Slow Jazz and Fine Conversation: Enjoying the Small Pleasure of Life// Obedience in Hardship

First, a fashion binge:

Got this picture from a street style blog. I love it. Quirky goodness is my thing

And I can't resist more hot fashionable couples (or just pairs of really cool friends):


He looks anime.


That girl is lookin good. Love their hair colour




Listening to some cool jazz lounge music: Cafe Del Mar --> Pina Colada
So I MIA-ed for the past... week and a bit because it was the Toronto reading week so friends started pouring into the city. What made it even more schizophrenic was that unassociated groups of friends were overlapping one another so there was a lot of frantic running around. Tanya came, then Dion and Joon and Yolanda, then Vanessa and then Sarah. Or something like that. I've forgotten already.
Valentine's Day was spent doing church stuff, Tanya arrived then and we went to my acc. partner's 'single's potluck' (did she really have to call it that -_-). I tried making penne a la vodka which came out pseudo successful minus the fact it was a tad bland but oh well. Anyway, Sunday, my acc. brought her Torontonian non-christian friend to church and I with Tanya. It was good. I'm glad she got something out of it. When Dion and Joon arrived that Sunday it was all a mad ball of shopping, Brooklyn, eating and trying to relive the past semester through things we used to all do together like weekly lunches at our favourite Japanese cafe across Bryant Park, Max Brenners' and movies at Regal. There was Basta Pasta where they made a scene by drawing really weird things on the paper. And then there was Balthazar, a favourite French restaurant of mine for duck confit, bar steak and banana tart.
It was a little nostalgic, a touch of sadness yet ironic because this nostalgia is quite fresh for something that wasn't really long ago. I've grown quite fond of this group of friends- their idiosyncracies that I just wanted to saturate those days with them because who knows when I'll meet them again in New York with the same group dynamics.
With Tanya what I enjoyed most were actually the few minutes we got to talk while lying in our beds. Sometimes they were stupid things ("would you date a guy with a third nipple?" No that question was not of my creation) to church to our aspirations to cooking. Those moments in the quietness of the apartment were the most precious of them all.
Sarah left yesterday morning. With her it was real fun. She's the 'cheap' one- the one who is always looking for cheap entertainment, free events and ways of saving money without spending too much. While my Loo friends shop as if there was no recession (who purchases $200 sweaters?) and Tanya, my aspiring chef friend, doesn't mind dropping a few extra dollars for a quality meal, with Sarah it was about the people and the community. So it was off to Kenka- a Japanese bar restaurant with cheap eats and a nice rowdy bunch. We also went to MOMA and Century21- the huge tourist destination for discount designer stuff and then Financier for a cake break. Max Brenners' the following night and Momofuku for lunch. I met one of her friends who brought her brother to check out Parsons. We ended up hitting it off quite well and hung out for a day. The last night, after Brooklyn with her friends, we stayed in and made our own stew (dude white butchers don't sell pork bone which was frustrating because we wanted the reject meat which they didn't even have) and went to Amy's Bread for a five grain loaf which we cut up and fried in butter. I whipped up a tiramisu which ended up really runny- I messed up somewhere but it still tasted like a tiramisu. We both like jazz so she found this jazz event at Columbus Circle where students pay $5 to relax and enjoy a live band of jazz. So 11:30pm, cracked open the heels and cabbed it up to Lincoln Center for a cheap and rather romantic evening of jazz. We even got a table free of charge (usually it's an additional $5). I'm rather impressed that we had fun in New York with such little money. Most fond memory must have been just cooking with her. I guess I've missed out a little on most colleges were roommates cook together which becomes a bonding time- and I've been so conditioned to think that the best bonding times are over consuming food but not the preparation.

All physical memories aside, the reason for writing this was to remember the good things God has given to me. I did not expect to make friends from Waterloo, yet God graciously gave them to me last semester. These were friends who made me laugh, friends who I could hang out with and shop with. They were the adventurous kind who knew were all the good stores were- not just clothing- but pockets of subcultures encapsulated within little spaces of commerce. Sarah, though we knew each other through our mutual group of friends, I never expected to really have anything in common. Yet our personalities as planners brought us together through another mutual friend who she never really got to know until this past summer. While we don't share many similar interests (I love dessert, she's not a sweets person, she loves sports while I don't, she likes doing everything inexpensively and I.... don't really because home entertaining is hard when your private space is basically public as well), I really enjoyed her company and the fresh perspective she gave me of New York. With Tanya, we share a mutual affection for the culinary arts and Japanese recipe magazines. God is good. Even if these things are perceived as a mundane long list of "what I did's", I loved it all.

By the way, the new Diesel Planet has opened in New York and it's the largest in the world. I took Sarah there and I bumped into a classmate.. hehehe.. discount?? jk!

Oh and I also saw Alan Menken with my roommate. I bought her tickets as a birthday gift to see Alan Menken, the famous Disney composer who did the soundtracks to old classics like Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Little Mermaid. It was beautiful. We were at the top of the Time Warner building overlooking straight down Broadway Avenue. It was an informal jazz night with Alan Menken on piano accompanied by three back-up singers and a four person band. Behind them was this huge pane of glass rising about 30 feet overlooking New York. The cars and taxis that circled Columbus Circle looked even more romantic as their lights appeared like glittering stars from where we were sitting.
That composer is talented I tell you. Lucky family. -_-




Obedience in Hardship

All details aside my spiritual life has been... well... blessed and enriched through much confusion, suffering and pain.
As in my previous entry, I thought I would be temporarily okay with my situation. Yet a few days later at SG, we were asked to share about our experiences with accountability (it started sounding like couples therapy...) and then our personal spiritual life. I was on my merry little way of just not going into details of my struggles yet skimming surfaces seemed superficial for a group that was meant to build each other up. So I started talking about my struggles with defining the duty of a person to his/her relationships. And I don't know but I started crying deeply. At that point, in my tears and shaking, I thought it was my weakness to show such an avid amount of emotion. On one hand I despised it- I despised being the 'emo female' yet the situation was not in my control. We cry when words do not seem to suffice for the pain we go through. Through my hiccuped explanation of my struggles, my SG prayed aloud for me.

God has a funny way of answering prayers.

A few days later, that Sunday my acc. partner and I took our nonchristian friends to church, my pastor spoke about Psalm 88 (I suggest you go to the passage first before continuing). While almost every Psalm in this book starts off in despair and ends in praise, this one closed with this line:
18 You have taken my companions and loved ones from me;
the darkness is my closest friend.

Well that's just dandy isn't it.
When we first read it, it felt a little disheartening- that the psalmist had left an open wound unattended. Yet the weirdest thing was that our pastor began to preach that God gave us passages like this- ones full of despair, little hope and darkness because He understands exactly how we feel at times when we really do not see God as God. I don't really remember what he exactly preached about but by the end I was shedding tears. This was the very first time a sermon wholly related to a situation I was going through. That even in our darkest moments, God understands. He doesn't turn a blind eye to it but He allows such psalms to be placed in His book because He already knows How we feel.
That sounded kind of lame but that's just it.
My friend found the sermon moving (it was quite cinematic- something that'd make you think of LOTR XD) and the worship quite epic.

I have a tendency to slip up on devos when people are over. But when I picked it up again I fell on this passage in Jeremiah 17:

5 This is what the LORD says:
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

6 He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.

7 "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.

8 He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit."

9 The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

10 "I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve."

After reading this passage, I wanted to be that tree that feared no external disaster, that still bore fruit despite hardship and thrived despite of the hopelessness that it is enrobed in. That was just really encouraging.


Saturday rolled around and Sarah was over. She spoke about her struggles with finding a fellowship while I shared that my devos tend to slip when visitors come. Out of the blue she asked if I wanted to do devos with her in the morning. I was so surprised and delighted that a tourist would take time out of her schedule to study the bible together. We decided on a random book and we landed on 1 Samuel.

Oh. My. Goodness.

6And because the LORD had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. 7 This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat... 10 In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the LORD. 11 And she made a vow, saying, "O LORD Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head." ...15 "Not so, my lord," Hannah replied, "I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the LORD. 16 Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief."
17 Eli answered, "Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him."
18 She said, "May your servant find favor in your eyes." Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.


As most of you know, she gives birth to Samuel who she gives back to God to use in His service.
While we were reading the first three chapters, I was having a party in my head. Well, more like alarm bells of understanding and comfort in the hindsight of God's deliverance in Hannah's life.

God Allows Suffering
So that we may understand suffering is not a sole journey- we see this in the stories of people in the Bible who are overwhelmed by their own personal struggles and persecution of others. I found much comfort in the suffering of Hannah.

God's Deliverance in our Weaknesses
First of all, Hannah was in pain and despair through the verbal abuse from a rival because of her inability to conceive. Yet God was the one who closed her womb- who made her go through suffering in order that He could show His power through her weakness to elevate her out of her pain and have Himself glorified.

God Remembers and Delivers in Hannah's Faith
When Eli the priest tells Hannah to go in peace, Hannah's faith in God is seen through her actions. She ceases to weep or fast but her face was no longer downcast and she ate. She didn't worry, she didn't second-guess what Eli said. She just believed. And because of this faith, God gives her a son.
I made the mistake of taking these good gifts and turning them into idols by clinging on to them. Hannah serves as a reminder that God is greater than any gift He gives us.

God Cannot be Outgiven
Hannah is given a gift, a son, but as a righteous woman she gives the most precious thing back to God. But God can't be outgiven. He gives her five more kids:
1 Samuel 2:21 And the LORD was gracious to Hannah; she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters.
You cannot 'out-generous' God.
He will give you more than you ask for. We just have to come to Him first.
Dude, her kid got two books in the Bible. That's nothing to sneeze at.


DARN. SO GOOD.





A few days ago, my acc. partner shared that perhaps rather than meeting at a cafe/deli/restaurant, that we should perhaps meet in a home to pray together rather than simply sharing prayer requests and going our separate ways to pray for one another. Last night I went over to her place and we did homework together for a couple of hours before sitting outside in the stairwell to pray. She told me that my despairity in life rubbed off on her and she began to see the world as I did. That entire week she began to despair over certain relationships which she felt were neglected in some way or another to the point where she was having difficulty meeting God. I wasn't certain of whether or not that was a good thing- on one hand it was good that she was able to understand me yet on the other I felt bad I pulled her down spiritually this past week. Yet I guess this is what God means by when we are called to share each other's burdens. She literally felt the hopelessness that I was feeling. We prayed for one another. Usually when I pray for others I have little to say yet the words just flowed from my mouth in praying for her, us, our small group, the upcoming retreat (which I am not going to) and for school.
One thing she shared with me was the idea of obedience even in times of suffering. That even if we were not comfortable in a situation that inflicts pain on us, physical or emotional, that we are called to cling to God until He lifts us out of it.

That word stuck with me on the way home. 'Obedience': I savoured it and rolled it around in my tongue, shuttling it back and forth until I reached my computer and Biblegateway-ed 'obedience' (can you tell it's one of my favourite sites).

It told me to go to Deuteronomy 28.
After acc. with my friend, I still felt the urge to pray and read the Bible so I decided to go to this book which I have not touched yet (I mean what can God possibly say that would apply in my life in a book that was written so early on in the Bible? It's a bunch of rules for the Israelites isn't it?).

Well I never reached chapter 28 because I was skimming the titles and came across Deut 8:

Do Not Forget the LORD
1 Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. 2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.

I am not one to cry for attention or to stir up drama in my life. Nor do I cry to find sympathy from friends or be able to write some sob story here for people to read.
But I have never cried after reading Scripture. I have to write this down here because last night I cried because of God's goodness in His understanding of the deep hurts and the suffering that I am going through. Sure I have shedded tears after listening to a sermon or in prayers of anguish. Often when I shed tears, it is because I'm, obviously, sad. But last night I was crying out of the sheer gratitude that God was speaking to me through His Word. I don't really find any book moving to the point of shedding tears. I was so deeply moved by what He had to say to me. It was a soothing balm to wounds I myself could not treat.

God, despite Israel's unfaithfulness, continued to remain in them. They suffered yet in their suffering, God rained manna from heaven. And that's not a common occurence on the weather channel either. "To teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD"
Darn that was such an encouraging line.
Oh why oh why are all the books of the Bible so good?! Last week I've just opened up Jeremiah, Deuteronomy and 1 Samuel. I can't juggle this many and yet I want to read all of them at once.

What were tears of sadness and despair turned into ones of joy and hope.
In my despair last week, I forgot the goodness that God gave me last semester when I was going through other issues. I remembered this week, to rejoice because I know I am suffering because God wants to use me. That in pain, He blesses us. I am blessed because I know I am worthy enough in His sight to be used by Him. Because I know, in the end, He will deliver me out of this. Even though my struggles will never come to complete closure, throughout this week God has never let me fall. He continuously through SG, accountability, Scripture and sermons encouraged me to keep running the race. And what an even greater testimony I will have to tell people about how God has always been steadfast, unwavering in the promises to abide in us even when all else fails.