Why and for what?

This is quite funny that I start my personal blog after 22 years of my life not being able to understand those who made their own blogs and wrote their stories.

I just finished my third year at college, and finally relieved from this enormous amount of stress given from school. Looking back on my third year at college, I learned so many things that I actually could open my eyes to face the world under the mercy of God. God’s mercy was what brought me through whole year up to this point. World is filled with millions of distractions and unmeasurable desires that need to be forgiven by God. I realized that I would never be able to survive in the world without His mercy and power. One of my defect or weakness is that I have too much fear in me and this connects to the fact that I am such an irresponsible person. Whenever I face the problems or difficulties, I ignore them. Once things stir my heart,  I never want to open my eyes or take a look my heart, but ignore them with finding good “excuses” to run away from them. Of course they always ended up failing. This year, I failed more than 30 times. So much depression, self-hatred, and fear.. I remember first two years of my college life, I was such a good student. I practiced 12 hours everyday, studied, didn’t need any hours of sleep, prayed, praised, and was filled with Joy and hope that I always hoped and prayed that God would use me powerfully and widely as His musician. I had to face number of times of failure, but it was not a big deal, because I knew that God knows everything what I had done and how much I had worked and put my effort on things.

Going through more of failures finally hit me with a deep depression towards the end of my second year. I broke my fingers, not able to practice for three months, lost my identity, lost desire, and lost my faith. I was always a “smile person” who always smiled and never got tired of it, so I had to acted out at school all the time that there was nothing going on in my heart. I did not want to share with anyone else. I was really scared. I just wanted to be seen as a strong person. While I was acting so hard that I was even confused if I was happy or not, I completely lost my trust on God’s presence and His love. It first felt okay without prayer and praise. I, human being, could simply do everything. I realized that I was quite good at covering my heart and put a fake smile. My friends always told me that I am very strong. My parents were so thankful and happy that I am strong and mature while I was hiding my sadness and depression from them. It was not a big deal for me to pray for people, but not for myself or my relationship with God. I was scared to talk to him. I was so sorry for those who I prayed for during my depression that my heart was not fully poured out for them and God, even though I loved them so much. In my family or in school, I always had to be the one who was strong, nice, happy, mature, faithful and bright. Faking a happy life was not a hard thing at the first time. As time went by, I started my third year at College, and I was quite encouraged by prayers of my precious friends. Starting the year was not a problem. I practiced a lot, had good lessons, worked all the time, and never slept. However, It was totally different from before. I repeated exactly same things that I had done for first two years at college, but I was not happy. I was faking. My happiness and my desire were all fake. When I realized that my fake life and empty heart were needed to be confessed and forgiven by God, it was too late. I failed again. I had to face another difficulty of fear. My relationship with my piano teacher emerged as one of big burdens in my heart. I was always discouraged that she did not like my music. Although I practiced a lot and tried to pull out my best performance in the lesson, she did not seem happy enough. I was able to talk to her after my competition at Oklahoma. The conversation that I had with her literally crashed my heart of hope as a musician. I was told that I was not the “great” musician that I would not be able to win any music competitions. That was my “reality.” My music, my prayer, my dream, and my hope were rejected and shattered down by the world. I was hurt and hopeless. From that moment, I started blaming on to God that Why he gave me the heart to love music, and desire to be used by Him. Once I started blaming, it never stopped. I did not go to classes, I did not answer any call from friends and parents, and I stayed in my apartment for a week. I had to show up for campus ministry meeting, but had such a hard time during the praise time. I didn’t deserve to love God. I didn’t deserve to praise God. As a leader of student ministry, I must have been more responsible not only mentally but more importantly spiritually. Some people might notice what I was going through, but most of people didn’t. Whenever people come up to me and told me how much they were thankful for my support and prayer, I didn’t know what to do, but just smile. My heart was empty.

After weeks of blaming in depression, I finally hit the ground so hard where I was not able to find any place to run away from the fear, that there were only two words strongly came up to my heart were “confession” and “repentance”. Confession and repentance were the only way for me to get out of this terrible place of fear. For more than two to three hours, I cried, kneeling under the desk, and called out His name “Abba Father.” I still remember that time how my heart was torn and broken that I could not even breath well. I cried out, “Father, forgive me. Father please. Father please.. I cannot live without you. Father, please forgive my selfish heart. Please take me out of this darkest moment. Father I am so scared. I am hurt. I am so sad. Father I am so sorry I am so sorry.” There was no sentence of blaming, but crying for His forgiveness. I could not even continue crying out to God, but keep calling His name and crying. Time of asking for forgiveness took about a week. God wanted me to take out all the evil thoughts and wounded places from my heart through the confession. God was still during the time of confession. The day after my confession and repentance week, it was a final week. I started studying again, not with overflowing joyful heart, but with peaceful heart. God provided me peaceful place to study, peaceful time to be with Him, and peaceful time to pray. One day, I was studying by myself in library, not spending time with friends at all. I was reminded of the email from my friend about the weekly prayer meeting at school. Without any thought, I just started walking to the prayer room. There was quest prayer leader, Pastor Jaeson Ma. I only had seen him from the movie 1040, so I was blessed to see him in person and to pray with Him. Through 1hr 15mins of prayer with Him, God completely healed my heart. Not that I was joyful or happy, but I was touched my Holy Spirit. When Pastor Ma prayed for me, putting his hand on me, he said, “There will be fire in you.” Fire? Really? I was curious why he mentioned the word fire for me, but just kept in my heart and went back to study. The power of prayer that I was blessed by Pastor Jaeson Ma started stirring my heart with more of healing as moment went by. After then, I had to face two to three difficulties again in a week. However, it was different from the previous ones. I asked God for His mercy. I put my prayer request on facebook to ask other brothers and sisters to pray for His mercy upon me. I needed a powerful prayer, and I was so thankful for those who prayed for His mercy. I was not sure if I was ready to face difficulty, but I was confident that God was always ready for me. One of my good friend, Hana Chu, texted me. “Believe it. He will do it.” Yes, He did it. God covered me with His mercy that concurred the fear coming from the world. I was covered with God’s power, from the beginning to the end. I was calm. I was strong. God in my heart was strong. This was the last day of my third year at College.

Now, I start my summer vacation. I am leaving for Korea next week, May 26th. For about three months I stay in Korea, I want to keep writing on my blog and remember how God is great and merciful. I want this summer break to be filled with God’s promise. I want to live everyday with the mercy of God. I want to live every moment in prayer. One of my faith verse is 1 Chronicles 4:9-10.

“There was a man named Jabez who was more honorable than any of his brothers. His mother named him Jabez because his birth had been so painful. He was the one who prayed to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and expand my territory! Please be with me in all that I do, and keep me from all trouble and pain!” And God granted him his request.”        <1 Chronicles 4:9-10>

Reading Jabez’s prayer is truly powerful. Watching How faithful and passionate Jabez’s hope and prayer for God in the circumstances encouraged me. I pray that as proclamation and faith of Jabez, though myself is weak, my prayer and confession are strong in Him and that God will grant my passion to be blessed and to be used by God as His musician and His missionary. Through this summer, I hope that God will reveal himself more through my everyday life and in music. Although there will be difficulties I have to face, I trust that God will protect me that I will first proclaim for His mercy and power upon my weakness of heart. I also pray that even when I go through times of failure, God will let me find those times as an opportunity to become stronger. Lastly, I pray that when I come back to the States in September, I will be ready to go through whatever that will try to burden me and tempt me that every moment will be the testimony of my life . Because God is stronger than any other rock. Because God is almighty and passionate that cannot compare with any other fire. Because God is good all the time that He is one and only King. Amen.