Monday, April 28, 2014

Time for Everything

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:
     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV)


I turned 30 few days ago and what a milestone birthday it has been. Turning 21 was big but turning 30, it was even bigger. There were moments before I turned the big 3-0 when I felt panic coming up but I kept reminding myself that it's just a number and with age comes more wisdom and life experiences. I learned so much and grown a lot as a person. I look forward to what God has in store for me this coming year. As I reflect on my life this far, I feel like there is so much that God is still working in my life and preparing me. I think I am still in the season of preparation and even though I am not sure where I will eventually be, I will follow His lead. Trust in a God who knows the best for my life and God who loves me far more than anyone in this world. 

God's timing is just right and I need to have faith that God is doing something in my life for His glory. Take a leap of faith and run the race with God. Persevere and see it to the end. Not give up and keep my eyes on Christ.Be okay in my own skin and be confident knowing that God loves me no matter what. Not to worry about the little things and let God take care of me. 

April has been a month long celebration of my birthday and I am so thankful to my family and friends who made it extra special for me. I felt very loved by all the birthday wishes, surprises and gifts! THANK YOU! May love of Christ is showered richly in your life. Thanks for reading! 


Friday, April 11, 2014

PUSH

WOW, it's been more than a year since my last post. 2013 had its highs and lows. As always, I kept myself busy and well, that led to me lack of blogging. Sorry about that. 

This year is my 30th year and I am joyfully anticipating what God will do in and through my life. I feel like with each year I gain one more life experience and that excites me. Don't get me wrong, turning thirty is scary but exciting at the same time. Scary because it's one of the milestones in life but also exciting because I am not in my 20s anymore! 

A lot has happen since my last blog. Condensed highlights of 2013: I moved in with another amazing roommate who challenges and pushes me to grow, I was in Chicago for a work conference, I was in Northern Ireland for a mission trip with my church last July (thank you to all the supporters!), I got a new car (with lots of help/advices from my family and friends!). 

So, this year, my word is "intentional". I felt like last year I was keeping busy and sometimes missed the intentional part. It's still a learning process as I try to be more intentional with my time, relationships, money and all aspect of my life. So far, I think I am not doing too well with being intentional with my time. I over committed this winter/spring but thank goodness there is grace in that I still have time to be more intentional. 

The other day I was driving home and the car in front of me had a bumper sticker with "PUSH". It stands for 'Pray Until Something Happens' and that struck a chord with me. I think it's so easy to give up on prayer and forget that God is so much bigger than us. I haven't been good about praying as much as I want or need to but I think Holy Spirit prays on behalf  and it's a comforting thought. One of my favorite quotes from Pastor Mark Batterson's The Circle Maker:  "There comes a moment when you must quit talking to God about the mountain in your life and start talking to the mountain about your God. You proclaim His power." That's powerful that God already knows about the mountain in my life and I can't let the mountain put fear or control over me. By proclaiming to the mountain about God, it puts God in control and that is so awesome! Right now, I am trying to figure out what God's calling for me and it's hard to wait patiently for His leading. I want to jump into my next adventure but I sense that God is telling me to wait. Wait on Him and trust Him. To be intentional about praying and not giving up. 

May Christ's love dwell in you and know that He loves you more than you know! Thanks for reading and I hope to be better about blogging this year!

I thought I repost my narrative I wrote when I was in high school since it's new year and I hope it's encouraging to you as much it is encouraging to me. 


Beautiful Accident
By Min Kim


I’m not glamorous or gorgeous like the girls on TV or in magazines, but I’m proud of the way I look now, even with burn scars. Most girls think appearance is everything, yet from my own experience, appearance isn’t everything. It is just a myth that people say on TV’s and in magazines. I didn’t always look the way I do with my burn scars. When I was five, before the tragic beautiful accident, I was like the other little girls, cute and perky. I wore an adorable little pigtails tied with pretty radiant ribbons on my raven black hair and wore darling little dresses like the princesses in fairy tales.
When I was five and my brother was four, my parents sent us to a private school to get ahead of the other little kids in education. The first private school was run by Buddhists and my parents didn’t find out until my brother and I prayed a Buddhist prayer. My grandfather was a pastor and both of my parents grew up in a Christian family. I can remember their shocked and startled faces when they heard the prayer. The next day, my parents enrolled us in a respectable private Christian school. Fear and nervousness ran through my mind making me less excited about going to the brand new private school. Just for the occasion, my mom bought my brother and me new clothes and shoes. I remember wearing a new long sleeved shirt, new long blue jeans and new pair of tennis shoes. On the first day of going to the new school, the weather was gloomy and windy. My brother and I had a fit and we even argued with my parents about going to the school. Little children, without doubt, always obey what their parents say and we dragged ourselves to the new school. The church ran the school and many teachers teaching at the school were members of the church. The school building had three floors that contained different classes and different teachers on each floor. Each grade had one teacher and one class. The pre-kindergarten class was on the first floor. On the second floor were the kindergarten class and first grade class. The third floor was reserved for the second and third grade class.


My first day of school was an unusual one. For some odd reason, my kindergarten teacher had the flu that day and a woman in her early twenties took her place. The substitute teacher was like a statue that was for decoration purpose and no one cared about. Everyone in the class knew each other well. I didn’t really care about being alone. I was still too young to understand the meaning of loneliness, and so to pass the time, I entertained myself with the toys in the classroom. My new classroom reminded me of my two-story dollhouse with many windows and doors. For amusement I wanted to go peep out the window, but lunchtime came along and everyone sat glued around the table. I didn’t eat much as usual and I swallowed the food one bite at a time. While eating lunch, a young boy, a little older than us came dashing into the kindergarten class and told us that there was a fire in the building. The substitute panicked immediately after hearing the news. My classmates, including myself, didn’t really comprehend what was going on. Suddenly, the substitute shut all the windows and doors in a hurry. The substitute became a bee, busying herself from one place to another trying to do many things at one time.


So what happened to my brother’s pre-kindergarten class? My brother’s real pre-kindergarten teacher was in a good mood because she had a new outfit. So, she took her pre-kindergarten class out to the playground to play.


The fires slowly crept into my kindergarten class and the substitute went insane. Then she hollered that she was getting help and escaped, knowing she would not come back. After she left, everything around me went pitch-black like a night with no moon or stars. I was afraid, and I felt like a prisoner wanting freedom. When the fire died from the building, the firemen realized that the kindergarten class was not outside. They immediately went to my kindergarten class and rescued us. Before the fire ever reached other classes, all the other grades except the kindergarten class came out of the fire safely. The fire burned down the kindergarten classroom. Of the fourteen children in the class only seven survived the fight with the fire. I’m one of the lucky seven who survived. No one really knows the main cause of the fire; yet, there are many theories on how the building caught on fire. The main theory is that a little kid in pre-kindergarten class went inside to keep warm. When he played with the stove, it blew up. But, some people claim that the young adults who used the building once were mad at the church for making the building into a private school, and so they set the building on fire.


I don’t really care who set the fire and I am not angry with anyone. I thank God for saving me from the fire and letting me live. God turned something people made terrible into something beautiful. Not many people had hope for me when I was in the hospital. I survived and showed the people around me that anything is possible through God. I woke up few days later from a long sleep like Sleeping Beauty. Everything changed in my life after the day I woke up from almost dying. Most little kids don’t go through the treatments I went through, but I did without complaining. Through this life changing accident, I realized I want to be a doctor like the doctors who treated me. I went through lots of teasing and mocking from my peers after I came out of the hospital, about six months later. The teasing and mocking didn’t hurt me emotionally, but made me stronger a person. I don’t see my burn scars as something to grieve about, but they are a reminder of a beautiful tragic accident that changed my life for the better. Beauty is only skin deep in appearance; beautiful is when someone does something beautiful for other people.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Love

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other." Galatians 5:22-26

I was reading through my previous blog posts and recurring theme that comes up is love. Love is one of the fruit of the Spirit and one of the hardest for me to live out. I am realizing each day that I am a selfish human being and I fail at love. I say I love my family but am I really loving them? I say I love my friends but do I show it? I say I love my neighbors but do I stop to talk to them? To be honest, I am no good at loving people all on my own. It's only through God's love and seeing how Jesus loves that I get a glimpse of what love really is. I am amazed at God's love. His love is so big that I cannot fathom how a God can love a small person like me. Some days I feel unlovable but I soon realize that I am lovable and need to affirm that. Reading through the Word, God points to His love for us and I am in awe. Knowing that God loves me should produce an overwhelming joy but I forget and soon I am flooded with what world tries to tell me that I am not lovely. I am thankful that Holy Spirit tugs at my heart and says to me God loves me and thinks highly of me. Who am I? I am daughter of most high God and God chose me to be His child. I am follower of Christ, disciple striving to be more like Christ. I fail but He picks me up and tells me to keep going. Life is not about being happy or gaining more material possession but it's about bringing God the glory in my life and living out the love that He gives me. It's still a hard concept to grasp but I know one day God will reveal it to me. While I struggle with what I am suppose to be doing with my life, I know that in God's timing, He will show me and guide me. So I wait for my Lord to direct my paths. May God's presence be with you and my love of Christ overwhelm you today! 




Thursday, April 12, 2012

Loving My Enemies.

What did Jesus mean when He said, "But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful." (Luke 6:35-36)? How does that look like? To turn the other cheek and giving to those who take away the very clothes on myself. To pray for those who persecute and mock me. Did Jesus mean what He commended? I completely believe He meant what He said. Jesus' commend is impossible to obey on my own but by having faith and trust in Him, only then can I truly love my enemies. Who are my enemies? It's the person who hurt me and mock me. It's the individual who lies and cheats to get their own ways. It's the one who betrays and turn his or her back on me. I am realizing more and more these days that people I think are my friends will eventually fail, disappoint and give up when circumstances are too hard. God never fails, He never disappoints and He never lets go. His love is overwhelming and extravagant. How do I love my enemies as myself? How can God love a person like me when I struggle each day to love people? These days, I feel discouraged and it's harder to love. Only way I love is following Christ and striving to live like Him. He loved His enemies even when they killed Him on the cross and rejected Him. He forgave those who hurt Him and asked His Father to forgive them. What a wonderful Savior! I think one way to love my enemies is denying myself and taking up my cross each day. To seek and run to Jesus when I can not love on my own. To read the Bible and pray. To be in intimate conversation continually with Him. To become like Christ. I do not have it all figured out about loving my enemies but one thing I know, I want to obey Christ's commend and live a life that glorifies Him. My life is not my own. I was given this life for His glory and I pray that He will use me. I pray that He will teach me daily to love like Him. Thanks for reading what's happening in my heart and head! May love of Christ overwhelm you and give you peace!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Loving God, Loving Others

What does it mean to truly love my neighbors as myself? How can I be the person that Jesus would be proud of being His follower? What does love look like? How can God love us when we are so undeserving? There is so much questions I been thinking about. These are just few questions I have been reflecting upon. I have yet to completely answer the questions I been thinking about but one day I hope my questions will be answered completely. So, I am returning to help out with Alpha in leadership team capacity and I thought last semester was my last one; however, I felt that I needed to be part of Alpha again this semester. I hope that I can walk along side each individual in my group whoever they may be. I pray that God will break my heart for what break His heart and open my eyes to being aware of what He is doing in and through Alpha. Alpha is 10-week course that outlines basics of Christianity. I started out in Alpha as a guest and since then, I been involved almost every semester. I am not great with words and I get nervous speaking within a group setting but being in Alpha has helped me break out of my comfort zone. Although I have been a leader of Alpha small group for two semesters, going into it a third time, I am still feeling nervous. Each group is unique and each person in it brings something different to the group discussions. I have insecurities and one of them being speaking to people. I fear that I will say the wrong things or something stupid and sometimes I just end up being silent within a group setting. I need to break out of my insecurities and just trust God for the words I will speak within my group. I am not sure why God has led me back to being in Alpha; however, I trust Him completely that He has me there for a reason whether that be encouraging someone further in their walk with Christ or plant a seed in some one's life. Whatever it may be, I am excited and scared at both times. I pray that Alpha will bring individuals to knowing Jesus and he or she may embrace the perfect relationship that is in Jesus. Human relationships are messy and difficult; however, relationship with the Heavenly Father is perfect and He demonstrates the perfect love. I do not understand what love truly means but as I walk deeply with Christ, I hope one day I will come to comprehend what true love is. I pray that I will embrace that true love that is in Jesus and that love will overflow to loving people. I am ashamed to say that there are days I do not love my neighbor as myself and I seek out Jesus that He will love through me. He can do more and be greater if I become less. I want Christ to be my center and He may be glorified in every aspect of my life. I struggle and I fall when I try to live on my own but with Jesus, my life has meaning beyond what I have imagined. I look to Him and raise my hands that I need Him daily. I surrender.

Monday, January 24, 2011

New Name

This morning I read first few chapters in the Book of Revelation since I am following the reading plan for From Garden to City (www.fromgardentocity.com) and one thing that really stuck out was about getting new names mentioned in the passage. I love names and meaning of names. I love to assign nicknames and love getting nicknames from my family and friends. Whenever I hear my name being called, I love it. I love that I am being acknowledged by someone. I wonder if God loves it whenever I say His name in my prayers? I wonder if God can't wait to hear His children call on Him? For me, I can't wait for the day when God gives me a new name that I will only know when He calls me. Some people hate their names but for me I love my name. My name is special to me because my paternal grandfather named me and although my brother also has the same first name, we have different middle names and that makes it unique. My name may be old-fashioned and simple but for me, I regard my name with pride. My first and middle name means pure and mild precious stone. What does that look like? For me, it means that I try to live my life with pure mild heart and like a precious stone, I try to live my life as a treasure that was bestowed onto me. I strive to uphold my name and carry the legacy that my ancestors passed on to me. Christ in me and may His life radiate in every aspect in me. This is just what I was thinking about at this moment. Thanks for reading & may Jesus overwhelm you with His love!

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Thoughts

I dislike being this way but sometimes I care way too much about something that's not worth my time to care about. I am disappointed at something that happened and really, it's not something I should feel offended about. I should not care about what men do but I should truly care about what God does in my life. I think I take what people do so seriously that I take it too personal. I wonder who my true friends are and who I can trust. Although I was with my family not too long ago, I am longing to be with my family who truly accept me for who I am. I so desire for the God's unconditional love and hunger for what is true. I thirst for what is right. My spirit is low but I am seeking the LORD to fill it up. I don't know where to turn other than to Jesus. I do not want to feel this way toward my brothers and sisters in Christ. Who are my friends? What does it mean to love my neighbor as myself? Thoughts that are running through my mind.