Inside Out

1. Combination pizza. I point fingers at veggies.  I disliked them all.
2. Stretching.  Believe it or not, little Jenny was the epitome of “stiff as a board”.  woe the days spent stretching with tears in her eyes.
3. Frozen yogurt.  It tasted like sour milk when I first tried it in 9th grade so I swapped my plain tart yogurt with my dad’s strawberry banana smoothie, heh
4. Eating in general.  I was a picky eater and barely ate anything.  Byproduct: 5’3” Why didn’t I listen to my mom? #why
5. School.  You could easily suicide off the deep dark chasm that was once my grades. I try to forget the humiliating 20% F- on my spelling test in the 3rd grade… but look at me now♫ pursuing a double major at UCSD!
6. Talking. I loathed talking.  That’s why I loved ballet so much!  Noone required me to talk and I could interact/be accepted/excel in it.  I was once invited to a TV show in Korea for ballet in which I had 1 line.  I never said it.  The producers were so frustrated… hahhhaa
7. Adventures.  There was a conscious moment when I decided that I wanted to be more adventurous.  It was at the beach, and that day I fully immersed myself in the saltiness that I knew wasn’t homogeneously salt.

Thank Jesus for helping me grow out of my many strange oddities.

Sincerely,
Your very committed friend Jenny

I’m attempting to recount the past week.. it went something like this:

Early one morning as I was walking to class, I started thinking “why doesn’t my life reflect what I believe and know to be truth? why is this.. and why is that..?”  these were the lies coming in through my ears, uninvited.  so naturally, Brian texts me to ask how I was doing bc he’s cool like that.  (it is both relieving and scary how he does that, heh) so i told him everything on my mind and he preceded to tell me that

“why” is a victim question. 

That I should stand on the truth though it doesn’t seem real because we live by faith not by sight. 

This reminder was more than enough to get me rolling again, but he also told me

that he was sorry that I was going through this,

& that I am not alone in this. 

That my emotions are valid, but not my leader. 

& that he loved me very much.

I let my tears leak out into the world for awhile after that.  I do remember that these tears were hot and heavy.  It felt like detox for my soul. haha  my spirit led as I picked myself up for the rest of the day.  My faith was energized.  I broke off lies and came into agreement with the truth and the promises God gave me.

God knows so well how to make you whole again because you see.. it was significant that Brian would text me and assure me of the truth because I had been resenting my dad for quite some time.  you will notice that I will be excluding all details as to why as I move on to say that this weekend when I went back home, Holy Spirit began to show and remind me of my dad’s extreme love and his actual character that I had forgotten because he has not been himself recently.

• HS reminded me of the time I was in the first grade with a broken ankle, my dad constructed chairs in the bathroom so that I could lie down on it.  Every night, he would wash my hair for me.. He cared for me so much
• HS reminded me of the time in jr high when I was in my rebellious stage and fought with my ballet teacher.  I was crying and my dad was so ready to yell at her that I had to stop him.  He was always on my side.
• HS reminded me of the time in high school when my dad was willing to pay for the unexpectedly expensive fee for the spirit squad.  I tried out for jv but my coach placed me on varsity making the cost dramatically more pricey.  He always wanted the best for me.
• HS reminded me of when my dad so wanted to support my mission trip to South Africa that he initially didn’t want me to participate in.  He always supported my decisions.
• HS reminded me of last year when I was content with my free dumb phone and my dad almost forced me to get the smart phone that I have now.  He never wanted me to miss out on what everyone else was enjoying.
• HS showed me my dad washing my brother’s face and hair, and writing the answers for his hw bc my brother has a cast on his dominant arm atm.  I had previously thought that my dad was being negligent of my brother, but clearly I was wrong.
• HS showed me my dad cooking dinner and making the most of our situation.  I had previously thought that he didn’t give a shit about my mom.  wrong again.

All of my resentments: dissolved.

Because faith enables perception.  I was seeing my situation differently.  I began to see a different layer of Bill Johnson’s quote:

“I will not create a theology around what did NOT happen. I refuse, I REFUSE to bring the gospel down to the level of my experience.”

A lot of things are not happening the way I know it should.  But I refuse to think that that is God’s will.   Rather, here’s where I’ll pick it up: though I can’t see how things can work out, I take it to God confident that through Him nothing is impossible.  As aforementioned, we live by faith not by sight.  Trust me, in theory/principle/words on a computer screen this seems simple enough, but entangle that with the stickiest situations and voila = a web of lies that you have to break off. It takes faith & courage.

+ God is so proud of me for trusting Him and he shows it to me by fully funding my mission trip to Brazil this summer through one anonymous donor.  I told God 2 months ago that I will go when he magically provides for me, and I could just see Father God saying “so be it” with a smile.  I know my time in Brazil is going to be important, and God is going to show me something very pivotal.

Initially I was going to adumbrate the past week with a couple of sentences: Jesus kindly led me in addressing my fear of thinking that there is nothing I can do about a certain sticky situation.  However, I overcame it and God is so proud of me for that. 

But I figure, I better remember this one…

I found her again ..or maybe she found her way back.
and I know why ♥

Jesus you’re so good, always more eager to give than I am willing to ask.