1 Peter 1:8

Though you do not see Him, You love Him

Though you do not now see Him, You do not see Him in the very moment
You believe in Him

You love Him, You do
You really love Him

Rejoicing in an inexpressible joy, Filled with glory

Salvation obtained through faith in the unseen
Salvation given so freely with love beckened upon that old rugged tree on Calvary

This Love, This Love, This Love
So freely given but rightfully obtained
How could He love you and me in such a way?

You look back upon time, You do not see Him
But you knew He was there

You look in the now, You do not see Him
But you know He is there

You look upon the moment, You do not see Him
But you know He is there

Though you do not see Him, You love Him
You believe in Him, You believe in this very Love obtained freely by faith

Though you do not see, You believe in Love

Gliding upon Notes ♪♫

I looked down upon the icy glass seeing 2 silver blades smoothly gliding me upon the ice. Looking back through the years, I was a bit surprised of my seemingly practiced technique. It was as if I had began right where I had left off some years earlier. As the sound of music played through my soul, the words were embedded with revelation in my heart. Words of a babe lying in a manger, so beautiful but dependant, yet so Divine. Jesus lying in Bethlehem being held and nursed by His human mother. A God so beautiful and precious, given to us to be on our level, to be in our reach. Meanwhile still holding His Divine Nature and absolute authority. The wise men looked down upon Him and were utterly amazed. God but yet a helpless newborn baby wrapped in swaddling, needing the care that every baby cries out for.
God but yet a new born baby.
God but yet a baby boy.
God but yet a human infant.
God but yet so so dependent.
God so far away yet now so near.
I began to feel the backward motion of my calves pushing on the ice. Backsliding upon the glassy texture, I lifted my arms out to the east and to the west. My fingers wide open feeling the cold mist in between each space. So cold but wonderfully refreshing. With each sound of the hairs pressed down upon the violin, made for another backward turn upon the ice. As another chord came to sound, another backward slide came into existence. Another chord, to the right I glided. Another chord, to the left I glided. Crossing my arms out before me to feel Your cool breeze, reaching for an embrace. With the sharpness of a drum beat, I dramatically threw my arms before me pushing away everything hindering us uniting. I continued to glide backwards to and fro pushing my arms forward, embracing Your Love. As I glided and flung myself upon the ice, I danced with Your Spirit. As the chords and beat began to soften, my circling upon the glassy presence continued to exist but all the time backwards. As I worshiped You and gave You every move of my heart, soul, and body; I was glowing in Your very Presence. Feeling the coldness of the icy air but not without Your gentle guidance-- still all the time backwards. Never forwards did I glide. Staying in line with Your Spirit, giving You adoring worship. Worshiping backwards but in the all-so-right direction. Backwards but so right I skated upon this icy sea, all alone but in Your very Presence.

Luke 2, Revelation 4

He prays

All Yours is His
All His is Yours
May You be glorified

Look'n to the heavens, He prays, He prays for you
Look'n to the heavens ,He prays, He prays for me

They are not of the world
Only in the world
Sanctify them completely

Look'n to the heavens, He prays, He prays for you
Look'n to the heavens, He prays, He prays for me

Guard them from the evil one
May their joy be complete
Being one between You and Me

All Yours is His
All His is Yours
May You be glorified

Look'n to the heavens, He prays, He prays for you
Look'n to the heavens, He prays, He prays for me

In Jesus Name He prays
Jesus prays

(John 17)

rainbows in the classroom

As I glance amongst the children, I see you sitting far off in the corner.
Your face hidden by the positioning of your eyes toward the window pane.
As I continued to walk toward the chalkboard glancing over all the other little faces...
secretly worrying about you, I focused in on your little presence.
How you would not keep my look.
Not even a glance.
I felt the sadness of your heart.
I felt a sense of longing for something lost or someone who had been taken away.
As I bent down to your desk, still refusing to catch my face, I saw it fall.
One single tear slid down your cheek.
As you sat and pretended to stare out the window...
as you pretended to stay focused on the somewhat busy city street...
they began to fall.
I always have heard that tears are the rainbow to the soul.
How the pain of your heart was showing through each tear released.
You know God keeps each tear in a bottle.
He saves them.
He remembers each one.
Someday He will wipe all of them away.
As I saw your pain, I began to feel my own.
I felt a longing for something lost or someone who had been taken away.
I tried to hide my face.
I tried not to catch their gaze.
I tried to look as far away.
I tried to hide but their eyes caught it fall.
One single tear slid down my cheek.
Pretending to stare at the classroom doorway...
pretending to focus on the empty school hallway...
still trying to hide my face.
They began to fall.
As I saw yours fall, I wiped mine away.
Tears revealing the rainbow of two individual souls.
Knowing that God keeps each one and holds the memories so dear.
As you cry and release your pain, I do the same.
As you long for your past teacher, your lost friend that moved on....
I long for my past class so far away, my little friends that I departed from.
Isn't it funny how today we do the same?
Isn't it funny my little new friend?

Celebration

Lately I have been thinking that something is missing in my life. I'm pretty happy and thankful most of the time. I know that the Lord has been faithful in every area of my life, even when I don't understand certain struggles or trials that I am going through. I know that He is always faithful. So I'm usually pretty smiley and thankful but for some reason or another it seems that I have been lacking joy. There are numerous instances in the Bible that speak about this 'joy'. It is actually a command from the Lord for us to be joyful and sing praise due to His Name. How do I obtain this joy? What has been keeping me from having this joy?

The other evening I was talking with a few friends (as we gathered to celebrate for no reason at all) and one was discussing how she dresses joyful. I thought to myself 'what an interesting idea.' She was telling us that colors can have a big effect and can actually make you joyful. She then told us how she had started wearing joyful colors. Immediately I envisioned myself wearing a bright red scarf.

As I woke up this morning, I was still thinking about this 'joy' thing. I looked in my closet for a red scarf but found none. Then I thought "Well better yet, I'll paint one!"



JOY

Before an audience of One

I wanna be pure
I wanna be holy
Jesus, I wanna be true
I wanna be just like You

I wanna stand before You Lord
to sing another tune
Jesus, I wanna sing to You
I wanna sing only to You

I wanna sing before an audience of One
It's not for me, it's all for You
It's not for my fame, it's all for Your Name
I wanna sing before an audience of One

Removing all that hinders
Removing tunes of popularity
To one day stand before Your throne
Playing sweet, sweet melodies

I wanna stand before You Lord
To sing another tune
Jesus, I wanna sing to You
I wanna sing only to You

I wanna sing before an audience of One
It's not for me, it's all for You
It's not for my fame, it's all for Your Name
I wanna sing before an audience of One

Herman

Our friend Herm, the groundhog. He comes out about 3-4pm every day to pack up for the winter.

The Voice Unspoken

As I stepped up to the red line I tried to prepare my heart for what I was about to hear. I placed both feet upon the red tape that read the words ‘LIFE’ in black lettering. It had taken me about 2 months to prepare myself to pray on the ‘Life Line.’ For the ones reading this article that don’t know what the ‘Life Line’ is, it is a line of red tape placed upon the floor of numerous international houses of prayer in the United States. This ‘Life Line’ is a specific place to stand and pray for the unborn, those without a voice. Who are the voiceless? The voiceless are the numerous cases of aborted babies that never have had a chance to speak and defend themselves. I had been observing people standing on these lines in the prayer room at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. I had often wondered what the Lord spoke into their hearts about the issue of abortion. For months I had been watching people’s reactions to God’s heart as they stood and prayed. Some stood in a solemn assembly, some cried, some screamed out for justice, and some just stood listening. So, there I was finally standing upon the ‘Life Line’. All too long I had felt numb on the issue of abortion. I was beginning to wonder why I couldn’t feel God’s heart. This day was different, it was time.

I stood there on the ‘Life Line’ and prayed a simple but profound prayer, ‘Lord, let me feel Your heart, let me feel what You feel, let me see what You see.” At first nothing happened, but I just stood there trying to listen to Him. I then had a vision. I saw all of these glass jars and in each glass jar there was a fetus. The first jar contained the youngest fetus, continuing on with the different stages of development, and the last jar contained the oldest fetus which looked like the time of delivery. Immediately I was brought back to a childhood visit to the ‘Chicago Museum of Science and Industry’. I had blocked this exhibit from my memory for years. This vision was the exact exhibit that I saw almost 15 years earlier. At that moment in the vision, the Lord spoke to me these specific words… “these are the children I loved.” My heart began to break and I just wept. I was finally feeling His pain for these children. I just stood there crying and listening to His heart. He spoke to me again… “Deuteronomy 30:19.” I quickly walked back to my seat and opened my Bible and read “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life that you and your offspring may live.”

A few weeks went by and the reality of God’s emotions concerning abortion was beginning to fade from my heart. One evening my roommate played a short film, called “22 Weeks.” It is based on a true story about a woman who had an abortion. Surprisingly, the most dramatic part in the movie for me was how her friend supported her decision to have the procedure. All of a sudden, as I was watching the film, the Holy Spirit began to convict me about my silence on this issue. I can count about 10 of my close friends from high school that had abortions. I can remember specific encounters before they had the abortions where I could have spoken out against it. I hate to say this, but I never did. I was more concerned with them rejecting me and my voice, than I was with the life they were carrying inside of them. This happened numerous times and I continued to silence my voice. Every single one of them aborted their baby and a few of them more than once. As I watched this film, I was realizing that I had unconfessed sin. Before God would allow me to feel all of His heart, I needed to repent of the blood that was on my hands. I was realizing this was the very thing that had been holding me back. This unconfessed sin was my numbness. I had aided in their abortions because I refused to speak out, I refused to share my voice. I feared man more than the loss of life. That evening the Lord reminded me of each encounter during my teenage years. As I began to confess all the times that I remained silent, I began to feel clean. I was reminded of Isaiah 1:15-18

“When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will no listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s case. Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

By the end of the evening, I was feeling so clean and I was no longer numb. For the first time I was able to mourn for the loss of life that I had never spoke out about. The numbness had subsided and I was and am continuing to feel God’s heart on the issue of abortion. I have been silent for too long. Finally the voice unspoken had spoken.

cherry blossoms

Still a little wet, but dry enough to hang. :-D

Poplar Street

The 'Fire in the Night' internship is now over with and what an experience it was. The Lord spoke to me in such an awesome and intimate way during the past months. I can't ever imagine spending another day doing anything different... so I'm definitely praying about ways of financial support. I went back home to Indiana for a few days to unpack all of my pre-korea storage. It's funny how spending a few years in Asia can change your style of decorating, that's for sure. I left a lot of my decorations to gather more spiders and dust, now it looks like I'll be spending some time this week working on some paintings.

I have had so many mixed emotions and feelings the past week. It seems like I'm in another season of transition. Is it possible to miss a home so much, but you don't know where that home is? Guess this home must be Heaven because the only sure home that I know of is Heaven. I came home to the states but I miss Korea so much, although it isn't my homeland. I went home to Indiana last week and it felt like it was no longer my home either. I assume that neither are my home because its not where God wants me to be at during this time. My home is where He is calling me to be. At this time, I am called to be in Kansas City and I know this from the bottom of my heart. So it now looks as if KC is my new residency. As I was driving to Kansas City, I was thinking "I'm driving to my new home... for now that is." It's funny because on the way to Kansas City, I was imagining my 'new home' destination in my mind (KC). I should have been imagining Heaven coming down. I began missing Seoul as I was driving. To derail my mind from this track, I turned up my praise music and just began to scream praises. For 8 hours I screamed praises, cried tears of joy and thankfulness, and lifted my hand to Jesus. Don't worry, I left my left hand on the wheel. It's weird but my hand didn't even get tired and I left it up for the entire duration of the trip. In a very minute way, I felt like Moses in the battle against the Amalakites. He continued to raise his hands and flag on the mountain. As his arms grew weak and tired, Aaron and Hur held up his arms. I can just imagine I had an angel holding up my arm. :-) But it never did get tired. I felt so free on the ride back to Kansas City and my homesickness began to subside. I think my praise was defeating my own weakness. The Lord Is My Banner. Jehovah Nissi

As I pulled off the interstate, I began speaking to the Lord. I was telling Him to make Kansas City now feel like my home. Although I had already been staying in KC for the past few months, I was living at International House of Prayer, while interning. I believe that it never quite hit my soul that this was my new home yet. So I began to pray for the Lord to place a sense of 'home' in my heart for Kansas City. As I pulled off the interstate, into the Grandview Area, I looked up and saw a street sign. This street sign said 'Poplar st.' I think my jaw fell off my face!!! Poplar st. was the name of the street that I grew up on in Indiana! I couldn't believe my eyes, although I really did believe it! I mean who knew that the very first street sign I would see in my community would be the very same one that I grew up on as a child? I just began to praise Him all the more for being so faithful.

He is so faithful, so good, so true.
He knows exactly where He wants me.
He knows the exact destination of location.
He knows exactly what He wants to do.
He is m shepherd in every season of change.
He is my comforter and my strength.
He is 'Jehova Nissi' and I'm so in love with Him.


ps. Oh and I think I forgot to mention that my new address is actually on 'Indiana Ave.'
Who knew?!?!