Firstly thank you Jennt & thank you Doreen for your encouraging comments. It got me thinking a lot this weekend. :)
I'm in the states right now (as usual). A weekend with the family, tensions all together, is very stressful for me right now. As you can see it's 3AM, I'm studying for my midterm on Monday. By Friday night, I realized it was a mistake to tag along with them to the states--I should have stayed home, away from them, and study! But now that I'm here and obviously cannot go back, I guess I'll make the best of it.
When we were in the mall today, I overheard a family of 5--3 small kids, one still in the stroller, and the two parents--walking by a pet store. The toddler in the stroller said that he wanted to go inside and look at the puppies. I overheard the mother say "NO, WE'RE NOT GOING TO F***ING GO IN!"
I realized how ungrateful I must seem to be angry at my family situation. What I have going on right now, is but a mere grain of sand compared to issues that other families face.
And although I cannot compare my level of seriousness with others', I know for sure that God does not compare and says, "priority first, this person has the highest score for screw-ups, so I will help him/her first."
Sometimes I feel like I'm at the end of the waiting list of prayers, and God is taking His time with me because He doesn't view my situation as bad as others. However, this weekend has taught me that no matter what degree of need we're in, He will always be there for us, and answers our needs. Most importantly, He customizes how He will answer each of us individually... He customizes how we can learn to grow, and that has been very mind blowing to me.
If God gave me the struggles that another sister is facing, I don't know whether I would be able to survive it or not. This also let me realize to humble myself--I may not be as strong as I think. Through this, God may be trying to show me that I am actually a lot more fragile than I think. Only God really knows my strengths and weaknesses and He is slowly revealing them to me. If I can overcome these weaknesses, this can make me stronger. Just like how everyone has their own style of studying (haha speaking of studying) God gives each of us our own way of growing stronger.
This weekend has been gruesome. I've been crying a lot more than I normally do and every inch of me wants to scream "I want to go home!" I need to learn to push those feelings aside. I need to push those feelings of "my parents love my brother more than me" aside. I need to push the feelings of "I need to prove them wrong" aside.
Even though, maybe 75% of that is true, pushing it aside can set my goals on a path that will help me grow. For many years, I've been trying to prove myself as the better son, as the first born who is a girl but can still do much better as the boy. Although I don't think my parents can see it, I hope I can see it in myself. I hope that I can inspire myself if not my parents. (My mom said today that I didn't inspire her, and that really hurt me. If even your children cannot inspire you, then they are practically 'nothings' in your household. They just grow, and grow old, and die with no use to this world or the people around them. It really hurt me, especially since I am still trying to find out what God wants to do with me.)
Then this song popped up on the radio just as I thought I wouldn't be able to finish this post on a happy note:
Oh, what do you know? Just do everything, to the glory of God.
ALL MY RANTING UP THERE--sums up to this simple phrase. "Just do everything, to the glory of God." How could I have missed that before?
AND SO, I finally conclude this post with that phrase. I've written it in my agenda, put it on my phone--it will be my constant reminder, whether I'm still wanted in this family or not.. Just do everything, to the glory of God.
With love,
-Kay
3 Responses:
exactly - "Just do everything, to the glory of God"
i like that motto :)
though, i find it hard being at home all day, nothing to do =.=
my day consist of computer (msn, gmail, facebook, this blog, tumblr, forums, youtube), tv (whatever that's on lol), reading some bible, doing sdl, eat, nap, walk around, washroom... lol and repeat T.T
and sometimes im not sure if i'm spending my day doing everything to the glory of God.
i find, when i'm bored, i try to look for things to satisfy my hunger for the need to do something...i miss work.. it kept me busy and occupied.
lol
but i agree with what you mentioned "Just do everything, to the glory of God"
i just need to find a way to do that when i'm bored lol
I'm glad blogging it out helped and that songs helped. :) I often find myself being brought back to God through lyrics from a song. Not everyone will pick up a bible when they're in distress. I admire David because he picked up a notebook (or w/e it is that he used to write with in that time) and just wrote songs for God in his times of deepest pain and distress. I find it easier to pick up my journal and vent. I usually vent to some ppl over text (I don't usually call cus I feel like I'm disturbing someone - though I am raelly glad to pick up someone else's call). And then I write on my journal and vent to God through it. LOL. And then a song will pop to my mind or a verse from the bible. It's usually a song though. That's why I'm so glad I decided to only listen to Christian songs. The lyrics flow in my mind.
And yes... just do evertyhing to the glory of God. What you said about your mom reminds me of what my mom said to me that is almost the complete opposite - but somehow the reaction was similar to yours. We were discussing some stuff and she said: (paraphrased and translated, duh) "You find your motivation somehow. When we were in Honduras, my motivation was you guys. I worked really hard even if it was really tiring because I saw my 2 daugthers and though, I'm going to do it for them!" When you read this you think: Aw! That's so encouraging and nice. But according to the context of our convo... not so much. Thing is, I love my mom and know what she's done for both of us - but after she said that I was touched... yet concerned. Mom has lead her life with Katy and I as her motivation. When God entered her life, she didn't change her life to have God be her motivation and source of happiness. Because her whole life has been to build both of our future and stuff, her happiness depends on our "success". I look at Katy and I and I would say that we've done really well - and the greatest reason behind that is because we have God. But because mom has lived her life as us as our motivation, when we haven't reached her standards of success, we're still failures. That really hurt me - that mom doesn't see the grace that God has had in our life and is never fully satisfied, because her satisfaction depends on men (us) and not God.
Anyway... I like your realization of customization. It's true, I give thanks that our Abba, is Almighty. He never says: "Listen, I'm too busy dealing with this broken family - take a ticket and stay in line". Instead he says: "My child, I understand completely; let's work on this together, one step at a time".
Let Him be your motivation and source of happiness. I realize that I also depend on others too much. I get too affected by the people around me because I care "too much". I'm not saying dont' care... and I don't think God is telling me to stop being nice or stop caring (I've asked God that precise question because it seems that my caring and nice personality always gets me in trouble or at a disadvantage). God wants me to glorify Him with the gifts that He has given me. Care, love, be nice - but let Him be my happiness and motivation. :)
Thanks Jackie for your encouraging sharing. I appreciate the things that my mom did for me, but she has this mental list of "things I did for you" and uses it against me in arguments and the only thing that I have on my list of "things I did for you" is gave her stretch marks.
In high school I felt that I needed to prove people wrong. I needed to prove my parents wrong and show that I can do better and be better than everything and everyone. And hearing that my mom is not inspired by me one bit can only bring hurt.
In some ways you can considering the following options: she is inspired by God only, or, she really doesn't find what I do inspiring.
For Minely's birthday, I bought her this book, Chicken Soup for the Christian Children's Soul and on the way to her party I was reading it on the streetcar. There were so many stories of how parents were inspired by their own children spiritually. I wanted that for me, to be able to inspire my parents, in childhood or adulthood. My grandparents always talk about how my dad has inspired them in some ways, I just wished I had that same impact.
But I realize now, in order to inspire, you need to try not to inspire. Seems ironic. But what I need to do, is just inspire myself--and by living fully for God. And if inspiring myself to live fully for God can inspire others, then that is just inspiration-ception lol
Just like David did, he was inspired and wrote songs--his inspirations to God inspires us today to praise Him and to also write songs. I don't think that when David was writing this he was thinking, "I hope my lyrics inspire someone else." His songs were for God. His purpose for those songs were pure and not for self gain.
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