a free sandwich and pop in and say hi to the entire team. And then? He told me that God loved me and that God was alway with me. My jaw seriously dropped to the ground and I didn't know what to say. I know God wanted me to have this job for a short time because I was able to meet men and women who work blue-collar jobs and who are incredibly hard-working. So this week is my last week working with RosaMarie, Bell, Guillermo, Jose-Emmanuel, Sharon and I've gotta say, I'm going to miss them. I have so much respect for them and I'm honored to have worked alongside them. My last day is this friday and I'm going to buy pizza and bring it to them because as far as I know, I'm the only one that actually eats lunch and takes a 15-minute break. I was so surprised with my conversation with Guillermo because usually, he's a bit tough to work with. I received so much support and grace in my conversation with him and I definitely didn't expect him to throw out references to God. Another thing God taught me from this job is how hard my mom works - I definitely got some first hand knowledge of how much she has sacrificed for me physically, emotionally, etc. etc. 

So.. Last week I started getting trained at the Jade and I love the job. Including the $11/hour pay! My coworkers are in their later twenties and are very cool. There are definitely some weirdos in downtown and we get a lot of homeless people because we accept food stamps. That being said, it's refreshing and I actually feel like I'm in a city. We also get a lot of upper class business people and everything in between. I'm excited to work here, and I feel like God opened this opportunity to remind me that Salt Lake City is my mission field this summer. The only thing that I'm kinda worried about is the potential midnight shift which involves working until midnight and closing up. Pluses to the job include eating as much produce while working, sweet organic products, 10% discount, and free parking. Also, specialty brands that you can't find elsewhere. Basically, Jade Market is like the Whole Foods of all 7/11 convenience stores. The owner also sells peonies and other flowers and Rosie's Deli is located inside the market. 

Ok. Enough about jobs. This past week was especially busy because I was a tribe leader in the Vacation Bible School held at church. I was incredibly blessed to lead a group of little boys and girls and I feel like the simplicity of the theme "God is with us, so trust God" was one that I needed to marvel at once again. Such simple, basic messages but those are the ones that are the hardest to grasp - especially for Christians who have been Christian for a long time. I'm thankful for the new friends that I've made and the developing relationships and once again, I'm surprised because I haven't been really close to my home church here in Salt Lake. 

Classes are going great, I'm trying to find the right balance and usually homework involves squeezing it in here and there. I'm tired, but in a happy sort of way. I feel like God is telling me that I don't have to be in Amsterdam or Hawaii to have a mission mentality. It's here. It's right now - in my interactions with coworkers and at church and other volunteers and people who stop by the Jade. One thing is that I would keep on praying for people here and for HNGR friends abroad. Oh! And YHMers. 

I guess this is a good enough update for now. Quick thankful list:

-Ice cream after ice cream. Yes, we had drumsticks at church yesterday after VBS and as I was driving home, I stopped by and got a frosty at Wendy's. hehe. But it was nice eating that and listening to Jazz music whilst driving at night.

-Today, I saw a circle rainbow. Is this possible? It didn't rain, and it was an actual circle around the sun.

-Thankful for the production crew and for good biscotti.

-The Jade Market 

-Andrew's laugh. Well, mostly him laughing at himself.

The Integration of Faith and Ray Bradbury

An excerpt from a novel by Ray Bradbury that I'm currently reading:

"Oh, thought Mrs. Bentley. And then, as though an ancient phonograph record had been set hissing under a steel needle, she remembered a conversation she had once had with Mr. Bentley - Mr. Bentley, so prim, a pink carnation in his whisk-broomed lapel, saying, "My dear, you never will understand time, will you? You're always trying to be the things you were, instead of the person you are tonight. Why do you save those ticket stubs and theatre programmes? They'll only hurt you later. Throw them away, my dear."
But Mrs. Bentley had stubbornly kept them.
"It won't work," Mr. Bentley continued, sipping his tea. "No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. Time hypnotizes. When you're nine, you think you've always been nine years old and will always be. When you're thirty, it seems you've always been balanced there on that bright rim of middle life. And then when you turn seventy, you are always  and for ever seventy. You're in the present, you're trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen."
It had been one of the few, but gentle, disputes of their quiet marriage. He had never approved of her bric-a-brackery. "Be what you are, bury what you are not," he had said. "Ticket stubs are trickery. Saving things is a magic trick, with mirrors."
If he were alive tonight, what would he say?
"You're saving cocoons." That's what he would say. "Corsets, in a way, you can never fit again. So why save them? You can't really prove you were ever young. Pictures? No, they lie. You're not the picture."
"Affidavits?"
"No, my dear, you're not the dates, or the ink, or the paper. You're not these trunks of junk and dust. You're only you, here, now - the present you."
Mrs. Bentley nodded at the memory, breathing easier. //Dandelion Wine 

When we walk through dry patches in our walk with God, it's easy to get hung-up on past encounters and experiences with him. It's not a bad thing; in fact, memories of past seasons can often encourage us to push through dry seasons. This lovely passage from Dandelion Wine reminds me however, that the past does not trump the present. We shouldn't allow the now inactive past to lead us to believe that God's activity in the present is somehow in some sort of divine funk. I've gotta say, being home here in Salt Lake hasn't been like previous summers where I was surrounded by Christians from all over the world and was being changed because of it. It's beautiful to look back on those times, but I don't want to be blinded to the fact that He is working right now. In the dry season, or whatever you want to call it.  These days, it's nice to let his reminders of how beloved I am wash over me. It doesn't matter where I am in my walk with him or whether I'm across the globe or back here at home - His love grounds me and roots me in truths that are too powerful to let go of. And for that, I am incredibly thankful.

laid in bed last night unable to fall asleep - my mind wandered into the past and old memories caught me off guard. i just laid there… crying. i couldn't shake it off and i laid there crying and praying. Praying for my mom, praying for my dad and mimi, praying for my sister.

Praying for my coworkers, for the families that don't receive medicare or medicaid and come to the free clinic looking for hope, for blind eyes and hard hearts, for the spiritually dry and faint of heart.