twenty-five beliefs & more.

So I’ve been tagged several times by friends to scribe “25 things” about myself for the world to know.  Once you are tagged, you are supposed to join the club and write “25 things” about yourself and go tag 25 others… some of these are serious, some of these are just weird.  Anyways, enjoy — and know that your thoughts are always welcome!

1. I love incorporating big and new words into my vocabulary.  I’m not trying to be obnoxious, rather, it makes me happy to season my daily conversations with words such as “ecumenical” or “vainglorious” or even “Machiavellian.”

2. Sometimes I am convinced that I was born in the wrong era.  I love listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and jazz from the early to mid-20th century.

3. I keep an LSAT Logic Games Workbook on my desk when I need a mental break.  Last year, I was seriously considering going to law school for human rights and I began to study for the LSATs — though the law school plan never happened, the logic games are addictive and so much fun!

4. Though I am a Christian, I do not identify myself as one who practices a religion.  The emphasis of religion is an adherence to laws, whereas the emphasis of true Christianity is redemption and grace.

5. I believe that something which is not fully true is false.  Part-truths are no truths.  I’ve hurt significant people in the past by not being honest with them.  As a result, I have resolved to be honest and honor others with the truth.  Some people are hurt when I am blunt with them, but I won’t mince up what needs to be said.  This also causes me to wear my feelings on my face — I can’t betray how I really feel about something if it upsets me… so usually it’s no secret when I’m angry.  Or really happy.

6. I have listened to John Williams ever since I was 5 and am addicted to soundtrack music.  Alexandre Desplat, Hans Zimmer, HGW, Thomas Newman, and so many others continue to populate my iTunes.  Despite my love for soundtrack music, I am peeved by the fact that all of the famous movie score composers are all old white men.  I’m a little tempted to move out to Hollywood and mix it up a little.

7. I am ashamed of the way some Christians in our society have treated and judged gays and lesbians, including myself at one point in time if I am honest.  Because of my own spiritual convictions, I cannot believe that a holy God would look at homosexuality and say, “Yes, this is good”–but it breaks my heart to see “Christians” attack and ostracize fellow men and women for their sexual preferences.

8. In 5th grade, my friend Connie and I told everyone including our teachers that we were cousins.  Everyone believed us because we are Chinese, and a few of our friends believed us all the way up till high school.  Just because Asian people look alike does not mean that they are all related!

9. I love to cook!

10. I practice piano in the dark sometimes because I want to be able to play without relying on sight.  If I ever go blind (which I’d prefer over going deaf), I would still be able to perform.

11. Some days I wake up and I really wish that my parents didn’t name me “Grace.”  “Grace” is such an intricate, loaded, vast and heavy concept.  In the moments that I finally do understand (God’s) grace, I feel unworthy of its weight.

12. If I was a character in a famous piece of literature, my hamartia would most definitely be stubbornness.  My mom thinks I will have trouble finding a husband because I am so stubborn.

13. I have written stories since I was 6.  Of course, they were just stories about princesses and happy families back then (and there were more illustrations than text), but I have kept a folder of ideas for when I complete my novel.  In fact, I have kept tidy profiles of potential characters for my novel for more than 7 years… you might end up in there somewhere, who knows?!

14. I am an introvert working on being more extroverted.  It is often draining for me to spend time with large groups of people and it fulfills me to get to know someone one-on-one or in groups of four.

15. I believe that sex is meant for marriage.  I am not saving my virginity out of fear of repercussions or “because that’s what good Christian girls do,” but I am doing so because waiting is an act of worship in and of itself.  In a way, I am loving my future husband by saving all of me — but most of all, I believe that God has our best interests at heart when He warns us against sex outside of marriage.  He knows what’s up.  (Plus, I don’t think God created Neisseria gonorrhoeae for aesthetic purposes.)

16. I don’t have pinky knuckles.  So don’t ask me to show them to you.  They’re not there.

17. I love the rain.  People gripe and complain about the rain and bad weather all the time, but every time it rains or storms, I am humbly reminded of how God is in control and how humans will never be able to control the course of their lives.  Rain is good.

18. I eat a lot of apples.  They are the perfect snack — made to-go, a burst of sweet and natural energy, refreshing and hydrating all at once.  I try to munch on one every day. I’m rather picky though, so I usually stick with Fuji, Pink Lady, tart and juicy apples that have a bit of a crunch factor.

19. I tore my right ACL twice in the summer of 2006.  The pain that accompanied the tearing, surgery, post-surgery, and rehab is so fresh in my mind that it causes me to be ever grateful to God for blessing me with a healthy recovery and the ability to walk and run today.  Seriously… you don’t know how valuable something is until you lose it.

20. I am a feminist and I am pro-God.  On most occasions, this makes me an anomaly in Women’s Studies classes.  But to those of you who proclaim, “Keep your God off my body,” I would like to say in response, “My God created your body.”  Don’t get me wrong: I am not using this space to condemn any pro-choicers but merely to state my position.

21. I really despise it when girls call each other “bitch,” “slut monkey,” “whore,” etc.  Hearing such demeaning language evokes a strong gag reflex in me.

22. If God blesses me with motherhood, I intend to name my daughter “Naomi.”  Still working on the boy’s name.

23. I enjoy doing push-ups and tend do sets if I’ve been sitting for too long.  Sometimes I’ll pull out the jump rope — but that can get kind of crazy.  If I’m really buckling down for an exam, I’ll brush my teeth before I crack open a textbook.

24. I can tell you the pitches in a fire alarm, police car siren, lamp buzz, radiator hum, human yell, and other obscure sounds.  The only sound I can’t identify pitch with is the sound of a door knock.

25. I met some of the most amazing people and best friends in my life during college.  I can honestly say that, if I had not met them, I would not be the person I am today.  Thanks, ladies and gents — you know who you are!

Thanks for reading!

g.

some punctuated modesty.

Human fathers aren’t perfect, nor are they really prepared for the huge responsibilities ahead of them. I can’t even begin to imagine the gravity of the paternal role, one that entails everything from providing to withholding; rebuking and loving. We love our dads when they tell us that we rock their worlds, and we resent them when they lay down the law. That can’t be an easy job, laying down the law. But someone’s got to do it. No discipline ever feels good at the time that it’s given, yet the benefits that are reaped from proper discipline are innumerable. Granted, there are fathers who blow discipline way out of proportion, just like there are fathers who never take the time to discipline at all. While my father had the propensity to take discipline to the max (think backhands and tree branches), I will always remain indebted to him for what is perhaps the most valuable lesson that could have been imparted to any young girl trying to navigate her way through adolescence. Amidst his laments on how insufferable of a daughter I was to him, he never ceased to push me to have character over charm. “Inner beauty produces outer beauty,” he would say with his stern voice. “Don’t waste your time and money being superficial, on being pretty and dolled up–it’s the beauty of your character that matters.” These are hard words to swallow for a girl at 13, at 14, at 15 years of age, but they are words that have made an indescribable impact on my life. They have made me into who I am today.

A month ago, I took a nostalgic trip back to my old high school with my roommate. We were nearly trampled on our way into the building by towering teenagers; girls whose legs were longer than we were tall and guys whose shoulders spanned the two of us put together. My eyes widened at how much skin the girls were willing to reveal despite the 30-degree weather; each and every one of them done up so nicely that I could’ve sworn that they were all candidates for modeling schools. I would’ve given anything to look like them in the 9th grade, but my father knew better. Yesterday, I walked into the worship service at church on Sunday morning and sat down by myself in a pew. A few rows over, our church’s high school girls were knit tightly together in fashionably-clad clusters, each and every one of them gorgeous in their own way, whether or not they’d believe me if I said it. Cellphones, cameras, bomber jackets and jeans; makeup and highlights and glitter amassed – altogether they would easily be worth more than $2000. I would’ve given anything to be them in the 10th grade, but my father knew better.

My mind races backwards to a familiar place in time, when all I wanted more than anything in the world was to be beautiful and loved. I had gorgeous and well-to-do friends who were given what they wanted; friends who spent more time on their looks than they did on anything else. I was shy and so awkward, and I didn’t believe that anyone would ever think of me as beautiful. I wanted so badly to look as good as the rest of the high school population did; I started buying what my friends bought and wearing what they wore. I did my makeup just the way they did theirs and started to avoid the foods that they avoided. My definition of ‘beautiful’ was totally appearance-based. It’s no surprise then that at this time, I was furiously engaged in a war against my father. But the battles were on his home turf – where no act of disobedience was to be tolerated.

I remember the first time I tried leaving the house wearing a low-cut shirt; he ordered me to change even before my foot hit the landing at the bottom of the stairs. And the time I spent a lot of money on those (really short) shorts – he looked at me furiously before launching into another speech about my improper attire. There were also school dances from which I was forbidden (and also that one particular dance during which he stormed in to “rescue” me from and sent the principal into the gym to look for me), numerous bottles of makeup paraphernalia thrown into the trash, and bags and bags of clothing that I was never to wear again. Along with those came the threats of how I would be sorry if I ever let a boy touch me, if I ever sat in a boy’s lap; how I was never to be alone with Boy, get in a car with Boy, do this with Boy and do that with Boy… My father yelled and got scary when I wasn’t polite and when I forgot to greet my elders with the proper title (Mr. and Mrs., Auntie and Uncle). He got even scarier when I would try to sass with him (I never got very far with that). Nothing angered him more than to see me choose image over intellect, philandering over propriety; my reputation and purity meant a great deal to him not just in words or presentation but in lifestyle and attitude as well. He expected me to have honesty and integrity over coquetry and allure; he wanted me to be made out of substance and not sweet talk.

There were a lot of tears and unspoken “I-hate-you’s,” many bitter pity-me parties and moments when I felt like I was the most uncool and unlovable girl in the world. Being the only one who wasn’t allowed to wear tight shirts, short skirts, lots of jewelry and makeup – somehow made me less valuable of a girl; being the only girl who hadn’t let a boy touch her like so or do this or that with her – made me feel ashamed. But I obeyed my dad (very contemptuously at first) and tried to uphold his expectations. Though I’d secretly defy him when I was far from his scrutiny, all I found at the end of those encounters were superficiality, heart hurts and disappointment – mostly in myself and with the rest of the world.

Coming to college was perhaps what tested my integrity the most: a chance to be free, a chance to start new; rediscover and re-identify. After a few compromising mistakes during my first semester at school, I found myself desperately in need of wisdom. My dad wasn’t around to pound lectures into my head, but I knew where I would be able to find what I needed to hear. I took out my Bible – the one that had been collecting dust from the shelf in my dorm – and began to read Proverbs 31. Verse 30 alone says, “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” I knew deep down that my dad had done his job by laying down the law for me and guarding my purity when all I allowed myself to see was what I was missing out by being modest. Suddenly, I was ashamed of the times I had scorned my dad for forcing me to change out of an outfit or put on another layer, and for fiercely correcting me when my behavior compromised my character. I was ashamed for snubbing him when he accused me of being garish and indecent. Suddenly, outward beauty didn’t weigh in as much as it used to, not with the way that I saw our world treat those who were only beautiful on the outside and not on the inside. I knew that only God would be able to give me a pure heart inside, that God and God alone assigns and takes value away.

It’s a little more than two years after that encounter with Proverbs 31 in my dorm. God has been and is still transforming every part of my heart from the inside out, and I love Him more than ever. I have since then, thanked my dad many times for the numerous times he protected a part of me that I did not value. I have also developed a hatred for the way in which our culture and our world warps the meaning of true beauty, how we tell young girls that they need to be thin to be gorgeous, to be coy and seductive and breast-baring and decked out in order to be perfect; how we tell older women that natural aging makes them ugly and that they need to inject themselves with needles in order to be beautiful forever. I have come to cherish what I didn’t use to cherish, and I’ve found that my pops was right after all – inner beauty really does produce outer beauty, in many more ways than one.

So here’s some punctuated modesty for all of you gentlemen thinking about becoming fathers one day. In no way am I urging you to interrupt your daughter’s first phone call from a boy and proceed to yell at him for 5 minutes (at least that’s what happened to me), nor am I suggesting that you rant for 3 hours about the dangers of whoredom to your future 14-year old when she comes back home wearing a tight shirt… but I am hoping that purity and integrity, honor and virtue are disciplines that you assume responsibilities over, while ensuring that your daughter never doubts for an instant that YOU, of all people, think that she is the most beautiful girl in the world. Big responsibilities indeed. But in a world that bombards our girls with mixed messages about beauty, your voice will be one of the most significant voices she’ll need to hear. Where my father stressed the purport of character, he lacked to tell me the latter. Our relationship suffered in other ways that are impertinent to this post.

And there is too much to be said to the ladies here on this note; perhaps one day down the road they will merit a blog to themselves. The Bible tells us not to cast our pearls to swine. So I’ll just ask the questions that no one else will ask: do the words that come out of your mouths reflect the kind of woman you want to be for God? Are you more concerned about loving yourself (ie: spending money on clothes and makeup, spending time with your group of friends) than you are with loving others? What parts of yourself have you given up – and what parts of yourself have you decided to save for your future husband? I will be the first to admit that my words don’t always reflect the kind of woman I want to be for God; that sometimes I get caught up in loving myself and forget to love others, that there are things I wish I would’ve saved for the person I’m going to love and live with for the rest of my life. It’s all about the choices you make. Will you choose to be fleeting and deceptive, or will you choose to be part of something that is eternal; something much more worthy to be praised?

If there was ever a lesson that I think girls our day in age needed to hear more, it’s that their worth in Jesus Christ is far more precious and valuable than any marketable beauty product or brand name, advertisement or boy will ever give them. A pure heart with its eyes turns towards God is most attractive, and true beauty is something that only God can create. The good news is, we can ask Him to create that for us – first in our hearts, and then in our lives for the whole world to see. I was blessed to have a papa who helped me see this truth – though done so in a… very unique way. If you haven’t gotten this message, this is me telling it to you now.

Just chew on it.

risky business, love is.

The Main Street Christmas lights sparkle in my window, reminding me of the time that has passed and the time that has yet to come. I cannot believe the first half of my third year at college has already flown by: I could’ve sworn that it had only been a few days ago that I had moved into my dorm, that I had enrolled for classes and gotten my schedule to teach. Somehow, in the past 3.5 amazing months of life, there have been many Large Groups, many Great Conversations, several exam-grading sessions, many random conversations about God, miracles both big and small; too many memorable coffeeshop conversations and unforgettable study breaks, great friendships and lessons learned the hard way, many intimate moments with God and with music in front of the piano at the CFA late at night; a gazillion number of meetings and doodle sessions, unexpected gigs and concerts, several difficult confrontations, many moments of doubt, confusion, and stress–which were always accompanied by the glorious moments of faith, passion, and love. I’ve entered new chapters and created new memories; I’ve grown painfully in some places and through it all, I have learned to love God all the more.I never cease to be amazed by God when I take a conscious step out of my little world to get a glimpse of the Bigger Picture. For those of you who did not know, I have a writing and thinking fetish; it brings me great joy to mull and muse over life and love, whys and hows. Not to turn this into some sort of confessional or anything–but sometimes there is nothing I look forward to more at the end of the day than sitting still with my black book and my pen, being open and attentive to my heart when it is most alive. Though my love affair with writing did not start until my freshman year of college, I began my 8th volume of Grace’s-Life-In-A-Book at the end of May, this year. An excerpt:

“It’s funny how you are most aware of your heart when it is hurting–kind of like how you notice it with renewed energy when you are in love. In this moment in time, I am more awakened to the deepest corners or my aching and hurting heart than I have ever been before. I am freezing and melting all at once; dying and living all at once. I don’t understand, God… help me understand. I know I need to be restored.” – 6/2/07

The tidbit above was written during a time of heartache and pain. But in so many more ways than one, God has since then taken so much of the restoration of my heart into his own hands. I have journeyed long and far since June, with God’s love navigating me through dark valleys and rugged mountain ranges. Through it all, I have learned that restoration does not occur without risk; perhaps one of the hardest things to do in life is to trust yet again after you’ve been hurt. Our hearts are fragile stuff… one bad experience with love can shut us off from feeling for a lifetime. I am reminded of a particular scene in Home Alone 2 from a late-night movie that occurred with a few friends about a week ago:

Referring to her homelessness, the Pigeon Lady says, “I wasn’t always like this… I had a job, I had a home, I had a family. And then the man I loved fell out of love with me. That broke my heart. When the chance to be loved came again, I ran away from it. I stopped trusting people.” It is at this point that our little hero, Kevin McCallister, brilliantly replies, “No offense, but that seems like sort of a dumb thing to do.” The Pigeon Lady then confessed, “I was afraid of getting my heart broken again. I’m just afraid if I do trust someone, I’ll get my heart broken.” (Here comes the hammer…) Kevin looks at her, and then replies once more with that unperturbed honesty and faith of a kid: “I understand. I had a nice pair of Rollerblades and I was afraid to wreck them, so I kept them in a box. Do you know what happened? I outgrew them. I never wore them outside. Only in my room a few times. If you won’t use your heart, who cares if it gets broken? If you just keep it to yourself, maybe it’ll be like my Rollerblades. When you decide to try it, it won’t be any good. You should take the chance; you’ve got nothing to lose.”

True story, eh? Looking back at the size 7 footprints I’ve made since June, I can think of many times when I’ve voluntarily shut myself from others out of fear. I have been convinced that it has been too hard to forgive, too difficult to forget; too draining to remain open, and too taxing to feel. I have resolved never to love, never to be misguided; I have vowed never to risk, and I have been more than determined to have a will that was stronger than my heart. Love I could do without, I thought; it hurt too much.

But as the tiny Christmas lights dance in the distance, I am reminded of the biggest risk in love ever made in history. Isn’t that what Christmas is all about? God knew we weren’t ever going to be able to get it right; he knew that we needed help. So he sends his Beloved, his One and Only Son, to us in the form of a human baby; the most precious Christmas gift ever known to mankind. To what extent, and to what length, did God have to go through in order for us to know that we are worth it to him, that we are worth loving? And he did this for us with the knowledge that, thirty-three years down that road, he would watch from high heaven as the recipients of his Gift beat, flogged, humiliated, maimed, and crucified his Son. If God sent Jesus to us with all of this already in mind, how can I stand here and not be ashamed of my unwillingness to love in the likeness of that wonderful, wonderful sacrifice?

Today, I am not the person I was when I wrote in my little black book on June 2. Today, I am once again, absolutely in love with life–I am so thrilled to be able to feel and to dream, I am so blessed to be able to know joy and to have hope; I am so thankful to be able to love. What a scary and risky business, love is! But I am determined more than ever to let my Lord and Savior, the Love of my life, permeate my broken heart with the most amazing love of all. That alone gives me every reason to risk and to love on my way to being just a little more restored.

It’s 3:11AM on Monday morning. The sun will rise in a few hours… and I will have yet another day to explore the infinite love of God; I will have yet another day to make decisions based on my determination to be guided by God’s love alone. But for now, it’s good night… sweet dreams all around.